J. M. Evenson received a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature from the University of Michigan and an M.F.A. from UCLA’s famed School of Theater, Film and Television. At UCLA, she was awarded the Harmony Gold Screenwriting Prize and the Women In Film Eleanor Perry Writing Award and won top honors at the UCLA Showcase Screenwriting Contest. […]
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Writing is language; language is words. It often seems to me these days that the English language is under assault. But then maybe I’m just an old professorial fuddy-duddy. Language evolves, doesn’t it? Isn’t the Oxford English Dictionary and, indeed, aren’t all dictionaries merely history books detailing the way particular words were used at […]
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On the feature article in this month’s newsletter, Richard Walter shares: “Last night at my house we watched Zero Dark Thirty. It’s not too bad. ‘Not too bad’ from me is really rather a compliment, as I’m notorious for hating all movies. I do not, in fact, hate all movies; I hate merely most movies. […]
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The University of California is a research institution. Faculty’s second obligation is to teach. First is what traditional disciplines call “research.” (In The Arts it’s called “creative activity.”) From time to time I’m asked, “Does the University tolerate faculty, in addition to their professorships, engaging in off-campus careers?” They don’t merely tolerate it; they require […]
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Susan Hurwitz Arneson is a California based television and screenwriter who received her MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA. She has developed shows for several networks and producers and recently sold a pilot to Fox Television Animation. Susan has also pitched, written and developed feature scripts with numerous production companies and studios. Best known for her […]
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I am a compulsive, obsessive swimmer. I swim 1700 meters (just over a mile) seven days a week at UCLA’s incomparable Sunset Canyon Recreation Center. Since joining the film faculty in the ‘70s I have swum (literally) eleven thousands miles in the Donald K. Park Pool. That’s like swimming to New York and back, and […]
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Neil Landau is a professor in the MFA in Screenwriting and Producing Programs at UCLA School of Film, Television and Digital Media, and a guest lecturer in the MFA Screenwriting Division at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He’s the author of “101 Things I Learned in Film School” (Grand Central Publishing, 2010). His film and […]
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I have long preached that there are no trends in screenwriting. What’s the trend today? Vampires are already so last year. If, just for the sake of argument, we could actually identify a particular trend, it would be too late to cash in on that trend simply because it is the trend. To become the […]
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Too many arts educators beat up on neophytes, attack their efforts, belittle their hopes, and trash their dreams. They claim that it toughens artists for the rough-and-tumble world they hope to enter. At UCLA we say: bullshit. Students in our screenwriting program have won three Oscars and five Oscar nominations in the past four years. […]
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DAN MAZEAU grew up in Santa Rosa, CA and majored in physics at UC Berkley before enrolling in the MFA screenwriting program at UCLA. There he wrote a family fantasy “The Land of Lost Things” and the script was set up at Nickelodeon/Paramount, with Arnold Kopelson producing. Hired by Dan Lin and Warner Bros. to […]
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