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When they chose their lawyer, who would deal with the financial community for them, they insisted that he invest some of his own money in their company. “We don’t want you running away if we get in trouble. We want you there protecting your own money,”

Tracy Kidder • The Soul of A New Machine

Executives, meanwhile, increasingly believed that they’d found their best bet in “IP”: preexisting intellectual property—familiar stories, characters, and products—that could be milled for scripts. As an associate producer of a successful Aughts IP-driven franchise told me, IP is “sort of a hedge.” There’s some knowledge of the consumer’s interest,... See more

Daniel Bessner • The Life and Death of Hollywood

Only the best writers in the world can pull off passive heroes. So be careful when using the hidden goal!

Carson Reeves • Scriptshadow Secrets (500 Screenwriting Secrets Hidden Inside 50 Great Movies)

At seven o’clock this evening, the phone rang. It was ‘Crackers’, saying with qualifying caution learned from years in the picture business: ‘All being equal, that is, if the rushes are okayed tomorrow afternoon from London, you are finished on the picture.’

Sir Roger Moore KBE • The 007 Diaries: Filming Live and Let Die

Once you have a strong idea for a movie, your next step should be getting to know your lead characters. Strong, unique characters are the secret to a movie’s success. No matter what your story is, the events that construct it are happening to someone. And that someone better be interesting and, more importantly, must care about what is happening to

Dean Movshovitz • Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar’s Greatest Films

24 Denzel Washington as attorney Joe Miller in Philadelphia (1993) Explain it to an eight-year-old. The “bones” of a case—its essential facts and structure, and the argument you are making in support of your position—should be understandable in simple terms. If you can explain it to a child, you can explain it to a jury.

Vibeke Norgaard Martin • 101 Things I Learned® in Law School

he creates interesting characters, he gives them goals and there’s always urgency.

Carson Reeves • Scriptshadow Secrets (500 Screenwriting Secrets Hidden Inside 50 Great Movies)

Screenplays are structure. Precisely made Swiss clocks of emotion.

Blake Snyder • Save the Cat

And in a good movie, information doesn’t come out in dialogue, it comes out in the verve and forward motion of the story.