Film Courage: What do studio executives and producers say about story structure? Or do they not say anything? Is it simply “This isn’t working here.” Or do they narrow it down?
Jeffrey Reddick: I think it depends. Every studio is so different now. The studios have changed so much since when I started off. Like I said, a lot of them are run by business people with no creative background at all and they are relying on their creative team. And that’s not every studio by all means, but it has gotten a lot more business oriented.
So I’ve been in a lot of business meetings where it’s like “I don’t know, it’s just not working for me. I don’t know why, but it’s just not.” They just know that they don’t like it. And then you have to fish around to find what they don’t like about it or what’s not working for them.
And it’s just a really interesting business because you meeting some really interesting types, you meet some really great, smart, creative-type people. And then you meet some people who’ve got their jobs and you’re like “How is this person working?” I don’t understand because they obviously know nothing about film.
Sometimes they’ll says something ridiculous like…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
Bio (via IMDB):
Jeffrey Reddick is best known for creating the Final Destination (2000) film franchise. He also co-wrote the story for, and executive produced, Final Destination 2 (2003). Jeffrey lives in Los Angeles. He grew up in Eastern Kentucky and attended Berea College. Jeffrey made his first connection to the film industry at age 14, when he wrote a prequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and mailed it Bob Shaye, the President of New Line Cinema. Bob returned the material for being unsolicited. But the young man wrote Bob an aggressive reply, which won him over. Bob read the treatment and got back to Jeffrey. Bob, and his assistant, Joy Mann, stayed in contact with Jeffrey for over five years. When he went to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York at age 19, Bob offered him an internship at New Line Cinema. This internship turned into an 11-year stint at the studio.
Aside from Final Destination (2000), which spawned four successful sequels, Jeffrey’s other credits include Lions Gate’s thriller, Tamara (2005) and the remake of George Romero’s classic, Day of the Dead (2008).
Jeffrey has several feature and TV projects in development and he directed his first short, Good Samaritan (2014) in 2014.
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Check out the book Bullies, Bastards and Bitches:
How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction here