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Amazon's screenwriting tool lets you easily share scripts
We all have at least one great story to tell, and Amazon's free screenplay writing software is intended to help you spin that tale. Like other screenwriting tools, Amazon Storywriter auto-formats your work to the required industry standard, with the added benefit of letting you submit your script directly to Amazon Studios if you think you've created the next Prime Video original. Before you get to that point, though, you might want a second opinion. Which is why Amazon's added a new quick-sharing feature to Storywriter that lets you easily put your script in front of reliable critics (aka Mom and Dad).
Can a screenplay algorithm save Hollywood?
Hollywood may be full of focus groups and statistical analysts, but deciding which movie to back still comes down to the gut feeling of a cigar-chewing studio mogul. Now, a Belgian startup is hoping that its algorithmic script-reading software can know, with a far greater certainty, if a screenplay is going to be a success or not. ScriptBook is the brainchild of Nadira Azermai, who plans to unleash the software to the public for the first time at next February's Berlin Film Festival.
Firefox creator writes an unofficial, on-point episode of 'Silicon Valley'
Many in the tech sphere will tell you that HBO's Silicon Valley is sometimes too accurate in its send-up of the San Francisco Bay Area's frequently ridiculous startup culture. But how good would it be if someone who actually came from the industry wrote an episode? You're about to find out. Firefox co-creator Blake Ross has posted an unofficial Silicon Valley screenplay that starts where the second season finished, and it's clearly the result of someone who's witnessed startup shenanigans first-hand. Richard has to hire his own CEO replacement, and grapples with the prospect of open-sourcing Pied Piper's code.
Shadow of the Colossus movie picks up 'Hanna' writer
The film adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus is still chuggin' right along, edging ever closer to becoming either the best or worst thing ever, as is the expected fate of all video game movie projects.The production has added Seth Lochhead to its staff, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who will be responsible for Colossus' story and/or screenplay. Lochhead's previous writing accomplishments include Hanna, the 2011 action thriller that starred Saoirse Ronan, Galadriel and The Incredible Hulk.Script production will be overseen by director Josh Trank with Lochhead starting on a fresh adaptation rather than elaborating on the initial draft penned by Justin Marks, the same scribe behind 2009's disastrous Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. We're not complaining.
Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs movie to portray backstage at three Apple Events in real-time
Aaron Sorkin is in the middle of working on his version of a Steve Jobs biopic, and at a meeting called the Hero Summit, he revealed that the screenplay's current form might seem a little strange. The Daily Beast reports that instead of traditionally telling the story of Steve Jobs from the beginning of his life or career, Sorkin plans to focus on three different segments, each about 30 minutes of the film in real time, set backstage at different Apple Events. It's an interesting idea, to be sure. Steve was known for his presentations, and much of his and Apple's story was written at those big announcements, where he revealed products such as the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. Portraying three events at different points in Steve's life would show both his and the company's growth, and also put him on display when he shined the most and backstage, when he was perhaps the most honest with his co-workers. We'll have to see how this works out. Since the screenplay is still being worked on, the script might change as time goes on or, in the wild world of Hollywood, this version of the movie might never make it to shooting. But it's an interesting idea, and it would give us an unique perspective on Steve Jobs and his legacy. [Via TechCrunch]
Daily iPad App: Storyist for iPad
I know what you're probably thinking: "Steve's blogging about a writing tool and it's not even NaNoWriMo time yet!" As true as that may be, there's a version of the powerful Storyist writing app now available for iPad, and I just had to write about it whether or not November is near. Storyist for iPad (US$9.99) isn't as robust as the $59 Mac version, but I found that the app is perfect for my creative writing. If you're a novelist, a script writer, or just someone who wants to hammer out your own creative thoughts, Storyist for iPad is going to make your day. Launching Storyist on your iPad brings up a My Projects page. To aid new users in the process of figuring out the app, Storyist includes a Getting Started document consisting of a 21-page guide, novel and screenplay example files, and a handful of images included in the examples. Like its desktop sibling, Storyist for iPad provides a powerful outliner and an "index card" feature for organizing your thoughts. There's an amazing amount of control over line indentation and paragraph and line spacing, and a full palette of fonts to choose from. Images can either be inserted into your document from the project folder or from your photo library. The editor supports rich text, comments, footers, headers and style sheets. For manuscripts and screenplays, the text is automatically formatted into the generally accepted formats for submission. When working on a manuscript project, special pages for plot, character and setting descriptions are created for authors to reference when they've forgotten the details. The app syncs with Dropbox with a tap, and the files are compatible with Storyist for Mac. Other import and export formats include RTF, Plain Text, and Final Draft v8. Since many writers would gag at the thought of having to crank out a novel or screenplay on a virtual keyboard, the app works seamlessly with Bluetooth wireless keyboards. For doing updates to manuscripts and screenplays on the run, I can't think of a better writing tool, and for ten bucks Storyist for iPad is a bargain.
Russell still writing Uncharted flick, talks picks for Elena
The push-and-pull saga of the Uncharted film adaptation continues, as David O. Russell has informed Empire Online that he's still working on the script (despite reports to the contrary). He also reaffirmed that he wants both Mark Wahlberg and Robert De Niro to star in the film. Speaking of the film's female roles, Russell noted that he has "cultivated" the character of Elena "quite a bit." Said Russell, "I love the woman characters and the more robust they are, the more robust the movie." When asked if Amy Adams would fit the role, Russell stated that he would "love" her in the part (Adams recently worked with Russell on The Fighter). Another name mentioned by Russell: One Scarlett Johansson. Of course, Russell seems to be overlooking the obvious. One word: Streep. Come on David, she's box office gold!
Iomega ScreenPlay DX HD and TV Link DX HD stream 1080p
You know what the world needs? Yet another HD video media streamer, or two of them in the case of Iomega. The ScreenPlay DX HD (pictured) and lesser ScreenPlay TV Link DX HD just made their inaugural appearance on Iomega's home page along side a big "coming soon!" banner. At the moment, we only have specs for the DX HD revealing 1080p video playback over HDMI, up to 2TB of storage, DLNA certification, Ethernet jack and WiFi adapter, optical audio jack, component and composite video, and 2x USB jacks up front and 2x on the back. It also boasts a potentially useful QWERTY remote; Netflix, Mediafly, and Pandora integration; and a healthy dose of audio and video codecs / containers including H.264, WMV, RMVB, MPEG-1/2/4 (part 2, ASP), DivX, DivX Plus HD (MKV), XviD, AVI(Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), ISO, VOB, MP4, MOV, and MKV. No pricing yet but these should get properly official with pricing and ship date any day now. %Gallery-112513%
Found Footage: How to write a screenplay on the iPad
Nate and Biagio over at jokeandbiagio.com have come up with a Pages hack for writing screenplays on the iPad. At this time, there are a few iPhone apps for writing screenplays, but none of them exist in an iPad version... yet. As you can see in the video above, the solution that these two Hollywood hotshots have come up with is not perfect -- they gripe about the lack of the toolbar in landscape mode in Pages for iPad as much as I do -- but it proves that screenwriting on the iPad can be done. Nate came up with a template in the Mac version of Pages '09 that includes a bunch of screenplay styles, such as CH for character, PA for parenthetical, SL for slug, AC for action, TR for transition, etc... You can download the template here -- note that if you're reading this on your iPad and have Pages for iPad installed, you can open the template directly in Pages and get started on that Oscar-winning screenplay today.
Iomega CES 2010 media streaming lineup and V.Clone software hands-on
Iomega's announced multiple new storage solutions here at CES, and we just got a chance to go hands-on with all the new stuff. They've definitely brought more than just vanilla hard drives and NAS's this year, so read on past the break for a quick rundown of the notable features on the latest from the storage giant, and be sure to check out the full gallery below. %Gallery-82153%
Iomega ScreenPlay Director HD media player gets busy with CinemaNow
Iomega's making a Full HD play for the living room at CES with the introduction of its new ScreenPlay Director device. The 1TB HD media player brings a bevy of TV connectivity options including HDMI composite video, component, and more. It's also DLNA- and DivX-certificated in addition to boasting H.264, WMV, AVCHD and MKV format support at 1080p. A trio of USB ports give you room for external capacity growth while baked in 10/100 Ethernet (or optional 802.11n USB WiFi Adapter) gets the pup online where you can rent or buy movies from CinemaNow or browse content on Flickr, YouTube, Shoutcast radio, and RSS feeds. ScreenPlay Director HD lists for $250 when it goes on sale, well, today if you order through Dell.
Robert Rodat to write the Warcraft screenplay
Sam Raimi spoke with MTV News about his upcoming Warcraft movie, and while he didn't confirm (or deny, we guess) the whole subtitle thing, he did mention a new writer. Robert Rodat is apparently putting a screenplay together -- he's best known for writing Saving Private Ryan (and of course if we can get a Warcraft movie as good as that Spielbergian epic, we'll all be happy), and he's also penned Fly Away Home and The Patriot. Most recently, says his Wikipedia page, he did some work on 10,000 B.C., though if you saw that movie, you probably wouldn't be able to tell, anyway -- it was terrible.Raimi says he wants to stay faithful "to the Horde and the Alliance and the mythology that takes place in the game," as well as "choose one or some of the lands that are portrayed in the game with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible." He calls Rodat a great character writer, and says a great character-based story within the world of Azeroth is his goal. Sounds good. The picture above is the only art we've ever seen of the movie (it was presented at BlizzCon a few years ago), but since then, it sounds like the movie has changed quite a bit, so we'll have to wait and see what Rodat and Raimi are coming up with.
InFocus' SP8602 projector puts the ScreenPlay line back on the map
It's been a long time since InFocus has brought out a beamer under the ScreenPlay name, but the SP8602 is coming out guns blazing at CEDIA. The 1080p DarkChip DLP boasts a 30,000:1 contrast, but can also crank out 1,300 lumens for when viewing must compete with that big ball of fire in the sky. The SP8602 is packed with good tech, including a six-segment color wheel, TI's BrilliantColor, 10-bit video processing from PixelWorks and 120-Hz support to make sure the images thrown up on the big screen are eye-poppingly good. Heck, it's even ready if said screen is less than perfect -- vertical and horizontal lens shifts, automatic image flipping (ceiling mount is where it's at) and warping functions (don't use them unless you have to) should pretty much be able to deliver square images to all but the most compromised situations. Available in late October, but you'll have to hit up your dealer for pricing.
TUAW Review: Storyist 2.0, a professional's writing tool
Over the past several months, we've been publishing a series of reviews of writer's tools (last year we posted some great writing tools for students). While a few of the tools that have been covered in depth have been minimalist writing environments such as WriteRoom, there are more powerful and complete writer's tools that are available for Mac users. One of those tools is the recently updated Storyist 2.0 (US$59 as a download, or US$29 upgrade from a previous version) from Storyist Software. This application is very complete, with capabilities for completely planning out a story before writing it, as well as managing the writing process while the story is under construction. I started testing this application a while back, and actually had a lot of my review written before it became stale and disappeared from our queue of posts. The reason it took me so long to write the review is that Storyist works differently from my brain, and it took me a while to get used to it as a tool. Every writer has his or her own particular style of writing, and I find that pre-planning the writing process just doesn't work very well for me. I prefer to jump in and start writing, but want a way to capture important information about characters, settings, and plot points so I can refer to them later. Storyist can also be used for this method of writing, so I found it to be more useful to me after learning how to navigate its many features. %Gallery-70366%
Gary Whitta worked on a Warcraft screenplay
You'll notice that I surreptitiously left the question of "screenwriter" out of the other day's Breakfast Topic. That's because, quite frankly, I have no idea who I want writing the Warcraft movie. The folks I really like in Hollywood are probably too quirky to write an epic movie like this, and the folks who usually write these epic movies are too lame to handle a world like Warcraft. In my mind, only someone like Metzen should wield the pen for this one, and even then, his strengths lie in creating universes, not dialog. So I have no idea.But apparently there's already a screenplay being worked on: with the news that Sam Raimi is taking the helm, screenwriter Gary Whitta (who's written both for games and movies) says he'd been working with both Legendary and Blizzard on crafting a screenplay that included both the sprawling world and a story that would resonate with non-players. But he says that since Raimi took over, it's likely the whole thing will go in another direction, as "his own pretty specific vision of what he wanted to do story-wise." Whitta does say, however, that, from what he's heard, "Raimi is the best possible director for this." Sounds good to us.It'll be quite a tightrope to walk: depending on what Legendary actually wants out of the film, they've got to make the story interesting and pressing enough that even non-WoW players will get into it without ruining and/or ignoring the reason why there are so many players in the first place: the lush and intriguing universe we've all enjoyed playing in. Anyone tasked with putting together a script that uses all of those blocks to build something great will have quite a job ahead of them.[via Blue's News]
Rumor: Partial script for Driver film adaptation leaked
"DRIVER, 25, a test driver for Audi Germany in his mid-twenties -- a little Beckham, a little McQueen -- with munchy hair and intense blue eyes that show a focus that's laser-like."These precious words constitute the first sentence of the Roger Avary-crafted screenplay for the (currently on-hold) film adaptation of the Driver series. The first five pages of the "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL" script (written circa fall 2006) were recently leaked to superannuation, an anonymous (but extremely reliable) gaming news source. We have no idea who did the leaking, nor are we entirely certain of the script's veracity. Still -- a blogger can dream. If you have the literate faculties to do so, please take the time to lose yourself in this all too brief masterpiece.Update: The mastermind behind superannuation contacted us, informing us that he (or she?) was the one who actually discovered the script. Good find, sir! (Or madam!)
The Daily Grind: Movies based on MMOs
Word is that there will be a new Conan movie next year, and that Age of Conan will tie in with it. Of course, the movie isn't based on Age of Conan; both are independently based on Robert E. Howard's pulp fiction stories. Nevertheless, the Massively office is now full of ideas for MMO-based movies.There have been rumors of EverQuest and World of Warcraft films in the past. Some would say there's a fundamental problem with the idea though: there's no story to adapt! Let's face it: movies adapted from computer and video games have usually been pretty damned terrible. But if there is a disconnect between the two different styles of storytelling, then maybe MMOs are the perfect games to adapt to film. Since they only provide a setting, screenwriters, directors, and producers can create a medium-appropriate story of their own.Then again, isn't that what they do most of the time anyway? What do you think; could an MMO be adapted into a good movie? Why or why not? And if it can, which virtual would would you lke to see on the silver screen?
Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link adds BYO storage multimedia playback to any TV
Although it seems like every TV shipping recently comes with USB ports and DivX compatibility packed in, if all you want is the ability to plug in a drive and play, the Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link may be right for you. Equipped with the same HDMI / component / composite outputs plus WAV, WMA, MPEG-1/2/4, MP3, OGG, AC3, AVI, DivX, XviD and JPEG file formats as the ScreenPlay HD, this unit forgoes the 500GB hard drive -- a far cry from the old ScreenPlay days when it was just a HDD -- in favor of a sleek 3.26 x 3.07 x .78-inch profile weighing less than 4 oz. Plug in your USB flash drive or FAT32 or NTFS formatted HDD and play or upconvert SD content up to 1080i with no problem. Granted it doesn't have the power of a full-fledged media streamer but as a $99.95 take-anywhere box (available now in the U.S., Europe later this month) it's probably worth a look.
Iomega's 500GB ScreenPlay HD multimedia drive touts HDMI
As the multimedia hard drive market continues to quietly swell in the shadows, recently-acquired Iomega is making sure it keeps pace with the competition by giving its long-standing ScreenPlay HD a few attractive extras. The unit has certainly come a long ways since its 60GB days, now packing a full half-terabyte of space, an HDMI port and component / composite connections to boot. Furthermore, the drive understands WAV, WMA, MPEG-1/2/4, MP3, OGG, AC3, AVI, DivX, XviD and JPEG file formats, upconverts SD content to 720p / 1080i and even comes bundled with a remote to keep your hindquarters firmly planted. Not too shabby for $218.45, but just make sure you've got a place laid out to hide this thing from straying eyes. [Via EverythingUSB]
Xbox Live: Hollywood's new "Let's do lunch"?
It used to be that a producer couldn't sit down at a hip Hollywood bistro without some aspiring waiter thrusting a screenplay in his hands. Nowadays, the unsolicited pitches may be coming through an Xbox Live headset instead.Variety has an interesting piece on the rise of Xbox Live matches as networking opportunities for the young Hollywood elite. The author is part of a regular group of Hollywood insiders that gathers every Thursday night for Gears of War and Fight Night matches. The players say that Xbox Live provide a casual, fun way to make a lasting connection with a colleague. "I can't tell you how many times I have come out of a meeting, and while we're validating parking, we swap gamertags" said studio executive Jeff Katz. "But only if it was a good meeting and I want to talk to the person again."Not only that, but the untamed wilds of Xbox Live can provide some good cultural research for screenwriters. Troy writer David Benioff says the profanity-filled chat channels during his online matches provide "an easy way to research the slang that today's 14-year-olds use when they curse." Thus proving that even the chocolate milk kid can serve an important social purpose.[Via DigitalMediaWire]
