Screenwriters get paid for their labor, or at least they're supposed to. Unfortunately, a lot of producers like to pressure screenwriters into doing endless free drafts with promises of how this will help get the script produced. It's exploitation.

From the making of E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982): Steven Spielberg directing Drew Barrymore. 📸 Unknown.

Mick Jagger, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono at The Record Plant in New York City, 1972. 📸 Bob Gruen.

“The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.” — E.L. Doctorow

I've started writing with a partner. His ideas are shit, but he's great company and he keeps my feet warm.

This week on 5AM StoryTalk, I’m breaking down why the most effective story worlds are built on simplicity — and why I opted (counterintuitively) to instead take a "maximalist” approach to my storytelling with my latest TV pilot script commission. 🎧📺✍️ colehaddon.substack.com/p/complex-wo...

Screenwriters get paid for their labor, or at least they're supposed to. Unfortunately, a lot of producers like to pressure screenwriters into doing endless free drafts with promises of how this will help get the script produced. It's exploitation.

“I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.” — David Lynch

Where I’m writing today: Saint Florian Cafe in Castlemaine (Victoria, Australia). It’s a glorious autumn day here, if you can call it that. More like a cool summer’s day. But the leaves are colorful and have collected everywhere in waves and piles.

Readers have a bad (good) habit of imagining things in the spaces between your words. But by studying the impact of Val Lewton's films on horror, 'Jaws', and 'The Zone of Interest', we can learn to calibrate our screenplays and fiction so their imaginations work for us — not against us.

Thai poster for Steven Spielberg’s first theatrical release, DUEL (1971), though the film was originally made for TV. Renamed DUEL OF DEATH here.

Sven-Ole Thorsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger having some fun on the set of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982). 📸 Unknown.

“If you really do want to write, and you’re struggling to get started, you’re afraid of something. What is that fear?” — Margaret Atwood

There is no such thing as an “instant cult classic”. Every time a film/TV journalist uses it as a description, I hear Inigo Montoya’s confused voice: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Breeona Taylor, 2020. Painting by Amy Sherald.

Remember when politicians and their wealthy overlords hid how evil they were being? Now, they just wave it in our faces, making films like John Carpenter's THEY LIVE! seem quaint. Kind of makes you wish we really did have alien overlords instead...

“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” — George Orwell

If you’re not using your voice, if you’re not calling attention to what’s happening to so many innocent people, there are only two possibilities: you’ve chosen silence as an act of support or you’re counting your days until you’re next. There is no in-between.

Look, what are we even doing here? No need to actually have opinions; LLMs will decide what your opinions would be if you could think. No need to actually exist anymore; LLMs will auto/generate the memories would would have if you actually experienced anything.

Trans rights are human rights. Feel free to send your bitch army to my house.

From the making of CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986): Paul Hogan and Tony Holmes shooting the iconic “That’s not a knife” scene. 📸 Unknown.

Wiz-Khalifa at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, 2014. 📸 Mark Hom.

This week on 5AM StoryTalk, I’m breaking down why the most effective story worlds are built on simplicity — and why I opted (counterintuitively) to instead take a "maximalist” approach to my storytelling with my latest TV pilot script commission. 🎧📺✍️ colehaddon.substack.com/p/complex-wo...

Original poster for LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927). This film is one of the “holy grails” of cinemas as no complete copies of it exist. The last original print was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, leaving only bits and pieces of it here and there around the world to be reassembled. 1/2

Is great art ever worth hurting others? Actor, filmmaker, and comic book creator DAVID DASTMALCHIAN (Late Night with the Devil') challenges the art world's oldest excuse for toxic environments. 🎧📺 Listen/Watch the full 5AM StoryTalk conversation here: colehaddon.substack.com/p/david-dast...

Cameron Diaz on the patio of the Mission Santa Barbara in California (1995). 📸 George Holz.

Your regular reminder:

Actor DAVID DASTMALCHIAN joins 5AM StoryTalk to dig into his new graphic novel THROUGH, the relationship between creativity, horror, and his mental health & finding the courage to let your stories – and life – remain beautifully unresolved. 🎧📺 at Substack (or at the podcast link in my bio)!

“Training readers to expect a voice or subject matter from me would interfere with the reinvention I crave.” — Jennifer Egan

Happy Mother’s Day!

“A real work of art destroys — in the consciousness of the receiver — the separation between himself and the artist.” — Leo Tolstoy

Jerry O’Connell and Rob Reiner during the making of STAND BY ME (1986). 📸 Unknown.

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” — Émile Zola

Independent poster for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). This is all kinds of bad ass! Art by Justin Osbourn.

Elizabeth Taylor playing with a lasso on set of GIANT (1955). 📸 Frank Worth.

Actor DAVID DASTMALCHIAN ('Murderbot') breaks down why your best work isn't born from your fears, but from your courage to face them. Turn your darkest struggles into your greatest creative tools! 🎙️🎬 Listen/watch the full 5AM StoryTalk ep with David: colehaddon.substack.com/p/david-dast...

“If you’re going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.” — Zadie Smith

Actor DAVID DASTMALCHIAN returns to 5AM StoryTalk to discuss a seminal piece of art from his life — the 1971 film HAROLD AND MAUDE. If you want to understand how he became the storyteller he is today, don't miss this bonus episode! Listen at Substack: colehaddon.substack.com/p/david-dast...

'March from Selma, Alabama', 1965. Photograph by Bruce Davidson (American).

5AM CoffeeTalk is a monthly rundown at my 5AM StoryTalk newsletter about my life as a professional artist based in Australia, art lover, and human being trying to survive the 21st century - good and bad, glorious and frustrating, hilarious and stupid. Enjoy May's edition!

LIZZIE O'SHEA - digital rights activist - discusses the essential role art and artists play in challenging the powerful, articulating what we expect from politicians, and ensuring democracy's success. Listen to 5AM StoryTalk's entire chat with Lizzie here: colehaddon.substack.com/p/new-podcas...

Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren, 1983. They were dating at the time. 📸 Albert Watson.

“My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don’t have interesting characters and a good story to tell. ” ― Harold Ramis

From the making of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968): Shooting Judith O’Dea and Russell Streiner arriving at the cemetery where cinema was first introduced to the “ghoul” — the flesh-eating, reanimated corpses of the dead soon to be widely known as “zombies”. 📸 Unknown.

Big Maybelle, 1958. 📸 Bert Stern.

Actor DAVID DASTMALCHIAN joins 5AM StoryTalk to dig into his new graphic novel THROUGH, the relationship between creativity, horror, and his mental health & finding the courage to let your stories – and life – remain beautifully unresolved. 🎧📺 at Substack (or at the podcast link in my bio)!

This is some god-level satire.

Happy Star Wars Day! But I have some bad news for you...

She’s 2 for 2.

Peter Lorre sits on Basil Rathbone’s lap in between takes during the making of THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (1963). 📸 Unknown.