35 - The Disney Dilemma

May 1, 2012

On the 35th episode of Scriptnotes, John and Craig discuss the small, currently leaderless world of Walt Disney Studios, along with its challenges and opportunities.

With so many of Disney's distribution slots taken up by DreamWorks, Marvel, Pixar and Bruckheimer, whoever gets the job of chief probably won't be making many movies on his or her own. Yet the Disney brand is one of the only ones that still means something to ticket-buyers, so finding a way to make Disney movies feels like a priority.

A discussion of Gregory Poirier's recent article on misguided cost-cutting segues to a letter from a veteran Hollywood screenwriter frustrated by just how bad studio development has gotten. That's followed by more listener questions:

• What distinguishes a well-developed character from a flat one?

• How should a recent college graduate from Colorado go about starting a screenwriting career?

• Where do pitches come from?

• How long should it take for your agent to return your call?

John extols his favorite site for sheet music, while Craig gets nostalgic for his first real computer, the Franklin Ace 1000.

All this and more on Scriptnotes: A podcast about parking, and things that are interesting to parkers.

LINKS:

• John's post on Gregory Poirier's article
• Jason Robert Brown on copyright and fighting with teenagers
• Musicnotes version of Jar of Hearts
• Craig's first computer, the Franklin Ace 1000
• INTRO: Wonderful World of Disney intro
• OUTRO: HardChord DynaMix - Jar of Creep

UPDATE 5-4-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.