07/09/2020 Screenwriting
In this timely interview, literary Manager and founder of Silent R Management Jewerl Ross and screenwriting career consultant Lee Jessup discuss Ross’ career journey, what makes him a tastemaker, and ends with surprise guest award-winning writer-director power couple Lulu Wang and Barry Jenkins. Click here to see the video or watch below:
Continue Reading...
06/26/2019 Newsletter, Opinion, Screenwriting
To suggest that movies are voyeuristic is like calling Ronald Reagan a Republican. I’m no fan of film-student idol David Lynch. He creates quirky, dazzling images well enough, but he’s a lazy writer. He lacks the discipline required to sit alone in a room for weeks and months at a time, facing a computer screen […]
Continue Reading...
03/26/2019 Film Industry, Newsletter
Having a fancy title at an elite film school, and also a reputation for providing nifty sound bites, during my decades as a professor in Westwood I was often approached by the press, especially on slow news days, for commentary regarding or another aspect of the media. A question I’ve been asked multiple times is: […]
Continue Reading...
11/27/2018 Film Industry, Newsletter, Opinion, Screenwriting
My sister and her husband are actors. A couple of decades ago, while living in Los Angeles, they went to New York for an extended stay in order to star together on Broadway in Neil Simon’s then-new play: Rumors. Upon their arrival in Gotham a huge party was held in their honor, welcoming them to the city. […]
Continue Reading...
09/27/2018 Newsletter, Opinion, Screenwriting
He was a short, nerdy, geeky, scratchy-voiced little guy, and the most powerful genius I have ever known. The last time I saw him was forty years ago at a party at Randal Kleiser’s house up Laurel Canyon on a street appropriately named Wonderland. Randal, a consummately sweet, decent fellow after all these years, is […]
Continue Reading...
06/22/2018 Screenwriting
Writers love to gripe and kvetch about the army of deplorables in the movie business who discount, dismay, and disrespect us. No parties catch more heat than agents. I’ve argued in my books and lectures that it’s easy to find an agent. What’s hard is having material worthy of showing to an agent. So many […]
Continue Reading...
04/01/2018 Film Industry, Screenwriting
After more than forty years teaching in UCLA’s screenwriting program, I have retired. At a research institution like the University of California, however, not teaching but ‘research’ or, in the arts, ‘creative activity’ is a professor’s first obligation. Before anything else, therefore, I am a writer. Writers never retire. The last meeting of my (some say legendary) Film/TV 434 section occurred […]
Continue Reading...
02/22/2018 Film Industry
I first came to California in August of 1966 for what I thought would be a three week visit. Instead of returning to New York, however, on a whim I fell into film school at USC and never looked back. Sometimes I think I ought to give it another half century and if it still […]
Continue Reading...
01/10/2018 Screenwriting, Workshops
Enrollment is limited to ten students for the 6-week online screenwriting program I’ve designed to serve a small cohort of writers who believe in themselves. The first session will take place on Tuesday, 2/6. Now is the time to act. Click here now to learn more and register. UCLA-trained screenwriters have won five best-screenplay Oscar […]
Continue Reading...
01/10/2018 Newsletter, Opinion, Screenwriting
It’s not an official faculty meeting, a former dean remarked at a UCLA film department gathering, until someone complains about parking. For me, having joined the faculty forty years ago, the cost of parking has risen from about ninety bucks a year to about twelve-hundred. That’s a hike of more than a thousand percent. If […]
Continue Reading...
