i worked on 'jumper' (which gets a vote for worst movie ever, though it wouldn't win), and went to a screening of it that featured uhls and simon kinberg in a q&a; afterward.

honestly i was very unimpressed by him and much more interested in simon.

ironic that he doesn't like outlining - that wasn't made so clear in the q&a;, because simon is completely into them. he said he used to go to the library in new york where he could check out the actual shooting scripts of some films. he would spend days in there reverse-engineering outlines from the scripts.

he would do 3 a day. and serious "supergeeky" outlines - like the ones you do in high-school, complete with I, A) 1., 2a., etc., section breakdowns.

Great insight there re Kinberg and thanks for it. So okay, we all grew to hate the very concept of outlines due to our collective experience with our cross-eyed, hyper-sensitive, anal-retentive 5th grade teacher Mrs. Kronicke (not that I remember her or anything), but outlines really do have value for screenwriting. Why? "Screenplays are structure," sayeth the Dean of Contemporary Screenwriting William Goldman. And what speaks more to structure than an outline?

Funny to read that Kinberg would break down scripts from pre-existing movies -- I did the same thing. In fact, recently I was browsing through some of my binders of notes from 1987-1989, and I discovered dozens of movie outlines I had busted out.

Which brings to mind things I've read where novelists -- F. Scott Fitzgerald being one perhaps? -- who would copy the work of a great novelist, word for word, in an attempt to 'absorb' their genius?

Writers do whatever we need to do in order to learn the craft.