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Writing

M. Night Shyamalan Reveals He Ghost-Wrote 'She's All That'

by | June 12th, 2013

M. Night Shyamalan, King of the Twist Ending, has revealed that he ghost-wrote the screenplay to the 1999 teen rom-com She's All That, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook. Shyamalan, whose Will Smith apocalypse movie After Earth just flopped, opened about his secret screenwriting credit to Movies.com but didn't go into any detail. Shyamalan also wrote The Sixth Sense and family movie Stuart Little, both of which he received credit for, around this same time, so he had a pretty eclectic list of credits as a burgeoning screenwriter. Here's hoping he wrote more teen rom-coms that he'll fess up to soon.

Writing

Paula Pell, Lauryn Kahn, and Jay Baruchel Named Screenwriters to Watch

by | December 2nd, 2011

She's so much more than Pete's sleepy wife on 30 Rock! SNL writer Paula Pell has been named one of Variety's Screenwriters to Watch. She's done punch-up work on Bridesmaids and Judd Apatow's upcoming This Is Forty, so she's already basically the silent ninja of screenwriting, and next year Tina Fey will produce Pell's own script based on her teenage journals.

Lauryn Kahn was also named a writer to watch, no surprise after selling a script to Adam McKay from her assistant's chair. And so was Jay Baruchel and his writing partner Jesse Cabot for their work on Goon and the upcoming Baseballissimo, which [...]

Writing

The Dan Harmon School of Comedy Writing

by | March 21st, 2011

So you love Community, not just because it's funny but because it's impressively written. It seems each half-hour episode packs in a movie's worth of story: spending time on all 8 characters, taking them on a journey away from their study group and back, hitting a joke in each line and then along the way throwing in a parody of a deleted scene from The Terminator that you thought only you saw.

In addition to that, Community jumps genres from episode to episode — one week it's zombies, the next it's a note-perfect parody of The Right Stuff or the ridiculously intricate paintball/28 Days Later episode from season one. [...]

Writing

'Modern Family's Christopher Lloyd Say His Biggest Regret Is He Didn't Write for 'Cheers'

by | April 2nd, 2013

"Through the magic of actor chemistry and excellent writing, they created a world I wanted to be in every week and made me want to learn how the magic was done. I read once that Kurt Vonnegut said his only professional regret was that he never got to write an episode of Cheers. I'd like to put my name second on that list."

-Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd on how he badly, badly wishes he had gotten to write for Cheers. Full disclosure: His dad, David Lloyd, wrote for Cheers. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a great show.

Writing

Nerdist Writers Panel #3 On TV Writing: "It's always banana peels and stop lights"

by | August 19th, 2011

The Nerdist Writers Panel on TV Writing, featuring panelists Community's Dan Harmon, The Middle Man's Javier Grillo Marxuach, and The Good Guys' Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre, is both reassuring (writing for dating reality shows for 7 years!) and barf-inducing (selling your first script ever to Robert Zemeckis!), as the writers discuss their breakthrough jobs, the value of networking vs. having a quality spec, and the thrilling conclusion of Seaquest.

"It's always banana peels and stop lights, as I put it. It's just, like, a series of random events. The only thing you can do is be persistent about it," Harmon explains, reassuring the audience that working [...]

Writing

A Look Back At Charlie Kaufman's Sitcom Work

by | June 19th, 2012

Charlie Kaufman isn’t exactly an impersonal writer. His attempts to adapt The Orchid Thief turned into Adaptation., a movie about a painfully self-aware screenwriter named “Charlie Kaufman” falling apart while attempting to adapt The Orchid Thief. It’s a struggle to imagine Kaufman, either fictionalized or IRL, thriving in the anonymous and often abrasive environment of a sitcom writer’s room. So it’s surprising that, before breaking into screenwriting, Kaufman worked in television for almost a decade, staffing on sketch shows like The Dana Carvey Show and The Edge and sitcoms like Get A Life and Ned & Stacey.

There’s evidence to support the idea that Kaufman might not have thrived [...]

Writing

Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant Explain How To Become A Screenwriter, Keep Your Heart From Breaking

by | April 8th, 2011

The Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant episode of Life After Film School is available on Hulu, along with many other excellent screenwriter interviews that will be eating your free time this weekend. The pair lays down some serious screenwriting wisdom in between reminiscing about costumes taken from Moulin Rouge, Teddy Roosevelt quotes and the eye patch Lennon wore after getting beaten "almost to death" while in film school. A few gems they share about their process includes:

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