“There’s a reason your name is on the front of the script”
Richard Gadd, Gurinder Chadha, Matt Charman, Thea Sharrock, James Watkins and Tony Grisoni on endurance and the long game. BFI Southbank, London 2026.
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“He loves outlining. I hate outlining.”
The (500) Days of Summer writers, interviewed the same night 3,000 miles apart, on how they met, the outlining split and twenty years of writing apart.
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“Don’t wait for permission”
Christina Pickworth, Zoe Ross, Queenie Miller and more on what makes them keep reading a script. The first panel of State of the Story London 2026 at the BFI.
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“You can’t smell your own cologne”
Neil Marshall, Joe Barton, Charmaine DeGraté, Monica Beletsky and Joy C. Mitchell on finding your voice, handling notes and pitching. BFI Southbank, London 2026.
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“You are a store. You probably want to sell more than one product.”
Franklin Leonard of the Black List with an agent, a manager, a producer and a development exec on what actually gets a writer represented. Los Angeles 2026.
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“I always thought it was about taking. It ends up being about giving.”
Paris Barclay, John Quaintance, Alison Flierl and Hayden Schlossberg on rejection, calling cards and the notes you should actually listen to. Los Angeles 2026.
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“There’s no place in the world where you can starve from all the compliments except Hollywood”
Diablo Cody, Cord Jefferson, Graham Moore, Nia Vardalos and the writers of KPop Demon Hunters on breaking through by ignoring the advice. Los Angeles 2026.
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“All you need is a final draft and a dream”
Kailey Marsh, Noah Ballard and Adam Kolbrenner on what they do for clients, what attracts them to material and what makes them stop. New York 2025.
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“No one in movie prison thinks they’re there for a crime”
Candace Bushnell, Warren Leight, Robert and Michelle King and David Guggenheim on series ideas, notes and pitching badly. State of the Story, New York 2025.
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“I had failed continuously for ten years”
Tony Kushner, Celine Song, Lee Daniels and Michael Arndt on calling, ego and the cost of the work. Nine Oscar nominations on one stage, New York 2025.
