[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
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Film Courage: Do all executives read Save The Cat?
Steve Douglas-Craig, Owner/Teacher at The New Screenwriter, Financier, Screenwriter and Producer: I’m going to say no based on what I’ve seen. They should, it’s a good book. It wasn’t a text that I had in grad school. I love the techniques of screenwriting or Eugene Vale’s Techniques of Screenwriting, The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, even Aristotle’s Poetics they were the books we were given. Save The Cat was a much more modern take on a modern structure for a screenplay and I really liked it.
I like the way that it’s put together. I don’t think Blake’s is with us anymore. It’s a tough tone at times. It can be a little cowboy-ish in the way that it’s presented. The way he’s broken up the segments of a screenplay and identified the big beats in the screenplay and also put in some understanding of the industry, it’s not just a book about writing a screenplay. You get a little bit of insight into what it was like to try and sell a screenplay and what that means.
When I’m teaching screenwriting because of the amount of time I’ve spent in a studio in developing and producing and acquiring content, I try to teach the industry and not just the craft because even in grad school at AFI, it was very much an immersive here’s the craft, this is the craft of filmmaking, these are the…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
After graduating from the AFI, Steve Douglas-Craig was recruited by Sony Pictures Entertainment to work as a Story Editor & Acquisitions Executive for the Worldwide Acquisitions team in Los Angeles where he received an induction into story & business development, feature film packaging, domestic & international distribution, theatrical marketing & product acquisition. He helped develop & shepherd film titles including Terminator: Salvation, The Book of Eli, Django Unchained, War Room, Don’t Breathe (Sequel current in post-production), the Insidious horror movie franchise, Manchester By The Sea, The Grudge (reboot), Searching, Arrival, Whiplash, The Call, Attack The Block & many others (including TV releases – The Tudors, House of Cards). Steve’s tenure at Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions was followed with a promotion to Senior Story Editor & Creative Executive at Screen Gems where he was involved in the development & release of theatrical titles like the recent releases of Monster Hunter & the adaptation of James Herbert’s novel – The Unholy. Before that he helped shepherd Black & Blue, The Intruder, Possession of Hannah Grace, Brightburn, & Slender Man. He was also heavily involved in developing content strategies that attracted financiers & talent to specific projects for the studio. Steve is also a professional screenwriter having worked as a freelance staff writer for the hit CBS TV series Hawaii Five-O over a number of seasons & currently has a pilot & several feature films (including a creature feature) going out through his literary managers in Los Angeles.
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