http://simonwillison.net/2026-02-17T14:49:04+00:00Simon Willison2026-02-17T14:49:04+00:002026-02-17T14:49:04+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/17/rough-draft-8266/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="https://www.neatorama.com/2026/02/11/The-Original-Drafts-for-Star-Treks-Opening-Narration/"><p>This is the story of the United Space Ship Enterprise. Assigned a five year patrol of our galaxy, the giant starship visits Earth colonies, regulates commerce, and explores strange new worlds and civilizations. These are its voyages... and its adventures.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://www.neatorama.com/2026/02/11/The-Original-Drafts-for-Star-Treks-Opening-Narration/">ROUGH DRAFT 8/2/66</a>, before the Star Trek opening narration reached its final form</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/science-fiction">science-fiction</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a></p>

2023-12-31T20:53:21+00:002023-12-31T20:53:21+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2023/Dec/31/craig-mazin/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/how-a-script-doctor-found-his-own-voice"><p>There is something so vulnerable and frightening about doing your own thing, because it’s your fault if it doesn’t work. And then there’s this other kind of work, where you’re paid an extraordinary amount of money, you’re the hero before you walk in the door, you’re not even held that accountable, because you have a limited amount of time, and all you can do is make it better.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/how-a-script-doctor-found-his-own-voice">Craig Mazin</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/entrepreneurship">entrepreneurship</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/startups">startups</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a></p>

2023-12-05T19:42:05+00:002023-12-05T19:42:05+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2023/Dec/5/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-screenplay-pdf/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Spider-Man-Across-The-Spider-Verse-Read-The-Screenplay.pdf">Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse screenplay (PDF)</a></strong></p> Phil Lord shared this on Twitter yesterday—the final screenplay for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It’s a really fun read. <p><small></small>Via <a href="https://twitter.com/philiplord/status/1731431551131648392">@philiplord</a></small></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/movies">movies</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/spiderverse">spiderverse</a></p>

2023-06-12T18:13:08+00:002023-06-12T18:13:08+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2023/Jun/12/steven-soderbergh/#atom-tag

<blockquote cite="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/steven-soderbergh-full-circle-miniseries-upcoming-projects-ai-writers-strike-1235640731/"><p>Cellphones are the worst thing that’s ever happened to movies. It’s awful. [...] I think you could talk to a hundred storytellers and they would all tell you the same thing. It’s so hard to manufacture drama when everybody can get a hold of everybody all the time. It’s just not as fun as in the old days when the phone would ring and you didn’t know who was calling.</p></blockquote> <p class="cite">&mdash; <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/news/steven-soderbergh-full-circle-miniseries-upcoming-projects-ai-writers-strike-1235640731/">Steven Soderbergh</a></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/mobile">mobile</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a></p>

2020-05-14T04:53:46+00:002020-05-14T04:53:46+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2020/May/14/weeknotes-working-my-screenplay/#atom-tag

<p>I'm taking an Introduction to Screenwriting course with Adam Tobin at Stanford, and my partial screenplay is due this week. I'm pulling together some scenes that tell the story of the Russian 1917 February Revolution and the fall of the Tsar through the lens of the craftsmen working on the Tsar's last Fabergé egg. So I've not been spending much time on anything else.</p> <p>Some brief bullet points for this week's software projects:</p> <ul><li>Released version 0.1 of <a href="https://github.com/simonw/datasette-media">datasette-media</a>, a new plugin that allows Datasette to serve files from disk based on executing a SQL query to find the file to return. I'm building it to help make <a href="https://github.com/dogsheep/photos-to-sqlite">photos-to-sqlite</a> more immediately useful.</li><li>Released <a href="https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/changelog.html#v0-42">Datasette 0.42</a> with improved (and <a href="https://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/stable/internals.html#database-execute">now documented</a>) internal methods to allow plugins to execute read-only SQL queries. I needed these for <code>datasette-media</code>.</li><li>Released <a href="https://sqlite-utils.readthedocs.io/en/stable/changelog.html#v2-9">sqlite-utils 2.9</a> with new CLI commands <code>sqlite-utils drop-table</code> and <code>sqlite-utils drop-view</code>.</li><li>Released <a href="https://sqlite-utils.readthedocs.io/en/stable/changelog.html#v2-9-1">sqlite-utils 2.9.1</a> with a tiny cosmetic improvement: the <a href="https://pypi.org/project/sqlite-utils/">PyPI project page</a> now shows project links! See <a href="https://github.com/simonw/til/blob/master/pypi/project-links.md">this TIL</a> for details.</li></ul> <p>I've also started adding changelog badges to various projects, showing the latest release version according to GitHub and linking to that project's changelog. <a href="https://github.com/simonw/datasette/blob/master/README.md">Datasette</a>, <a href="https://github.com/dogsheep/photos-to-sqlite/blob/master/README.md">photos-to-sqlite</a>, <a href="https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/blob/master/README.md">sqlite-utils</a> all have these now.</p> <h3>TIL this week</h3> <ul><li><a href="https://github.com/simonw/til/blob/master/python/build-official-docs.md">Build the official Python documentation locally</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/simonw/til/blob/master/markdown/converting-to-markdown.md">Converting HTML and rich-text to Markdown</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/simonw/til/blob/master/pypi/project-links.md">Adding project links to PyPI</a></li></ul> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/projects">projects</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/stanford">stanford</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/datasette">datasette</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/weeknotes">weeknotes</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/til">til</a></p>

2019-04-25T13:17:51+00:002019-04-25T13:17:51+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2019/Apr/25/story-structure-104-juicy-details/#atom-tag

<p><strong><a href="https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_104:_The_Juicy_Details">Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details</a></strong></p> Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) wrote a fascinating series of essays on story structure for his Channel 101 film festival project. It’s worth reading the whole series, but this chapter is where things get really detailed. <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/writing">writing</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a></p>

2012-01-12T09:21:00+00:002012-01-12T09:21:00+00:00https://simonwillison.net/2012/Jan/12/how-could-sherlock-be/#atom-tag

<p><em>My answer to <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-could-Sherlock-be-improved/answer/Simon-Willison">How could Sherlock be improved?</a> on Quora</em></p> <p>Watson needs to be more competent. Jude Law's Watson is significantly more useful than Martin Freeman's - Watson is a military man and a doctor, and is hence useful for far more than just bumbling around with a quizzical expression and updating his blog.</p> <p>Irene Adler is supposed to be the only woman to ever outwit Holmes. She shouldn't need to get all of her ideas from the consulting criminal Moriarty, and she definitely shouldn't need Holmes to rescue her.</p> <p></p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/london">london</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/tv">tv</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/quora">quora</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/movies">movies</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/screen-writing">screen-writing</a></p>