Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood
Wickedly funny, insightful, often absurd but always true, Clinging to the Iceberg explores the inner workings of the business of writing for hire. It's written by someone whose career has spanned over forty years on stage and on screen, including thirty lucrative and sometimes uproarious ones in Hollywood. Genuinely laugh-out-loud, it will astound and inspire and along the way reveal the REAL tricks of the dialogue writers' trade.

Hutchinson grew up in a remote area of Ireland, without running water, until he moved to Coventry. He started his career equipped with stories from his upbringing and family. Clinging to the Iceberg takes us through his successful career via hilarious anecdotes including a near-death experience on Venice Beach, being paid by Dreamworks to not actually work for them, and struggling to stay sane on location on one of the great movie flops of all time.

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Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood
Wickedly funny, insightful, often absurd but always true, Clinging to the Iceberg explores the inner workings of the business of writing for hire. It's written by someone whose career has spanned over forty years on stage and on screen, including thirty lucrative and sometimes uproarious ones in Hollywood. Genuinely laugh-out-loud, it will astound and inspire and along the way reveal the REAL tricks of the dialogue writers' trade.

Hutchinson grew up in a remote area of Ireland, without running water, until he moved to Coventry. He started his career equipped with stories from his upbringing and family. Clinging to the Iceberg takes us through his successful career via hilarious anecdotes including a near-death experience on Venice Beach, being paid by Dreamworks to not actually work for them, and struggling to stay sane on location on one of the great movie flops of all time.

21.95 In Stock
Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood

Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood

by Ron Hutchinson
Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood

Clinging to the Iceberg: Writing for a Living on the Stage and in Hollywood

by Ron Hutchinson

Paperback

$21.95 
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Overview

Wickedly funny, insightful, often absurd but always true, Clinging to the Iceberg explores the inner workings of the business of writing for hire. It's written by someone whose career has spanned over forty years on stage and on screen, including thirty lucrative and sometimes uproarious ones in Hollywood. Genuinely laugh-out-loud, it will astound and inspire and along the way reveal the REAL tricks of the dialogue writers' trade.

Hutchinson grew up in a remote area of Ireland, without running water, until he moved to Coventry. He started his career equipped with stories from his upbringing and family. Clinging to the Iceberg takes us through his successful career via hilarious anecdotes including a near-death experience on Venice Beach, being paid by Dreamworks to not actually work for them, and struggling to stay sane on location on one of the great movie flops of all time.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781786822208
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 04/03/2018
Series: The Writer's Toolkit
Pages: 216
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Ron Hutchinson is an Emmy-Award winning screenwriter and Olivier nominated playwright, who has taught at the American Film Institute, been a Writer in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and worked with some of the biggest names in the Hollywood, including Marlon Brando, Samuel L Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor. He has written for HBO, Universal Studios, Showtime, and the BBC, amongst others and has got the scars to prove it.

Table of Contents

One Damn Thing After Another 1

The search for The Black Panther

Edward Elgar's moustache

Sitting in Starbucks talking about movies

A surprising find at the LA City Morgue

Importance of doing the boring things well

Location Location Location 9

Screenwriters not Film Makers

Unfairness of the credits arbitration system

Avoid the ostrich burger

Antony Trollope's dentures

Getting in The Zone and knowing when the project is complete

Story Structure On Dopey Drive 21

Location of Walt Disney's corpse

Lessons from the Animation Building

Easy reading as hard writing

Enlisting the subconscious as your writing partner

Snow White and you

Art House Versus Multiplex 29

Glass pants

Relatives tinged with lunacy

Drawbacks of fish gutting as a career

Speech and Drama

Not getting killed by an IRA bomb

A lousy actor but in love with the Stage

Spankarama 39

Advice on dramatic structure from a strange source

Demand for dialogue from similar

Charlie Chaplin's boots

Lessons unlikely to be learned in Film School

Getting away from miner's clubs with the booking fee

She's Not Listening, She's Bored 45

A drunken executive

Nefarious activity at a major entertainment agency

Los Angeles as a Tar Pit

Leave as much white space on the page as possible

Major legal trouble narrowly avoided at the American Film Institute

Two Murders 59

Involvement with FBI

Unfortunate choice of shoes

Bizarre killing in Coventry subway

The Lower Depths

Tips on drinking metal polish

Night terrors of writer when young

Good quote from Goethe

Unexpected Lessons Of Lolita 73

Chaos and Discipline

Tom Cruise's conference table

A hidden enemy

Writer's fear of being beaten like a tethered goat

The One Legged Chinaman

Saying No

The one thing that artistic temperament can't create

Getting The Story Onto The Page 85

Advice from a Hollywood legend

Genesis of Cool Hand Luke

The Watcher at the Gates of the Mind

Ole Sparky

Useful image for visualization of the writing task

Loss of notebook to Moroccan terrorists

Sunk Costs 91

Economic theory as a guide to screenwriting

Bananas and peanuts

Begging letter from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Unusual behavior of producer in men's store

Obsession with detail

Quantum theory and the actor

Practical Ecstasy 105

Hopeless task in Death Valley

Oliver Sacks addiction

Writing as therapy?

Professional partnership

A talent for having talent

Sad tale of Chilly and Willy

Pissing on the peaches

Not Waiting For The Phone To Ring 117

Startling twist in drug bust

Dark past of Bambi's creator

Perils and joys of The Pitch

Edgar Wallace's mental collapse

Theatre of Horror

Real meaning of popular phrase explained

Take The Gig 127

Doctor Plastic

Amoebic Dysentery as writing hazard

Game show set in restroom

Elizabeth Taylor and me

Land of the Happy Pink Unicorns and Hippy Dipshit Fairy Dust

The shpilkes

Near-Death Experience On Washington Boulevard 135

Twenty-three Sambucas and twelve bottles of Guinness

Venice Beach at midnight

David Hockney quote

Gun ownership for beginners

Fifty laps around the racetrack at a hundred and eighty miles an hour

City Of Nets 149

Sean O'Casey's hand

Discovery of missing suicide note

Compliment to Sharon Stone

Uncooperative behavior of koi

Author compares himself to Virginia Woolf

Intrepid Living

The Irish in Brooklyn

The Making Of Monsters 161

Spitting toads

Sex crazed jellyfish

Brando's hammock

The Berlin Airlift

Ontogeny replicates phylogeny

Directing as a personality disorder

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