The New York Screenwriters Workshop sponsored by Final Draft is a weekly intensive for early-career, New York City-based screenwriters who are under-represented in the film industry. Write On host Phil Galasso talks with one of the workshop’s fellows, Beanie Barnes, along with fellowship mentors Jim Hart and Anne Carey about the program. They are also joined by Brit Fryer from the WGA East. 

 

Beanie talks about what the program has done for her writing and career, and how she approaches her own work. “I was talking to someone about screenwriters being anthropologists. I tell my kids that as well; we’re kind of anthropologists and sociologists and psychiatrists, and we are really holding mirrors up, not just for the word but also for ourselves.”

 

For more information on the workshop visit www.wgaeast.org/theworkshop/

 

Craig Brewer, Writer-Director of Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan and TV’s Empire, talks to guest host Sade’ Sellers about directing the sequel to Eddie Murphy’s hit comedy Coming to America. “I felt that there was a noble theme inside the sequel… and I was like we gotta stay strong with that because comedy - it’s hard to sustain. But if you have a beating heart for a theme that is relevant… I think the movie became more relevant as it came to being completed.”

 

Craig also discusses TV Writers Rooms, the difficulties of doing comedy well, and the importance of the entertainment industry, especially in times like these. “Entertainment just might be an essential industry… I don’t know if I could have gotten through the pandemic without The Mandalorian, without WandaVision or Borat, or even Gordon Ramsay’s chef show on Amazon.”

 

Coming 2 America is now available on Amazon Prime. 

 

Mike Jones speaks to Write On host Phil Galasso about the unique process of writing for Pixar, and how he, Pete Doctor and Kemp Powers collaborated on Soul. “It was a great, kind of fantastic partnership because it's hard to force partnerships, and Kemp [Powers] was so open and willing and also so honest and so forthright with what he believed the script should be or what he believed, in particular, the character of Joe needed to be. That was just great to have his… confident voice alongside us.”

 

Mike discusses his journey to becoming a screenwriter and how it wasn’t straightforward. “I did not grow up wanting to be a storyteller. I grew up loving story; I grew up with a dad who loved movies… and I grew up with a love of that kind of visual storytelling. But I grew up in south Texas, and that wasn't an option - being a screenwriter or working in the movies. It wasn't an option; it was like another world to me.”

 

Soul is available to stream on Disney+.

 

Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, Minari is the story of a Korean family who start a farm in Arkansas in the 1980s. For Writer-Director Lee Isaac Chung, the film is deeply personal. “It’s really a family story… a journey that this family takes to understand each other a little better,” Lee tells Write On host Phil Galasso. “The story originated with an exercise that I was doing writing down as many memories as I could, from the age of about 5 years old up to 8 years old.”

 

Lee discusses a writing method he uses that he learned from Steven Soderbergh, how he decided in his last year of college as a science major that he really wanted to be a filmmaker, and how he had no idea what would happen with the script for Minari after he wrote it. “I thought, maybe I’m just going to write this because it means so much to me, and I don’t know if it’ll get made, but at least maybe my daughter will read it one day.”

 

Minari is now available on VOD and in theaters where it is safe.