I live in Santa Monica, 6 blocks from the beach. I didn't go to film school, or really know anybody when I moved here years ago. But in that time I've... - Dabbled in movies. Co-wrote Shrek 2, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Disenchanted, the Smurfs movies, the Rugrats movies, and Are We There Yet? - Made a few dimes on my way to $2.5B cumulative box office across a 30+ year career writing, rewriting, pitching, and fixing projects for Disney, Dreamworks, Paramount, Fox, etc. - Written for Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, Neil Patrick Harris, Sofia Vergara, Ice Cube, Katy Perry, Antonio Banderas, Patrick Dempsey, Hank Azaria, Cuba Gooding Jr. etc etc. - Invested my dimes in a house in Pacific Palisades, so my kids could grow up in one idyllic little town, rather than get bounced from place to place like I did. - Watched said town burn down in Jan. 2025, including that house and everything in it. Then watched my daughter go from devastated to thriving her freshman year at NYU. - The same year, I built The Writer's Forge to 620+ members, coaching writers three times per week. Because it's all, all of it, about mindset. - Created the Primal Forge Method: a character-first story development process that helps writers find the emotional engine of their story before touching structure. - Developed proprietary tools already working inside the community: Primal Forge GPT and The Diner Test. Next up: Helping 25 serious screenwriters write, finish and market the best screenplay of their lives in a private cohort I'm calling The Screenplay Forge. If you're ready to get serious and take your writing to the next level, click here to apply. First in, first served. Lock your place now.

Hey Forgers! Sorry for the late notice, but I hope you'll join us TOMORROW, JULY 8, 10PST to talk about any and all things related to the business of screenwriting. LINK TO CALL: https://www.skool.com/live/xBHytwChwTt You choose what you want to talk about. Here are some topics: • Pitching • Query Letters • Loglines • AI Verticles • Shorts • Pitch Decks • IP • Festivals and Competitions For those of you who are new here and haven't been to a Wednesday Biz Talk, these sessions are opportunities for the community to get informed, schooled, workshopped, and practiced in the business of screenwriting. Every week we (usually) have a specific topic that is discussed, or sometimes a featured special guest/industry pro leading a talk or workshop. But this week, you'll get to choose what topic you want to discuss. Just a heads up, pitches will have a 5 minute time limit per member, and other topics, like workshopping your logline, will get a 10 minute time limit per member. This way everyone will hopefully have a chance at bat. See you there! LINK TO CALL: https://www.skool.com/live/xBHytwChwTt

On The Rugrats Movie there was a Russian director named Igor. His English wasn't great. He'd read our latest draft, find me and my writing partner in the hallway, and deliver the same review every time. Imagine this in thick Russian accent: "I read script. Script needs... something." That was it. He never said what the something was. It pissed me off. It felt unfair. But he was absolutely right. It did need something. And he wasn't a writer, so pointing to it wasn't his job. Finding it was ours. The same way it's an actor's job to bring a character to life, or an art director's job to bring a set to life. Your job as a writer is to find the something. // I used to think the something was plot. Things happen, and characters happen to be standing in them. So I'd rearrange events, punch up scenes, and Igor would find me in the hallway again. Script needs something. After a long series of beating my head against the wall, I found it. The something is what your character is hiding. Or is in deep denial of. // Rugrats turned around when we leaned into Tommy's denial. Suddenly there was comic juxtaposition between the scene Tommy insisted was happening and the scene his friends could plainly see. Same engine in Shrek. Shrek at dinner with Fiona's parents is funny because he's in denial about how obviously they hate him. But look closer. The King is in denial too. He's hiding that he was the frog a princess kissed. He believes that part of him is unlovable. Rewatch the movie and you'll see it: everything that happens in that kingdom happens not because the father hates Shrek, but because he hates the frog in himself. All of us hide parts of ourselves from the world. Including from the people closest to us. So when a character on screen does it, we don't watch them. We recognize ourselves. // Here's the truth nobody tells you. The audience doesn't care about you. They don't care about your story. They don't even care about your characters. They care about themselves. That's why they bought the ticket.

Hope everyone’s having a lovely weekend and are all well :) What’s everyone’s thoughts about uploading your script to the black list, I was thinking about doing it soon maybe - not sure how it works - Thanks :)