Still a little off put by the fact I wasn't selected. MFA screenwriting...check; sold previous specs...check; directing a trailer for a spec pitch for investors as director-writer-producer...check. Heck...I submited at least 4 loglines! Always one foot outside the Hollywood gates. But seriously, glad those who scott picked are getting into discuss on long scenes. Now's he time to do it. You'll cut so much out in editing room. Why waste that money shooting it? Think like a film editor now...you'll not only save money in long run...you'll save peoples' and crews' time. Hopefully, the director can focus more on the actors and their overall work, than wondering how to change / rewrite a scene on the set. Which includes shut down for everyone....and more money out of producers' pockets. Cut your darlings now...when it's only your false pride you're cutting.

When I think of 'great scenes', I tend to think of longer scenes too - but I wonder if we tend to remember shorter scenes as moments rather than scenes? If there's a long scene with many great twists/ revelations in it, we remember the scene - if there are a similar number over several shorter scenes, we just remember the twists/ revelations as individual moments...

> Think like a film editor now…you’ll not only save money in long run…you’ll save peoples’ and crews’ time. Several friends have recommended "The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film" by Michael Ondaatje and it is blowing my mind. If you buy yourself just one writing or filmmaking book this year, I can't recommend this one highly enough.

Years ago I took an eye-opening course on working with Shakespeare's first folio texts taught by Vancouver-based director Scott Swann. He pointed that that while most of Shakespeare's plays are written in iambic pentameter, when he breaks that pattern, he does it for a reason. For example, occasionally there are lines of seven feet (iambic septameter, or da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum); seven was a line with a strong connotation of magic for Elizabethans and these lines are very consistently magical invocations. That idea fascinates me, because Shakespeare is playing on the dynamic of establishing a pattern and then breaking it for effect, and at the same time he is working with the established expectations that his contemporary audience brought to his work (like we do today when we work with genre tropes). Just as Shakespeare made deliberate choices about the rhythm of his lines, we have a similar opportunity when it comes to what Scott's describing with (the rhythm of) scene length here. - Figure out what the pace or internal rhythm of your own writing is, and your average scene length. - Then, when you go to write a longer scene in that work, look at what the import is of scenes of similar length and rhythm in contemporary films: what expectations do your audience bring to a longer scene? How does a 5 minute scene feel different than a 7 minute or 10 minute scene? - Finally, make a choice between delivering on, or subverting, the audience expectations.

Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye is really good too.

I'll pick it up, Teddy. Thank you.

Teddy, that book by Murch is one of the best 'screenwriting' books I've ever read.

FINALLY! I'm so tired of being the only one my block...er, make that in my city...er, make that in my state...er...well, you get my drift...who thought The Green Hornet was totally brilliant. Everything about it was spot-on to my sensibilities. Which, of course, explains why I will, screenwriting-wise, remain on the outside of the gates, looking in, I suppose...

High five, Jeff! For me, The Green Hornet far and away kicks the ass of Thor, Green Lantern, Captain America, and even X-Men: First Class from last year. It was a shame it got saddled with a January release, no LA production tax breaks, a costly 3D conversion, and a bad rap from people confusing it with Green Lantern. Lame.

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