First ever since Tom Benedek and I launched Screenwriting Master Class, I have been trying to figure out a way to open up that experience to as many people as possible. Based upon the curriculum we have created and the positive feedback from writers who have participated in classes there, I believe SMC is unique among online educational resources. But the courses do cost money. And every time someone emails me to say, “I wish I could take a class, but I just don’t have the resources,” that gnaws at me.

The second issue: How to create an alternate route into Hollywood for aspiring screenwriters, especially those of you who are outsiders [no industry connections]. I was a complete outsider to the movie business when I broke in, so my sensitivity to this issue is real and longstanding. Moreover it seems like every day I interface with someone who, lacking connections in Hollywood, expresses frustration about not knowing how to go about getting their foot in the door.

I have kicked around a lot of ideas over the last year, then a few months ago, I hit on something that struck me as being either brilliant — or totally nuts.

I did due diligence and consulted with many people inside the industry as well as writers who have taken classes with me, and every single one of them thought it was a great idea.

So next Monday, I will be announcing Go Into The Story: The Quest.

Bottom line: I will be looking to work with up to four writers in a 24-week Screenwriting Master Class intensive in which they will learn my comprehensive theoretical approach to the craft, then put that knowledge to use prepping and writing a full-length screenplay.

The cost? Nothing.

That’s right, a 6-month deep immersion in screenwriting theory and scriptwriting workshop where you end up with an original screenplay with me as your mentor for the entire process, and you don’t have to spend even a dime.

And if at the end of the process you have written a great script… you will have direct access to industry insiders.

Plus this little twist: Every single person who applies, even those who do not get selected for The Quest, will win something.

That’s the tease. Full details here on Monday, May 21.

Two things:

(1) Start getting your very best story concepts together. They have to be mainstream. They have to be commercial. And they have to be quality loglines.

(2) Do not contact me about The Quest before next Monday. I have nothing more to say at this point, so if you do email me about it, I simply won’t respond to your inquiry.

This is one of those ideas that feels entirely counterintuitive, but also smack dab in the middle of what I call the ‘spirit of the spec.’ Who knows. Hopefully we can create another way for aspiring screenwriters to break into the business.

Any of you out there interested?

Okay, that was a really long question. But you get the point, right? Here are some examples of what I was thinking:

* During the last year, we started a monthly GITS Script Reading & Analysis series. Some of the commentary by readers has blown me [and others] away. Is there someone out there who would want to take a lead position overseeing the analysis and commentary on that monthly series? Reading scripts is such a critically important aspect of learning the craft, I want to try to make this series a must-do activity for readers. Perhaps one or more contributors could help take it to the next level.

* Some GITS readers have been especially drawn to another series we started last year — Script To Screen. This is another important learning area, seeing how what’s on a script’s page gets translated into a movie. Is there someone who would be interested in taking a lead role in contributing to that weekly series?

* Same goes for the other series: Daily Dialogue, On Writing, Screenwriting 101, Great Characters, and so on. Perhaps you’d like to suggest some intriguing new way of approaching these. Or you just really like one of these series and would like to contribute to it in some way.

* Alternatively do you have an idea for a new series in an area that the blog is currently not covering? Something to which you could bring distinct expertise or knowledge? Happy to hear your ideas.

* I would even be up for considering someone for a recurring bi-weekly or monthly column. It would have to be something unique, something that adds value to the content here, and something that slots into the spirit of this blog.

Note: I have worked really hard to establish and maintain a specific tone on this site, so whatever and whoever I might consider as a contributor, protecting that vibe and the general flow of what transpires here day to day is priority number one.

Another note: As a bonus, the efforts of possible GITS contributors may free up more time for me to do things like conduct screenwriting interviews and write movie analysis.

Bottom line I want to explore all possible ways to improve the blog, create opportunities for readers to contribute, and use our collective talents for the benefit of all.

If nothing comes up, not a problem. I’m happy to continue manning the fort. But let’s see if any interesting possibilities come up to infuse the site with some new blood.

So if you have a great idea for something to add to the life of this blog, if you’ve been following GITS long enough to understand what it’s about, and if you’re passionate about contributing, give yourself some time to think through what you want to present, then email me… and we’ll go from there.

For all those years I kept files, some on computers, some hard copy of who sold what to whom, determining as best I could from the news sources at the time, primarily the trades.

Then along came GITS. Almost immediately I started tracking and posting Spec Script Sales as they happened. All you need to do to see the fruit of these labors is slide your cursor over to the right-hand column of this blog where you will note: 2008 Spec Script Sales Analysis, 2009 Spec Script Sales Analysis, 2010 Spec Script Sales Analysis, 2011 Spec Script Sales Analysis.

But what about all that information in my files stretching back to the early 90s? I kept intending to aggregate it all year-by-year, but my busy life kept getting in the way. It got to the point I doubted it would ever happen.

Enter two young, smart and eager Black List interns: Mikal McLendon and Evelyn Yves. I approached them with a proposition: Could you go through all these files and create a comprehensive list of spec script sales dating back to the beginning of the information I had available?

Fortunately Mikal and Evelyn said yes.

And so I am excited to announce that due to the hearty efforts of these two young people plowing through information I provided them, GITS now has a Master List of spec script sales from 1991-2012 complete with title, logline, writer, agency, and buyer. To my knowledge, no one else has this information and GITS readers will have access to it beginning in June when I will be running a month-long daily (Monday-Friday) series analyzing each year’s results and trends.

Why is this information important? Several reasons:

* As a screenwriter, now you will have a long-term view of sales trends that could help you decide what type of spec script you choose to write next.

* As a screenwriter, there may be story concepts of previously sold specs that inspire you to come up with a ‘similar but different’ idea.

* As a producer, maybe some of those old titles become projects you look into resurrecting. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of story concepts strong enough for somebody to plunk down major coin to acquire.

* As an agent or manager, you may have to reconsider some of the conventional wisdom about how the spec script market is never going to be like the ‘old days.’ Yes, there were some really hot years for spec script sales — 2 in particular — but the sales figures in 2011 and 2012 are at the high end of the annual average of sales stretching back to 1991. In other words, we may be entering a new golden age of spec scripts.

* As a movie lover, you will be amazed at what types of stories sold as specs, how many [or few] specs got produced as movies, how many of those movies succeeded or failed, and generally fill in whole gray areas of 20+ years of Hollywood history from the vantage point of writers who originated thousands of spec projects which studios and production companies acquired.

So look for that: Starting Monday, June 4th, I will be doing a daily post resulting in a complete list of every spec script that sold from 1991 through the first half of 2012. It represents a fascinating aspect of Hollywood history… and smart writers will take advantage of the information.

Thanks again to Mikal McLendon and Evelyn Yves for their initiative in helping to compile the GITS Spec Script Master List (1991-2012).

The next three posts are about some interesting things I’ve been mulling over for quite some time and are part of today’s celebration. But for this, the Official 4th Year Anniversary Post, I’d like to thank a few people.

Franklin Leonard: For reaching out to me about this time last year to begin a conversation about the state of screenwriting, then eventually inviting GITS to become the screenwriting blog of the Black List. This has put what we do here on the blog that much more front and center in the consciousness of people who influence what stories get bought and are developed in Hollywood. Moreover it has been invaluable to have Franklin’s perspective on the business as he is both incredibly knowledgeable and savvy. Finally every GITS reader should know how strongly Franklin backs what goes on here, even to the point of showing up for the first GITS Meet-Up: LA. So thank you, Franklin, and best of luck with your producing and all things Black List, arguably the most important brand in Hollywood related to screenplays.

Nate Winslow: I intersected with Nate like I’ve met everyone on this blog, through his comments. His passion for movies and desire to work in the industry made me a fan. Nate made a big move this year, relocating to LA, and started from scratch attempting to break into the movie business. Happy to say he is making solid progress. But even with all that going on, Nate has been a big help in many ways behind the scenes, and as a point person in LA. Thanks, Nate, and please remember me when you’re a big producer.

Annika Wood: A talented writer, Annika has been a supporter of the blog since early on. She has been a go-to person for me to discuss things like marketing and was instrumental in helping organize a series of extremely informative question-and-answer sessions with a select group of GITS readers when I was assessing where we were with the blog. Annika also helped put together the first GITS Meet-Up: LA. Thanks, Annika, and I can’t wait to do a Spec Script Sale announcement featuring you and your script.

Tom Benedek: A terrific writer with an incredible resume and one of the first screenwriters I met in Hollywood, Tom founded Screenwriting Master Class with me. I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished there, an extension of what goes on here only more intense, in-depth, and comprehensive in large part due to Tom’s abilities as a teacher and his contacts in the business, many of whom frequent classes Tom teaches to interface directly with students. Thanks, Tom, and congratulations on the publishing of your first novel this year “Peloponnesia”.

Chris Borrelli, Stan Chervin, F. Scott Frazier, Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer, Kyle Killen, Marc Maurino, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, Chris Sparling, John Swetnam, and Aaron Tracy: Screenwriters who were kind enough to share their thoughts about the craft this year in a series of GITS interviews including the incredible 2011 Screenwriters Roundtable. Thanks all for taking the time to do those Q&A’s. You’ve earned lots of creative juju for that and I hope it’s paying off.

Mary Coleman, head of Pixar’s story department: Another memorable interview that provided some amazing insights into the inner workings of the most successful movie production company in the history of cinema. Thanks, Mary, for spending part of two days on the phone with me and to Franklin for arranging the interview, knowing how obsessed I am with Pixar as ace storytellers.

Finally and of course, there is the GITS community. We don’t do much in the way of flash and sizzle here, just the day to day work of the craft: learning it, getting better at it, sharing ideas about it, and using practices that are grounded in what it takes to be a professional screenwriter. This year like every year, several writers who have broken into Hollywood by selling a script or getting repped, have contacted me to express their thanks for this site, how this humble little blog meant a lot to them in their journey to success. What goes on here with the posts, many of them inspired by your Tweets and emails, and the ensuing conversations are all part of that. My wish is that each of you realizes the goals to which you aspire as writers, so that next year at this time, I can acknowledge you.

Let me end with a few reminders:

1, 2, 7, 14

Read scripts. Watch movies. Write pages.

The only way out is through

Trust the process

And of course: Go into the story… and find the animals.

Onward and upward!

[Stay tuned for three posts today, each with an interesting announcement].

“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

– Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), screenplay by Horton Foote, adapted from the Harper Lee novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”

[The video clip is no longer available, so here is a classic scene from one of the greatest movies of all time.]

In 4 years, I have not missed one Daily Dialogue. But the series has evolved where for the two years or so, it’s been you who have decided the themes and most of the suggested movies. Thanks to all you DDT devotees!

Welcome to Go Into The Story! Right now, it’s nothing but a humble, threadbare blog, but I hope it will evolve into an active resource for aspiring screenwriters, as well as a community for anyone interested in storytelling and the creative life. What you may expect:

* Observations: I’ll post comments regularly about the movie and television business with a particular focus on screenwriting.

* Lectures: As an online screenwriting instructor through UCLA Extension’s Writers Program since 2002, I have written nearly 100 lectures. I am in the process of revising and updating them in order to post them here.

* Daily Dialogue: Everyday, a choice side of dialogue from a great movie with an acknowledgment to the credited screenwriters.

* Bitter Truths: Occasionally, I will post a “bitter truth,” penned by my good friend Kurt Brown and myself. Hey, it’s a tough world out there, why not wallow in its acridity!

* Screenwriting Mantras: Truisms to remember from FADE IN to FADE OUT.

I’ve got other ideas knocking around my head, but my main interest is in having an ongoing dialogue with my students and others who happen by.

So again, welcome!

I had no idea what I was getting myself into! Here we are 4 years and over 9,000 posts later. Where will the next 12 months take us?

No plot details available.

Levy is repped by UTA and Evolution Management.

By my count, this is the 47th spec script sale in 2012.

There were 38 spec sales at this point last year.

The 47th spec script did not sell last year until June 29th.

Spec script sales are up 24% year-to-date compared to 2011.

My Owner’s Wedding is a romantic comedy about two eligible young women, the man both of them want, and his dog. The latter will go to any length to make sure his owner ends up with the right girl.

Wow, is that a clean high concept. And another one just sitting there right in front of us. Kudos to Cary and Tolins for having the eyes to see it.

The writers are managed by Alan Gasmer & Friends.

By my count, this is the 46th spec script sale of 2012.

There were 38 spec sales at this point last year.

The 46th spec script did not sell last year until June 22nd.

Spec script sales are up 21% year-to-date compared to 2011.

The transcript:

Thank you very much. Madam Chancellor, members of the Board of Trustees, members of the faculty and administration, parents and friends, honored guests and graduates, thank you for inviting me to speak today at this magnificent Commencement ceremony.

There’s a story about a man and a woman who have been married for 40 years. One evening at dinner the woman turns to her husband and says, “You know, 40 years ago on our wedding day you told me that you loved me and you haven’t said those words since.” They sit in silence for a long moment before the husband says “If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.”

Well, it’s been a long time since I sat where you sit, and I can remember looking up at my teachers with great admiration, with fondness, with gratitude and with love. Some of the teachers who were there that day are here this day and I wanted to let them know that I haven’t changed my mind.

There’s another story. Two newborn babies are lying side by side in the hospital and they glance at each other. Ninety years later, through a remarkable coincidence, the two are back in the same hospital lying side by side in the same hospital room. They look at each other and one of them says, “So what’d you think?”

It’s going to be a very long time before you have to answer that question, but time shifts gears right now and starts to gain speed. Just ask your parents whose heads, I promise you, are exploding right now. They think they took you home from the maternity ward last month. They think you learned how to walk last week. They don’t understand how you could possibly be getting a degree in something today. They listened to “Cats in the Cradle” the whole car ride here.

I’d like to say to the parents that I realized something while I was writing this speech: the last teacher your kids will have in college will be me. And that thought scared the hell out of me. Frankly, you should feel exactly the same way. But I am the father of an 11-year-old daughter, so I do know how proud you are today, how proud your daughters and your sons make you every day, and that they did just learn how to walk last week, that you’ll never not be there for them, that you love them more than they’ll ever know and that it doesn’t matter how many degrees get put in their hand, they will always be dumber than you are.

And make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You’re a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You’re barely functional. There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they’re a-coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

Today is May 13th and today you graduate. Growing up, I looked at my future as a timeline of graduations in which every few years, I’d be given more freedom and reward as I passed each milestone of childhood. When I get my driver’s license, my life will be like this; when I’m a senior, my life will be like that; when I go off to college, my life will be like this; when I move out of the dorms, my life will be like that; and then finally, graduation. And on graduation day, I had only one goal left, and that was to be part of professional theater. We have this in common, you and I—we want to be able to earn a living doing what we love. Whether you’re a writer, mathematician, engineer, architect, butcher, baker or candlestick maker, you want an invitation to the show.

Today is May 13th, and today you graduate, and today you already know what I know: to get where you’re going, you have to be good, and to be good where you’re going, you have to be damned good. Every once in a while, you’ll succeed. Most of the time you’ll fail, and most of the time the circumstances will be well beyond your control.

When we were casting my first movie, “A Few Good Men,” we saw an actor just 10 months removed from the theater training program at UCLA. We liked him very much and we cast him in a small, but featured role as an endearingly dimwitted Marine corporal. The actor had been working as a Domino’s Pizza delivery boy for 10 months, so the news that he’d just landed his first professional job and that it was in a new movie that Rob Reiner was directing, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, was met with happiness. But as is often the case in show business, success begets success before you’ve even done anything, and a week later the actor’s agent called. The actor had been offered the lead role in a new, as-yet-untitled Milos Forman film. He was beside himself. He felt loyalty to the first offer, but Forman after all was offering him the lead. We said we understood, no problem, good luck, we’ll go with our second choice. Which, we did. And two weeks later, the Milos Forman film was scrapped. Our second choice, who was also making his professional debut, was an actor named Noah Wyle. Noah would go on to become one of the stars of the television series “ER” and hasn’t stopped working since. I don’t know what the first actor is doing, and I can’t remember his name. Sometimes, just when you think you have the ball safely in the end zone, you’re back to delivering pizzas for Domino’s. Welcome to the NFL.

In the summer of 1983, after I graduated, I moved to New York to begin my life as a struggling writer. I got a series of survival jobs that included bartending, ticket-taking, telemarketing, limo driving, and dressing up as a moose to pass out leaflets in a mall. I ran into a woman who’d been a senior here when I was a freshman. I asked her how it was going and how she felt Syracuse had prepared her for the early stages of her career. She said, “Well, the thing is, after three years you start to forget everything they taught you in college. But once you’ve done that, you’ll be fine.” I laughed because I thought it was funny and also because I wanted to ask her out, but I also think she was wrong.

As a freshman drama student—and this story is now becoming famous—I had a play analysis class—it was part of my requirement. The professor was Gerardine Clark. (applause) If anybody was wondering, the drama students are sitting over there (applause). The play analysis class met for 90 minutes twice a week. We read two plays a week and we took a 20-question true or false quiz at the beginning of the session that tested little more than whether or not we’d read the play. The problem was that the class was at 8:30 in the morning, it met all the way down on East Genesee, I lived all the way up at Brewster/Boland, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but from time to time the city of Syracuse experiences inclement weather. All this going to class and reading and walking through snow, wind chill that’s apparently powered by jet engines, was having a negative effect on my social life in general and my sleeping in particular. At one point, being quizzed on “Death of a Salesman,” a play I had not read, I gave an answer that indicated that I wasn’t aware that at the end of the play the salesman dies. And I failed the class. I had to repeat it my sophomore year; it was depressing, frustrating and deeply embarrassing. And it was without a doubt the single most significant event that occurred in my evolution as a writer. I showed up my sophomore year and I went to class, and I paid attention, and we read plays and I paid attention, and we discussed structure and tempo and intention and obstacle, possible improbabilities, improbable impossibilities, and I paid attention, and by God when I got my grades at the end of the year, I’d turned that F into a D. I’m joking: it was pass/fail.

But I stood at the back of the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington watching a pre-Broadway tryout of my plays, knowing that when the curtain came down, I could go back to my hotel room and fix the problem in the second act with the tools that Gerry Clark gave me. Eight years ago, I was introduced to Arthur Miller at a Dramatists Guild function and we spent a good part of the evening talking. A few weeks later when he came down with the flu he called and asked if I could fill in for him as a guest lecturer at NYU. The subject was “Death of a Salesman.” You made a good decision coming to school here.

I’ve made some bad decisions. I lost a decade of my life to cocaine addiction. You know how I got addicted to cocaine? I tried it. The problem with drugs is that they work, right up until the moment that they decimate your life. Try cocaine, and you’ll become addicted to it. Become addicted to cocaine, and you will either be dead, or you will wish you were dead, but it will only be one or the other. My big fear was that I wasn’t going to be able to write without it. There was no way I was going to be able to write without it. Last year I celebrated my 11-year anniversary of not using coke. (applause) Thank you. In that 11 years, I’ve written three television series, three movies, a Broadway play, won the Academy Award and taught my daughter all the lyrics to “Pirates of Penzance.” I have good friends.

You’ll meet a lot of people who, to put it simply, don’t know what they’re talking about. In 1970 a CBS executive famously said that there were four things that we would never, ever see on television: a divorced person, a Jewish person, a person living in New York City and a man with a moustache. By 1980, every show on television was about a divorced Jew who lives in New York City and goes on a blind date with Tom Selleck.

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt. My junior and senior years at Syracuse, I shared a five-bedroom apartment at the top of East Adams with four roommates, one of whom was a fellow theater major named Chris. Chris was a sweet guy with a sly sense of humor and a sunny stage presence. He was born out of his time, and would have felt most at home playing Mickey Rooney’s sidekick in “Babes on Broadway.” I had subscriptions back then to Time and Newsweek. Chris used to enjoy making fun of what he felt was an odd interest in world events that had nothing to do with the arts. I lost touch with Chris after we graduated and so I’m not quite certain when he died. But I remember about a year and a half after the last time I saw him, I read an article in Newsweek about a virus that was burning its way across the country. The Centers for Disease Control was calling it “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” or AIDS for short. And they were asking the White House for $35 million for research, care and cure. The White House felt that $35 million was way too much money to spend on a disease that was only affecting homosexuals, and they passed. Which I’m sure they wouldn’t have done if they’d known that $35 million was a steal compared to the $2 billion it would cost only 10 years later.

Am I saying that Chris would be alive today if only he’d read Newsweek? Of course not. But it seems to me that more and more we’ve come to expect less and less of each other, and that’s got to change. Your friends, your family, this school expect more of you than vocational success.

Today is May 13th and today you graduate and the rules are about to change, and one of them is this: Decisions are made by those who show up. Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world.

Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance—and since you’re walking into the middle of a presidential election, it’s worth mentioning that you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy. Unless they went to Georgetown, in which case, they can go to hell. (Laughter)

Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.

Rehearsal’s over. You’re going out there now, you’re going to do this thing. How you live matters. You’re going to fall down, but the world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.

For the class of 2012, I wish you joy. I wish you health and happiness and success, I wish you a roof, four walls, a floor and someone in your life that you care about more than you care about yourself. Someone who makes you start saying “we” where before you used to say “I” and “us” where you used to say “me.” I wish you the quality of friends I have and the quality of colleagues I work with. Baseball players say they don’t have to look to see if they hit a home run, they can feel it. So I wish for you a moment—a moment soon—when you really put the bat on the ball, when you really get a hold of one and drive it into the upper deck, when you feel it. When you aim high and hit your target, when just for a moment all else disappears, and you soar with wings as eagles. The moment will end as quickly as it came, and so you’ll have to have it back, and so you’ll get it back no matter what the obstacles. A lofty prediction, to be sure, but I flat out guarantee it.

Today is May 13th, and today you graduate, and my friends, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Thank you, and congratulations.

“Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.”

Awesome.

HT to Nick Johnson for emailing this to me yesterday.

HT to Vulture for the link.