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David Mamet Memo to "The Unit" Writing Staff
The point being this: Movies are a gold-rush business. Anyone interested in what follows had best commit that fact to memory.…
William Goldman • Adventures in the Screen Trade
Introduce a Fascinating Protagonist (Protag):
Daniel Calvisi • Story Maps: TV Drama: The Structure of the One-Hour Television Pilot
always said that Bernie didn’t bet on the horses, he bet on the jockeys. Michael Bennett comes up with a musical. Mike Nichols comes up with a play, Neil Simon with a play. You try to get their shows in your theaters. So Sondheim comes up with a musical—you say yes. William Goldman used to say, “Nobody knows anything. Every time out, it’s a guess.”
... See moreJames Lapine • Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George
David Mamet • David Mamet Memo to "The Unit" Writing Staff
A star is someone who opens. (When a movie begins its run and no one comes, people in the business will say this of the movie, “It didn’t open.”) A star may not guarantee you a profit—budgets can grow wildly for reasons totally out of their control—but they will absolutely be a hedge against disaster.
William Goldman • Adventures in the Screen Trade
“We sat around at a restaurant, and we made a deal on a napkin: ‘We’re going to make the movie for free. We don’t want to get any salaries and we get a big back end. Ivan gave it to Tom Pollock, who was then running Universal Studios. Tom Pollock said ‘This is great, and we can make this movie for $16.5M if you guys don’t take a salary and you get
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