Small Animals
Feature
Writer · Director
Writer, Director
I turn good books into Oscar- or Emmy-caliber scripts with wide appeal.
Thirty scripts so far -- most based on true stories -- worth several billion dollars in revenue to a producer shrewd enough to see gold on the page.
Anyone with my career path could do the same; my path is singular.
I’ve logged more hours as a filmmaker than most writers, and more hours as a writer than any director.
And I’m likely the most experienced film doctor on the planet.
Story is the key to success and structure the key to story.
I know story. ● I mastered structure in print by writing and editing hundreds of nonfiction magazine stories, then moved into TV.
I’ve worked as an Emmy-winning writer and filmmaker for PBS, Nat Geo, Discovery, History, Animal Planet, Smithsonian, and major production companies on five continents.
I’ve made the hardest films – serious documentaries for a mass audience – in the impatient arena of television.
More than 400 films (IMDb lists a fraction) and not one flop.
When I write a documentary script, I start with chaos: thousands of raw shots, facts, and sound bites.
Shot by shot and line by line, I winnow chaos to crack the code of structure.
I make thousands of choices about words and pictures, sound and music.
As writer-director John Sayles says, I’m “thinking in pictures.” I’ve spent part of my career creating documentaries from scratch and the other part answering 911 calls.
Hollywood has script doctors but virtually no film doctors; shoot a bad script and you’re stuck with a bad movie.
In documentaries, we create the story after we shoot – so when a network exec asks me to salvage someone’s hopeless rough cut, I can. ● I don’t give “notes.” I wade in and fix the problems – from a light polish to a reinvention.
Writers, directors, producers: I’ve saved more people than Lassie, and with their endorsement to boot.
The Nielsens prove I not only hit the target rating, I typically surpass it -- sometimes astronomically.
All that experience in docs has given me a Midas Touch for drama: adaptation.
And I succeed where others fail. ● A decade ago, Oprah wisely optioned "My Name Is Love": the bestselling memoir by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend Darlene Love. "Hidden Figures" meets "Dream Girls": the stuff of box office gold.
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History
Page Turner True Story · The Rescue
Creative Screenwriting Feature Competition · The Rescue
Emerging Screenwriters Action and Adventure · The Rescue
Hollywood Genre Action Screenplay Contest · The Rescue
Page Turner 100 · The Rescue
Page Turner Feature and TV Pilot · The Candy Bombers
Page Turner True Story · The Candy Bombers
Page Turner 100 · Scandal at Blandings
Page Turner 100 · Poisonville
Page Turner True Story · Sinatra: The Voice
Page Turner Feature and TV Pilot · Sinatra: The Voice
Page Turner 100 · Sinatra: The Voice
Page Turner Faith Based Features · The Shepherds
Faith Based Features · The Shepherds
Page Turner Feature and TV Pilot · The Shepherds
Page Turner 100 · The Shepherds
Page Turner 100 · Jeeves Takes Charge
Page Turner 100 · Hellfighters
Page Turner 100 · Grand Theft Hollywood
Page Turner 100 · Born on a Blue Day
Page Turner Feature and TV Pilot · Born on a Blue Day
Creative Screenwriting Feature Competition · Love and Glory
Table Read My Screenplay · Love and Glory
Page Turner First 15 · Love and Glory
Unique Voices · Love and Glory
Page Turner Feature and TV Pilot · Love and Glory
True Story True Crime · Love and Glory
Page Turner Feature Genre Mash-up · Unforgettable
Emerging Screeenwriters Drama Competition · Unforgettable
Page Turner 100 · Love and Glory