Hi All. We pushed out an update to the FiveSprockets site yesterday that fixed a couple of minor bugs and also added a couple of advertisements to "inside" FiveSprockets. This update gives me, the Founder of FiveSprockets, a good opportunity to update our community on our philosophy and plans.

One of our users, Chie 518, made THIS FORUM POST last week asking what the terms Ticking Clock and Kick Back mean in screenwriting.  Like any industry, sccreenwriting and filmmaking have a boatload of unique terms and slang.

A little belated but Happy New Year to our FiveSprockets users and visitors!  With this new year, we have some new things planned for our community.  Here's a recap:

Bug Fixes -- We recently fixed a relatively obscure issue that could cause small portions of a script to disappear.  We tested the fix  extensively and feel confident in our solution, which we released last weekend.  We plan to continue to add new features and tackle any issues that arise throughout 2011.

The annual Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair recently hit newsstands and it's chock-full of great articles on the biz. It has some old (RAGING BULL, JOHN HUGHES, the animated SNOW WHITE, and LOVE STORY) and some new -- specifically, Annie Leibovitz photographs many young Hollywood ingenues, as well as photographs of the people behind Oscar contenders THE HURT LOCKER, AVATAR, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, and CRAZY HEART.  See below for more details.

While The Oscars gets most of the attention (Sunday, March 7, at 8pm EST on ABC), there are plenty of other enjoyable awards shows that we recommend.  The Globes were fun last weekend, particularly with Ricky Gervais as host, and below are the details on a few more shows we like to turn into, including the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards and Film Independent Spirit Awards.

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival starts today and the New York Times had a nice piece on it today entitled New Director Seeks to Put the Indie Back in Sundance. We've heard that before but, given today's economic environment, maybe it'll have to be true this year out of sheer necessity.  We're optimistic and like the new "Next" initiative launching this year for "low-or-no-budget" films.

As 2009 comes to a close over here in Southern California, we thought it'd be a good time to highlight some of our favorites entries from our blog during the past year.  We covered a wide range of Media-and-Entertainment topics over the year, and listed below are some of our favorites.  We hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year, and we'll see ya on the other side!

A recent article in Los Angeles Magazine had a short blurb on "Movie Magic", disclosing some unique tricks of foolery behind many famous movies. Cutting across many decades and films as diverse as THE BIRDS, THE EXORCIST, STAR WARS, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, and BOOGIE NIGHTS, it brings to light how creative things can get on the set.  Here are a few of our favorites from the article, as well as a listing of some of the DIY spirit we promote via our how-to videos.

If you’ve never heard of Scenario Magazine, we highly encourage you to seek out every back issue you can find and read them cover-to-cover. Released during the late 1990’s, each issue is packed with fantastic screenplay reprints and interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers. The pub’s tagline was “The Magazine of Screenwriting Art” and it takes that tagline seriously – by treating screenwriting as an ART. But if you think it’s just for screenwriters, think again.

MY NAME IS JERRY, a movie that we blogged about in a 7-piece production diary (thanks to co-producer, Zach Baliva), was just named Best Feature Comedy for the 2009 Route 66 Film Festival in Springfield, Illinois. The movie stars Doug Jones (Pan's Labyrinth, Silver Surfer, Hell Boy) in a somewhat rare, non-costume role. Congrats to cast & crew.  If you missed any of the production-diary series, packed with fantastic indie filmmaking tips, look for convenient links after the fold.