<p>My daughter went to USC majoring in Critical Studies with a minor in Comp lit, she has friend who was in the screen writing major, I think from what she told me that major is easier than her major. Her friend didn’t have to work as hard to get good grade. She also told me in retrospect she should have studied English as a minor and not Comp lit. The degree from USC film school has given her a huge boost in confidence, she has since started 2 production companies and is earning a living doing film related stuff. If I ask her whether the USC degree helps her or not, she would deny that it would help, I however seriously doubt it.
But my kid loves to read constantly so it doesn’t matter what degree she gets she will get her inspiration from somewhere.</p>
<p>My apology to circuit rider, I guess I do not understand what “you are something of a ringer meant”. Yes I have been through this whole process, college, no college, Ivy, no Ivy. “trade”, no trade. All overwhelming at times at at the least stressful with decisions to be met. I know the schools that are not specific to writing and their reputations, it is the film (specifically screenwriting/creative writing) that is the new waters to navigate so I reached out to this “COLLEGE” Confidential for some insight into those schools. NOT going is just not an option for him, UNLESS he was offered a position under someone in the field that was impressive enough to defer school for a year if that option was offered, many do let you defer a year. On his list is trying how to contact David O Russell, who he has worked with and knows him (in acting capacity) to see if he could assist as an intern (again no college may make internships impossible). Gotta give him credit for being pro active. We actually began cold calling production companies in LA to see if they had any high school internships after his script reading internship fell through because he couldn’t give them 4 months. Did get a couple responses but nothing panned out so he decided on the Emerson summer. He’s excited about that so we will continue to explore. He has visits set up for USC and NYU this summer. I just saw that BARD has a screenwriting program, we’ll look into that. He just got his ACT score back, 32, so that is a hurdle we don’t have to worry about. Whatever he ends up doing I’m sure he’ll find his way, just trying to help him find his wings being a “studentsmom” :)</p>
<p>@circuitrider - no one was trying to persuade anyone to skip college altogether. Some of us were just cautioning against attending a school as expensive as USC for a degree like screenwriting. </p>
<p>@abcde11
I’m sure @studentsmom appreciates the clarification.</p>
<p>seems all private schools have about the same price tag</p>
<p><a href=“I’m%20glad%20my%20son%20see’s%20Emerson%20college%20as%20a%20%22writer’s%20retreat%22%20and%20appreciates%20the%20importance%20that%20artists%20in%20your%20field%20can%20give%20you%20by%20critique%20and%20support%20with%20person%20one%20on%20one”>QUOTE</a>. If he goes to NYU I believe he can double major (English or History) or I will encourage him to pursue the concentration in a second field like directing or producing to give him some more marketable skills to work “in his field” while he continues to write.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>@studentsmom, I’m sorry your son is discouraged. He can’t indulge himself in that emotion very long if he wants a career in the entertainment field. Our industry is tough; the number of well known directors, producers, and writers compared to our overall number has to very small. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people making a very good living. The key, I think, is making yourself as marketable as possible. </p>
<p>If your son double majors, he’ll have more skills to get his foot in the door. Instead of majoring in writing, I’d major in something technical and add writing courses to whatever that is. It’s easier to write when you understand the capabilities of the equipment you’re going to be working with, and I think it’s easier to get a job when your skill set is broader. Production majors are generally required to take writing courses anyway, and your son can always seek out related courses as electives. Shakespeare, classic literature, and film analysis help students learn the art of storytelling and how those stories are translated to the screen. Some colleges combine the writing and production into one major. Emerson’s Cinematography/Videography major, for instance, includes feature film writing courses, video production, field production, computer animation, and documentary production. The college also offers courses in comedy writing, sound, and location recording. They’re fairly expensive, though, so if finances are a consideration you may want to look into cheaper options. I wouldn’t take on large amounts of debt to work in the entertainment industry if I could help it.</p>
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</p>
<p>I had to insert the second P, in this whole discussion of stifling growth, because even though it addressed @jtmoney , it had applications towards your post. I tend to go in the opposite direction whenever someone, generally not the OP in this case, but perhaps more MrMom62, recommends the top film programs in the country for career development and advancement. I just tried to show that even the extreme case of not attending college wasn’t going to disqualify one from being a noted screenwriter, and to show a dissenting opinion or to propose a wider array of choices, and not particularly to disagree with his post. This was my attempt to push an envelope, because to push THE envelope would require more of an audience. </p>
<p>In the second highlighted bold, I would be encouraging a pre-17-y-o in starting his own business, and learning bus principals. Similarly, I would be encouraging a creative artist in writing at an age before 17 to hone his or her craft instead of letting college do this, and as @Abcde11 stated, no one is disrecommending college. The inferred is this: if one has to rely on college for one to become a competent writer, then it probably isn’t going to happen. People should try to improve their writing all the time, and this is probably for most a never-ending process, but though college may improve one’s writing, others are similarly improving and honing their own abilities. In this case, studying screenwriting as an undergrad could be stifling because it is extremely narrow, and won’t help the aspirant in this field in the fostering of his/her “creativity,” per my studying entrepreneurship example without having anything to “entrepreneur.” </p>
<p>Some corrections and omissions per my previous posts:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I mentioned AI, Artificial Intelligence, as being I believe I stated, ‘a modern-day Pinocchio.’ In a way it was in more of a futuristic sense of the movie’s time placement, as opposed to when Spielberg released the movie in 2001, but the writers deftly incorporated the reading of The Adventures of… in the movie’s story to David (or he read it himself, I forgot which), becoming his obsession in finding the Blue Fairy and his becoming a real boy. As an aside, I can’t remember any other movie that evoked the kind of specifically contrived, futuristically based wrenching emotion in a movie-goer as this one has, and it has to become a classic, if it isn’t now, some 13 years later. In addition, some of the specific scenes are undoubtably memorable.</p></li>
<li><p>Someone who studies psych to ‘write psych[ological] thrillers [or] to write about stories based in insane asylums (or the more correct, psychiatric hospitals)’.</p></li>
<li><p>I think to be a scientific writer, one could study something like physics, because I think that a writer in this field should know about our physical limitations as humans, both bodily and what we know as universally. For example, space travel if it is limited even to what physicists believe to be the fastest thing we know, light, would still mean that galaxies would be 1,000’s at the minimum of light years away. This all has to be bought into by the movie-goer in a sci-fi writer’s story. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sorry, @studentsmom , Emerson instead of Emory. I believe that Jay Leno is a graduate of the former, so perhaps you can contact his agent and ask him some advice in breaking into specifically, comedy writing, which was one of your original intents.</p>
<p>I’m not completing my thoughts. Per my point 3, a cosmologist can speculate about wormholes as a way of reconciling time travel to far away distances, as in Contact, and it might help in studying theoretical physics and astronomy to justify this in a story, and to reconcile our severe limitations as humans. Blah… </p>
<p>I think the best way to get your first script produced is to produce it yourself. It can be a short; it can be animation; it can be a low budget feature length film. People will sit through a film before they’ll lose two hours of their lives reading a spec script. So, yes. I do think some technical knowledge of movie making is a good thing. As to the proper ratio of academics to production courses, that’s going to vary from one individual to the next: Matthew Wiener, who is probably one of the most cerebral writer/producers in the business, and Michael Bay, one of the most technically proficient, both went to Wesleyan, but I think only MB majored in film.</p>
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<p>‘I think the best way to get your first script produced is to produce it yourself.’</p>
<p>That’s why I think this person should consider the story itself whether it is a viable standalone entity. If it isn’t – if it’s ‘too small,’ maybe he/she does have to produce, it make a short or low-budg feature-length film. Here’s how I would classify a story and its viability in catching someone’s eye, even the public, from highest to least:</p>
<ol>
<li>Book, short story to novels to trilogies to epic series</li>
<li>Script, with advanced dialog</li>
<li>Film, to highlight script which is usually small not viable in and of itself</li>
</ol>
<p>‘Michael Bay, one of the most technically proficient…’</p>
<p>Yeah, undoubtedly, he seems to be the big-budg director right now. I thought after his move The Island ‘bombed,’ that his star might have faded but then he got the Transformer movies.</p>
<p>I stated MB and David Fincher as examples in more of a mix-and-match listing of directors who have writing (and producing) credits.</p>
<p>Some of the more prolific writing-first big-budg scripters, certainly not all inclusive:</p>
<ol>
<li>JJ Abrams, Sarah Lawrence (also direction and production)</li>
<li>The team of Roberto Orci, UT-Austin and Alex Kurtzman, Wesleyan again; Orci is set to direct Star Trek 5</li>
<li>David Koepp, UCLA, one of Spielberg’s go-to writers (has directed and produced)</li>
</ol>
<p>Some of the top Comedic Sreenwriters</p>
<ol>
<li>Judd Apatow, USC and studied Screenwriting</li>
<li>Evan Goldberg, McGill</li>
<li>Seth Rogan, HS dropout</li>
</ol>
<p>TV Talk Hosts, some/most/all? who have comedic writing background:</p>
<ol>
<li>Conan O’Brien, Harvard</li>
<li>Stephen Colbert, Northwestern</li>
<li>Jon Stewart, College of W&M</li>
<li>Jimmy Kimmel, U of Arizona</li>
<li>Bill Maher, Cornell</li>
<li>David Letterman, Ball State,Indiana</li>
</ol>
<p>Who am I forgetting? </p>
<p>I’d look up others, like the animation stuff on Fox and the South Park people, but that’d take too much time. ;)</p>
<p>Another aside:</p>
<p>Wrt Carl Sagan’s book Contact, I’d be interested to see how he treated the time differential from the pod to drop from the release point to the water, a matter of only a couple of seconds, and the much longer time Foster’s character spent in that almost dream state that included seeing her father. Was it relativistic in time differential, with the pod traveling close to the speed of light? </p>
<p><a href=“Steve Levitan: From the Badger Family to "Modern Family" - YouTube”>Steve Levitan: From the Badger Family to "Modern Family" - YouTube;
<p><a href=“Jill Soloway: Writer, Producer, Director, Badger - YouTube”>Jill Soloway: Writer, Producer, Director, Badger - YouTube;
<p><a href=“Badgerwood: Eddy Kitsis & Adam Horowitz - YouTube”>Badgerwood: Eddy Kitsis & Adam Horowitz - YouTube;
<p>@circuitrider is right. It’s better to hybridize and both write and direct your first projects. Unknown directors will always be hungry for scripts, and most of the time the only scripts entrusted to them won’t be very good, or will be written by beginners without credits. Screenwriters on the other hand will usually be crippled with their lack of technical knowledge, and therefore the only chance of having their script reach an actual audience is if it can somehow make it’s way to the top of the slush pile at a major studio. In both cases, time is the main factor in success - directors need to spend a few years building a reel of bigger and bigger projects until a ‘good’ script will be given to them, and screenwriters need to sell several scripts to be maimed and discarded until they can get their idea in front of someone with the power to create a blockbuster or Oscar winner.</p>
<p>However, I still think screenwriters have it easier. This is because it’s a lot easier for a screenwriter to learn technical filmmaking and become at least proficient at directing, than it is for a director to somehow magically wake up and be a talented writer. Writing is, as said before, a fairly innate talent, while decent directing can at least be learned by most able-bodied individuals. </p>
<p>Screenwriters and directors will always have to rely on each other, which is probably why a good number of the people on @drax12 list were either writer/directors, or had at least tried both writing and directing a project once before. </p>
<p>If you hybridize and become proficient in several skill sets, you don’t have to wait around. You can begin to build a reel and sell work on your own, casting your line out to all different facets of the industry instead of just one. </p>
<p>@studentsmom Picking up business skills would also help immensely. I would actually say a good degree to get either alongside screenwriting (as a double major) or on its own is business - it’ll give a writer or director a huge leg up when dealing with producers. I think I once read this article written by a few screenwriters, and the ones who did get a business degree said it was invaluable to them when it came to selling projects</p>
<p>At the end of the day though, the answer to success is fairly clear - it all depends. I think people fail when they lose sight of what they initially set out to obtain. They don’t keep their eyes on the prize. This can happen when you attend college for a major unrelated to screenwriting and fill up all your time with studies useless to your career path. It can happen when you have so much debt, you can’t afford to wait around for a job, and you pick up the first job available to you even if it’s completely unrelated to film (which also eats up your time). It can also happen when you skip college altogether, but spend years and years making short videos only, never thinking about the ‘big picture’ and expanding; there are so many directors out there who only specialize in short films, and they don’t have the knowledge or the guts to jump into the commercial ring and actually try to get a feature made. </p>
<p>College isn’t a one size fits all solution. It works for some people and doesn’t work for others. Some people benefit greatly from places like USC, but that doesn’t mean you don’t stand a chance of being successful if you turn down that path (trying to scare kids into film schools by telling them they’ll fail without it is the worst way to go, and it happens too often unfortunately). A college education has nothing to do with basic talent and skill levels, and it isn’t a large factor in a writers success - you can see that just by analyzing the number of successful entertainers who majored in writing/directing and those who didn’t. So long as you don’t do something you regret - like picking up debt - or at least accept the consequence of some choices, and so long as you take tactical steps forward and don’t lose sight of the prize, you’ll be fine. I think the whole debate that stemmed from the OP’s original question really just boiled down to how a young filmmaker or writer shouldn’t do things that will limit or restrict them in the future, whatever that may be. </p>
<p>I’m going to change the priority of standalone stories as to what someone should pursue from first to least:</p>
<ol>
<li>Book</li>
<li>Script</li>
<li>Short Story</li>
<li>Film</li>
</ol>
<p>I realize that it’s better to have a wider array of talents to become more versatile @Abcde11 , and this would help one to gain a greater and faster foothold in the industry, but I think it’s better if a killer story were already in someone’s mind, say, one of the persons mentioned before – someone whose creative inspiration spiked which it often does initially … to put things in book form, which will result in it having a greater chance of showcase. It’s obviously more time consuming, but I think the ultimate rewards will be greater. </p>
<p>I realize that book writers don’t often cross over to script writing, as this appears to be the case with Michael Crichton, who worked with David Koepp in getting the some of the Jurassic Park movies to the screen, and this could be one of the reasons as you could have stated – that they just don’t know the technical side of making movies as book writers and penning advanced movie dialog.</p>
<p>Screenwriters are probably pretty keen observers. I don’t think they usually have sole ambitions of being ‘just’ writers, as we see above with Koepp and Orci. And through a good specified amount of time of having written for the best directors, they eventually often gain their shot at directing, though not something as big as Star Trek 5 as with Orci.</p>
<p>So my pathway to becoming a great overall movie maker is the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If college is in the works, attend college and major in something like English, something that will help in story-telling.</p></li>
<li><p>Write a book, series of books, much of which doesn’t have to be completed. (And I am not trying to state it is a simple process. Again, excellent writers, if not wildly creative people, can pen stories incredibly well by the age of 17. And this can be during or post college, maybe even before, though I list it second.)</p></li>
<li><p>Hire an agent who will help guide the aspirant author through the convoluted process of his/her book becoming published. </p></li>
<li><p>Most authors don’t think of this but start the process of becoming a screenwriter, through self-study. If need be, later, go for an MFA in screenwriting.</p></li>
<li><p>Again, I’m not saying this is a simple process, but hopefully the book will become wildly popular and its rights will be bought to be made into a movie.</p></li>
<li><p>Ask the director of the movie if he/she can be part of the non-credited 4th director or 3rd (being somewhat facetious), or even 2nd if possible. Observe all the director does, and learn the technical side.</p></li>
<li><p>Hopefully by this time, writer will become established and have steady work in the double threat of book and screen-writing, and continue to learn the art of movie-making from the same director or various ones. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>The director’s path is obviously different, even if a lot of them don’t really cross over and take sole screenwriting credits. But as shown, and as you intimated or stated explicitly, the pathway to this doesn’t have to necessarily lead through NYU or USC to become a bigtime director. But again though, it usually takes a pretty long time to become established. </p>
<p>A first-time director isn’t going to have as much to work with story-wise as you stated, but they aren’t as well-trained in writing stories, even if they have learned the technical side of screenplay formats. If he/she makes a killer story, with small film budget into his first movie he isn’t doing the story justice. . . </p>
<p>Again, though, we’re ignoring the indie side of film making. First films were covered as well as established studios, but not indies. Even though smaller budgeted, these probably help someone gain as much experience as anywhere, unless one is 2nd in line for a bigtime director.</p>
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</ol>
<p>That’s certainly one way to do it (nothing wrong with that). Although, it does seem a bit complicated.</p>
<p>Books and scripts are entirely different beasts. Screenwriting is a visual medium - you convey emotion through action, because you can’t write a character’s thoughts. Books are very interpersonal, as they give you a look inside of a characters thoughts and feelings. The style in which each are written is incredibly different. One is a manuscript a few hundred pages long, the other is 120 pages of dialogue and action in a very unique, restricted format. Novel writing is very free and open, yet very time consuming, and really lets you show off your skills for prose and flowery description. Screenplays have a special, fast pace. There are rules involved. Reading a screenplay is more like a flash in the pan. </p>
<p>There’s a reason why there are relatively few screenwriter/novelists. The two mediums are so different! It’s a bit like saying “if you can drive a car, you can build an airplane”. The two mediums are similar, but not similar enough for a direct transfer. I don’t think a writer should assume that just because they’re skilled at one medium means they’ll automatically be skilled at the other medium.</p>
<p>Not to mention the business is unique for each. Publishing a novel is such a vastly different thing than selling a screenplay. A screenplay is sold as a package - attaching directors, actors, producers, budgeting, planning for what type of release and marketing - the selling of the screenplay is the tip of the iceberg. It’s the start of the process, a blueprint. A novel publication is so much simpler, because the publication is the end of the line before public release. Not to mention there are no commercials for books. The marketing is tailored for this. </p>
<p>I don’t think the easiest way to get a movie made is to first write a book AT ALL (I hate to say it, but that actually sounds like a terrible idea if movies are your ultimate goal). That seems to be turning a molehill into a mountain. It’s like growing your own wheat to make flour for bread: why put in so much extra work and time when you could just buy the flour? Why overcomplicate things? Nowadays with the spread of digital media, fewer and fewer people are reading books (sadly). Books are now a relatively niche market. Very, very, very few books become so commercially successful that a movie deal is a surefire result (like Hunger Games). Most ‘successful’ books are only successful within a certain genre niche, and the authors understand this. </p>
<p>The odds of selling a screenplay, hoping that screenplay lands in the hands of a competent cast and crew, and is turned into a film that happens to be marketed effectively is extremely slim. Writing that screenplay in book form first and adding a whole new step to the beginning of the process - get that book picked out from the hundreds of thousands of books out there - and THEN onto development? It seems like a bad move. You’re just adding one more hurdle into the mix. Producers won’t take you seriously either. They’ll look at you as a novelist who’s trying to dabble in film, and they’ll hand the story off to another writer trained in writing adaptations. Then the movie might as well not even be yours. Look at Silence of the Lambs. It was a book first, but the movie is credited to the screenwriter. So few people think back to the original author. </p>
<p>There are so many amazing, award winning, timeless novels just waiting to be turned into books. Unfortunately, modern ones are very unlikely to become smash hits, unless they appeal to the teen community and have irresistible commercial appeal. </p>
<p>Here’s the smartest path, technically speaking </p>
<p>1) If you’re only a screenwriter, just sell the darn script. Simple as that. Get a manager and an agent, shop it around, and if the script is exceptional, it’ll get picked up </p>
<p>2) if you wish to direct your scripts, during the shopping period, get a producer or studio very interested in your screenplay (they have to be drooling for it, mind you), and then pull the rug out from under them. Tell them “I’ll only sell the rights to this story if I can direct it too”. If you have no directing reel, they’ll send you out the door no matter how good the script is. If you do have a nice reel, they might just consider it. This is called pulling a Rocky - it’s what Sylvester Stallone did. The industry coined it as “holding the script hostage”. Getting a reel together isn’t too hard. Spend a year or so shooting short films with your friends, maybe 5-10 minutes in length, and then pull the best shots together in a 2 minute culmination afterwards. Boom. You have a reel. </p>
<p>These two paths take nothing but talent. No hiding. No shortcuts. If the script is damn amazing and you have the persuasion and people skills of a god, you stand a chance. </p>
<p>When you get into the nitty gritty, most movies do have complex stories behind how they were made. But for beginners, you should choose the most straightforward path possible, and writing a novel or set of novels as a prerequisite does not meet that requirement, unless you wish to be an actual author. If you’re just writing a book as a stepping stone and your heart isn’t really in it to become an author, don’t expect to compete with people who live and breathe novel writing. Just stick to the screenwriting if that’s what you’re passionate about.</p>
<p>Filmmakers have a rougher time of course. For them, it really is about directing any project that comes their way, especially if they can’t write. Some directors can afford to write their own material in the beginning, if they have it edited by a writer friend, but getting another persons script is the ultimate goal. For these people, hunkering down and doing the time is key. Chip away at it, step by step, little by little. I’m not sure if there are any “tactical” moves for sole directors to take - a shoot to the top of the ladder - but this isn’t the case with writing. There are get-rich-quick stories with writing. That’s why screenwriting in itself is so popular. People want the luxury of writing a 120 page script in a week and then selling it for a million bucks. It sounds easy, right?</p>
<p>Just hoping to give some perspective. </p>
<p>^Write a blockbuster novel or get greenlit by a major studio. Gee, I wish I’d thought of that. :)</p>
<p>^^ I still think getting a major studio interested in a spec script is a whole lot more attainable than writing a blockbuster novel </p>
<p>It seems the three I mentioned Emerson NYU and USC are pretty diverse in their coursework. He will try to make himself as marketable as possible with </p>
<p>@Abcde11</p>
<p>I guess I’ll have to address your last post into two parts…</p>
<p>Sorry I couldn’t address them in a more timely manner, but I think this will probably be my last post on the subject. It’s been good ‘conversing’ with you on the subject.</p>
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</p>
<p>We’ve covered a lot of this before, and lest we become constantly repetitive, perhaps we should stay within the new-territory concept of advice. Yeah, I pointed out that screen and book writing were entirely different by my stating that Rowling and Crichton were exclusively book writers … but, also, that this doesn’t have to apply to someone who has planned one’s future as a multi-skilled writer in, say, both. I’m sure that the older the novelist/author/book-writer, the less chance he/she would want to involve him/herself in another skill including learning its art form, though I’m sure that there are screenwriters who do pen short stories that would accompany a first-created screenplay (or a concurrent one). </p>
<p>Again, the art of screenwriting can be self-taught, and undoubtedly has been for many of the noted screenwriters , maybe even most people who are on the list of those who are go-to writers by noted directors and producers. </p>
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</p>
<p>Again, we’re covering ground we probably already addressed.</p>
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</p>
<p>I didn’t say ‘the easiest way to get a movie made is to first write [it in] book [form]’; I inferred and stated that it would benefit the writer most of my priority of listed forms from top to bottom in helping the story to gain notice by the general public first (and therefore advance its probability in becoming a movie), along with (the inferrence of) book-first to movie means that the writer will be compensated twice, which is why I placed this medium first. </p>
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<p>Some of this I addressed in the prior paragraph. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if I follow everything you’re stating, but you’re referring to the observations of studio production or more generally the movie-makers pov. It’d be nice if you were to advance the idea of indie productions because of their relevance in today’s industry. I’m trying to take the pov of an aspirant story-maker. </p>
<p>Crichton and Rowling received screen credits, assuredly, but more of ‘story by.’ Same with Silence it appears: story by Thomas Harris, screenplay by Ted Tally. </p>
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</p>
<p>I kind of disagree; I think pretty much all have are ‘been there done that.’</p>
<p>Here’s the part that wouldn’t fit in my prior post…</p>
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</p>
<p>Some of my response is earlier. But more specifically here, you’re referring to the dual-threat of those who aspire to writing and directing. These combinations even in those who attended film school are more rare. M Night Shyamalan (I hope I’ve finally learned how to spell his name, abbreviated MNS) is one of these. But per info by @MrMom62 (I think I got this poster’s name correct), it took seven years (I think it was) after MNS graduated from NYU to have the movie made. By that time he had gained the experience of directorship and had that chip that he be able to direct it also. Perhaps he was ‘holding it in the can’ for some time, though I’m pretty sure he presented it to a class at NYU. Without knowing the specifics of the origins of Sixth, I’m guessing he “screenplayed” it and wrote a concurrent short story. He might have ‘shortstoried’ it first, but I doubt that he ‘screenplayed’ it first.</p>
<p>I don’t know if a 5-10 reel would be viable for a bigger production, but you undoubtedly know more about this than I would. </p>
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</p>
<p>My response is earlier including prior posts wrt those who aspire to and those who are ensconced in both forms. This is why I have a problem with placing a short story within the priority of what best form to be made into movies. Again, I’m pretty sure in guessing that MNS probably penned both a short and a screenplay of Sixth (though there appears to an disambiguation thing going on: there’s a novelization of The Sixth Sense by someone, and another book by the same name by an MD). </p>
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<p>Yeah, undoubtedly, as I said earlier per my examples, the two, writing and directing, are often separated, and even less crossed over than I would have thought. Of course my examples who are in the sub-art forms of direction, screenplays, and production, are pretty limited even within the various movie genres – there’s the British contingent whom I ignored completely who seem to want a bigger foothold in the business – but, mainly, those who are double and triple threats don’t appear to be very common. </p>