BPS 120: The Essentials of Screenwriting with Richard Walter

Our guest today, is expert storytelling educator, author, and UCLA professor, Richard Walter--- bestselling author of Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing.  He recently retired as Professor and Interim Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television where, for more than forty years, he chaired the graduate program in screenwriting.

The amazing thing about Richard is he has been the instructor of some of the most amazing screenwriters in Hollywood history. A handful of them has been on the show, including Sacha Gervasi, Jim Uhls, the writer of Fight Club, and Paul Castro, just to name a few. 

He's written scripts for major studios, television networks, and even wrote the earliest drafts of George Lucas's American Graffiti. Talking to Richard in this conversation was essentially sitting front row at a masterclass of storytelling and screenwriting.

It was an absolute treat talking to Richard. Not only has his work been appreciated in the US but in other parts of the world, conducting lectures in London, Paris, Jerusalem, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, and Hong Kong.

He complains that L.A. has relentless good weather which he says, ‘Is not writing weather’, yet, in 1988, he released his first instructional book Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing (Plume). This was followed a decade later (2000) by his debut novel Escape from Film School, which tells the sprightly tale of a young man who makes it in Hollywood without ever leaving film school.

Richard is one of the few OG writers who have studied, and taught through the evolutive eras of screenplays and screenwriting in Hollywood. With his wealth of knowledge, he released his third and most recent book, Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing. In this one, he shares the secrets of writing and selling successful screenplays for aspiring screenwriters.

It contains highly coveted lessons and principles from Screenwriting with material from his companion text, The Whole Picture, and includes new advice on how to turn a raw idea into a great movie or TV script and sell it.

Besides his outstanding career, we chatted about his love for Spike Lee films, we talked about screenplay structuring and many more. It's been an absolute treat talking with Richard.

Enjoy this epic conversation with Richard Walter.

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