[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What is your rewriting process?
Paul Chitlik, Author/Screenwriter: Well, first I pound my head on the floor for a couple of times and then… no my rewriting process, it depends if I’m getting notes from people and I’m writing a spec script.
A spec script is a script I’m writing, nobody’s paying for it yet that I’m hoping to sell. Then my process can take some time. I’ll think about it. I’ll think about their notes. I’ll try to make them work if I think they’re going to improve the story.
Sometimes I’ve gotten notes where actually I’ve finished a film, I had a rough cut, showed the rough cut somebody. I could see that it was slow. Somebody came up to me and said Look, let’s talk about this because I think there’s a problem here. He said You have to do this more cinematically, you have to intercut this and you have to cut that and do that. He gave me some really good suggestions and I said You’re so right. I hate you now. Now I have to make major changes in this film. I did it and it was a much better film for that.
Sometimes people give you notes that just don’t make sense. That happens and you have to differentiate, you have to stop and think Do I really mean to say what they’re telling me…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Paul Chitlik has written for all the major networks and studios in English and in Spanish. He was story editor for MGM/UA’S “The New Twilight Zone,” and staff writer for Showtime’s sitcom “Brothers.” He has written features for Rysher Entertainment, NuImage, Promark, Mainline Releasing, and others. He has directed episodes and been coordinating producer for “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol” and “U.S. Customs Classified.” He wrote and produced “Alien Abduction,” the first network movie shot on digital video for UPN. He wrote, produced, and directed “Ringling Brothers Revealed” a special for The Travel Channel. (He had been a roustabout for Circus Vargas years earlier.) Most recently he wrote, produced and directed “The Wedding Dress,” for Amazon Prime. He received a Writers Guild of America award nomination for his work on “The Twilight Zone” and a GLAAD Media Award nomination for “Los Beltrán,” a Telemundo show. He won a Genesis Award for a Showtime Family movie. He has taught in the MFA programs of UCLA, the University of Barcelona’s film school ESCAC, Cuba’s film school EICTV, Chile’s film school UNIACC, The University of Zulia in Venezuela, The Panamerican University in Mexico City, The Story Academy of Sweden and as a clinical associate professor at Loyola Marymount University. Now writing full time again and living near his grandson in Chapel Hill, NC, with wife, Beth McCauley.
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