[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: Why wake up at 3:00 a.m. to write?
Steve Douglas-Craig, Owner/Teacher at The New Screenwriter, Financier, Screenwriter and Producer: A lot of the time, I don’t have a choice. It’s one of those things when I came out of grad school at the American Film Institute, I went straight out of that into Sony Pictures Entertainment. I was recruited out of there into Sony to work in development and production. At that stage Screen Gems had separated from worldwide acquisitions as a division and they got a new head of division from Fox who came over. He was looking for someone who could read scripts and I just happened to meet him at the right time. But that was heavy kind of work reading scripts, analyzing scripts and I had very little time during the day to do my own writing. My bent was if you want to write, you have to put the time in, you have to sit down and so I had to find time to do that.
It was hard, I’m not going to lie. Getting up at 3:00 a.m. and writing for 3 hours and then getting ready and going to work, doing my day job and coming home. Eventually I had two little kids and that became even harder.
For me, if you’re going to be successful as a screenwriter, you have to find the time no matter what. I’m a morning person so I operate better in the morning than I do at night. A lot of people have different schedules but that’s…(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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