Writers and Editors

• Workshops and other learning venues
• Formatting resources, including software for screenplays
• Script libraries
• Tips on pitching
• Entertainment and industry news
• Interviews with people in the industry (includes Paris Review interviews and Ken Burns on storytelling)
• Film blogs
• Movie reviews and film criticism, sites and databases (and some TV)
• Best Movies lists
• Books on screenwriting, playwriting, radio and video production, and documentary-making
• Useful links, miscellaneous
(some gems here!)
• Organizations for screenwriters, playwrights, documentary filmmakers, and critics
• Fair use, copyright, social media, and multimedia

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Workshops and other learning venues
• Robert McKee's Story Seminar Resources (outstanding page of links to resources, from the best-known trainer in screenwriting)
• Atlanta Film Festival
• Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting (competitive, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
• Nickelodeon Writing Program (competitive)
• How to Write a Screenplay ScreenwritingInfo.com, screenwriting for dummies -- a step-by-step guide from the mechanics of writing to style-- a good resource for an overview and explanations of terms, etc. -- I can't figure out whose website this is!)
• American Widescreen Museum ( cyber museum of motion picture history, especially widescreen processes, early color cinematography, and the technical development of sound film)
• The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide (Adam Dachis, Lifehacker Night School). "Last week we learned the basics of video editing, covering everything from the general workflow to special effects and color correction to a primer on encoding and delivery. Here's the complete guide with all the videos and notes in one convenient location."
• ScriptNotes (Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin discuss screenwriting and related topics in the film and television industry, everything from getting stuff written to the vagaries of copyright and work-for-hire law--with podcasts and notes)
• Craig Mazin Talks Shop at WGAW Screenwriters Workshop (Writers Guild of America, West)
• Cinema history (Robert E. Yahnke's links, a personal history of cinema through the decades)
• Writing for Episodic TV (download free handbook, Writers Guild of America)
Still working on this section!
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Formatting resources

You must provide the correct formatting for stage directions, dialogue, etc.
• How to Format A Stage Play (Script Frenzy)
• Formatting do's and don'ts for screenplays (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
• Most common script formats
• Two-column shooting script (Capuchino High School)

Software to format screenplays, teleplays, and stage plays

Includes Celtx, DreamaScript, Movie Magic Screenwriter, Scrivener, Final Draft, Movie Outline 3.0, FiveSprockets, and Montage.
• Best Screenwriting Software (ranked, Top Ten Reviews)
• Final Draft (recommended by Robert McKee)
• Scrivener (inexpensive and can be used for formatting fiction and screen and stage plays. "You can even mix up script formatting with regular text for writing treatments.")
• Screenwriting Pro software
• Movie Magic Screenwriter Version 6
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Resources on documentaries

This list is just begun. Let me know about stories and articles I should add to it.
• Crowdfunding Journalistic and Photojournalistic Projects (Amanda Lin Costas, MediaShift, 7-9-12, writing about Spot.us (community-funded reporting), KickStarter (a funding platform for creative projects) IndieGoGo (an international crowdfunding site), emphas.is (in beta, on which photojournalists pitch their projects to the public), and FundedByME
• Can 'fake' documentaries still tell the truth? (Guardian, 9-30-10). Films that use lip synching, staged scenes and other truth-massaging techniques are making our old definitions of 'documentary' look decidedly – well, artificial. Xan Brooks goes after the facts
• 6 Filmmakers Talk About Documentary Films in the Digital Age (Amanda Lin Costa, MediaShift, 1-9-12)
• Localore Winners Gear Up to Transform Public Media (Jessica Clark, MediaShift, 1-30-12)
• How Greek Journalists Use Digital Media to Cover the Financial Crisis (Elina Makri, Media Shift, 11-20-12, on Web radio, audio documentaries, crowdfunded crisis-related documentaries, Web TV, opinion portals)
• Camera, laptop, action: the new golden age of documentary (Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 11-6-10). From Kevin MacDonald's examination of the YouTube phenomenon to a cab ride with Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, cheap technology is allowing film-makers to stretch the form as never before
• Do documentaries need to be fair to both sides of an issue? (Noel Murray, AV Club, 10-10-12). The A.V. Club covers film, tv, video, music, books, comedy)
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Video tutorials

• Knight Digital Media Center video tutorials, including tutorial on Editing in Final Cut Pro.
• The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide (Adam Dachis, Lifehacker Night School)
• Multimedia Shooter's tutorials
• How to fail at online video (Glen Canning's tongue-in-cheek guide to how to do it wrong)
• Media College Video Camera Tutorials
• Apple tutorials
• GeniusDV tutorials, including Learning to Use Modifier [shortcut] Keys in Final Cut Pro (GeniusDV.com)
(These recommendations courtesy of Alan Haburchak, who spoke on a panel at the ASJA 2011 conference, together with Michael Cervieri and Dave Cullen (Lindsey O'Connor moderated).

Script Libraries

• Awesome Film (scripts for well-known films)
• BBC Writers Room, Script Library (read BBC TV, radio, and film scripts)
• John August's script library
• The Daily Script (screenplay and TV scripts you can read online, plus links)
• The Weekly Script (every week a script to read)
• Drew's Script-O-Rama (free movie scripts and screenplays)
• Movie Page
• Science Fiction and Fantasy scripts
• Where to Download Scripts (Alex Epstein, author of Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box and Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made)
• For Budding Screenwriters, a Way Past the Studio Gates (Rachel Dodes, Wall Street Journal, 12-13-12). The Black List, compiled by Franklin Leonard, is an elite compendium of unproduced scripts, many of which don't stay that way long after appearing on the list. "If the model succeeds, it could help more aspiring screenwriters get their work past Hollywood's gatekeepers and into the hands of people who actually make movies."See The Black List
• WGAWest Script Registry When you register your script prior to submitting it to agents, managers, or producers, you document your authorship on a given date should there be unauthorized usage.
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Pitching

• Learning to Be "Good in a Room" (part 1) by Scott W. Smith (Screenwriting from Iowa and Other Unlikely Places, 4-2-08) and part 2
• Doug Eboch's full series on pitching (Let's Schmooze, Doug Eboch on Screenwriting, 2012 and 2013)
• InkTip Pitch & Networking Summit
• 5 Ways To Pitch Like Ron Howard by Stephanie Palmer, Good in a Room (learn how to pitch, persuade, and sell), 8-23-12. See also her entry How Screenwriter Evan Daugherty Scored a $3.2M Payday for “Snow White and the Huntsman” (6-26-12)
• Screenwriter/​Salesman Pete Jones (Scott W. Smith)
• The Blackboard: Blog entries on pitching (these and others)
• What David Simon’s Pitch for “The Wire” Can Teach Us About How to Sell An Original Idea (Stephanie Palmer, Good in a Room, 7-31-12)
• These are only some of the resources I found on the excellent Good in a Room blog (Scott W. Smith, Screenwriting from Iowa...and Other Unlikely Places) and The Black Board (the official online community of the Black List and Go Into the Story)

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Entertainment and industry news

• Ain't It Cool News (movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news)
• (daily box office figures)
• Box Office Guru (database of box office statistics on motion pictures released from 1989 to the present, plus weekend preview and reviews, international grosses, monthly averages, release schedule for coming four months)
• Broadcasting and Cable (industry news covering local TV; FCC regulation; HD, DTV and 3D technology; programming; syndication; and advertising)
• Comingsoon.net (cinema and DVD retail release dates, trailers, reviews and news.
• Deadline Hollywood ( an online magazine founded and edited by Nikki Finke, who began writing an LA Weekly column, Deadline Hollywood, in 2002, and began her Deadline Hollywood Daily blog in 2006--a candid, informed and authoritative source for breaking news in the infotainment industry. Part of Jay Penske's PMC.)
• Done Deal Pro (the business and craft of screenwriting)
• Entertainment Weekly (EW, entertainment news on celebrities, news, reviews, and recaps on TV shows, movies, music and books)
• E! Online (daily entertainment news, celebrities, celeb news, and celebrity gossip)
• FilmFestivals.com (database of 4,000 international film and television festivals)
• The Futon Critic (the Web's best resource about primetime television)
• Hollywood.com (entertainment website for fans of movies, television, and celebrities, with news of movies and Hollywood, movie reviews, and movie times)
• The Hollywood Reporter
• Inside Film Magazine (lists film festivals around the world and posts articles about independent films and filmmakers)
••• Internet Movie Database (IMDb) (wonderful, huge searchable database of information about films, TV, and celebrities, with info about current and upcoming movie releases, recent box office numbers, links to reviews and user ratings about each movie, which movies are showing near a particular zip code, entertainment news, and so on
• LA Weekly (on Movies) (section in top alternative Los Angeles newspaper)
• LA Times (entertainment section, online)
• Movie City News
• Movies.com ("all things movies")
• Movie Mom (Nell Minow's Movie Mom blog on Belief.net)
• New York Times Arts section online
• Thompson on Hollywood (Anne Thompson's blog on IndieWire, which Writers Guild West calls "an insider’s clear-eyed analysis of the business")
• TMZ.com (celebrity news and gossip and entertainment news)
• Vanderbilt Television News Archive (recording, preserving and providing access to television news broadcasts of the national networks since August 5, 1968--abstracts only, but show the first time something appeared on a broadcast)
• Vanity Fair (section on Hollywood)
• Variety (an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine)
• The Wrap (covering Hollywood)
• That's a wrap for movie magazines (Anne Thompson, Variety, 4-5-07). Long-form entertainment journalism pushed aside the movie magazines.
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Act Like a Writer (Molly Ringwald, Opinionator, NY Times, 8-18-12). "The appeal of diving into a character has always been the back story: everything that my character has been through up to the point when the audience first encounters her. "

Amazon's Bad Deal. Craig Mazin (The Artful Writer, 11-20-10) writes: "Recently, Amazon launched 'Amazon Studios,' a strange mashup of contest/​development/​crowd-sourcing designed to help filmmakers 'break in' by getting noticed, winning money and even having their movies released by Warner Brothers. It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad deal," especially if your script is good." Screenwriter John August also weighs in against the idea: On the Amazon film thing.

The Basics of Video Editing: The Complete Guide (Adam Dachis, Lifehacker Night School). "Last week we learned the basics of video editing, covering everything from the general workflow to special effects and color correction to a primer on encoding and delivery. Here's the complete guide with all the videos and notes in one convenient location."

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Best Films lists
• Academy Awards for Best Pictures (Filmsite's list, with trivia). See also Academy Awards searchable database (nominees, winners, year, etc.)
• American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies lists (scroll left side to find 100 best thrillers, 100 best heroes and villains, 100 best film scores, 100 best musicals, etc. See also 100 Greatest Movies, a PDF document)
• All-Time 100 Best Films (picks of Time critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel)
• The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (New York Times critics' list, with links to the reviews, which in some cases come years after the movie was released)
• Documentaries that won Academy Awards (Wikipedia list)
• Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Films of All Time
• 50 Greatest Chick Flicks (O Magazine, posted on AMC website)
• Greatest Black Movies (nonso1990, Internet Movie DataBase)
• Greatest Guy Movies
• 101 Greatest Screenplays (Writers Guild of America, West)
• 10 Best Films of All Time (Sight & Sound Magazine, selected by film critics. Films are movies that can be judged artistically, rising above mere entertainment). Posted on Filmsite. "Rules of the Game" appears on list most.
• Top 15 Most Successful Book to Movie Adaptations (Film Production Schools blog)
• The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time (Vertigo replaces Citizen Cane as #1, British Film Institute, Sight & Sound). But the Directors' Poll selects Tokyo Story and director Ozu Yasujirτ as the best of all time.
• Top Rated Documentary Films (IMDb chart).
• Top 250 Moviesas voted by IMDB users (Internet Movie DataBase chart)
• The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Instant (Josh Jackson, Paste, 5-23-12). Just to be practical--if you're looking for something to watch tonight, at home.

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The Black Board (the official online community of the Black List and Go Into the Story)

Bookshops: Theatre and Film (most of them use the British "theatre" instead of the American "theater")
• Samuel French Bookshops (Los Angeles), amazing source for books, plays, screenplays, cast recordings, dialects, etc. (associated with , play publishers and representatives.
• E-script Online Film and Theatre Bookstore (wide selection of contemporary plays, screenplays, and other theatre and film publications and recordings)
• Drama Book Shop, Inc. (New York, phone: 212-944-0595, tollfree from US and Canada: 800 322-0595, info@​dramabookishop.com)
Tell me if I have omitted anyone useful.

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Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Couldn't Lose: An oral history of Friday Night Lights (Robert Mays, Grantland, and the cast of the fabulous TV series Friday Night Lights, based on the narrative nonfiction bookFriday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream by H.G. Bissinger. (Hate football? Watch and read it anyway. Great work!)

Collaboration agreement forms for authors and screenwriters (James A. Conrad). You may find section on collaboration agreements helpful, though its main focus is book collaborations.

Danish filmwriters' vow of chastity. On Poynter online, Roy Peter Clark (in "Why nonfiction writers should take a vow of chastity") comments on a public manifesto Danish screenwriters Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg propose, because so many film makers had abandoned cinematic artistic integrity. Among ten points listed: 1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found). Clark proposes a parallel vow of chastity for nonfiction writers.

Digital vs. film. At the Summer Box Office, a Battle Between Two Ways of Filming (Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo, The Atlantic, 5-14-12). Digital moviemaking is on the rise, but some high-profile directors still shoot popcorn flicks the old way. A review of, and essay drawn from, Side by Side: The Science, Art, and Impact of Digital Cinema, a documentary that examines "the intensified, late-stage competition between film and digital." The digital process makes it easier for everyone to make a movie--it democratizes the process. But there are many digital formats and down the road we may not be able to share and preserve those digital movies.

Done Deal Professional (about the business and craft of screenwriting -- e.g., tracks film and television script sales & deals made in Hollywood each day)

Everybody in Hollywood Needs an eBook Strategy (Mike Shatzkin, The Shatzkin Files 5-14-12). "A Big Six CEO told me last week that the two core skills and competencies that publishers require are 'editorial,' picking the books and developing them, and 'marketing,' letting the interested public know the book is there." Shatzkin tells Hollywood its opportunity is here: Make eBooks of all the Seinfeld scripts, for example....

Fair use, copyright, social media, and multimedia

• WGAWest Script Registry When you register your script prior to submitting it to agents, managers, or producers, you document your authorship on a given date should there be unauthorized usage.
The Center for Social Media at American University has posted excellent resources, especially on best practices in fair use of various multimedia, including the following documents:
• Statement of Best Practice in Fair Use of Dance-Related Materials
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
• The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
• Fair Use in Media Literacy Education FAQ
• Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video
• Frequently asked questions about fair use, based on these statements of practice
• The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy
• Unauthorized: The Copyright Conundrum in Participatory Video
• The Good, The Bad and the Confusing: User-Generated Video Creators on Copyright
• Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use
• Success of the Statement of Best Practices
• Digital Futures: A Need-to-Know Policy Guide for Independent Filmmakers.
• John August posts on rights and copyright
• Documentary Filmmakers Win Exemption From Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PRWeb, 7-28-10). "Documentary Filmmakers Granted Access to Previously Off Limits DVD Content, Restoring Their Fair Use Rights" -- From the Library of Congress: Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works.
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA Takedown Notices, and Related Issues (on the Copyright page of Writers and Editors website

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Field Guide to Sponsored Films by Rick Prelinger (PDF about the Prelinger Archives of 51,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films, acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002). Also available from third-party sellers as a book

15 Most Successful Book-to-Movie Adaptations (Film Production Schools blog)

The 50 greatest matte paintings of all time. The art of the glass shot or matte painting originated in the early ‘teens’ of the silent era. The matte process is one whereby a limited film set may be extended to whatever, or wherever the director’s imagination dictates with the employment of a matte artist.

Film blogs:
• 100 Best Blogs for Film and Theater Students (Best University)
• The Top Film Criticism Sites, Annotated blog, Part 1 (Paul Brunick & Staff, Slant Magazine)
• The Artful Writer (Craig Mazin and Ted Elliott's blog: information, theory and debate for the professional screenwriter)
• The Black List (blog for The Black List, an annual list of the most popular unproduced screenplays as voted on by Hollywood insiders). You can see previous releases of the Black List here.
• Blogcritics
• Film (blogging the reel world)
• Cinematical (good writing for film lovers)
• Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog (Alex Epstein on the craft of screenwriting for tv and movies)
• Deadline Hollywood Daily (Hollywood news)
• The Film Experience (cinephile Nathaniel R. Gemini)
• A Filmmaker's Life (Jacques Thelemaque, on being an indie filmmaker)
• Films Gone Wild
• Filmmaker Magazine blog (good magazine and blog for learning about indie films, filmmakers, filmmaking, and film festivals)
• Greencine Daily (from highbrow and avant garde to blockbuster movies)
• HD for Indies (High Definition Video for Independent Filmmakers, Mike Curtis's how-to blog for digital filmmakers)
• Hope for Film blog (Ted Hope, an indie film producer)
• The Hot Blog (Ray Pride's blog Movie City News)
• The Hotlist (keeps members of Writers Guild of America West abreast of the latest New Media trends by featuring some of the most cutting edge content on the Web)
• indieWire Blog Network (several blogs)
• io9 (blog about science fiction films)
• Jane Espenson's blog about writing scripts on spec
• John August (blog for writers by a veteran screenwriter--with much useful information about screenwriting)
• Movie Mom (Nell Minow, Belief.Net, on good movies for kids and families)
• Playblog (Playbill's blog)
• Roger Ebert
• Running with My Eyes Closed (Jill Gollick's blog on television writing for screenwriters)
• Slashfilm.com (blogging the reel world)
• Thompson on Hollywood (Anne Thompson, IndieWire.com, a mix of Hollywood and Indie news)
This list is incomplete but it's a start.
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Film Criticism Is Dying? Not Online Thanks to the Internet, there is more and better writing about movies than ever before, says Roger Ebert (WSJ, 1-22-11). Some of the main sites for film criticism:
• David Bordwell
• Edward Copeland on Film
• Musings by film commentators from around the world (SunTimes blog, edited by Ebert)
• Cahiers du cinιma

For Budding Screenwriters, a Way Past the Studio Gates (Rachel Dodes, Wall Street Journal, 12-13-12). The Black List, compiled by Franklin Leonard, is an elite compendium of unproduced scripts, many of which don't stay that way long after appearing on the list. "If the model succeeds, it could help more aspiring screenwriters get their work past Hollywood's gatekeepers and into the hands of people who actually make movies."See The Black List

Formatting resources

You must provide the correct formatting for stage directions and for dialogue. Software to format screenplays, teleplays and stage plays includes Celtx, DreamaScript, Movie Magic Screenwriter, Scrivener, Final Draft, Movie Outline 3.0, FiveSprockets, and Montage.
• How to Format A Stage Play (Script Frenzy)
Formatting do's and don'ts for screenplays (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
• Movie Magic Screenwriter Version 6
• Scrivener (can be used for formatting both fiction and screen and stage plays. "You can even mix up script formatting with regular text for writing treatments.")

Free Documentaries Online

Go Into the Story (Scott Myers on screenwriting) -- check the links down right for some interesting pages, including A story idea each day for a month (click on them).

Harlan Ellison, the Great Ranter, writer of "speculative fiction"
Harlan Ellison: A Kind of Twisted Fantasy, Kurt Andersen's interview with Ellison on Studio 360 radio program (and check out the Bonus Track: "Harlan Ellison uncut")
http:/​/​www.studio360.org/​episodes/​2009/​05/​29
Click here: http:/​/​www.sundancechannel.com/​digital-shorts/​#/​series/​20958611001/​20977196001 for readings and film clips starring Harlan Ellison, a series of Sundance "digital shorts (breakthrough Web videos for progressive minds)." Most ranters get boring; Ellison's rants are as verbally creative as his "speculative fiction."
"I have never written science fiction...What I write is a kind of twisted fantasy." ~ Harlan Ellison

How to find a writer's assistant job and an earlier version of the post by Amanda Pendolino (@​amandapendo). See also The Writers' Assistant Life: How to Get In and The Writers' Assistant Life: How to Not Find a Job by Ariel, Industry Nexus.

Image professionals, resources for . Webpage for media pros and allied professionals (translators, indexers, designers, photographers, artists, illustrators, animators, cartoonists, image professionals, composers)

InkTip (script matchmaker: entertainment professionals can find scripts, screenwriters can list their screenplays for sale)

Inside Film Magazine (online), providing coverage of film festivals, includingfilm festivals, by month

Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers (Albert Steeman Productions in The Netherlands)

Internet Movie Database (IMDb, superb movie database, great for for when you know the name of the actor but not the film, or only the name of one of the films one of the actors played in--you can retrace your steps and fill in the blanks)
• IMDbPro (paid-subscription version of Internet Movie Database, designed for people in the entertainment industry, searchable for contacts in entertainment companies--free 14-day trial available, then $12.95 a month)
• IMDb and IMDbPro services compared (by site itself)
• Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb)
• Internet Theatre Database

[Back to Top] Interviews in the film, drama, and television industries
Some of these are audio or video; some are transcripts. Almost all are interesting and enlightening.
• Charlie Rose interview with John Lasseter (12-2-11, Lasseter being director and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studies). Wonderful interview.
• The Craft of Writing for Film and Television 2012 (Writers Guild of America, West -- transcripts of many interviews in the industry). Here's a page of interviews from 2011 . Scroll to bottom of each page to find a link to the archive from the year before.
• Archive of American Television Interviews (Emmy TV legends)
Paris Review Interviews:
• Lillian Hellman, The Art of Theater No. 1 (interviewed by Anne Hollander, John Marquand)
• Arthur Miller, The Art of Theater No. 2 (interviewed by Olga Carlisle and Rose Styron)
• Harold Pinter, The Art of Theater No. 3 (interviewed by Larry Bensky)
• Edward Albee, The Art of Theater No. 4 (interviewed by William Flanagan)
• Tennessee Williams, The Art of Theater No. 5 (interviewed by Dotson Rader)
• Eugene Ionesco, The Art of Theater No. 6 (interviewed by Shusha Guppy)
• Tom Stoppard, The Art of Theater No. 7 (Interviewed by Shusha Guppy)
• Athol Fugard, The Art of Theater No. 8 (Interviewed by Lloyd Richards)
• Sam Shepard, The Art of Theater No. 12 (interviewed by Benjamin Ryder Howe, Jeanne McCulloch, Mona Simpson)
• David Mamet, The Art of Theater No. 11 (interviewed by John Lahr)
• Wendy Wasserstein, The Art of Theater No. 13 (interviewed by Laurie Winer)
• August Wilson, The Art of Theater No. 14 (interviewed by Bonnie Lyons, George Plimpton)
• Tony Kushner, The Art of Theater No. 16 (interviewed by Catherine Steindler, for Paris Review)
• Wallace Shawn, The Art of Theater No. 17 (interviewed by Hilton Als)
• Stephen Sondheim, The Art of the Musical (interviewed by James Lipton)
• Neil Simon, The Art of Theater No. 10 (interviewed by James Lipton)
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Ken Burns on storytelling:
• Ken Burns on the Power of History and Creativity (short video)
• Ken Burns on the Art of Storytelling: “It’s Lying Twenty-Four Times a Second” (Colin Marshall, Open Culture, 5-17-12)
• Ken Burns on Why His Formula for a Great Story Is 1+1=3 (Sarah Klein and Tom Mason on the making of Ken Burns: On Story, The Atlantic, 5-17-12)
• How 1 and 1 makes 3 and more lessons in storytelling from Ken Burns (watch this 5-minute video of Burns explaining the mysteries of storytelling, but Adam Westbrook also summaries the main points, which include: "The good guys have very serious flaws and the bad guys are very compelling. "

Luna: A Whale to Watch. (Michael Parfit, Smithsonian magazine, 8-11). "The true story of a lonely orca leaps from printed page to silver screen, with a boost from new technology." The streamlining (even the physical lightening, in weight) of technology has put film-making into more hands, so the studio system doesn't have the tight control over distribution it once had. The studios said 'No' to this film about Luna, but it got made anyway.

Losing All My Children (Joanna Cohen, NY Times blog, 2-16-12, on writing for the soaps--and then saying goodbye, for now, to "All My Children")

Mapping Public Radio's Independent Landscape (Key Interim Findings) and final report: Opportunities for Innovation

Mastering Multimedia (links to resources for learning the art and craft of various aspects of multimedia)

Movie and entertainment reviews, film criticism online, and movie and TV databases

To check out reviews, review-score average, or "consensus at a glance" and often to learn where (if) a film is playing locally:
• Internet Movie Database (IMDB) (great for for when you know the name of the actor but not the film, or only the name of one of the films one of the actors played in; you can retrace your steps and fill in the blanks -- for reviews, look at "external reviews"; plug in zip code at "showtimes & tickets" and see where it's playing near you)
• Rotten Tomatoes (scores movies as fresh or rotten)
• Movie Review Intelligence (monitors and scores reviews of dozens of critics, indicates % favorable reviews, shows if widely or narrowly released)
• Metacritic.com (review aggregator for movies, video/​DVDs, TV, music, and games).
• Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE)
• TV.com (reference guide to episodes, photos, videos, cast and crew information, forums, reviews and more)
• Yahoo! Movies

Film Criticism Is Dying? Not Online Thanks to the Internet, there is more and better writing about movies than ever before, says Roger Ebert (WSJ, 1-22-11).
Websites with movie reviews and film criticism:
• AARP Movies for Grownups Awards
• A.V. Club film reviews
• David Bordwell (film criticism)
• Cahiers du cinιma (film criticism)
• Edward Copeland on Film (film criticism)
• Commonsense Media (advising parents if movies are okay for kids)
• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
• Stanley Kauffman, New Republic
• Anthony Lane, New Yorker
• Movie Mom (Nell Minow, Belief.Net, reviewing movies for kids and families)
• National Public Radio reviews (Ian Buckwalter, David Edelstein, Mark Jenkins, Andrew Lapin, Bob Mondello , Kenneth Turan, etc. )
• Richard Roeper & the Movies (watch and listen)
• A.O. Scott, New York Times
• The Village Voice (New York City's alternative newspaper, online)

• Notable journalistic critics and Notable academic critics (Wikipedia list, but it doesn't link to their criticism)
• Musings by film commentators from around the world (SunTimes blog, edited by Roger Ebert)
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9 Elements of Great Films John Truby (Raindance)

Nonny de la Peρa on “Gone Gitmo,” Stroome and the future of interactive storytelling Ernesto Pirego (Nieman Storyboard 1-30-11) interviews one of the co-founders of Stroome.com, a community that allows online collaborative remixing of visual journalism

PUMA Creative Catalyst Award (PUMA and BRITDOC, for an international documentary filmmaker with a story to tell, but not necessarily the resources to do it -- developed to give filmmakers the funds to develop trailers for their films). Apply at BRITDOC. See finalist trailers.

Realistic Budgeting for Documentaries by David L. Brown. Written for Release Print, Film Arts Foundation, January 2005. Posted by Tony Levelle

Rotten Tomatoes (a website and film review aggregator devoted to reviews, previews, trailers, information, and news of films, reviewed and rated on the tomatometer)

The Rules of the Game: A Century of Hollywood Publicity (Anne Helen Petersen, Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2013, pp. 46-59)

Script Frenzy, an April challenge to write 100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days (screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, and graphic novels all welcome). From the people who brought you National Novel Writing Month (NaNo), in which you write 50,000 words of fiction in a month(November).

The Setup-Payoff Model of Storytelling (Bryan Keithley, Ascentive Blog 6-1-11). Essentially, as Chekhov said, " if a gun appears prominently in the first act of the play, it had better play some role by the final act, or else the audience will feel cheated." This has to do " with the literary real estate you give to an item, theme, character, etc."
• Setups and Payoffs (Steven Pressfield, 10-31-12). Beginning writers often fail to provide a payoff for a setup or a setup for a payoff. You need both, whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, short story, or op ed, says Pressfield.
• Setups, Payoffs, MacGuffins and Red Herrings (Anton Mueller's syllabus at UCLA, Spring 2010, PDF).
• Setup & Payoffs in Mean Girls (Scribe Meets World)

The Sideways Publishing Saga -- Part I: Rejection by Rex Pickett, author of Sideways, on Huffington Post, 1-21-12). Followed by Part II: Part II: Exultation (2-3-12) and Part III: Whiplash; Dismay! (2-8-12). Also, see the movie Sideways.

Spielbergs Curriculum. It may not actually be Spielberg's list of the movies you MUST see to learn about film, but it's a pretty good list!

StageGrade (reporting the critical consensus for New York City plays and musicals (formerly Critic-o-Meter)

***Story. Robert McKee's resources
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. The bible on film, say many.
• McKee Story Seminars
• Storylogue (subscribe to daily McKee lessons and get access to backlog)
• Story Seminar Resources (McKee's excellent links)
• McKee Story Structure (Kenny Kemp's notes, PDF)

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) (mission: to strengthen, nurture and promote professional not-for-profit American theatre)

The Theology of Screenwriting, Part 1: Sin (Scott Myers, Go Into the Story, The Black List blog, 9-17-12)
• Part 2: Conversion • Part 3: Predestination • Part 4: Salvation • Part 5: Doubt • Part 6: Guilt • Part 7: Forgiveness • Part 8: Incarnation • Part 9: Hell • Part 10: Redemption • Part 11: Revelation • Part 12: Baptism • Part 13: Congregation • Part 14: Doubt • Part 15: Grace • Part 16: Faith • Part 17: Despair • Part 18: Righteousness • Part 19: Evil • Part 20: Kingdom of God (12-14-12)

Transom.org. A showcase and Workshop for New Public Media (all about the power of story in sound): a motherlode of audio learning with tools, advice, & community.

Television
• Al Jazeera News America (which bought Current News, which Al Gore started)
• Archive of American Television Interviews (Emmy TV legends)
• Script libraries
• TV.com (current shows and classics)
• TV Worth Watching (David Bianculli and friends) and TVWorthWatching (Fresh Air Faves)
Helpful blogroll and links to other TV facts, news, criticism, etc.
• TVTropes. A wiki/​catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction. "Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations."
• Writing for Episodic TV (download free handbook, Writers Guild of America)
• A Vaster Wasteland (Newton N. Minow, The Atlantic, April 2011). Fifty years after his landmark speech declaring television programming a “vast wasteland,” the author surveys the reshaped media landscape and lays out a plan to keep television and the Internet vibrant, democratic forces for the next half century. Most important: "if over-the-air television is to survive as a licensed service operating in the public interest, we must make better use of it in our politics. It is simply unconscionable that candidates for public office have to buy access to the airwaves—something the public itself owns—to talk to the public, unlike in most other major democratic countries.... If broadcasters are to continue as the lone beneficiaries of their valuable spectrum assignments, it is not too much to require that, as a public service, they provide time to candidates for public office. That time is not for the candidates. It is for the voters."

Writers Guild of America, West, Schedule of Minimums , part of the 2011 Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement. Download PDF . See also Additional contracts . This page is rich in material!

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Books and video on screenwriting,
radio and video production, and documentary-making

Scroll down for books on playwriting
• Josh Becker's excellent reading list
• Akers, William M.. Your Screenplay Sucks!: 100 Ways to Make It Great
• Artis, Anthony Q.. The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide: A Down & Dirty DV Production
• Biewen, John. Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture). Biewen is audio program director for Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies; includes essays by Ira Glass, Jay Allison, the Kitchen Sisters, and more)
• Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces
• Chandler, Gael. Cut by Cut: Editing Your Film or Video
• Chitlik, Paul. Rewrite: A Step-by-Step Guide to Strengthen Structure, Characters, and Drama in Your Screenplay
• Crowell, Thomas A.. The Pocket Lawyer for Filmmakers: A Legal Toolkit for Independent Producers
• Douglas, Pamela. Writing the TV Drama Series: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV
• Dunne, Peter. Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot
• Epstein, Alex. Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made
• Field, Syd. Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
• Field, Syd. The Screenwriter's Problem Solver: How to Recognize, Identify, and Define Screenwriting Problems. In her book review, Suzie Quint applies plot problem-solving to novels.
• Field, Syd. The Screenwriter's Workbook
• Field, Syd. Four Screenplays: Studies in the American Screenplay
• Flynn, Danny Martin. How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
• Glebas, Francis. Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation
• Goldberg, Eric. Character Animation Crash Course
• William Goldman: Four Screenplays with Essays (Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery, by William Goldman. (The screenplay for Butch Cassidy could be used as a teaching device for "How to Write a Great Screenplay," says Bonnie Remsberg.) On this video, Goldman talks about filming Butch Cassidy.
• Hampe, Barry. Video Scriptwriting: How to Write for the $4 Billion Commercial Video Market (for corporate and instructional script writers)
• Hampe, Barry. Making Documentary Films and Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries
• Hunter, Lew. Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434: The Industry's Premier Teacher Reveals the Secrets of the Successful Screenplay (the one the Miller Bros used)
• Iglesias, Karl. The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters: Insiders' Secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers
• Keane, Christopher. How to Write a Selling Screenplay
• Kern, Jonathan. Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production
• King, Viki. How to Write a Movie in 21 Days
• Laybourne, Kit. The Animation Book: A Complete Guide to Animated Filmmaking--From Flip-Books to Sound Cartoons to 3- D Animation
• Luckie, Mark S. The Digital Journalist's Handbook
• Maschwitz, Stu. The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap
• McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
• Rabiger, Michael Directing the Documentary
• Riley, Christopher. The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style
• Rosenblum, Ralph and Robert Karen. When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story
• Rosenthal, Alan. Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos (4th edition)
• Seger, Linda. Making a Good Script Great
• Snyder, Blake. Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need. Good on structure and storytelling, and if Snyder's Beat Sheet (a list of points in a film script) helps you, look also at Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies: The Screenwriter's Guide to Every Story Ever Told (discussed in terms of concept, logline, and treatment) and Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble for Screenwriters to Get into ... and Out of (more on finding the spine of the story, with examples from popular films -- read Suzie Quint's review, for romance writers.
• Schellhardt, Laura. Screenwriting For Dummies (A to Z, for absolute beginners)
• Thurlow, Clifford. Making Short Films: The Complete Guide from Script to Screen
• Trottier, David. The Screenwriters' Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script. This standard reference will help you with the mechanics of the trade -- structure, format, and style.
• Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
• Vachon, Christine. Shooting to Kill
• Van Sijll, Jennifer. Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know
• Vogler, Christopher. The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
• Whitcomb, Cynthia. The Writer's Guide to Writing Your Screenplay: How to Write Great Screenplays for Movies and Television>

Books on playwriting

• Ball, David. Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays
• Dramatists Guild. The Dramatists Guild Resource Directory 2013: The Writers Guide to the Theatrical Marketplace (a guide to resources for playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists, for everything from submission opportunities--theaters that accept scripts-- to practical advice on securing an agent or a template for formatting your script).
• Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis In The Creative Interpretation Of Human Motives
• Garrison, Gary. A More Perfect Ten: Writing and Producing the Ten-Minute Play
• Hatcher, Jeffrey. The Art and Craft of Playwriting
• Sweet, Jeffrey. Dramatists Toolkit,The Craft of the Working Playwright
• Sweet, Jeffrey. Solving Your Script: Tools and Techniques for the Playwright
• Thomas, James. Script Analysis for Actors, Directors, and Designers

Memoirs and Biography

• Fisher, Antwone Quenton. Finding Fish: A Memoir
• Goldman, William. Adventures in the Screen Trade; Which Lie Did I Tell: More Adventures in the Screen Trade
• Lardner, Ring, Jr. I'd Hate Myself in the Morning: A Memoir (intro by Victor Navasky). A two-time Academy Award winner, Lardner won the best original screenplay award for "Woman of the Year" and best adapted screenplay award for M*A*S*H. He was also a member of the "Hollywood Ten," the group of writers and directors who went to jail rather than name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
• Laurents, Arthur. Original Story By: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood See also Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story, and Other Musicals
• Lumet, Sidney. Making Movies
• Meyer, Nicholas. The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood
• Miller, Logan and Noah Miller. Either You're In or You're In the Way: Two Brothers, Twelve Months, and One Filmmaking Hell-Ride to Keep a Promise to Their Father
• Sprengnether, Madelon. Crying at the Movies: A Film Memoir, about which Library Journal writes: "By exploring her extreme reactions over the years to a range of films, including Pather Panchali, The Piano, and Shadowlands, and trying to place them in the context of her own life, Sprengnether has created a vivid, passionate description of the therapeutic value of cinema."
You'll find reviews of these books at the Amazon links imbedded in the titles . For purchases made after linking to Amazon.com through Writers and Editors, I get a small percentage, which helps support the site. Thanks!

Bookshops: Theatre and Film

(most of them use the British "theatre" instead of the American "theater")
• Samuel French Bookshops (Los Angeles), amazing source for books, plays, screenplays, cast recordings, dialects, etc. (associated with , play publishers and representatives.
• E-script Online Film and Theatre Bookstore (wide selection of contemporary plays, screenplays, and other theatre and film publications and recordings)
• Drama Book Shop, Inc. (New York, phone: 212-944-0595, tollfree from US and Canada: 800 322-0595, info@​dramabookishop.com)
Tell me if I have omitted anyone useful.

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