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Mark Spencer & Shawn Chuisano by |
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Shawn was a student of mine last spring at Cameron University, where I taught for 18 years before accepting a deanship here at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Shawn had some wonderful material concerning the character Henry and wanted to write a screenplay, but he was having trouble getting focused and creating a coherent narrative. Finally, one day I wrote a ten-page opening to the screenplay by way of illustrating a direction he might go in. Shawn liked the direction I was pointing in and asked me whether I wanted to collaborate and "get rich and famous" along with him. I had never collaborated with another writer, but I found myself as compelled to tell Henry's story as Shawn did, so I said yes. We'd sit in my office and bounce ideas off each other. I wrote scenes, and Shawn would add to them. He came up with the ideas for some of the scenes--ideas that I would never have come up with-- and then I'd write the scenes, coming up with executions of the material that Shawn might not have ever thought of. The result of combining his youthful perspective and my more polished technical skills seemed to work really well. It's hard to explain, but we ended up with a screenplay we were--and are--proud of. Throughout the process, I told Shawn that the story would also make a good novella--he agreed, and upon completion of the novella, I thought your journal would be the perfect home for it. We haven't done anything with the screenplay yet, but of course we're hoping to find some movie people who like it. - - - MS find the screenplay version at: www.henrythescreenplay.bravehost.com |
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