The Strength of the Reluctant Hero

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Courage is not the absence of

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Movies I Like: Tootsie

 




Anyone who has read my first book, Invisible Ink, knows how highly I think of Tootsie. It was one of the many standout films—along with E.T., The Verdict, and Gandhi—that were released in 1982.

I am going to talk here, as I have with other films I like, about how impressed I am with the laser focus of this film. It is a story that aims directly at its thematic target and hits a bulls-eye

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Isolation of Interest: More thoughts on Learning

 If you ever want to get better at learning, become a teacher—you will see all of the things people do that stop themselves from learning. One thing we do that blocks us from learning is that we listen/read with an agenda. In magic this is called isolation of interest.
Here is a story I have told before, but to make a different point, about a magician who was teaching a class on magic in Las

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Movies I Like: Sunset Boulevard

“Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.”—Billy Wilder, talking about the audience.



The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and The Fortune Cookie are just some of the classic films co-written and directed by the great Billy

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Mountain Music -- The Movie

Last year I was asked to direct a three-minute documentary for MTV. This was for their show $5 Cover and the short films were companion pieces called B-sides. Several filmmakers made shorts for the show and as far as I know MTV has never done anything with them.

They wanted us to do something about the Seattle music scene, but not a typical Seattle music story. So my producing partner and I

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Movies I Like: Shadow of a Doubt

Alfred Hitchcock’s directing career spanned form 1922 to 1976: 54 years. He started with silent film and saw the advancements of sound (he made the first British talkie), color and even 3-D within his lifetime. And he was a master of filmmaking almost from the beginning.



Some of his classic films include Blackmail, The Lodger, Rope, Strangers on a Train, Lifeboat, Dial M for Murder, The Man

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A Lesson From Paddy Chayefsky

“When you ask a writer what their story’s about and they give you plot you’re in trouble.”—a paraphrased quote by director Sidney Pollack.

In the 1950s Paddy Chayefsky made a huge splash with a teleplay he had written called Marty. Marty would then become a hit movie and an Academy Award winner.

Chayefsky wrote many things of note in television, film, and theater. He was a writer’s writer (

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Another Movie I Like

William Goldman, who wrote the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is one of the most respected screenwriters in the history of the medium, and this film is one of the reasons. It has left an imprint on the “buddy picture” that has not diminished since its 1969 release.

What I love about this movie is that it has a laser focus—it knows what it’s about. Goldman knows his theme and

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Changing the Verb

Last season I was a writer for the show Hoarders. That’s the A&E reality show about people who are compulsive hoarders and the problems it causes them and their loved ones.

How does one “ write” a reality show, one might ask.

Well, what we did is look through all of the footage and transcripts of the 40 hours of tape, find the story there, and reduce it to 22 minutes. Hard work. But we were

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My new book is out(ish)!

I know some of you out there have been waiting for my new book The Golden Theme, well it’s sort of here. What I mean is that it is available for pre-order on Amazon. It will be a week or two before you can hold it your hot little hands, but you can order it right now.


Sorry, Amazon takes a while to put up a cover image for some reason.
Anyway, this is from the foreword by National Book Award

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A Few Thoughts on Learning

 “Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin








Before I start this blog post I will warn you that there is a little bit of swearing and a bit of imagery that may be slightly off-putting to some. But I think the lesson of this post is an important one and worth the risk of offending.
I am often taken aback by students and others I talk to who

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You don't know what you don't know

"Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects."  ~Will Rogers


In my life I have known many artists who dismiss the idea of structure when it comes to art – and with stories in particular. It doesn’t feel organic for them to work with a plan or to impose a form on their art. They believe that their art will lose emotional power. This is a mistake.

I was once invited to see the one-woman

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Happy Birthday, Scott!

This is not my regular kind of post. Today would have been the birthday of my good friend Scott, whom I met 30 years ago. And since this is also the 30th Anniversary year for The Empire Strikes Back I thought I would post this short documentary I made in his honor one more time. If you are tired of seeing it I apologize.


Flickering Images from Marcus Donner on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday,

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We Have Just Entered The Twilight Zone...

"I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply."  -- Rod Serling













This is important to me. Up until now I have tried to keep the focus of this blog on film and filmmaking with an emphasis on story construction. And this post will not stray too far from that, but you will get a view of my politics

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Working Hard for the Money

My step father once told me, when I was a kid, that what made someone a professional rather than an amateur was that they were paid for what they did.  He was wrong.
 Many people use my step father’s explanation for what makes a professional and I find that it leads to shoddy workmanship because it takes the focus off of getting good at what we do and shifts it to getting good enough to

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My Own Sixth Sense -- Why Shyamalan is Not Serling and Never Was

"OVERALL THEME LEADS TO CHARACTERS THEN ON TO PLOT"
-- Rod Serling
First let me say that I debated with myself about writing this post because I’m not particularly interested in singling out Mr. Shyamalan in such a public forum. Let me just say that there is a kind of bravery that all artists have to have because they put their work out there to be judged by just about anyone.

I have learned

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Here’s Another Movie I Like -- Norma Rae

I have many films that I love, but there are only a few I wish I had made. One of those films is Paper Moon. And then there are a few films where the pure craftsmanship brings me to the verge of tears. These films make me shake my head in admiration and disbelief at their excellence. Norma Rae is one of those.


I told someone that it was one of my favorite films, and she was surprised because

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If it's Good Enough for Mozart...

"People make a mistake who think that my art has come easily to me. Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over." -- MozartSometimes I forget just how lucky I have been on my journey of learning my craft. I have met some of the smartest and most generous people one would ever want to meet.They were

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Life: The Other Kind of Research

“I'm trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't be contained by life: Asian life, European life, certainly black life. My plays are about love, honor, duty, betrayal—things humans have written about since the beginning of time.”—August Wilson

August Wilson was fond of saying that he didn’t do research

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Too much of a good thing: The pitfalls of research

"If your work shows, you're in trouble." --Chuck Jones

I was once writing a script on a particular topic, and as part of my research I was reading the "For Dummies"book on this subject. Someone saw me reading this book and scoffed. I took that to mean that I should have been reading a more "serious" book on the subject. Why? To avoid embarrassment? I wasn't trying to impress anyone--I was

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This Is Not a Pipe: The Value of Research

Before I start I want to thank all of you who have promoted my new book on your blogs. And also thank you all very much who have bought the book. I am grateful that you think I may have something worthwhile to say to you. The response has been great. It just got a really great review on MicroFilmmaker.And now back to our regularly scheduled program…A playwright once told me that I should write

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Of course you could just wait for the movie...

Thanks, everyone, for visiting this blog. I’m still getting used to the idea that people care what I have to say. Some people hate what I say while others find it useful, but it’s just a strange feeling to have people care one way or the other. Sometimes the only way that I can muster up the courage to write this blog is to pretend to myself that no one reads it. I didn’t even want to start this

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How to be Original

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having

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