Ever present present
Brian Knutson wrote a great piece about how the goddamn web is hijacking your future self. How when you step in front of the screen with the best intentions in ... Read on
The whodunnit?
Why not the whydunnit? ... Read on
Self-delusional
How can Don Simpson be blind to the reality that his life is falling apart around him? How can he not see he his killing himself? How can he be ... Read on
Word up, down and across
If a picture is worth a thousands words, then what’s a word worth? A thousand pictures? A million sentiments? How many emotions can a thousand words ... Read on
LOS ANGELES – ELEPHANT BAR – NIGHT
PRODUCER You know Hemingway said the first draft of anything is shit. DIRECTOR I’m not sure I should take the advice of a man who blew his head off with his favorite ... Read on
Words on a screen
Everyone is blabbing on about digital slates and ebook readers and electronic print and whatnot. Everyone seems more than happy to pour words that have been written for one medium ... Read on
Don Simpson’s dramatic question
Will Don Simpson discover what killed him? Open on his death and biopic his way through his life to see how he arrived at the end of it. Everyone presumes ... Read on
What if there is no heaven?
What if after you die you wake up in the same house you lived in? With only the people you know to have been bad living around you. ... Read on
List three world events that happened during your screenplay
Juxtapose these events to define the plot and make the story more concrete. Play off the real to create something more real. ... Read on
Don Simpson’s bedside table
Mount up the empty peanut butter jars, empty jelly jars, empty wine bottle, corkscrew, scripts and whatever else is lying around beside his king size bed to form a ... Read on
The Super Olympics
It’s time for the future of sports. I’m tired of these half-assed athletes who aren’t prepared to go all the way for their sport. I want super human achievement. If ... Read on
Don Simpson’s secret
What is Don Simpson’s deep dark secret? Maybe it’s that when he’s all alone in the dark, all alone where no one can see him, he reads the ... Read on
Blind spot
Don Simpson can’t see that everything he hates in everyone else is what he hates most about himself. How does he come to realize this? When he falls in ... Read on
What is the protagonist’s fatal flaw?
What is the one trait the protagonist keeps repeating over and over (with less and less success) until they realize they need to react in a different way to ... Read on
Don Simpson’s fatal flaw(s)
The man had so many flaws it’s hard to pick just one. He was aggressive, shallow, arrogant, boorish, greedy, selfish, reckless, loud, brash. He was a wild man, a ... Read on
What’s the main dramatic tension?
What will carry us through to the end of act two (and then see us through to the end)? Maybe it’s the story of how a hateful man comes ... Read on
Don’t dodge the mistakes
The mistakes are not just part of the story. They are the story. The obstacles, fuck ups, twists, objections, problems, doubts, concerns, blunders, slips, trips and falls. Even ... Read on
Notes, notes, and more notes
Hell, I’m drowning in notes. Pages after pages. Thousands upon thousands of words. Need to get them into some semblance of order. Just roughly chronological for the ... Read on
Don Simpson – Hollywood tour guide
Simpson could stand anywhere in Hollywood and tell you a Hollywood story about what happened on that spot. ... Read on
Stop thinking
Start writing. (You know, let those fingers play that keyboard.) ... Read on
My kingdom for a narrative mode
Hmmm, just can’t seem to land the plane on the narrative style for the damn Don Simpson novel. Read the novelization of Sidney Lumet’s “Network” (written by Paddy Chayefsky) and ... Read on
Consider how the cultural context of any story can be another character
Consider how in Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” the German invasion of Paris functions like a character – a villain or catalyst to push the lovers apart, and later how the ... Read on
Don Simpson died January 19, 1996
It was a Friday. The same day an Indonesian ferry sinks off the northern tip of Sumatra, drowning more than 100 people. On January 7 one of the worst ... Read on
Problem > complications > third act resolution
Don’t make it hard on yourself. Keep it simple. Open with a problem the protagonist wants to solve then load up one damn complication and dilemma after the other ... Read on
Don Simpson had been a cocaine freak for years, without apparent problems
He had it under control. The blow just kept him firing and moving. But years of cocaine can often lead to paranoia, delusions and depression. More to ... Read on
La dolce sette
There are many theories about Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and the number seven. They say Fellini used the seven deadly sins as a rough outline, that he set it ... Read on
In the middle of a meeting
Don Simpson reached San Francisco in the late 1960s, which is about as close to the Baptist hell as anywhere on earth. He was working for a showbusiness advertising agency ... Read on
You’ll be reborn
“Fellini: I’m a Born Liar” is a 2002 French feature documentary written and directed by Damian Pettigrew. It’s based on Federico Fellini’s last interviews filmed by Pettigrew in Rome in ... Read on
Bad boy
That Don Simpson was a very bad boy in Anchorage is not in doubt. But he left at the requisite age to attend the University of Oregon, where he ... Read on
An erotic scene
Federico Fellini directs an erotic scene from “Fellini Satyricon”, shaping the performances of three beautiful young actors with his hands, caressing the air as he croons instructions to first ... Read on
Simpson memo
“The pursuit of making money is the only reason to make movies. “We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. ... Read on
Fellini is a born liar
“For me, the things that are the most real are the ones I invented. “I invented my youth, my family, my relationships with women and with life. I’m a ... Read on
What does Simpson believe in?
“I don’t believe in the auteur theory. The movie is the auteur. It tells us what it needs to be. We’re here to serve the movie ... Read on
RIMINI – GRAND HOTEL – BALLROOM – 1993
It’s late. Everyone has left. Federico is by himself, alone. He sits down at the grand piano and plays a single note. He looks down and with ... Read on
$60,000 a month
According to reporter Charles Fleming, Simpson’s prescription drug expenses were over $60,000 a month at the time of his death. ... Read on
What does Fellini believe in?
“I believe in prayers and miracles.” ... Read on
Nonna
So I’m writing and thinking and jotting and sketching and scening and toying and playing with Fellini and my nonna calls from Italy. And I scramble to find my Italian ... Read on
Giulietta e Federico
A film on the last year of Federico Fellini’s life. Something along the lines of “Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna”, the mythical film he would never make. The script ... Read on
Don Simpson died like a rock star
Elvis specifically, keeling over from a drug overdose on his toilet with a book in his hand. Simpson’s friends had seen it coming – his own doctor, Steven Ammerman, had ... Read on
How Felliniesque
Federico Fellini died in Rome on Halloween Day, October 31, 1993. He left the world a more interesting and beautiful place. He is greatly missed my many people around the ... Read on
LOS ANGELES – CAA OFFICES – BATHROOM – 1993
Joe Eszterhas and Don Simpson are standing at the urinal, pissing. It’s not meant to be a competition. But Simpson is on a roll and he’s not ... Read on
Paramount’s micro-micromanagement
More troubling for screenwriters in the 1980s, Paramount’s micro-micromanagement seemed to work. Barry Diller and Michael Eisner hired additional staff, ambitious young Jeffrey Katzenberg as Diller’s assistant, for example, with ... Read on
Nino’s secret
After Nino Rota’s funeral in the little church of Sant’Agostino in the centre of Rome, Suso Cecchi d’Amico asks Federico to come home with her “as a witness.” She has ... Read on
Nineteen forty-six was a jubilee year for the movie industry
Marc Norman recounts that the boys were home, were dating girls; three-fourths of the American population – minus the very young, the old, the ill, and the incarcerated – ... Read on
Poetic neorealism
Federico Fellini went from neorealism to a kind of poetic neorealism to a very honest look on society. In all, the influential film director made 23 films including “Le Notti ... Read on
LOS ANGELES – BEVERLY HILLS – ROMANOFF’S RESTAURANT – 1948
Writer-Director Billy Wilder is lashing into his chocolate soufflé, laughing. Producer Samuel Goldwyn is gently shaking his head, smiling and sharing his chocolate soufflé with his wife, Frances. ... Read on
Just one single shot
What would Fellini like to have done with a movie? “I would like to get once and for all at the essence of cinema and the complete movie, as I ... Read on
Nathanael West had always been a distracted driver
In New York, driving into the city for a meeting, he once ran eleven consecutive traffic signals after leaving the Lincoln Tunnel and eventually crashed into a cab; his ... Read on
Rather than ruination
Marc Norman remembers that Jerry Wald and the Epsteins, twin brothers Phillip and Julius, went back to mid-1930s New York. Wald was writing a column for a New ... Read on
Ahhh, the quieting of the mind
I notice that before I sit down to write a quick story, I seem compelled to perform a series of meaningless task loaded with meaning. I’m worrying because I need ... Read on
Fellini never liked to watch his own films
“When I’m forced to see one of my own movies, I feel the same discomfort as when I catch a glimpse of myself in a store window, a large, ... Read on
Keeping secrets
Make sure every character has a secret they want no one else to know. Especially whoever is in the scene with them. Make the secret enlarge the theme, make it ... Read on
Consolidate my thoughts
Consolidate my work and the myriad (aggh, did I just say that) of projects Edit them. Jesus, you know how to edit. Cut out the stuff you don’t want. ... Read on
Fellini road trip
A Fellini film following him and mystic author Carlos Castaneda on their great road trip south of the border. A film about wanting to make a film. Strange phone calls, ... Read on