Get Me A Script Doctor - Stat!
|
Is your heart beating a little too quickly as you stare at your deadline? Are you looking for that perfect spot for your pencil cup because your writing room has to have the perfect feng shui before you can get started? Have you updated your iTunes playlists so that you will have the perfect "creative music" to set the right mood? Have you alphabetized your spice rack in the kitchen? Washed the car? Your hair? Your dog's hair? Your neighbor's dog's hair?
You are so busted.
You can't put it off any longer. You have to get the next draft done. What you need is a script doctor to help you through the rough spots, ask the questions that you've been avoiding and set you on the right track. You can do this. We can help.
|
| WILL CHANDLER ...
...Has no medical training whatsoever except for that Red Cross Emergency Lifesaving class he took one summer. But he was 9 years old at the time, so he’s probably not your go-to guy when it comes to medical emergencies. Writing emergencies, however …that's a different story.
In addition to being a script doctor, Will has created and administers the Young American Writers Project under the MFA in Writing and Literature Program at Stony Brook Southampton University in New York. This program, which began in January 2009, sends teaching artists, who are professional writers and actors, into NY school classrooms to teach students the art of dramatic writing. Starting with playwriting, the program has expanded to include offerings in all disciplines represented in the MFA program: screenwriting, fiction, poetry & personal essay. Each program culminates with either a public performance or an eZine of selected works. (www.sunysb.edu/sb/southampton/mfa/yawp)
|
Until December 2008, Will served as Education Director for Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY. He administered the theater's classes, including its acclaimed Young Playwrights Program which taught playwriting students in sixteen schools from ten school districts.
Since 1996, Will has worked as a screenwriter both on spec projects and assignment. His first script, CYRNO OF LINDEN VIEW (aka Flying Lessons), won the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Hollywood (www.oscars.org/nicholl/history). Will was immediately signed by CAA. Shortly thereafter, his next script, THUMB, sold in a pre-emptive bidding situation to Sony Pictures. In subsequent years, Will was the writer on a number of film projects including a gritty historic drama, set in 19th-century Australia for producers Michael Lewis, Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe.
While in Los Angeles, Will was a founding member of a writing group that began as a collection of unemployed screenwriters but, through challenging and mentoring each other saw members sell the create SCREAM feature film franchise and write for DAWSON'S CREEK as well as numerous episodic series and independent movies.
Prior to this, Will was Director of Development for Green/Epstein Productions where he found stories, secured the rights, pitched to networks and hired & mentored writers. In addition, since 1994, Will has worked as a script doctor & story analyst, reading thousands of scripts for such clients as CBS, Viacom, New World Pictures, Harpo, Atlas Entertainment and more.
In addition, Will is also a member of the Stony Brook Southampton MFA faculty and is an instructor during that program's Screenwriting Conference.
|
|
ANNETTE HANDLEY
While medicine is a noble profession, writing is my passion. I have always loved stories. It began as a child with late into-the-night reading via flashlight and developed into discovering that I had stories to tell too.
Given this, it was not a stretch that I was drawn to the entertainment business. I started as an agent in New York and had the good fortune to be required to attend the theater most evenings. In addition to the classics, I especially loved hearing and seeing new work by young, unknown playwrights. Eventually, I was offered a job in the film business in Hollywood. If someone was willing to pay for my move, I reasoned, it was time to go. It was a new agency and small. We represented such clients as Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese who, having just completed Taxi Driver, were at their peak. Reading and discovering scripts for clients was highly enjoyable. I recall William Goldman saying once that ‘amazing writers were everywhere, one only had to know what they were reading.’ So, soon after, I opened my own agency in search of new writers.
|
|
In the following years, I discovered several terrific writers and amazing screenplays (Academy Award winning scripts like WITNESS and Emmy Award-winners like SPECIAL BULLETIN). I became a programming executive at ABC Television Network, where I worked with writers to create award-winning material (THE SHELL SEEKERS, OUR SONS, etc.). After ABC, I stepped back out onto my own as an independent producer, producing such films as Andre for Paramount Pictures and Emmy Award-winning documentary ANSEL ADAMS: THE DOCUMENTARY for PBS in addition to network and cable films.
Throughout these years, I continued to pursue my own writing. I also became a writing coach, teaching story analysis and screenwriting at UCLA and Pepperdine.
After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, I decided it was time to move back to New York to be closer to family. So here I am - living in a beautiful area in New York, teaching screenwriting as faculty of the MFA in Writing & Literature Program at Stony Brook Southampton University (SBSU) and creating an exciting new resource for screenwriters as Director of the SBSU Summer Screenwriting Conference (stonybrook.edu/writers). I am blessed to be here doing everything I love.
|
|
|
|
