Hi Scott, For either August or December I would like to propose what I will call A Month of Under-recognized Excellence. My example is George Seaton's WWII spy drama, The Counterfeit Traitor, 1962, which stars William Holden. This is a rarely mentioned or cited spy/thriller/love story which in my opinion is a minor masterpiece. The casting, cinematography and performances are all superior. But the real stand out is the writing. George Seaton, the director, also wrote the film adapting a true story, deftly interweaving a very moving love story with a tale of intrigue and suspense. His script avoids making the bad guys clowns or sinister devils and the good guys solely noble or patriotic. The script makes clear that individuals on either side are in it for their own reasons, often but not always personal gain. Because this film was released in 1962, an exceptional year for American film, it was overlooked for any of the usual awards and continues to be ignored never getting the recognition Writer/Director Seaton's outstanding work clearly deserves. I'm sure many members of the GITS community have at least one special favorite which has never appeared on any Best Ten or Fifty or Hundred Films of All Time. Therefore I'm suggesting to the GITS community a month where contributors supply one of their favorite but overlooked films, thus Under-recognized Excellence. That's my suggestion.

"Exploring Genres" month...the crafting of them... Mark's suggestion is neat.

How about a month devoted to loglines? A workshop type thing would be great. Or at least the opportunity to post our loglines for feedback.

Another thought is working on subtext. Of course, we can work on that during dialogue month but in case you want to make one month specific to that.

Thanks for these suggestions. Let me mull them over. Genre studies is an interesting possibility...

I would love to see a series how a script comes to live within the hands of an actor, production designer, composer, cinematographer etc... I want to see how they interpret a piece of text or a whole script. I think writers can learn from that. I know it will take a lot of effort to find the right persons and content to create such a series, but it would be nice to see how a piece of text comes alive in the eyes of someone else.

I like all of these ideas!

I want to second (third?) the genre exploration. Always interested in the expectations that need to be met (or deconstructed) for a movie to appeal to genre lovers - good examples of genres etc.