Today I picked up a second hand copy of William Goldman's Adventures In The Screen Trade for a mere fiver.
I've been hearing about this for years and every screenwriting course I've done or book I've read seems to have at least one quote from this legend.
I'd like to do some book reviews at a later date on this blog. I've had to sift through a lot of shite to find half decent books on screenwriting, perhaps the 1 or 2 other people who read this blog (other than my wife) could benefit.
I would have linked to an image of the cover, but blogger suggests that that is a bad idea in terms of stealing other peoples bandwith, and copywrite theft. So I've opted for a quick snap from my camera phone of the inside "carpet" page.
Speaking of screenwriting courses, I've just completed my second with Zoetrope and must admit I fell lost in the wilderness again. I just finished earlier this week.
Writing is such a solitary activity it was great to have the solidarity of eight other writers writing together around the world. I miss it already.
Gotham hosts the Zoetrope course, I highly highly recommend this course to anyone interested inn screenwriting. I'll post a direct link to the courses on offer at a later blog as the site seems to down at the minute, but I'm sure you can find something at www.all-story.com
Currently I'm reading and thoroughly enjoying Richard E Grant's diary on the making of his directorial debut film; Wah-wah. I've not seen the film but hope to view it before the chapters on production are covered and I don't ruin the film for myself.
I really enjoy his matter-of-fact style of writing. Very witty and personable. I loved his film diaries With Nails, which I read over a decade ago now I think.
This post is running long so I'll save my reaction to finding the original script of Plan 9 From Outer Space for another day.
Out.
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I have "With Nails" -which I only read for the first time about a year ago (A second hand shop find!). I also own a copy of 'Wah-wah' and have not sat down to watch it yet but if you'd like to borrow it, you'd be very welcome.
ReplyDeleteRe: the blog...loving your work, sir, I was very gratified to see my mug grace the page on the very same day we did the recording -kudos to you for the organisation.
I think I have ruined the film for myself by reading this book having not seen it. I promised myself that I'd stop reading before they went into production, but Richard's writing prompts me to continue turning page after page and thus ruining the film for myself.
ReplyDeletere: the blog... thanks, but the only reason its so organized is that its very helpful in my procrastination when I should be working on the audio for the film. Which is exactly what I should be doing now instead of writing this post PARTICULARLY since we had this very conversation in real life this afternoon.
And yeah, I'd love to borrow Wah Wah, cheers