The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

The podcast discusses 6 essential strategies for tackling a rewrite, including the importance of writing what you want, exploring character transformation and personal growth, finding and using your voice in writing, setting goals and deadlines, pushing scenes and exploring the depths of characters, and overcoming the challenges of rewriting.

Ted Hope, super producer, shares advice for living a successful creative life, emphasizing the importance of balancing multiple projects. Topics discussed include setting boundaries, managing expectations as a writer, prioritizing projects, embracing noble failures, supporting artists in production, and the importance of having a plan for future projects.

Award-winning independent film producer Ted Hope discusses whether a script is ready to send to producers and answers various questions. They also explore the joy of writing, finding inspiration, creating lasting work, the importance of finishing scripts, the dream of feedback, and navigating script development challenges.

The hosts discuss movies that influenced their writing careers, including 'Big Fish' and 'Sophie's Choice'. They explore the challenges of balancing personal experiences while writing and the benefits of Masterclass for aspiring filmmakers. They also delve into uncovering core influences of favorite directors and share their aspirations and fears of directing their own movies.

Though it can sometimes feel like a prison, screenplay structure is actually a very freeing element of the story process. Jill Chamberlain, a veteran script consultant, is obsessive about structure, to the point where she has created a popular technique to re-consider how we approach our work. On her technique, producer Callum Greene (Star Wars Episode 9) offers “the Nutshell Technique is like the Rosetta Stone: it cracks the code behind why we love the movies that we love. It goes way beyond tired old beat sheet ‘formulas’ and instead guides you to organically write the story you want to tell.”FOR MORE ON JILL (& FREE NUTSHELL WORKSHEETS): https://www.jillchamberlain.comTO JOIN OUR PATREON: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Collaborators and showrunners, Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, discuss the importance of embracing the writing process, collaborative writing, therapy for writers, embracing unconventional ideas, meaningful goals in storytelling, embracing failure, and capturing ideas. They also share heartfelt stories of personal experiences and encouraging others.

**PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EPISODE WAS PRE-RECORDED & PRECEDED THE 2023 WGA STRIKE.**In today's TSL epsiode, Meg gets personal about her lava, and how a recent production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George is helping her to rethink the beauty of moving on from a creative project.JOIN OUR PATREON: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite being a multiple Academy Award winner, celebrated producer, and feature/TV director, Jodie Foster is still aiming for a singular goal: to tell truthful stories. On today's show, we discuss how Jodie processes her work, how she collaborates with others, and what Robert De Niro taught her on the set of Taxi Driver.Join Our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though she got her start in multi-cam sitcoms, it was a bold sci-fi dramedy rom-com that made Pixar interested in hiring Brenda Hsueh to co-write Elemental. On today's show, Brenda discusses how her voice has evolved as a writer over the course of her career, how she brought her own experience into her work as a writer for Elemental, and how she has learned to elegantly argue for what she believes in when collaborating.JOIN OUR PATREON: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/SCREENWRITERS and get on your way to being your best self. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With hits like BRING IT ON and STICK IT, writer/director Jessica Bendinger is known for her subversive and surprising takes on female girlhood, using archetypes in a way that audiences have celebrated. Today what discuss what archetypes are, how we can use them, and what the future of our industry looks like.FOR JESS' BOOK/PODCAST: http://www.jessicabendinger.com/TO JOIN OUR PATREON: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices