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Screenwriting

IFH 801: Breaking the Rules: Crafting Powerful Films Without Hollywood Money with Shawn Whitney

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Sometimes, the fire of creativity is struck not by lightning but by the slow, smoldering ache of dissatisfaction. And in today’s soul-stirring conversation, we welcome Shawn Whitney, a filmmaker who found cinema not in the corridors of academia, but in the quiet rebellion of self-taught screenwriting and micro-budget filmmaking. Shawn Whitney is a screenwriter, director, and founder of Micro Budget Film Lab who empowers indie creators to tell powerful stories on shoestring budgets.

Our journey with Shawn begins not in childhood fantasies of movie stardom, but in the dense woods of Brechtian theater and the quiet study of old black-and-white films. His path wandered, as many worthwhile ones do, through rejection, basement solitude, and heartbreak—until something within him demanded not just expression but transmutation. Shawn didn’t study film in college. Instead, he emerged from the theater world and fell into filmmaking after a failed workshop production left him broke and dispirited. Yet that fall became his rise. As he said, “I just started writing screenplays and learning the craft in the quiet shadows.”

There’s something beautiful in learning the art of story not from glamorous sets or high-priced workshops but from the bones of failed experiments and the echoes of dialogue bouncing around your own mind. Shawn described his education not with fanfare but humility—referencing Sid Field, Blake Snyder, and the ever-controversial Save the Cat—tools that became his spiritual guides, not rigid masters. And with every script, he refined a method. Not the method, mind you. A method. “You just need a method. You can’t just be anarchy,” he mused.

But perhaps what struck me most was Shawn’s philosophy that screenwriting is not just structure—it’s an argument about what makes life meaningful. Films, he insists, must be animated not by market trends, but by inner turmoil, by the strange flickering passions of the human heart. “It can’t just be about chopping up zombies. Your characters must go through an inner transformation.” That idea—that a film is a living question—sets Shawn apart in a world often obsessed with following the formula instead of feeling the pulse.

Shawn’s micro-budget films—“A Brand New You” and “F*cking My Way Back Home”—aren’t just titles that stick. They are rebellious acts of filmmaking born from limited means and limitless creativity. His stories unfold not in sprawling CGI landscapes, but in human longing, funny sadness, and philosophical absurdity. One film follows a man trying to clone his dead wife in the living room. Another explores redemption from the passenger seat of a towed Cutlass Supreme. With a budget of $7,000 and a borrowed tow truck, Shawn pulled off scenes that feel bigger than most tentpole blockbusters.

But filmmaking, for Shawn, isn’t just about his own expression. Through Micro Budget Film Lab, he’s become a teacher, a mentor, and a kind of mad scientist in the alchemical lab of storytelling. His passion is not merely to direct, but to help others break free from the gatekeeping systems that keep fresh stories from being told. “We need a micro budget movement,” he declared, envisioning a cinematic rebellion where filmmakers use what they have to tell stories no one else dares to.

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IFH 800: Behind the Scenes of Sharknado: Turning Sci-Fi Madness into Storytelling Gold with Andrew Shaffer

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The mind is a curious trickster, delighting in dreams where logic pirouettes in absurdity. In today’s extraordinary episode, we welcome Andrew Shaffer, a humorist and New York Times bestselling author whose wit slices through the storms of reality with a twinkle in his eye and a chainsaw in hand.

From the earliest pages of his life, Andrew Shaffer was destined to dance with the ridiculous and sublime. As a child, he devoured horror and science fiction with a ravenous appetite, only to find himself drawn back to these imaginative playgrounds after a detour through the hallowed halls of literary fiction. His journey led him, almost inevitably, to the playful chaos of “How to Survive a Sharknado,” a manual for the absurd that demands both laughter and preparation.

In the dance of ideas, Andrew revealed how the birth of the Sharknado survival guide was as spontaneous as a tornado filled with teeth. Inspired by the original cult film, he offered his humorous talents when Random House and SyFy decided to create a companion book. Imagine being tasked with making flying sharks scientifically plausible; as he put it, “I had to talk to a marine biologist and ask, not could this happen, but how it might happen.” It is in such delightfully impossible questions that the spirit of creativity is set loose.

Throughout the conversation, there was a beautiful lightness, the kind one finds when nonsense is taken seriously. Andrew’s research involved binge-watching over 30 sci-fi films—some genuine, some fabricated solely for the book—to weave an interconnected universe of mayhem. When asked how one might survive a Sharknado, he smiled into the void and said, “The answer in the book is simple: Stand and fight. Grab a chainsaw.” It is a lesson not just for storms of sharks, but for all the monstrous whirlwinds that life throws at us.

Yet beneath the chuckles and chainsaws, Andrew’s words echoed a deeper wisdom. Too much meta-awareness, he warned, robs a story of its soul. “If everybody’s in on the joke,” he said, “then the joke itself isn’t that funny anymore.” Ah, but isn’t that true of life itself? When we cling too tightly to cleverness, we risk missing the raw wonder that makes each absurdity luminous.

Perhaps the most chilling revelation of the day was the invincibility of the ghost shark, a creature birthed from sci-fi chaos. Manifesting from toilets, swimming pools, and even water bottles, it served as a reminder: some forces cannot be outrun; they must be met with courage, humor, and an open heart.

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IFH 791: Beyond the Script: Gordy Hoffman’s Guide to Emotional Storytelling

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Life, they say, is a story we tell ourselves—a script of experience, moments, and emotions woven into a narrative only we can claim as our own. On today’s episode, we welcome Gordy Hoffman, a screenwriter, director, and the mind behind the BlueCat Screenwriting Competition. His journey through the labyrinth of storytelling has been marked by profound lessons in creativity, resilience, and the delicate art of telling tales that move the human heart.

As he shares his insights, one thing becomes evident: the best stories are not formulas but living, breathing entities. Too often, writers are shackled by the idea that a script must be a well-oiled machine of plot points and three-act structures. But according to Gordy Hoffman, true storytelling is about emotional investment. “The only rule of storytelling is getting an audience to care,” he explains. Without that, no amount of structure or technique can save a lifeless script. Whether it’s an Oscar-winning screenplay or a child recounting their day at school, the heart of a story lies in its ability to make someone feel something real.

The conversation drifts into the art of critique—how some script consultants and teachers wield feedback like a sledgehammer rather than a guiding hand. Gordy Hoffman believes in nurturing creativity with kindness, rather than crushing it under the weight of harsh criticism. He’s seen firsthand how a poorly delivered note can stifle a writer, and he champions an approach where constructive guidance fosters growth rather than fear. After all, a writer’s vulnerability is embedded in their work, and the moment they detach from that, their stories lose their humanity.

But what about the battle every writer faces—the looming doubt that creeps in halfway through a script, whispering that it’s all meaningless, that every page is a failure? Gordy Hoffman reassures us that this despair is not a dead end but a marker of progress. “Every screenplay you work on, you’re going to hit that wall where you think, ‘This is awful, I’m bored, and I want to start over.’ That’s when you know you’re halfway there.” The magic, he insists, lies in persistence—pushing through the malaise, trusting the process, and understanding that the creative spirit is not meant to be shackled by self-doubt.

The conversation inevitably turns to Hollywood, that glittering beast that both nurtures and devours dreams. The industry’s appetite for franchise films and established intellectual property has made it harder than ever for original screenplays to find their place. But for those who believe in their stories, avenues still exist—film festivals like Sundance, independent productions, and even the evolving landscape of television. The key is not just writing a screenplay but crafting one so undeniable that it demands to be seen.

And what of inspiration? For Gordy Hoffman, it can come from anywhere—a fleeting moment, a stray observation, or even an index card scribbled with a single thought. Love Liza, one of his most well-known works, was born from a brief encounter at a gas station. “I saw someone near a pump, and I thought, ‘Are they sniffing gasoline?’ That small moment turned into a story about grief and addiction.” Such is the power of storytelling—it transforms the mundane into the extraordinary, giving meaning to even the smallest of moments.

The beauty of storytelling is that it is never truly finished. It grows, shifts, and takes on a life of its own, sometimes in ways we never intended. As Gordy Hoffman reminds us, the path of the writer is one of perseverance, of believing in the story even when the world seems indifferent. In the end, storytelling is less about perfecting structure and more about opening the heart—to others, to ourselves, and to the infinite possibility of what can be created.

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IFH 789: The Indie Filmmaker’s Journey: Curt Wiser on Creativity, Persistence, and Making Cam Girl

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On today’s episode, we welcome Curt Wiser, a writer and director whose journey proves that the path to making movies doesn’t require a New York or Los Angeles zip code. From the sunny shores of Florida, Curt has forged his own cinematic destiny, creating the suspenseful and thought-provoking film Cam Girl—a story of isolation, control, and survival. But as with any journey worth taking, his was not without its trials.

Filmmaking is often romanticized as an artistic dreamland, yet reality demands perseverance. Curt Wiser spent years writing scripts, refining his vision, and navigating the labyrinth of independent film production. He understood a fundamental truth—great stories come from deep within the storyteller. The seed of Cam Girl was planted not in a boardroom or a Hollywood studio, but in the quiet hours of personal discipline, writing at night after long workdays, shaping ideas into something tangible. He described his creative process as a structured yet fluid endeavor, saying, “I outline thoroughly, but when I start writing, it just pours out. I wrote the first draft of Cam Girl in 14 days.” Passion fuels discipline, and discipline, in turn, fuels success.

His film, Cam Girl, takes a simple yet gripping premise—a woman working as a webcam performer who finds herself taken hostage—and transforms it into an intense, psychological unraveling. With one primary location and a tight cast, it is proof that compelling storytelling doesn’t require a blockbuster budget. The industry often pressures filmmakers to define themselves within a niche, to follow trends rather than intuition. But Curt remains steadfast in his desire to explore diverse narratives, aware that Hollywood loves to box artists in, but true creators resist those constraints.

Challenges are inevitable in both life and filmmaking, and Curt has encountered his fair share. Whether it was dealing with malfunctioning equipment, shifting schedules, or the ever-present financial constraints of independent cinema, he never allowed these obstacles to derail his vision. He understands that setbacks are not roadblocks, but rather, unexpected plot twists in the grand narrative of creation. “Filmmaking is like solving a puzzle while the pieces keep changing,” he mused. The lesson? You don’t control the waves, but you learn how to ride them.

Independent filmmaking is a test of patience, resilience, and the ability to pivot when necessary. Distribution, marketing, and audience reception all present their own set of challenges, but Curt embraces the uncertainty, knowing that each project is a stepping stone to the next. Cam Girl has found its way to audiences through Amazon and other platforms, an accomplishment that many filmmakers never reach. His approach to networking, to putting work out into the world, proves a vital point: persistence, not perfection, is what leads to opportunity.

Filmmakers, writers, and creatives alike can take inspiration from Curt’s journey. The industry is a maze, but the way through it is to keep moving. Too many aspiring artists get caught in the paralysis of waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect budget, the perfect conditions. But perfection is an illusion. Start where you are. Use what you have. Tell your story anyway.

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IFH 788: The Unscripted Journey of Steven Bernstein: From Cinematographer to Storyteller

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What if the greatest stories of our lives are the ones we never meant to write? On today’s episode, we welcome Steven Bernstein, a man whose journey through the world of cinema has been anything but predictable. A writer at heart, a cinematographer by accident, and a director by destiny, his career is a living testament to the art of surrendering to the unknown. From his early days at the BBC to the sets of Hollywood blockbusters, his story unfolds like an unplanned masterpiece—one that ultimately brought him full circle, back to the thing he always loved: writing.

In this profound conversation, Steven Bernstein recounts his journey from philosophy student to award-winning cinematographer, where his love of storytelling found an unexpected home behind the lens. He speaks of the curious ways life moves us, sometimes against our best-laid plans. “You tend to go with those things that are providing you income,” he muses, reflecting on how a passion for writing gave way to cinematography, leading him to films like Monster, Like Water for Chocolate, and Scary Movie 2. Yet, even as he shaped light and shadow for some of cinema’s most striking images, the writer within him never faded.

There is an undeniable poetry in the way Bernstein describes his work. He doesn’t just shoot a film; he composes it, layering meaning through framing, movement, and light. Every choice—a dolly push, a backlight, an asymmetrical composition—whispers something to the audience. It’s a language beyond words, one that he speaks fluently. “Everything to do with film is a language,” he explains. “And like any language, it’s made up of two parts: that which we present and that which we mean.”

His journey back to writing was not an easy one. After years of crafting imagery for others, he took a leap into directing his own films, starting with Decoding Annie Parker. It was a lesson in risk and resilience. At one point, he spent five years in poverty, refusing to return to the safety of cinematography. “If you hold out for the dream, maybe you achieve it,” he says. It is a stark reminder that the artist’s path is often one of sacrifice, but those who persist find themselves richer in ways beyond money.

Yet, Bernstein also understands the tension between art and commerce. Filmmaking is an expensive endeavor, and investors want guarantees. He describes the struggle of balancing creative vision with financial expectations, a dance between inspiration and limitation. And yet, some of the greatest filmmakers—Terry Malick, the Coen Brothers, Charlie Kaufman—have defied convention, proving that the most resonant stories often break the rules.

The conversation moves to the nature of collaboration, the unspoken alchemy that happens on a film set when everyone is in sync. He recalls moments from Monster, where the crew, sensing the gravity of a scene, chose to remain completely silent, whispering only when necessary. It was an unspoken agreement, an offering to the art being created. “It was one of the most magical moments I remember in any film I’ve ever worked on,” he recalls. It is a glimpse into the rare, sacred spaces where true storytelling happens—not in the scripts, but in the spaces between them.

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IFH 773: How to Master Screenwriting in Hollywood with Mick Hurbis-Cherrier

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Today on the show we have author, filmmaker and screenwriter Mick Hurbis-Cherrier.

Mick  is an independent filmmaker and screenwriter. His works have been broadcast and shown around the country and have garnered prizes at many festivals including the Black Maria Film & Video Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Athens Film & Video Festival and the Cin(e) Poems National Film Festival.

His work has also been featured at the Robert Flaherty Seminar, the American Film Institute’s National Video Showcase and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His screenplays have also won prizes including the Arthur Miller Award for dramatic writing, the Lawrence Kasdan award for screenwriting and he was twice an award winner in the University Film & Video Association national screenwriting competition.

Among his film projects are: River of Things, an alternative film in four parts based on four poems by Pablo Neruda and Fear Fall, a short narrative satire about paranoia and the squeezing of the American middle class, which he wrote, directed and produced.

His recent commissioned feature screenwriting projects include Give Me Five, which he co-wrote (with Ron Bass) for La Petite Reine Productions, Mesopotamia 2020 for Picturesque films and Empire of Dirt for director Steve Ramser. He also penned Better That Way, the official English language stage adaptation of the film Une Liaison Pornographique (U.S. release title An Affair of Love).

He is currently completing a gangster genre screenplay set in New Orleans entitled Force of Nature, also for Picturesque films.

In 2011 Hurbis-Cherrier published the 2nd edition of his comprehensive narrative film production textbook Voice & Vision: A Creative Approach to Narrative Filmmaking. with Focal Press (originally published in 2007). In 2013 he published Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics 5th ed. (Focal Press) co-authored with Michael Rabiger.

Both of these books are among the core film production textbooks in film programs throughout this country and internationally. Hurbis-Cherrier is currently working on the book, Practical Film Analysis and Inspired Filmmaking for the British Film Institute (BFI Publishing, Palgrave/MacMillan) which is scheduled for publication in early 2015.

Enjoy my conversation with Mick Hurbis-Cherrier.

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IFH 772: Screenwriting the 80’s Classic Cocoon with Tom Benedek

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Tom Benedek is a screenwriter known for his work in the film industry. He was born on March 16, 1949, in Los Angeles, California, USA. Benedek has written several screenplays for movies across various genres. One of his notable works includes co-writing the screenplay for the 1984 science fiction film “Cocoon,” directed by Ron Howard.

“Cocoon” was a critical and commercial success and received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Visual Effects. The film tells the story of a group of elderly individuals who discover an alien life force that rejuvenates them, leading to a series of life-changing events.

In addition to his work on “Cocoon,” Tom Benedek has written other screenplays and worked on various projects in the entertainment industry.

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IFH 771: Beat by Beat to a Better Screenplay with Jim Mercurio

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Today on the show we have Jim Mercurio. Jim is a filmmaker, writer, and author whose screenwriting instruction has inspired tens of thousands of writers around the world. Creative Screenwriting ranked him as one of the country’s top story analysts:

“The best example of how an analyst can give concrete help without veering off the track of your story… (Jim) is not just telling you how to rewrite a particular script… but how to apply it to future work as well.”

Jim works with Oscar-nominated and A-List writers as well as complete beginners. He adapts to each writer and script.

Jim is a true champion for undiscovered writers and filmmakers. He produced Hard Scrambled which, like the horror-thriller he directed Last Girl, was discovered in a contest. The film stars Kurtwood Smith (That 70’s Show) and indie stalwart Richard Edson. It premiered at Cinequest and won Best Dramatic Feature at Garden State Film Festival. His experience as a filmmaker informs his approach to the material. He helps you to execute your vision with vivid and cinematic storytelling that can attract allies like directors and producers.

He directed more than 60 hours of Screenwriting education including the first 40 Workshops in the Screenwriting Expo Series including classes by some of the other top screenwriting teachers in the world. His own course Killer Endings was one of the best sellers from the collection. He wrote and directed Making Hard Scrambled Movies, filmmaking tutorials, as bonus material for Hard Scrambled’s original release.

The Washington Post called them “a must for would-be filmmakers.” Inspired by his work on the Expo series, Jim applied his entrepreneurial “go big or go home” attitude to the six-disc DVD set Complete Screenwriting: From A to Z to A-List, a behemoth of screenwriting instruction. It is one of the most comprehensive screenwriting resources in the world. It’s a fast and furious ten hours with an hour of stunning motion graphics that help to explain seldom-discussed topics like theme, concept and character orchestration.

Jim wrote The Craft of Scene Writing: Beat by Beat to a Better Script, the first-ever screenwriting book that focuses solely on scene writing.

Together, Jim’s course and book illustrate his forte, to illustrate advanced craft and nitty-gritty insight essential for mastery of screenwriting craft.

Enjoy my conversation with Jim Mercurio.

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IFH 770: Screenwriting Unchained – Master Story Structure with Emmanuel Oberg

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Today on the show we have Emmanuel Oberg. Emmanuel is a screenwriter, author and script consultant with more than twenty years of experience in the Film and TV industry. After selling his first project to Warner Bros as a co-writer, he went on to be commissioned by StudioCanal and Gold Circle before writing solo for Working Title / Universal and Film4.

He has also designed an internationally acclaimed 3-day Advanced Development Workshop – based on the Story-Type Method® – which he delivers with passion to filmmakers all over the world. Emmanuel lives in the UK with his wife and their two daughters. His film agent is Rachel Holroyd at Casarotto in London. He is also the writer of Screenwriting Unchained: Reclaim Your Creative Freedom and Master Story Structure (With The Story-Type Method).

In Screenwriting Unchained, Emmanuel Oberg busts many myths and sets out an innovative method

This practical, no-nonsense guide leaves behind one-size-fits-all story theories and offers a modern approach to story structure, making it a precious resource for anyone involved creatively in the Film and TV industry (or aspiring to be): writers, directors, producers, development execs, showrunners and, more generally, storytellers keen to reach a wide audience at home and abroad.

Having identified three main story-types – plot-led, character-led, theme-led – Oberg reveals in a clear, conversational style how each of these impacts on the structure of any screenplay, and how we can use a single set of tools to develop any movie, from an independent crossover to a studio blockbuster.

This leads to a powerful yet flexible way to handle the script development process: the Story-Type Method®. A new framework that doesn’t tell you what to write and when, but focuses instead on why some tools and principles have stood the test of time and how to use them in the 21st century.

According to readers (see reviews below), Oberg’s new approach is a game-changer.

Here are some of the easy-to-understand concepts explored in Screenwriting Unchained that will help you improve any screenplay:

  • How to identify the story-type of your project to make its development faster, easier and solve most story structure problems.
  • How to leave behind the prescriptive, logistical three-act structure based on page numbers or minutes and replace it with a flexible, dramatic three-act structure that will help you design a rock-solid screenplay.
  • How focusing on emotion, character development and managing information will allow you to go beyond the “protagonist-goal-obstacles-conflict” basic chain of drama.
  • How to use the fractal aspect of structure to design not only the whole story but also its parts in order to avoid the dreaded “sagging middle” syndrome and breathe new life into your script.
  • How to clarify what’s at stake and increase your chances of getting the project made with a new take on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
  • How to use subgoals to Sequence the Action and psychological/emotional steps to Sequence the Evolution of your characters.
  • How to keep the audience engaged using tools like dramatic irony, surprise, mystery, and suspense, adding a third dimension to your story.
  • How to master these tools and principles in scenes through practical exercises before using them in a short film, a feature film, a TV episode or a whole series following hands-on tips and advice.
  • How to design an attention-grabbing opening and a satisfying ending.
  • How to deal with hybrids and exceptions, as story structure isn’t about forcing all narratives into a single formulaic paradigm.
  • The Rewrite Stuff: 12 Ways to a Stronger Screenplay, how to approach a new draft creatively and efficiently.
  • How to make the difference between selling documents – used to raise development or production finance – and story design tools.
  • Once you’ve developed a killer script, how to best pitch your project according to its story-type and get enthusiastic partners on board.
  • …and much, much more!

Using many case studies including films as diverse as Gravity, Silver Linings Playbook, Crash, Billy Elliot, The Intouchables, Birdman, Alien, Groundhog Day, Misery, Edge of Tomorrow, The Secret in Their Eyes, Cloud Atlas, L.A. Confidential and The Lives of Others, Screenwriting Unchainedwill transform the way you write, read, pitch, design, assess and develop screenplays.

Enjoy my conversation with Emmanuel Oberg.

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