Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Weekend Reader – January 3, 2014

A new thing for the new year. Every Friday (give or take), I’ll post a list of recent reading from around the interwebs that might be of interest to y’all. As always, if there’s any interesting news/discussion you think I’ve missed, send it along!

Enjoy and keep writing!

Major 2013 Film Themes from The Guardian

4 Things Writers Should Stop Expecting from Bang 2 Write

Hollywood Movies With Strong Female Role Models Make More Money from Vocativ

Jeff Willis Breaks Down A Script Option Deal from The Black Board

101 Deadliest films by body count (Infographic) from Randal S. Olson (via The Black Board)

Casting Call: Hollywood Needs More Women from NPR (via The Black Board)

The 10 Most Sexist Female Characters on TV from Role Reboot

‘Her’ is a Futuristic Tale With 21st Century Sexism from Policy Mic

Ricky Gervais on what’s made him so successful from Time.com

WGA Award Nominees from Variety

REMINDER: Download tons of award season scripts from Go Into The Story (So much to learn! DO IT.)

Advertisement
Leave a comment

Where Can I Sign Up For The Aline Brosh McKenna Fanclub?

I say this a lot, but there are a ZILLION reasons why you should listen to Scriptnotes. Here is but one more incredibly awesome reason…

The year-end edition of Scriptnotes is a Q & A from their latest live episode. Lots of great questions (you can read the transcript in full as well), including a question about the lack of female action writers. After asking the writer if she was interested in writing action herself, this was Aline Brosh McKenna’s answer:

Aline: Just do it. Who cares? Who cares? And I’ll tell you something right now. It would work for you because right now if I saw your name on a script and I was like, “Oh, who is that, that’s a female woman who wrote this kickass action script, that’s great. Oh, you have to see her. She’s adorable. She’s got this cute gray coat. She’s going to kick your ass.”

And it’s going to be like, oh, it’s not going to be like the 20 other dudes who look the same who are in cargo pants. It’s going to be like we have this girl. Her action kicks ass. People would freak out. They would be so excited. And if you’re putting up that barrier in your own mind, forget it. Put it down.

Yeah. That. We should all do all of that, in whatever genre we choose. Welcome to 2014. (And thank you, Aline)

1 Comment

Passing the Bechdel Test in 2013

My last thought before 2013 disappears.

(And then, FYI, 2014 will pick up riiiight where this leaves off.)

A very interesting post on the Tribeca Film site about 10 Bechdel Test-passing films from 2013. There’s a very interesting bit in there that you’re sure to be very interested in. Go and take a look at it. I’ll wait.

Did you see it? I’d bet you did. Just about 70% of those films had women involved in their writing and/or directing. Women, it seems, are keenly interested in having reflective, nuanced, smart, multi-faceted women on screen.

And, let us not forget, these were (mostly) great films. Let’s look forward to more of these in 2014.

Leave a comment