John August

Awards

Logic and Gimmickry

Episode - 309

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Awards, QandA, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Tools, Words on the page

John and Craig step up to the whiteboard to look at the story logic in our scripts, then examine how tricks and gimmicks can help keep scenes interesting.

We also answer listener questions about paying experts for research help, and whether hiring a writing consultant ever makes sense.

Links:

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 7-25-17: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Torrenting the Oscars 2016

Awards, Film Industry

Every year, Andy Baio tracks online leaks of Oscar-nominated films:

The median number of days from a film’s release to its first leak online was only nine days, the shortest window since 2008.

More than a month before the ceremony, 97% of Oscar nominees have leaked online in DVD or higher quality, more than last year at this time.

Baio notes that since Blu-ray screeners have proven unpopular with studios and voters,1 most of the leaked films are “only” DVD quality. And the number of cams (surreptitiously recorded in the theater) has dropped.

As Baio pointed out last year, there’s no point torrenting a DVD rip if there’s already a higher-quality telecine or HD version available. You only need one, which creates a race to be the first to put up a given movie.

One group, Hive-CM8, was responsible for 15 of the leaked films, including The Hateful Eight. Afterwards, they offered an apology-slash-justification to Quentin Tarantino:

“If let’s say 5% of the people planned to watch this movie at cinema date, due to this media push we unintentionally created, we believe that now 40% of the people will watch this movie in the cinema [because] everyone is talking about it and everyone wants to see the movie that created so much noise. This will push the cinema ticket sales for sure.

“We really hope this helped out the producers in the long-run, so that the production costs are covered and more.”

So by leaking the movie before it was released, then backtracking, they’re pretty sure Miramax will make its money back because imaginary math is magic.

  1. Each year, the studios send voters a postcard asking which format they would like for screeners. I have a Blu-ray player, but always choose DVD so I can watch screeners on vacation. ↩

Ocean’s 77

Awards, Follow Up, Genres, News, Pitches, QandA, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed

Craig and John play “How Would This Be a Movie?” looking at three articles in the news.

A band of pensioners pull off an audacious jewel heist — but is it a Working Title comedy, or something darker? Where does the story begin and end? What’s the MacGuffin?

A researcher investigates sleep paralysis and visions of an Italian witch. Is the movie a straightforward horror thriller, and if so, how do you make the audience care about your hero?

A revenge porn king is confronted by his victims. But would the movie version be an investigation (like Spotlight), or a tale of personal justice (like Taken)?

We also need your suggestions for finding a non-coffeeshop place to write when sharing a studio apartment.

Links:

You can download the episode here: AAC | mp3.

UPDATE 1-22-16: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Room, Spotlight and The Big Short

Adaptation, Awards, Film Industry, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed

With Craig out of town, John invites Aline Brosh McKenna and Rawson Marshall Thurber over to discuss three of the best-picture contenders and their unusual scripts. None of them have classic protagonist-antagonist setups, and all three upend expectations of narrative structure. We talk about both how they work and why they work.

Also this episode, what lessons we learned from 2015.

Craig is back next week for a normal episode in which we’ll discuss Star Wars, Scriptbook, the WGA amendments and character names.

Links:

You can download the episode here: AAC | mp3.

UPDATE 1-12-16: The transcript of this episode can be found here.