Hollyoaks script competition

Apr 8. Channel 4 is offering UK writers a chance to be commissioned to write an episode of Hollyoaks. Open to established or new writers. Deadline April 11 2008. Click here to enter.

Failure to adapt

Apr 6. Why does James (LA Confidential) Ellroy have only one great movie from his books when Elmore Leonard adaptations thrive?  Article here

The decision-makers

Apr 4. They decide if your script gets to the screen; from the head of the Film Council development fund to a top independent producer. Read about them here

Just don't mention the war

Apr 2. After Hollywood Iraq war films flop, Lionsgate's latest may be powerful enough to make a studio executive weep at an early screening, but how do you market it? Read here.

Comedy scripts top studio movies for 2008

Mar 7. Writing a comedy? Now's the time to get it finished. After a winter of bleak, epic dramas, the big money this year is on getting the audiences rolling in the aisles. Check it out here

Tough times for "creative" execs

Mar 5. Warners are closing Lord of the Rings producers New Line, with the loss of many of its 600 staff. Dreamworks may be next. The film industry, like the music industry, wants to take the money away from "creative" development executives. So what does that mean for the future? Read more

Mobile TV on the move?

Mar 4. With Channel 4 broadcasting TV "loops" of Big Brother, Skins and comedies like The IT Crowd to your mobile, their output has grown from 20 minutes, refreshed every day, to about an hour. So after years of expectation is Mobile TV finally the market to watch? Now read on. 

Sports movies are in a new ball-game

Mar 1. Once, the rules of sports films were simple, but now things are changing out there on the movie playing fields. Sort the Ferrels from the Peles here and then check out our next genre workshops to do it yourself.

Interview: Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton) on the pressures of the follow-up

Feb 29. London to Brighton (budget £60,000) made Paul Andrew Williams the latest hot young thing in British movies. Now he can greenlight the film he struggled for five years to finance, but can he cope with the pressures of success? Full interview 

Hollywood writers sign new contract

Feb 27. Hollywood writers approved a new three-year contract, ending their 100-day strike. "This is a new beginning for writers in the digital age," said WGA West. Full details

Popcorn pays for your script

Feb 26. Next time you pitch your script, or try to hear a movie over the sound of audience munching, remember that it's the concession sales that subsidise sales. Read the details, and then check out one of our pitching workshops to learn how to put the knowledge to good use.

Sex 'pivotal' to Lust, says Lee

Jan 2. BBC News. Director Ang Lee has said he would rather his sexually explicit film Lust, Caution lost money than be shown in a "compromised" form. Click here

Wal-Mart's movie download service passes into ignominy

Jan 1. San Francisco: Nearly a year ago, Wal-Mart grandly announced plans to enter the movie download business. It has exited with much less fanfare. Read more.

Did you miss... in 2007?

Dec 30. With Charlie Wilson’s War, about covert American interest in 1980s Afghanistan, The West Wing’s writer, Aaron Sorkin, and The Graduate’s director, Mike Nichols, have come out fighting – against political correctness, awards committees and TV talent shows. Full interview.

Hollywood writers strike hits YouTube

Nov 1. As the strike of Hollywood writers hits the headlines, the writers themselves have made a comedy short on the strike and posted it on YouTube. - "y'know... the Internet", as they say in the short, "the thing we don't get paid for."

Click here for "Heroes of the Writers Strike"

Oct 23. You just have to see this producer-writer sketch from Mitchell and Webb...

We've all be there, or if we haven't we will be if we hang around in the industry long enough. (OK, it's actually a publisher and a writer, but same difference). Click here and weep...

Film Council Announces New Script Development Funds

Oct 1. London: New UK Film Council Development Fund Head Tanya Seghatchian today announced the first major restructuring of the UK's most important fund for screenwriting and development since the Film Council's founding seven years ago. Full details here

US Screenwriters Strike

Oct 1. Los Angeles: US unions are poised to bring out their 12,000 screenwriting members this month. Writers Guilds of America East and West emailed members announcing they are seeking authorisation to strike when the current contract expires on October 31. If successful, it would lead to the first industry-wide action since 1988. For full details click here.

Forget Blockbusters - write Mockbusters

Oct 7. New York: Anyone for "Transmorphers", "The Da Vinci Treasure" or "Snakes on a Train"? Sound vaguely familiar? These are just three movies that made their budgets back straight to DVD while their bigger brothers hit the bigger screen. Don't think rip-off, think Mockbuster - a new way to get your low-budget script into the can. Read on 

Still Pinteresque

Oct 7. New York. The  new Sleuth movie opens, Pinter-style, and director Branagh discovers that H Pinter is no less elusive, feisty and sinister than ever. Click here (free registration may be necessary) 

These movies aren't dead, they're just sleepers

Sept. There's hope for that box-office failure yet! You'd be surprised at how many long-term hits started as short-term flops. Ken Russell writes for the Times here

How to get a job writing?
Start by not being British!

July. The majority (61%) of the writers working on 40 British films sampled by a new re-port  were not British. Most (66%) were over the age of 46 and earned “relatively high incomes”. Less surprisingly, but sadly, most were also white and male. If you want to know the truth about who writes movies in the UK and how they get their jobs, Susan Rogers’ report for the UKFC is a must read - download it from here. 

Giant Homer promo annoys pagan giant

July. Pagans are going to use “rain magic” to wash away a massive biodegradable Homer Simpson waving a doughnut next to the Cerne Abbas giant as a promo for the new Simpson's movie.  Details. 

Britain loves film and the world loves our films

July. Britain is a nation of film lovers with box office takings up 56% in the last ten years; British films are popular overseas with exports at an eleven year high; and British creative talent is in demand across the world, according to a new report published this month by the UK Film Council.

Compiled by the UK Film Council’s Research and Statistics Unit, the report presents the most comprehensive picture of the British film industry in 2006 covering everything from cinema-going and  audience taste, to exhibition and exports.  Details. 

Clash of the titans

June. Two rival scripts are currently going round Hollywood: both are dangerous and costly to make. One has Leonardo DiCaprio committed to star, the other offers director Peter Jackson. Which would you put your money on? The answer may not be what you think. Details.