This Savage Art

Recently I got an e-mail from screenwriter Bill True announcing a recent interview he did for Boxoffice.com. I met Bill about two years ago when his first film Runaway ran at the Tribeca Film Festival but my contact with him started just just prior to that. At that time I was using the internet to track all things screenwriting so I could raise the bar on my writing skills and put something on paper that I could put out into the world. I was trolling community writing sites like the Francis Ford Coppola branded American Zoetrope. There I found Bill’s screenplay [at that time it was called Michael's Letters] which placed high on the site’s Screenplays Section Hall of Fame. I decided to contact him.

I don’t know if it was the pure audacity of my e-mail or his need to expound some sort of writer’s wisdom but he responded and we corresponded about all things film industry, writing with confidence and never being afraid to approach people that can advance your career. It was very motivating and it pushed me in a direction to complete a screenplay I hadn’t touched in a long time. Since then he has become a working screenwriter and I have a short film and a couple of feature screenplays under my belt.

Here is the interview I spoke of. It’s enlightening and a good illustration that no two careers are alike.