Austin Film Festival's On Story

This week on On Story, a conversation with screenwriter Michael Arndt. Arndt began his screenwriting career on a high when he wrote the script for the family road trip dramedy Little Miss Sunshine. That script earned Arndt the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Next, Arndt wrote the script for Toy Story 3, which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, making Arndt the fir...

This week on On Story, we're joined by comedian and screenwriter Tim Herlihy for a look back at the beloved 90s romcom The Wedding Singer. Set in 80s New Jersey, the film follows the romantic misfortunes of Robbie Hart, a rock-star turned wedding singer played by Adam Sandler, whose life is thrown off track when his fiance dumps him on their wedding day. Robbie's love life is further complicated w...

This week on On Story, a conversation with Shane Black on his work co-writing and directing The Nice Guys.   Set in 70s Los Angeles, The Nice Guys stars Ryan Gosling as Holland March, a down-on-his-luck private detective and single father hired to investigate the death of a local adult film star. March's detective work puts him on a collision course with the brass-knuckle-wearing private enforcer...

This week on On Story, a conversation with Brian Helgeland on his work writing and directing the 2001 medieval sports-comedy A Knight's Tale.   A Knight's Tale stars Heath Ledger as William Thatcher, an ambitious fourteenth-century squire who is determined to change his fate and escape his life of servitude. William's chance at glory arrives when his master is killed in a jousting tournament, and...

This week on On Story, we'll travel back to the 90s with a retrospective on the crime thriller Se7en, with its screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.   Directed by David Fincher, Se7en stars Brad Pitt as David Mills, an idealistic young detective with a short fuse, who's still adjusting to the violence and apathy of life in the big city. Mills is paired with William Somerset, a jaded Detective Lieutena...

Next Up, we're joined by three accomplished writers, Virgil Williams, Nicole Perlman, and Scott Rosenberg, for a conversation on finding and maintaining inspiration.  Virgil Williams began his career in television, writing on 24 and ER. In 2011 Williams joined the writing staff of the grisly FBI procedural Criminal Minds, and stayed on for a six-season run as a writer and producer. Williams earned...

This week on On Story, a conversation with screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox , on the years-long labor of love that brought Wicked from the stage to the big screen.   Wicked takes us back in time to before the events of the classic film The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . The story follows Elphaba Thropp, played by Cynthia Erivo, a misunderstood outcast who was born with green skin, and magical p...

This week on On Story, we're taking a trip back in time to an interview with writer, creator, and showrunner Graham Roland, as he discusses developing his AMC series Dark Winds. Roland joined us to share the origins of the project, the creative challenges behind adapting Tony Hillerman's iconic novels, and what excited him most about bringing these characters to the screen. Let's dive into his con...

This week on On Story, Clint Bentley will talk to us about his work writing and directing Train Dreams.  Train Dreams recounts the life of Robert Granier, an early 20th century logger and railway construction worker played by Joel Edgerton. Granier works in seasons, and his work keeps him separated from his family for months at a time. Throughout the story, Granier is haunted by the violence he's...

This week on On Story, we're joined by screenwriter Austin Kolodney for a conversation on the historical crime thriller Dead Man's Wire.  The film is based on the true story of a 1977 kidnapping carried out by Tony Kiritsis. Kiritsis believed that his mortgage broker, Richard O. Hall, was conspiring to unjustly seize Kiritsis' property for himself. On a cold February morning in 1977, Kiritsis went...

This week on On Story, we're joined by a titan of the action genre, Christopher McQuarrie, for a behind the scenes deep dive into Top Gun: Maverick.  But before we ride into the sunset, we recommend you follow On Story wherever you get your  podcasts . Sometimes finishing your screenplay can feel like trying to land an F-14 Tomcat with a blown out engine and an empty gas tank, but, armed with a wi...

This week on On Story, we're talking to Rian Johnson about his process writing and directing Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.  This third installment of the Knives Out series follows an ambitious young Catholic priest, and former boxer, named Jud Duplencity. Jud teams up with detective Benoit Blanc after the divisive Monsignor of his small, rural parish is murdered mid-sermon.  Outside of t...

This week on On Story, a conversation on the prestige miniseries with Craig Mazin and Marissa Jo Cerar.   Craig Mazin is the creator, writer, and executive producer of HBO's Emmy-winning limited series Chernobyl. Chernobyl is a five-episode historical drama following the events leading up to the Chernobyl disaster and the cleanup efforts that followed. Mazin is also known for co-creating and co-wr...

This week on On Story, we're joined by Susan Soon He Stanton for a look inside the writers room of the hit HBO drama, Succession. Succession centers on the Roy family, the ultra-rich owners of a global media conglomerate called Waystar RoyCo. The family business is spearheaded by aging patriarch, Logan Roy. As Logan's ability to lead the company becomes more and more uncertain, his adult children...

This week on On Story, a conversation on the animated tragicomedy series Bojack Horseman with two of its writers, Alison Flierl and Joe Lawson.   The series follows Bojack, a washed-up former sitcom star who's trying to stage a comeback in Hollywood, while fighting against his own addiction and self-destructive tendencies. Bojack is also an anthropomorphic horse inhabiting a world where humans and...

First up, a conversation with Kemp Powers on his experience co-directing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to the 2018 Oscar-winner, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The second installment continues the story of friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Miles Morales, as he is catapulted from his home in Brooklyn, through the multi-verse. In a neighboring universe, Miles encounters a multi...

This week on On Story, a conversation with Nicole Perlman and Jodi Hildebrand on their experiences as writers and producers working with existing intellectual property, or IP.  Nicole Perlman is best known for working as a co-writer on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and Captain Marvel, as well as Detective Pikachu. For eight years, Perlman has worked as a Creative Advisor at the Sundance Screen...

This week on On Story, a covnersation with writer-director Rian Johnson on his love of genre media from noir to sci-fi, and the long process of outlining which allows him to craft intricate stories without getting lost in the second act. Johnson made his directorial debut in 2005 with the neo-noir mystery, Brick. Set against the backdrop of a suburban high school, Brick draws inspiration from clas...

This week on On Story, a conversation with Julie Plec on her love of YA storytelling, and her experience co-creating and co-showrunning The Vampire Diaries. The Vampire Diaries is a supernatural, romantic teen-drama which ran for 8 seasons from 2009 to 2017. The show follows the life of a mortal teen girl, Elena Gilbert, as she navigates grief, love triangles, small town politics, and supernatural...

This week on On Story, a conversation with Gia Coppola on her process directing The Last Showgirl. This dazzling drama follows the sunset years of Shelly Gardner, a middle-aged Las Vegas showgirl, played by Pamela Anderson. Shelly faces an uncertain future after the iconic revue she's been starring in for decades stages its final performance. At the same time, Shelly must navigate her relationship...

This week on On Story, a conversation with screenwriter Mark L. Smith on writing Twisters – the 2024 summer film that took audiences by storm…literally! The action-packed, thrilling adventure directed by Lee Isaac Chung is a standalone sequel to the 1996 film Twister starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton and produced by Austin Film Festival awardee Kathleen Kennedy. Yet, as the plurality suggests, s...

This week on On Story,  a conversation with the creator and showrunner Tanya Saracho on her process crafting the hit Starz television series Vida. Saracho is a critically-acclaimed playwright and television writer known for featuring authentic latine storylines. In fact, Saracho co-founded the Untitled Latinx Project (ULP), whose mission is to increase Latine representation in television through c...

This week on On Story, a conversation with screenwriter Meg LeFauve on her career as a writer at Pixar, where she co-wrote Inside Out and Inside Out 2, as well as The Good Dinosaur. Inside Out follows the personified emotions of Riley, a young girl who struggles to fit in after her family relocates from Minnesota to San Francisco. Riley's emotions are stored as memories, and her most impactful exp...

This week on On Story,  a conversation with director Juel Taylor and writer-producer Tony Rettenmaier on the making of their debut, genre-bending feature, They Cloned Tyrone. The science fiction-comedy-myster-thriller stars John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx (who also served as producer) as this unlikely trio attempts to uncover a government cloning operation. The film first premiered at...

This week on On Story, a conversation with science-fiction extraordinaire Ronald D. Moore on his process creating and showrunning the Battlestar Galactica series. The 2004 Syfy episodic is a fresh take on the 1979 series created by Glen A. Larson. Set in a distant star system, a civilization of humans live among a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. Together, they must navigate...