I grew up in San Francisco in the 60’s, living only blocks from The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airlane, Janis Joplin – and spending almost every night and weekend immersed in the culture of that amazing time – all music and politics. I attended U.C. Berkeley during the maelstrom of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

I’d developed a rather romantic notion about criminal defense. It echoed the reformist ethic of my upbringing. It felt consistent with the ‘values’ of my colorful Haight-Ashbury past. So I made a choice. Off to law school I went.

So I began my career in law, only to quickly discover my temperament and being a criminal defense attorney were a very bad match. Oil and water. So I fled.

I realized the one other thing I often fantasized about was the world of writers and writing. So I ran away to the circus – Los Angeles in the 80s appeared rather like a circus to my naïve eye – hoping to become the Maxwell Perkins of the screenwriting trade.

Maxwell E. Perkins was the single most influential book editor of the 20th century. He single-handedly discovered many of the most prominent American writers of the first half of the last century. During his tenure at Charles Scribner’s Sons, Perkins discovered and nurtured the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Ring Lardner, Ezra Pound and James Jones. “Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins” is a brilliant book, filled withg correspondence between Maxwell Perkins and his many authors.

I too wanted to discover great writing talent. I could envision myself nurturing their creativity, championing them to the world and building their careers. I imagined helping many excellent films to get produced along the way. I had a picture in my head, imagined being inspired by a tantalizing collection of creative minds, enjoying a seat at a latter day ‘Algonquin Round Table’.

I was sorely surprised to find it would not be so easy, not nearly so romantic an undertaking.

When I arrived, I knew virtually nothing of “the business” [the entertainment industry] and proceeded to interview with quite a few places, primarily studios. I couldn’t come close to getting a job. I knew no one and knew nothing about the business. They looked at me as if I was a stranger in a strange land. And it felt strange and foreign.

So I naively thought “oh well, I’ll just start my own company.” ‘Management’ was a relatively new and unregulated area, so I immediately started a literary management company. I focused on writers and writer-directors, because writing and storytelling were my first loves. The first few years were lean, to say the least.

I’d long been enamored of both contemporary and classic films. I knew it was the calibre of the writing that separated out those that made a lasting impression on me.

Though impossible to list all that top my list of ‘great’ films, Graham Greene’s “The Third Man” would be near the top of the list. The creative prowess underpinning the unfolding mystery and relationship between Joseph Cotton’s ‘Holly Martins’ and Orson Welles ‘Harry Lime’ remains to this day a perfect fascination. This is the sort of magic that inspired me to want to discover and champion young film writers.

As much as I admired the work and contributions of directors, actors, producers and others, it is the writer who inhabits the cradle of creation. The process of writing is arduous, mysterious, challenging and inspiring to me.

I managed writers for better than ten years, the first six years just managing, and the last four or more years producing on the side. My initial foray into producing included some fun, if not well-known, small-budget independent films (Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Pizza Man, a CBS movie-of-the-week Victim of Love, among others). My experience with writers, and my desire to collaborate ever more closely, led me to choose producing as a full-time pursuit.

My admiration for writers and the years spent fighting battles on their behalf, giving story notes, making deals and learning how to be their best advocate afforded me the single greatest preparation to be an effective producer… and to develop career strategies that deliver consistent and measurable results.

I’m excited to continue collaborating with writers, developing more exciting films together. The surprise of discovering another brilliant story, another inspired writer, is its own reward.

I’ll be eternally grateful to the many creative and talented writers who’ve entrusted me – as their manager or as their producer - with their work and their careers. I’m certain they’ve taught me far more than I taught them.

The writers’ strike of ’88 hit Hollywood not long after my literary management business had really begun to take off. Finally, I’d built what looked like a successful business. At that moment, the Writers Guild of America made a decision that would shut down all production, in fact the entire business of film and television. The talk on the street was the strike wasn’t going to end any time soon, and all our businesses were quickly shutting down. The strike lasted approximately ten months, which seemed an eternity.

As soon as the strike hit, I approached one of my screenwriting clients (J.F. Lawton, who wrote “Pretty Woman” among other amazing scripts) and told him it was time for him to direct his first ‘low budget’ indie film. I asked him to pick a script from his ‘stack’ at home, one that could be produced cheaper than cheap, and off I went to raise money.

Empire Pictures – a B minus minus company that went out of business several years later – offered $200,000 to finance our project “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”. I grabbed at the opportunity.

With that money in hand, J.F. directed and I produced our first ultra-low budget film with Bill Maher, Shannon Tweed (the only film where the producer – me – insisted she keep all her clothes on !), and Adrienne Barbeau. Two weeks of prep, eleven days of photography, and a couple of weeks of post-production and… voila ! We had our first film. It was guerilla filmmaking meets the keystone cops, but we learned more from that little film than I could ever have imagined. And I got the bug for producing. Humble beginnings…

1. Feature film script should be between 95 and 120 pages in length.
   Never longer. A script over 120 pages needs editing.
   Never shorter. A script shorter than 90 pages is too short.
   The perfect length is 100 pages for comedies, 110 for dramas.
   Cheat your margins if you have to, but better yet write and cut to the correct length.
2. Do NOT use camera directions. Ever.
   (Note: Historically, writers used to employ camera directions, but the practice is no longer in vogue.)
   Do not use words like CAMERA, CLOSE UP, LONG SHOT, DOLLY, PAN, or anything else that refers to the camera.
   Do not use CUT TO or any references to editing.
   At the beginning of the script, you may use FADE IN.
   At the end of the script, you may use FADE OUT.
   Please use a maximum of two dissolves in the entire script. If any.
   Dissolves are not generally well-received, disdained by directors and studio readers.
3. Dialogue should generally be one to three lines long. Only occasionally should dialogue exceed four lines. Keep it short and simple.
   A few monologues may be acceptable, but even they should be broken up with action (e.g. ‘he drags on a cigarette’), so they are under ten lines in length. Long stretches of one character talking are boring and hard to read.
4. Scene description should be kept to a minimum.
   Many studio executives and readers may actually skip over scene description. If they can’t get the story from the dialogue, some may feel frustrated and stop reading.
   Scene description should be one to three lines in length, and never more than five lines without a break.
   When describing significant amounts of action, break the description into logical paragraphs, separated by double spacing.
5. An entire scene – from one slug line to the next – ideally runs three pages or less (it can be as brief as a small fraction of a page). Never more than five pages in length. The average scene should be a page and a half or less. Larger, important scenes can run three or four pages. Please make certain the script keeps ‘moving’ or ‘flowing’ for the reader. If you have a great deal of dialogue or information, experiment with breaking the scene up into multiple locations (e.g. “Let’s get to the restaurant, and I’ll explain…”).
6. Character names should begin with different letters so the reader can more easily distinguish them. Different numbers of syllables can also help (e.g. Stan, Sue, Sam and Sara is far more challenging for the reader than Susan, Drew, Alyssa, Charlie). In particular, characters that talk to one another should have uniquely different names (e.g. not ‘Lyle’ and ‘Kyle).
7. If a particular character has few lines (half a dozen or so) and only appears in one or two scenes, it’s best to refer to that character by occupation (e.g. POLICEMAN, MAID, BARTENDER). This lets the reader know they do not have to worry about this character fitting into the story. Use a proper name only if important to do so or the character has a signficant effect on the story.
8. Do NOT use parentheticals, except when absolutely essential. Typically, a parenthetical is used to introduce a line of dialogue, describing how that line should be read (e.g. angrily, laughing, nervously). Please make every effort to avoid this device and, if you must, limit to four or fewer your use of parentheticals. The litmus test is: is it likely the reader will misinterpret this line (sarcastic: “Sure I will.). Beginning writers often make the mistake of using parentheticals consistently throughout a screenplay.
9. Slug lines – the first line of scene, describing time and place – always begin with INT. (interior) or EXT. (exterior). They always end with NIGHT or DAY. Do NOT use ‘Magic Hour’, ‘Late Afternoon’, or any other such departure. Only use ‘Morning’ or ‘Sunset’ if it is critical to the timeline of the story.
10. Character names are capitalized in scene description only once, the very first time that character appears in the screenplay.
    Sounds are capitalized (e.g. BANG).
    Please don’t use this often or get carried away with capitalizing sounds (e.g. PATTER, PATTER, PATTER of feet as he SHUFFLED; or the faucet went DRIP, DRIP, DRIP as the kettle WHISTLED).
    Stick to loud, important sounds. If in doubt, don’t capitalize.
    Nothing else in scene description should be capitalized.
    (Note: Long ago, writers sometimes included lighting effects, props and other capitlaized items, but these are no longer accepted practices).