Creative Principles

Jonathan Tropper started writing books, but after several of his novels were optioned for films, he got into screenwriting. In this interview, Tropper discusses ‘This Is Where I Leave You’ and the Showtime series, ‘Banshee.’ He dives in to the differences between prose and film, writing for actors portrayals versus your own character descriptions, and why he loves ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’

Pamela Romanowsky is a writer-director who fell in love with film and even left medical school to pursue it. In this interview, Pamela tells us about her start in documentary film, how she made friends with actor James Franco, the importance of satellite relationships in film, and the intense psychology behind her adaptation, ‘The Adderall Diaries.’

In ‘The Hero,’ actor Sam Elliott plays a heightened version of his cowboy persona. The story follows “an ailing movie star comes to terms with his past and mortality.” In the interview, writer-director Brett Haley discusses the disposability of actors, the difficulty of working a creative profession, and why he chose to use dream sequences around a cautious, closed-off character.

Gloria Calderon Kellett started writing material for herself in a non-Latino Hollywood. In this interview, the writer-creator talks about working as Cameron Crowe’s (Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky) second assistant, moving from plays to television, self-studying television pilots at the Paley Center, writing for ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and working with the iconic Norman Lear (All In The Family, The Jeffersons).

In ‘Day of the Dead: Bloodline,’ “A small group of military personnel and survivalists dwell in an underground bunker as they seek to find a cure in a world overrun by zombies.” In this interview, Director Hector Hernandez Vicens discusses the masters of suspense, his love for George Romero, what makes a film truly scary, and the importance of character.

Duncan Falconer talks about his life as an author and as the man they send into conflict zones and hostile environments. In the interview, he discusses how he got the British Ministry of Defense approval to write his life stories, how he made friends with Superman actor Henry Cavill, how he finally got ‘Stratton’ on the big screen and he leaks some info on the new Stratton book trilogy.

Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein discuss their unusual mystery, ‘The Strange Ones.’ In the movie, “Mysterious events surround two travelers as they make their way across a remote American landscape. On the surface all seems normal, but what appears to be a simple vacation soon gives way to a dark and complex web of secrets.” In the interview, the duo talks about how they took a short and turned it into a feature, what it’s like to push one another as co-directors, and how to leave the audience wanting for more.

Michael Lannan got personal for the HBO series, ‘Looking.’ Now, the screenwriter wants to remind writers that no one really knows anything. To elaborate on his thinking, you’re the expert when it comes to creating your own world. Lannan discovered this and more when he finally started to defend his time to write.

After he left his acting job on ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ Taylor Sheridan wrote the dark thriller, ‘Sicario.’ The writer talks about finding your value as a creator, telling his own stories, where he finds the subject matter for his timely films, writing movies you want to see, and how to write so you “don’t waste a word.” Sheridan has also written ‘Sicario 2: Soldado,’ which will come out in 2018.

Jamie Greenberg discusses his new film, ‘Future ’38,’ along with his television work as a writer on the children’s series, ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ In this interview, the writer-director talks about writing a film with a low budget, knowing how to set rules for yourself in a genre, determining whether or not you’re willing to spend years on a project, and the difference between films like ‘Quiz Show’ and ’Cool Runnings’ for historical fiction.