Creative Principles

“I met Stuart Gordon in high school,” began Dennis Paoli. “We overlapped in several ways. We had the same sense of humor and loved the same movies and books.” This led to sketch comedy in early years, but later in life, the duo focused on horror. In Paoli’s latest film, Suitable Flesh, Joe Lynch leads Heather Graham in the story of a psychiatrist who becomes obsessed with one of her young patients...

“I spent most of my career in advertising,” says George Olson. “I had always wanted to write for movies and television, but I live in Colorado, not exactly the screenwriting mecca of North America, so I started reading scripts, screenplays, and just started writing.” As a former copywriter and creative director, Olson his start really came from “writing bad screenplays.” He continues, “That’s the...

“I always had a camera growing up. I know that’s cheesy, but I didn’t know it could be a job,” says writer-director Anna Zlokovic. “I didn’t know what to do with that interest. No one in my family did film. No one I knew did film, so I ended up going to music school to study music-business.” While at USC, Zlokovic realized it wasn’t a fit. Across the street from music, she found Film School. She t...

Scott McConnell is a story consultant and script developer who helps ambitious producers and screenwriters develop their concepts, themes and plots to create resonant scripts in order to advance their careers. Known as “the story guy,” Scott has over 30,000 followers of LinkedIn, where he frequently publishes advice on writing screenplays and producing films. In this interview, we talk about Scott...

The film ‘On Fire’ “follows a family who lives in a trailer home in the woods and are suddenly confronted by a wildfire. Survival becomes their main objective.” In this interview, director Nick Lyon and editor Don Money talk about the making of their new film, we go into the weeds about post-production, the importance of a good director-editor relationship, creating a short-hand with key team memb...

Jennifer Hamady started her career as a professional singer. “There was no Plan B,” she said. “But I never fancied myself a writer.” She loved lyrics, started writing, and this is one piece of the puzzle that led to her writing books. “A lot of people had problems that seemed technical, but were actually emotional.” Known as “the Voice Whisperer,” she’s a coach, a counselor, a speaker, a singer, a...

Bitten by the acting bug in college, while teaching, Michael Jai White began auditioning for commercials and acting gigs on weekends and summer breaks. Michael landed the lead role of Tom Robinson in the first Off-Broadway adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird. Before long, Michael would go on to guest star on such hit television shows as Saved by the Bell, Martin, NYPT Blue, and CSI. Proving his ac...

“Writing is always something I did for my own delight and enjoyment,” said Kate Holland. “I would have these stories playing in my head, a scenario or a world, maybe mentally writing episodes of favorite TV shows.” This led Kate to some writing partnerships in the world of theater. “Then I met Marlowe in a writer’s group online. He and I hit it off right away.” “I’ve just gotten started,” said Mar...

“I’ve always loved reading, so it started more with books than movies,” said screenwriter Ariane Hahusseau. “That’s how I developed a passion for stories. While in college, I watched a lot of BBC shows. Adaptations of my favorite novels. Coming from a literature background, I realized I could adapt my favorite novels, but also write my own stories.” Ariane, a French expatriate, embarked on her aca...

"I think it's very important that the film demonstrated that it was an effort not done by one individual who started working as a farm worker and became an astronaut, but rather it was an effort of a family, of community, and the importance of having that support structure. That's what allowed me to flourish," says José Hernández. A Million Miles Away is directed by award-winning filmmaker Alejand...

Alex Mandel began his career as a composer at Pixar by providing the score for the Ratatouille DVD short "Your Friend the Rat" and was later selected by Pixar creatives to write two songs for Brave: "Touch the Sky" and "Into the Open Air" - which became global hits. His work spans across film (East Side Sushi); streaming (Super Giant Robot Brothers); and radio (NPR's Snap Judgment LIVE, where he p...

Paul Fairweather is a Brisbane-based, speaker, author, mentor, architect, and artist who believes we are makers at heart, and who is on a mission to get people to reconnect with their creative essence, and to clarify that artistry is not creativity, only a subset. Chris Meredith is a Sydney-based, business coach, innovation consultant, and award-winning photo artist, who utilizes this background t...

Jason Hellerman is an award-winning film and TV writer. His feature screenplay, Shovel Buddies, made the top ten of the annual Black List and was purchased and produced by AwesomenessTV. Since then, he's completed feature film and television work for a variety of producers and directors. Currently, he's writing an action comedy for Sylvester Stallone's production company called My Masterpiece, whi...

Sue Ellen Thompson’s poems have been read more than a dozen times on National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor, have been featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper column, and have received numerous awards, including the 1986 Samuel French Morse Prize, the 2003 Pablo Neruda Prize, and two Individual Artist’s Grants from the State of Connecticut. She is the author...

“I moved to New York fifteen years ago. Didn’t really have much interest in drawing at that time—vaguely interested, but when I found Threadless, this whole community of artists on the internet who help each other and bounce ideas off each other, and it was a way to make money,” says Nathan Pyle. In many of the episodes in Dan Harmon’s show Community, the character Abed is actually wearing a graph...

Melanie Figg has been writing poetry since college. Since then, her poems, essays, and reviews have been published in more than 70 print and online literary journals. Her poetry chapbook 'Hurry, Love', was published in standard & fine arts editions, and her full-length collection of poems 'Trace', won the Many Voices Project competition, and Kirkus Reviews not only gave it a prestigious Kirkus-sta...

Rich Cohen is a New York Times bestseller writer best known for his books 'The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse', 'The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King' & 'The Adventures of Herbie Cohen'. His new book, 'When The Game Was War: The NBA’s Greatest Season', will be published on September 5th, by Random House. In this interview, Cohen talks about what inspired his wri...

Jesse V. Johnson is a British film director, screenwriter, and stunt coordinator, who is most known for 'Triple Threat', 'Avengement" & 'Debt Collectors". In this interview, Johnson talks about why he started writing, what he looks for in a script, why he thinks the perfect ratio for action movies is reality plus %10 fantasy, why he doesn't like to have too many fight descriptions on his scripts,...

“One of the only real skills that I seem to have cultivated is patience,” jokes screenwriter Ed Solomon. “Once you realize nothing is going to happen at the pace you thought it was going to happen at, trying to rid yourself of this notion of time and rush, allows you to deal with the constant let down of it’s not ready, more notes, or actors not available, or turnaround.” “That’s part of why I sta...

Jordan Morris is an award-winning producer and director of films like Nintendo Quest and multiple festival Best Documentary winner, Missing Mom. He has worked on numerous films as an actor, production designer, art director, fabricator, location scout, set decorator, and screenwriter. Since 2013, Jordan has been creating and hosting popular seminars and workshops on screenwriting, and you can find...

A former runaway teen mom is accidentally resurrected in her family's funeral home, giving her a second chance to raise her now-teenage daughter. This is the unusual plot behind Adult Swim’s series, Teenage Euthanasia. Alyson Levy and Alissa Nutting, the creators of the series, describe themselves as “late bloomers.” Both had roundabout paths in the business, exploring comedy and animation, until...

Brooks Elms is a screenwriter and independent filmmaker who has written over 25 screenplays, including one with Brad Peyton as Executive Producer, and one started by an Oscar-winning writer. When he is not writing, he loves coaching fellow writers who have a burning ambition to deeply serve their audiences. To learn more about his programs, check out his website brookselms-coaching.com. In this in...

"I grew up playing soccer, basketball; multiple layer athlete, so I knew what I was able to learn, how coachable I was, the amount of teamwork I was able to give", says stunt woman Katelyn Brooke. "So I felt very confident that jobs were going to land, but I'm still a student. Always a student." In this interview, we talk about how she went from being in the music industry to doing stunts, how to...

"My nursery teacher called my parents and said to them 'You know, you should really take this kid to a drama school because he has something'", says actor David Gyasi. "My dad said 'I did not come to this country for my son to do concept' and we were quickly sent away to another school." In this interview Gyasi talks about what his parents thought of him pursuing acting, what motivated him and why...

Amy Johnston is a stuntwoman, actress, and motion capture performer, best known for her work on Deadpool, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Suicide Squad. In this interview, we talk about what inspired her to start her career, her work in video games, problems that women face in the stunt industry, the backlash she has gotten for wanting to act while being a stunt performer, being introvert...