Writers of 'Conclave,' 'Say Nothing' Win 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film 'Conclave' and the series 'Say Nothing' won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards on the evening of Saturday, Feb. 22. Selection committee chair Howard Rodman announced the winners at a black-tie ceremony at USC's Town and Gown ballroom.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here:
From left to right: Peter Straughan (screenwriter, Conclave), Dean of the USC Libraries Melissa Just, Joshua Zetumer (screenwriter, Say Nothing), Scripter Selection Committee Chair Howard Rodman (Photo: Business Wire)
The Scripter Awards recognize the year's most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.
Novelist Robert Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan took home the award for 'Conclave.'
In accepting the award, Straughan said 'Adaptation is a really strange process, you're very much the servant of two masters. In a way it's an act of betrayal of one master for the other.' He joked that 'You start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,' crediting author Robert Harris for being 'so kind, so generous, so open throughout.'
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode 'The People in the Dirt' from the limited series 'Say Nothing,' which Zetumer adapted from Keefe's nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this year's extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying 'Projects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USC's Leavey Library dreaming of becoming a screenwriter. If you fell in love with movies, or fell in love with TV, chances are you fell in love with something dangerous.'
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. 'If ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,' she said, 'you have only to go to a library. There you will find shelf upon shelf of books where authors have poured their knowledge, their stories, their creativity on page after page...if a library is not the very best of what society has to offer, I don't know what is.'
Earlier in the evening, Howard Rodman accepted the Ex Libris Award, which honors exceptional commitment to the USC Libraries. Rodman has been the chair of the Scripter Selection Committee for the past twelve years. Presenting him with the award was celebrated novelist Walter Mosley who credited Rodman for being an influence on thousands of writers, producers, editors, directors, and 'a gardener of revelation for those of us who didn't know where we were going or even when we had arrived.'
SOURCE: USC Libraries
Copyright Business Wire 2025.
PUB: 02/23/2025 02:11 AM/DISC: 02/23/2025 02:11 AM
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
‘Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We ‘get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology'
Portraying a real person in Say Nothing was "a great honor," Anthony Boyle tells Gold Derby about his role as renowned Irish activist Brendan Hughes. "This one felt really special, because it was so close to home. I used to walk past the mural of Brendan Hughes coming back from school, and you'd hear folk songs about the guy." (Watch our full interview above.) Say Nothing was created by Joshua Zetumer, based on Patrick Radden Keefe's acclaimed nonfiction book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. Set during the height of the Troubles, the nine-part drama follows Belfast sisters Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew) and Marian Price (Hazel Doupe) as they become deeply entangled in the IRA's militant campaign. At the center of the story is the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, through which the series explores the emotional and ethical fallout of political violence. Boyle stars as the younger version of Hughes, a central figure during the Troubles as the officer commanding of the Belfast Brigade, leading significant operations including the 1980 hunger strike and the Bloody Friday bombings in 1972. More from GoldDerby 'Sinners' bonus feature: See how the gnarly makeup effects came to life Danya Taymor could make Tony Awards history with a win for 'John Proctor Is the Villain' How 'Severance' creates Lumon's 'manufactured perfection' through VFX SEE 'Political violence is sadly more relevant now': 'Say Nothing' showrunner on the show's impact The cast also includes Maxine Peake as an older Dolours, Josh Finan as renowned activist Gerry Adams (who went on to become president of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA), and Judith Roddy as McConville. Premiering last fall on FX on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ globally, Say Nothing has earned a 93 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating and several Irish Film and Television Awards, including Best Actress for Petticrew, Best Supporting Actress for Doupe, Best Supporting Actor for Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (who portrays the older Brendan Hughes), with Boyle winning the Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland IFTA Rising Star Award. Boyle, a Belfast native, brings a striking authenticity to his portrayal of Hughes, capturing both the commanding presence of a revolutionary leader and the inner turmoil of a man wrestling with the ethical complexities of armed resistance. "It's interesting, man. There's a great clip of a British army officer talking about him, and he says that 'we had the full might of the British army trying to chase down Brendan, and he just stood there in a dinner jacket and a handgun shooting back at us. You couldn't help but admire the plucky little bugger,'" he recalls. FX "They still have admiration for him. I think it just goes to show you the kind of guy he was terms of the whole charisma thing. I sort of based him off himself, obviously, and I've got an uncle called Snake who is really charismatic and really good at telling stories. You know, when you're with him in the bar, he's got this real magnetic quality. He pulls everyone, and he's got this real way speaking. I grew up in Belfast, and I would drink in the same bars that Brendan would drink in, and I know there's people that he knew," Boyle says. "This one for me felt like a very natural fit." The Northern Irish actor's performance has earned acclaim for its emotional depth, charting Hughes' journey from fervent idealist to a disillusioned figure haunted by the personal and political consequences of his actions. Boyle's layered interpretation adds profound weight to the series' examination of the human cost of political violence. "When someone dies, particularly if they're a soldier, they become mythologized and there's a sort of martyrdom around them, and there's murals of them on the wall, and they're painted and revered. And when I spoke with Josh Finan, who played Gerry Adams, it was about stripping a lot of that back," Boyle explains. "They're not paintings on the wall, they're real breathing people, and if we want to do them justice, if we want to do the story justice, you've got to bring it down and get to the humanity of them as opposed to the mythology of them." Say Nothing is available to stream on Hulu. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Jay Duplass on exposing his 'dad bod' and playing a 'soft villain' in 'Dying for Sex': 'Easily one of my biggest acting challenges' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
‘Sinners' bonus feature: See how the gnarly makeup effects came to life
From its music to cinematography, special effects and production design, Ryan Coogler's Sinners was a cross-departmental masterclass, which undoubtedly helped to make the period vampire flick the breakout hit of the year. And now, as the movie makes its way onto digital platforms, we're getting more of a peek behind the curtain to see how it all came together. More from GoldDerby Danya Taymor could make Tony Awards history with a win for 'John Proctor Is the Villain' How 'Severance' creates Lumon's 'manufactured perfection' through VFX 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' To mark the release, Gold Derby has a look at the special effects makeup from Sinners and the team responsible for putting all the gory wounds and practical otherworldly monsters on the screen. Coogler had originally become aware of prosthetic makeup designer Mike Fontaine's work after seeing Jeremy Saulnier's brutal container thriller Green Room. "I hadn't been that viscerally moved by makeup since I saw The Thing," Coogler says in the featurette. "It kind of left a mark on me." Once onboard, Fontaine met with Coogler to hear directly from him about what his goals for Sinners' makeup were and to land on a shared point of view. "Ryan and I were having a conversation early on, and I started to get a sense of what his vision was for the film," Fontaine says. "The process for me always begins with the script and the initial images that come to mind. From there, Fontaine went off to begin a months-long process that evolves from drawing to paintings and sculpting, some of which you can see in the video above. Sinners is available now on digital platforms. Best of GoldDerby Stephen King movies: 14 greatest films ranked worst to best 'The Life of Chuck' cast reveal their favorite Stephen King works, including Mark Hamill's love of the 'terrifying' 'Pet Sematary' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
How ‘Severance' creates Lumon's ‘manufactured perfection' through VFX
As sci-fi TV shows go, Severance certainly seems lighter on special effects than the likes of Andor. There are no alien planets or laser guns to be had here, after all — but the 'manufactured perfection' of Severance still takes a lot of work. Lumon Industries is determined to shape the world according to the corporate ethos of Kier Eagan, and putting that world on screen requires a variety of techniques. In a new interview with Gold Derby, Severance VFX supervisor Eric Leven of Industrial Light & Magic explains how various aspects of Season 2 were constructed. Alongside his commentary, you can watch the finished shots in the reel below. Severance has constructed massive sets for the labyrinthine white hallways of Lumon's office. But filming Season 2's dramatic opening scene, in which Mark S. (Adam Scott) runs paranoid through seemingly endless corridors in a single camera shot, required more than what the production could physically build. More from GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' Final 2025 Tony Awards winner odds in all 26 categories, including last-minute Best Actress in a Musical flip to Audra McDonald 'Deliciously at odds': Zachary Quinto on embodying the brilliant yet flawed Dr. Oliver Wolf in 'Brilliant Minds' 'Ben [Stiller] really likes to shoot as much practically as possible, he wants to have as much reality as possible, but particularly for that opening scene, there was just no way to do that,' Leven says. 'So even for the very first shot, where they had envisioned this very precise mechanical movement around Mark's head so it makes this 540-degree circle and then moves out of the elevator and then swings all over the lobby and then runs down the hallways, there was no way to shoot that practically. There is no camera setup that can make that happen. So we started combining a bunch of different techniques, one of which was this big giant robot motion-controlled camera.' But a camera that size couldn't fit in the Lumon elevator, so then Leven's team had to figure out how to create a digital version of the elevator to make it work. Ultimately, that opening sequence involved a combination of real sets and CGI environments, blended together to look seamless — a process that took nearly six months to complete. 'There's a part where we're pushing with Mark, and then we do this 180 around him,' Leven says. 'What became the most feasible was, let's put him on a treadmill and build a CG environment around him. So he was running through real hallways for part of this shot, but the trick was, even with these endless stages, there's only so much he can actually run through. So we did have to do a bunch of stitches. "Ben was really adamant that audiences are more sophisticated now, they can see these stitches. We wanted to make sure to avoid that. We basically shuffled the deck and made new techniques. So for example, when Mark goes around a corner, you would think that normally that corner wall would be the stitch point, but we would back in to, say, his ankle so that if you watch really carefully, you'd see his foot never leaves the frame. And this keeps the audience guessing." READ: The Bell Labs complex in New Jersey stands in for Lumon's office building where Mark S. and his fellow innies report to work every day. But as anyone who attended the Severance event at Bell Labs back in April knows, there's still a big difference between our real world and Lumon. Leven and his team help create that difference. 'It was important for Ben to be on a real location that the actors can react to,' Leven says. 'But we want to make this place look isolated in the middle of nowhere, so we're getting rid of other houses, we're changing the trees. Everything has to be perfect, precise, and symmetrical. So we're changing the layout of some of the roadways and the surrounding environment. We're adding period cars, because Severance takes place in this nebulous world where, for some reason, a lot of the cars are from the '80s.' Leven credits Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle with the idea for the '80s cars. It's an aesthetic that Hindle personally likes, which also helps distinguish Severance's world. Meanwhile, the specific layout of the Bell Labs building posed its own problem. 'What's really interesting about the Bell Labs building is that it was the first building ever built with a mirrored exterior, the first mirrored building,' Leven says. 'So when the camera is looking away from Bell Labs in the parking lot, we obviously have a lot of work to do, like I said: Making the symmetrical roadways, making everything perfect, adding all these cars, changing the trees. But then, when you point the camera towards the building, you may think it's practical and we don't have to change anything in visual effects, but because there's a big giant mirror, we are now reflecting all of this stuff that also needs to be changed. So now we're adding the reflection of the period cars, the reflection of the symmetrical roadway. Just about every shot is, if not completely digital, almost 80 percent replaced in CG.' Special effects work best when they are a vehicle for storytelling, and all this work by Leven and his team does have a resonance with the show's big themes. It takes a lot of work to make things seem so perfect. Lumon often appears to have total control over their severed employees, but the past two seasons have shown that such control takes a lot of work, and can break down easily. 'It's a manufactured perfection that is never really achievable,' Leven says. 'That is one of the things Lumon is trying to do, but it feels like whenever mankind tries to do that, it always backfires.' Hindle also told Leven that one of his big aesthetic touchpoints for Severance, in addition to '80s cars, was a shot from the Joel and Ethan Coen's film Fargo, where a character is alone in a big wintry field, surrounded by snow that makes them seem like a small, insignificant speck. That's what Severance creatives want Lumon employees to feel like. Unfortunately, snow is hard to control. 'That's where a lot of that idea that there should be this constant snowfall comes from, and they schedule the shoot to happen in the winter,' Leven says. 'They're shooting in New York, they go to places like upstate New York and Newfoundland, and then the weather does what it does, and frequently it just doesn't snow. Or if it does snow, it's not enough snow or it snows and immediately melts the next day or whatever.' Once again, reality must be massaged by the magic of VFX in order to give Severance the required look of endless winter. 'There's a constant visual effects presence to make this snow a character throughout the series,' Leven says. 'Because Ben likes to shoot as much real as possible, we try to have some practical snow on set, but even when they have these big piles of snow that they shovel into the location, that snow is too chunky or it's not the right shape or not the right design. So even the practical snow is changed by visual effects to give the perfection of Lumon and the town of Kier. Everything has to be just so.' READ: One of the most dramatic moments in the Severance Season 2 finale comes when Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) summons a marching band to MDR to celebrate Mark's achievement with the 'Cold Harbor' project. As you might expect, the band was mostly cast with real actors in costumes — but VFX helped swell their ranks. 'They had a band there, and they really wanted the band to crowd MDR,' Leven syas. 'But MDR is a really big space, so it was like, how many band members can we get? Because every additional band member is another costume and another instrument. So they got a certain number of band members, but then it was like, well, this area feels a little bit empty over here. Can you fill that in with extra band members? So we would do some of that. We'd fill in with extra band members where it felt a little empty.' But the biggest challenge of this sequence was the overhead shot where the band members hold up cards forming Mark's face and 100 percent completion of Cold Harbor. 'Ben and I thought, we really need to do this as practically as possible,' Leven says. 'The issue was that the real MDR set has a ceiling, and you just couldn't get a camera high enough to get that shot. So we actually had to shoot that one shot on a different stage, on a different day, with the whole band. But even then, the camera could only get so high. I think we only saw maybe 16 or 18 band members in the practical high shot. So then we were adding all the additional band members digitally, adding CG walls of MDR, and then all of the cards are CG. It was a really great use of having that practical base to work from.' Watch Gold Derby's exclusive roundtable with the cast and creators of Severance: Best of GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
