This week, I invited author, writer, and director, Jamie Nash on the show to discuss his ‘Save The Cats Writes for TV’ formula in his new book, Save the Cat!® Writes for TV: The Last Book on Creating Binge-Worthy Content You'll Ever Need.Jamie is a horror and children’s film screenwriter with fifteen years of experience writing projects for  Nickelodeon, Liongate, Discovery, Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc, and also teaches screenwriting to college students.Some of his most notable horror credits include V/H/S/2, Lovely Molly, and Seventh Moon, A Comedy of Horrors, and Two Front Teeth. And oth ..read more

Today on the show we have returning champion author K.M. Weiland. I wanted to bring her back on the show to discuss her new book Writing Your Story's Theme: The Writer's Guide to Plotting Stories That Matter. Enjoy my conversation with K.M. Weiland. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support ..read more

Today on the show we have screenwriter and script doctor, John Winston Rainey. John is the co-author, along with legendary script consultant Linda Seger, of the book You Talkin’ to Me?: How to Write Great Dialogue. John has written 25 screenplays of which 3 have been produced and 10 have been optioned. He has been a script consultant since 1989 and is the author of Screenwriting Style That Sizzles: A Primer For Polishing.John had been a writer in the film industry for 35 years and won the Writers’ Guild award for best script. He had also been head of the creative department ..read more

Today on the show we have screenwriter, consultant, and studio executive, Jeff Willis. Jeff has been in the film business for over 15 years as a writer and executive working on films like Avengers: End Game, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Captain Marvel, and Black Panther to name a few.Around 30 minutes into the show we begin to discuss the business of screenwriting and more importantly what screenwriters can do to make money and get their stories out there. There are so many options out there for the entrepreneurial screenwriter. Jeff and I talk about the many options a screenwriter has to m ..read more

Today on the show, we have Greg Gertmenian, who is the Head of Script Analytics and Film Development at Slated. He is also the co-inventor of the Script Score, the only screenplay evaluation tool proven to accurately predict good films. Helped arrange to finance of films like SUPER TROOPERS 2, DEEP MURDER, CRUISE, AT FIRST LIGHT, GOD BLESS THE BROKEN ROAD, BECOMING, and WHAT BREAKS THE ICE.Prior to his time at Slated, he produced short format content, including the fan-beloved short film BALROG: BEHIND THE GLORY and the award-winning AFI Fest film THE HAIRCUT.I wanted to bring G ..read more

After many requests, I decided to finally tackle the dreaded query letter. I bring back to the show screenwriter, author, and IFH Academy instructor Geoffrey Calhoun. Below Query Letter Checklist and a few areas, we discuss in the episode. No Snail Mail Do Your Research Address the Letter to Individuals, not "To Whom It May Concern" It's about the script, not you! Be Casual but not too casual Cut to the chase Don't forget the Logline This isn't open mic night Its CATS meets The Goonies Dig through your contacts Proofread I hope this helps you write that query letter. Best of luck and keep on ..read more

Today's guest is screenwriter Brian Herskowitz. He wrote the book called Process to Product: From Concept to Script: A Practical Guide for the Screenwriter. Like millions before him, Brian Herskowitz moved out to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.  He soon learned that there was a dearth of roles for shorter leading men and began searching for other outlets for his creative passions.  In 1980 he wrote his first screenplay, an action thriller about a young man who moves to Tokyo to train for the Olympics in Judo and gets caught up in an intrigue with the Yakuza.    ..read more

Have you ever wondered what it takes to break into a network television writer's room? Then this episode is for you. Today's guest is Steven Vitolo and he did just that. His latest written episode is on the hit ABC show Black-ish. Steven has over 10 years of experience working in writer's rooms, most recently as a script coordinator on the TV series Black-ish, where he co-wrote the episode "Dream Home". Steven Vitolo also is the CEO and founder of Scriptation, the script reading and annotating app for film, television, and video production. Steven developed Scriptation after seeing first-hand ..read more

You should all know this by now. I love bringing on different perspectives on the craft because you never know what might click for someone. At the end of the day, we are all trying to tell a and compelling story. I invited to the show this week Julian Hoxter to talk about his book, The Creative Screenwriter: 12 Rules to Follow and Break to Unlock Your Screenwriting Potential. Julian is a published writer, lecturer, and screenwriting story consultant with extensive experience in scholarly writing.After film school at UCLA, Hoxter returned to his homeland, England, where he served as a senior l ..read more

I was glad to take a deep dive into the deep end of horror screenwriting with writer and producer, Devin Watson, notably known for writing and producing The Cursed (2010) which was the first draft he wrote in only two days. He’s also written several books, the latest of which is Horror Screenwriting: The Nature of Fear. Horror has, among all of the genres in film and written works, one of the longest, most distinguished, and often misunderstood bloodlines in history. It is often overlooked by critics who don't see anything more than blood and guts on the screen or a collection of cheap scares ..read more