writing

  • Screenwriting

30 Screenwriting Lessons From The Twilight Zone Creator Rod Serling

Here are screenwriting tips gleaned from Twilight Zone mastermind Rod Serling, first published as part of “First Draft,” a screenwriting…

4 years ago
  • Movie News

Our Time: Carlos Reygadas Discusses His Daily Routine, Thoughts on Relationships, and How Cinema is Like Fishing

In a noisy world, Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas makes cinema centered on presence. In that presence, something much bigger occurs…

5 years ago
  • Directing

Scary Surfing: Director Stephen Susco on Fearing the Internet and How Style Informs Story in Unfriended: Dark Web

In the varying family dynamics within tentpole genre movies, horror has always been the outlier, cannibalistic family to reconstruct genre…

6 years ago
  • Screenwriting

First Draft: 11 Anti-Heroes, and Ways to Develop Them In Your Screenplay

In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, “First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. How do writers craft protagonists…

6 years ago
  • Movie News

How They Did It: Filming at Religious Sites Is Even More Challenging Than You Think, Says Holy Air Director

Themes that inspire Middle Eastern film also emerge in the making of it. To understand the filming of religious sites…

6 years ago
  • Directing

Elizabeth Blue: Using the Power of Film to Rewrite the Dialogue Surrounding Mental Illness

It’s amazing to me that I not only made a feature film, but that it’s actually going to be in…

7 years ago
  • Screenwriting

First Draft: What “Write What You Know” Really Means

In partnership with Creative Screenwriting and ScreenCraft, "First Draft” is a series on everything to do with screenwriting. Screenplays must be built upon…

8 years ago
  • Screenwriting

Screenwriting on a Schedule: A Wake-Up Call for More Efficient Writing

Have you ever wondered if the characters in your unfinished screenplay will finally get so tired of waiting for you…

9 years ago
  • Interviews
  • Summer 2014

Someone’s Gotta Do It: Nailing that Film Critic Job

Every once in a while, film criticism is declared well and truly done for. While the ethos of the practice…

10 years ago
  • Directing
  • MM Guide 2013

Directing from the Unconscious: Jill Soloway on Transitioning from TV to Features with Afternoon Delight

I came up in this business as a TV writer. My first big job was on Six Feet Under, and…

11 years ago
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  • Weekend Pick

Editor’s Weekend Pick: Short Term 12

MovieMaker's pick of the films out in theaters this week is the award-winning, heart-pumping Short Term 12, and we're celebrating…

11 years ago
  • Screenwriting

Charlie Kaufman: Outlaw Scribe

Screenwriters have a tendency to operate by a specific set of traditional rules: Establish your characters and their situation, introduce…

20 years ago
  • Articles - Directing
  • Articles - Features
  • Articles - Moviemaking

Edward Dmytryk, Odd Man Out

Prior to the days when movies were amalgams of past movies, the clash between genre and auteur, between the classic…

28 years ago