Join us for the next panel in our Writing Series for Adults: Screenwriting!
Thursday, August 6
7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
826LA West
685 Venice Boulevard
Venice, CA 90291
Our panelists will discuss writing: how they got started, what inspires them, and how to turn a story into a completed screenplay. We will also be discussing the business side of screenwriting: how to get representation and how to guide a screenplay in order to sell or produce feature film.
Our panelists:
Dan Futterman lives in LA with his wife, Anya Epstein, and their two daughters. He wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film Capote, for which he recieved an Independent Spirit Award, Boston Society of Film Critics award, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association award, as well as an Academy Award nomination. He is currently co-writing a pilot for HBO with his wife, based on a radio piece from This American Life. He started tutoring at 826LA just a few months ago, and looks forward to continuing in the fall.
Melissa Mathison's screenwriting credits include the films Kundun, The Black Stallion, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination.
Glasgow Phillips is a writer, producer, and director who works in film, television, print, and new media. In animated television, he has written for South Park (Comedy Central), Father of the Pride (DreamWorks/NBC), The Adventures of Chico and Guapo (MTV Networks), Code Monkeys (G4), and Kung Fu Panda (Nickelodeon, upcoming). He wrote and directed the important zombie Western feature film Undead or Alive, starring Chris Kattan and James Denton. Recently he finished production on on Magic Reader Classics, an educational DVD series for children that is free to schools and other organizations focused on kids and learning; for more information, go to magicreaderclassics.com. He recently joined Acme-Smith, a boutique production company specializing in branded entertainment, and you can read about his adventures in underground Hollywood in his memoir The Royal Nonesuch.
James Ponsoldt, after graduating from Columbia University’s MFA Filmmaking Program, wrote and directed the 2006 feature film Off the Black (starring Nick Nolte, Trevor Morgan, and Timothy Hutton), which premiered at Sundance ’06. His second feature was workshopped at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and will film in 2010. James currently is adapting novels for Vox3 Films (Secretary), Sharp Independent (Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count On Me), and writes for FILMMAKER magazine. He co-authored the graphic novel Refresh, Refresh, which Macmillan will publish in September. James is proud to have volunteered and run workshops with 826LA for over three years.
Howard A. Rodman wrote Savage Grace, one of five works nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2009 Spirit Awards. Rodman wrote the original screenplay for August, starring Josh Hartnett, Rip Torn, and David Bowie, and the screenplay for Joe Gould's Secret, which was the opening night film of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. His original screenplay F. was selected by Premiere as one of Hollywood's Ten Best Unproduced Screenplays. He is a professor (and former chair) of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts; serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, West; and has been Artistic Director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs in Utah and in Wadi Feynan, Jordan. This year he was one of four screenwriters invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Moderated by James Urbaniak.
James Urbaniak's acting credits include the role of Robert Crumb in
American Splendor, the voice of Dr. Venture on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim series The Venture Brothers and the acclaimed original production of Will Eno's one-man play Thom Pain (based on nothing). His awards include Best Actor at the Edinburgh Fringe, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk nomination. He plays the journalist Jack Lessenberry in HBO's upcoming movie about Jack Kevorkian, You Don't Know Jack (starring Al Pacino). James co-founded the critically lauded New York theatre company Arden Party and has performed extensively in New York City at Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, and the legendary experimental theatre Onotological-Hysteric.
As a cultural commentator, James writes regularly about show business, politics, advertising, and the internet on his blog Voucher Ankles; his posts have been linked by Gothamist, the Hollywood Reporter, and Vanity Fair, among others. An active Twitterer, he is included in the upcoming HarperCollins compendium Twitter Wit.
