I would recommend watching every film twice: The first time through, watch for enjoyment, revulsion, or whatever natural reaction you might have to it. The next time through, watch for dialogue, shots, story and the elements that explain the natural reaction you just had.

Doing this, I often learn more from bad films than from good ones. Understanding why something works or doesn't work an important part of the process.

Two recommendations:

1) Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker Magazine had a nice set of New Year's resolutions for filmmakers. I think there's some helpful wisdom in there: http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/01/new-years-resolutions-for-filmmakers/

2) Like history, film is such a broad topic that it can often best be digested by following a specific path. One I'd recommend? Pick a filmmaker and watch their progression. Even better? Re-read Making Movies by Sidney Lumet, which almost exclusively cites his own movies, and watch as many of his movies as possible. Or read Conversations with Wilder, Cameron Crowe's wonderful book of interviews with Billy Wilder, and watch as many Billy Wilder movies as possible. It gives you not only one trajectory in film history to follow, but also an annotated guide.

Plus, let's face it: If you groan at the thought of watching lots of Wilder or Lumet movies, you don't like movies enough to write them.

The most important thing I did, I think, was to study a genre. Once I knew I wanted to write comedy (which was the same day I knew I wanted to write screenplays, actually), I figured that I needed to truly understand the genre.

So I looked at AFI's "100 Years, 100 Laughs", and a handful of other lists of the best comedies of all-time. I think getting a historical understanding of a genre is extremely important as genres change over time, and having broader influences makes for a more rich script.

Basically, you can't make a Tarantino movie strictly by being influenced by Tarantino -- you have to see what influenced Tarantino (or Spielberg, or Wilder, or Allen, or...)

How about The Movie Genome Project. I think that captures the gravitas of the undertaking.

As for tips on boning up on film, I believe you should be open to viewing films from all genres. Too often, it's easy for someone to lock on to his or her favorite type of movie--the one he/she dreams about writing or directing--while neglecting most of the others. This is a mistake. A romantic comedy or drama might help you write more realistic interpersonal moments in your action film, or an action film might help you devise a rollicking climax for your romantic comedy. You never know when you're going to dig up a little nugget you can cash in later.

For my mindset/concentration

Your business of screenwriting posts

Anything Spielberg & early Woo

Bruce Lee's book

Read any screenplays availabale

@Darren: By the way, I wasn't targeting you with my genre comment. We just posted almost simultaneously and it looks like I was riffing on your comment by mentioning genres, too. I agree with your sentiment.

How about an equivalent to 40 days of screenplays?

Though movies can be harder to get at than screenplays... Maybe movies on Netflix Instant? Or just a couple of movies a week?

Maybe this is better suited for an informal thing run through the GITS club?

Two docs to watch will comprise a film school in themselves:

1.) "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies." Covers the early films and the studio era.

2.) "A Decade Under the Influence." Starts with the emergence of the "New Hollywood" of the late 60s and 70s to its fall in the 80s with the rise of the box office era.

Books:

1.) "Awake in the Dark: An Anthology of American Film Criticism from 1915 to the Present" (which was 1976), edited by David Denby. Reading these essays have given me more confidence, insight, and perspective on screenwriting than any how-to book.

2.) Anything by David Thomson. I am currently reading "The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood." A great, expansive, smartly written book. To understand Hollywood is to have a grasp of the history of Los Angeles -- and a fascinating history it is.

3.) "The Pat Hobby Stories" Reading these shorts by Fitzgerald made me long to be a washed-up Hollywood screenwriter in the 1930s.

I remember one moment...

After the 20th Century Fox fanfare, after the lines "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." went up on screen, right before the STAR WARS logo faded up...

There was one moment, when the stars peopled the emptiness of space, that I couldn't tell where the mere blackness of the theater ended and the screen begun.

Back then, I was sitting in the first row in the gallery and there was nothing between me and the screen, except... space.

And for that one second, there was absolutely no telling where the real world stopped and the magic started. One second of delightful uncertainty. One second when reality fluttered into magic... and I was part of it.

That one second, when anything could be, has always been an unsurpassed experience.

M.

Three silent films I've seen recently worth viewing:

"The Passion of Joan of Arc"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLBn9KK2Ss0

"The Birth of a Nation"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxRIF1c2fI

"The Gold Rush"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOrju-kgoec

A lot of great info from these posts already. I have to admit that I own a LOT of dvds, but I also watch a ton on NETFLIX. There are over ten thousand instant titles already on there and growing, including tons of classics. For fifteen bucks a month I definitely recommend signing up just to immerse yourself even further if you haven't already.

I started out in theatre (and very wordy theatre), so a big challenge for me has been teaching myself to tell stories visually. So a couple of big things have helped me with that.

1) The documentary Visions of Light: the Art of Cinematography. It's a fantastic overview of some of the greatest visual moments in film history. Most of the clips they use are short, too, so it really shows you how much you can acheive in 1-2 seconds of silent action.

2) Silent films, of course. Charlie Chaplin films like City Lights and Modern Times are a pretty obvious choice on this front, but you should also check out some of the less-famous Lon Chaney horror films. They tend to have very engrossing, unexpected plots. The Unknown is a great one - directed by Tod Browning (who also did Dracula and Freaks) and stars Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford. Totally blew me away.

I agree that everybody who's interested in movies should have a Netflix subscription. I'm also finding Twitter an increasingly valuable resource for recommendations and opinions. Maybe we could have a (reader generated?) list of essential people to follow?

I'd also love to see a GITS recommended viewing list, if we don't have one already. Everybody would have to name their most influential film, or maybe their top pick for each genre, or something like that.

I choose IMDb top 250. I dont agree with every one on the list, but It's a pretty great start.

Book wise, Story by McKee and The Writer's Journey by Vogler. Both are great for writers. Website wise, Collider has tons of interviews with writers/directors/producers. Ebert Presents is a pretty great source to find out what the critics (who study movies) think.

Documentaries: Dreams on Spec is a great reality check, Hearts of Darkness might be one of the best films I've seen in general. Its an in depth look into Coppola's journey as a film maker during the making of Apocalypse Now .

Regarding movie analysis, look at Ebert presents, google it to find it. Historically, I'm not a scholar, but I think the early blockbuster era is most important to study for us now; Jaws, Star Wars...without Spielberg and Lucas filmmaking would not be what it is now. I'm looking at noir for my own study right now, so I cant recommend much of that yet.

The best silent film I've ever seen is Metropolis. Metropolis influenced everything from Superman (its the name of his city) and Star Wars (look at the robot, its pretty much C3P0).

Web Resources: Script-shadow, GITS, Johnaugust.com, zoetrope.com, all have great info about writing, directing, everything you can think of.

If you want to be like the best, you've got to learn from them. I look at Spielberg, I've watched Jaws 4 times in the last 3 months, Jurassic Park twice, Minority Report twice, and Munich twice...in short, watch every single piece of work considered great, and watch it a hundred times. Then watch everything the greats watched a hundred times. By then, you may be somewhere in the bottom of the barrel.

Here's a slightly insane little project I embarked on recently.

I intended to watch EVERY DAMNED film released in 2010 using this as a checklist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_in_film

Nuts? Most assuredly. But like what was mentioned above, I was in a rut of watching the same genre or the same type of films too often and I pine to be a more well-rounded screenwriter. So starting with "Sweetgrass" (a documentary with a LOT of sheep!), I began the task. Did this mean watching movies like "Leap Year" (yechh) and "The Spy Next Door" (bad but tolerable because of the innumerable charms of Jackie Chan)? Indeed it does but this underscores the power of watching bad movies to help one's writing.

I've been a bit stalled lately somewhere around late February 2010 (I think Cop Out is next... lucky me...yikes). But I fully intend to get back on it soon. It's really proven eye opening. Every documentary, every major and minor release, I'm digesting it all. Usually one per night if I'm lucky and the kids stay tucked in their cribs appropriately. Will I ever catch up to current day, 2011? Tough to say. But the pathway there has been inspirational and educational just the same.

(by the way, some standouts thus far? The documentary "Waiting for Armageddon" and the hindi romcom "Pyaar Impossible.")

I have a Facebook page devoted to my crazy movie watching frenzy but I haven't exactly kept it up to date very well. Feel free to take a gander anyway, if you like:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=144197548951702

@C.J. -- Don't worry, I didn't think your post was targeting mine. You're absolutely right, too, that a person should be well-versed in other genres in order to improve their writing in their genre of choice.

I think a great thing to do is find a good critic or two you like (not necessarily agree with) and read them constantly, so a list of the top, most knowledgable critics may be useful.

Obviously, all critics spout opinions. The good critics spot things in film that casual viewers don't, and in general are a good way to learn basic film vocabulary. And since critics often write about films within the context of a genre or a filmmaker's career, it's a great way to find new movies. When I was a young film-buff-in-the-making, it was Ebert's review of 12 Monkeys that pointed me towards Brazil, Blade Runner, and Vertigo.

Ebert's also good at picking up on visual components e.g. a composition a director repeats to underscore a theme or something like that -- especially helpful if, like me, you naturally fixate on the writer's side of things. In fact, looking back at his 12 Monkeys review, there's this: "Wild overacting takes place on bizarre sets that are photographed with tilt shots and wideangle lenses, and we begin to share the confusion and exhaustion of Cole." Things like that are second nature to me nowadays, but that was probably one of the first times I realized that's how film "language" works.

If it's not obvious, I'm a fan of Mr. Ebert.

I've made a point of watching alot of films this summer. I recently got a book called "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die".....that's a pretty good place to start. Also the site SensesofCinema.com is a very cool....

Thanks all for these comments. I'm going to pull together some ideas for a series starting next Monday. Any other ideas, please post here.

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet. I keep going back to that book. It's lucid and conversational and such a great first hand account of the movie making process. A great starting point.

On Writing by King is a good starter for a writer of any form.

Movies:

The Cutting Edge: about editing
The Player
Sunset Blvd.
What Just Happened

Robert Rodriquez 10min film school has some great stuff

The Moviebox of Pandora -project.

TItle Idea:

Baptism By Celluioid

The DVD commentary on The Limey between Dobbs and Soderbergh is really, really good. Been awhile since I read that interview, but I think it's mentioned in there.

So many great ideas! I want to add to the mix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_film

And your site, Scott, is the Wikipedia of screenwriting. The depth of content never ceases to amaze me. Whether it's slug line minutiae or giving characters heart and soul, I always find answers in your archives.

Re "The Cinema Seputus Project," Latin does suggest "root of", which is a good fit with project. Other possibilities, though not nearly as grand, are Film Infusion, Instill Film, Cinema Submersion, and The Scott Myers Cinema Celebration.

Also, re Seputus appropriateness, Werner Herzog might well argue that cave paintings did constitute the first film. Flickering lights in a dark cave, people transported someplace they'd never been (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the first 3-D film I am actually excited about (except Thor, omg can't wait).)

I loved Dobb's line, "There are shapes and patterns and a certain commercial contract made with the audience at the dawn of time." Respect that, and work with it, it's to our advantage, to feel those shapes and patterns in our bones, so we can tune and pull those strings, mercilessly, and make the audience weep and gasp bigger than they ever have before. (And re contract with reader, same thing, respect it, work it.)

Having a sense of the malleable nature of the medium, I think is useful. So submerse enough in the medium so you feel those underlying universals, and concurrently start sensing what is malleable, including how narratives are evolving and impact of evolving technology. And never ever underestimate how what you bring unique to the table can make your work stronger and fresher.

Netflix, btw, may dramatically change, huge licensing issues with studios, so their offerings may shift in nature, a real shame.

I had no idea Netflix was having issues with the studios... without them, my 2010 (and 2011) film watching extravaganza would be in serious jeopardy.

I have to believe that Netflix will win out in whatever battles crop up between the studios and them. Let's face it, they are the only real "success" story out there in film and video distribution today.

Hi Jeffrey, always a pleasure to see you. I take in information like the rapids, and retain very little, just impressions, so what follows could easily be wrong, and any and all expert insight is very welcome.

You know how newspapers blame the internet for their demise? Not the right way to look at it. People's attention shifted, and new entities scurried about finding ways to capture it in this new terrain. With movies, who thought Netflix would get so big (not Hollywood), or that we'd so quickly adapt to digital delivery? Our attention is shifting, how we get and see movies, and the usual economic model isn't keeping up. I think one studio wanted to charge Netflix 250 mil vs current 50mil for licensing, huge diff considering Netflix revenue. And I see a trend of studios providing their own digital streams, bypassing Netflix entirely.

For more cogent overview, I was able to find one article again, and it linked to a second good one:
http://gizmodo.com/5779574/hollywood-wants-to-turn-netflix-into-a-cesspool-of-shitty-movies-you-dont-want-to-watch
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20039915-261.html