TheProcess.Ink

Tom Benedek talks the creative process with writers, showrunners, directors, producers, actors, executives, agents, managers and other cultivators of truth and beauty.

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#15 – Jim Burnstein (screenwriter) at University of Michigan

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Jim Burnstein (Love and Honor, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Renaissance Man ) discusses his screenwriting career and shaping the next generation of young writers at UofM

We Talk About:

  • Working in Hollywood while living in Michigan
  • The journey to the first feature film production
  • Teaching Shakespeare to soldiers and Renaissance Man
  • The importance of re-writing your screenplay
  • The value of talent versus the value of discipline
  • Taking notes on your writing and giving notes to others
  • Collaborating with a writing partner

 

Quotes from the Show:

“The best thing about being a writer is you can write on the moon. You don’t have to wait for somebody to give you a job. It only takes one great script to get you in the game.”

“I do not believe that you can teach talent any more than you can teach speed. A good track coach can make you faster, but he can’t make you fast.”

“I look at the first draft like a dream. You don’t know what it means. You don’t know why you wrote it. That’s what the process of discovery is. Why did you tell this story? What is it about it that you emotionally connected to?”

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#16 – Tian Jun Gu (TV writer) from Brooklyn

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Tian Jun Gu (House of Cards) discusses his journey from screenwriting student to working as staff writer on a hit Netflix series.

We Talk About:

  • Moving to LA, and then, to Brooklyn, NY for House of Cards
  • What it was like to assist a successful showrunner
  • The writer’s room, breaking story and learning on the job
  • How to map out a season of conflict and character arcs
  • Working on personal projects during a hiatus
  • Creating more opportunities for diversity on-screen

 

Quotes from the Show:

“Nothing really prepares you for a writer’s room.”

“What’s the craziest conflict we can see for these two characters in a given setting? What do we really love that we want to see in this season? (In the room,) sometimes we go broader like that.”

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#18 – Tamako Akiyama & Markus Nornes (professors of Chinese cinema)

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Professors Tamako Akiyama (Rikkyo University) and Markus Nornes (University of Michigan) speak about the history and state of current independent film in China.

 

We Talk About:

  • Navigating government censorship overseas
  • Foreign distribution practices and circulation
  • A new film festival in Inner Mongolia
  • The Bejiing International Film Festival shutdown
  • Comparing independent filmmaking in China to the U.S.

 

Quotes from the Show:

“This one festival got shutdown. They just cut off the electricity, so they couldn’t show films. The next festival, the designer of the poster was actually Wong Wo, the guy who directed the film (A Filmless Festival) on the 2014 festival, and his poster was the picture of an electric generator. They bought a bunch of these things just in case… the thing is, that year, they also got shut down.”

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