Austin Film Festival's On Story

Today we’ll hear from Academy Award® nominated screenwriter Scott Frank. Frank co-wrote Logan, which is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2018 Academy Awards®.

Frank’s other screenplay credits include The Lookout, Little Man Tate, Dead Again, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, The Interpreter, The Wolverine, and the Netflix Original series Godless.

I spoke with Frank about Logan directly after it’s release in 2017.

Clips of Logan courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Direct download: OSCARS_LOGAN.mp3
Category:Film and Television -- posted at: 2:24pm CDT

This week on On Story, we’ll hear from podcast pioneers on breaking into a new medium and adapting audio stories for television. And later, we’ll hear from rising television talent, Misha Green, on her work co-creating the critically acclaimed, genre-bending drama Underground.

Narrative fiction podcasts have updated the radio drama with a modern, streamable twist. This new medium has attracted storytellers who, until recently, never considered telling strictly audio stories. Writers Lauren Shippen and Jenny Turner Hall discussed their transition into podcasting and the new opportunities that their shows have provided them at the 2017 Austin Film Festival.

Next up we’ll hear from television writer and showrunner Misha Green. Green began her career as a staff writer on FX’s hit drama Sons of Anarchy and NBC’s cult sci fi series, Heroes. Green later went on to co-create Undergound, which chronicled a group of Georgia slaves who escaped bondage to find freedom via the Underground Railroad. The series broke ratings records for the WGN network and was nominated for several awards. Misha Green spoke with filmmaker Ya’ke Smith at the 2017 Austin Film Festival.

Clips of Underground courtesy of: Safehouse Pictures, Get Lifted Film Company Sony Pictures Television, Safehouse Picture

Direct download: MISHA_GREEN.mp3
Category:Film and Television -- posted at: 12:28pm CDT

On this week's episode, we’ll hear from legendary jack-of-all-trades Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans. In 1987 the two co-wrote the groundbreaking comedy Hollywood Shuffle based on their experience dealing with racial stereotypes of African Americans in the film and television industry. Robert Rodriguez, writer/director of The El Mariachi trilogy, Sin City, and the Spy Kids franchise introduced Townsend and Wayans at the 24th annual Austin Film Festival.

Multi-talented entertainer, Robert Townsend, is often referred to as one of the ‘Godfathers of the Independent Film World’.  For the past 30 years Townsend has worked in nearly every role in front of and behind the camera earning the writer, director, and actor over 30 NAACP Image Award nominations. Townsend is best known for creating the films Meteor Man, The Five Heartbeats, and Hollywood Shuffle, which he co-wrote with Keenen Ivory Wayans. Comedian Dave Buckman spoke with Townsend at the 24th Austin Film Festival.

We’ve been hearing from independent filmmaker Robert Townsend.  Townsend co-wrote Hollywood Shuffle with friend and fellow stand up comedian, Keenen Ivory Wayans.  Wayans would later go on to create and host the Emmy award-winning, comedy series In Living Color. The irreverent Fox series went on to launch the careers of Wayans’ siblings Damon, Kim, Shawn and Marlon, as well as featured cast members Jennifer Lopez, Jim Carrey, and Jamie Foxx.  Comedian John Merriman spoke with Keenen Ivory Wayans at the 24th annual Austin Film Festival.

Keenen Ivory Wayans created, launched and hosted the groundbreaking 1990’s sketch comedy series In Living Color. The often-controversial show helped introduce a number of African American comedians to super stardom. When we left off, Wayans was discussing the importance of writing what you know.

Clips from Hollywood Shuffle courtesy of the Samuel Goldwyn Company

Clips from Meteor Man courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.

Clips from I’m Gonna Git You Sucka courtesy of United Artists Pictures, Inc.

Direct download: ROBERT_TOWNSEND_AND_KEENAN_IVORY_WAYANS.mp3
Category:Film and Television -- posted at: 10:58am CDT

On this week’s special On Story Valentine’s Day episode, the filmmakers behind Sense and Sensibility, The Jane Austen Book Club, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and What Jane Saw discuss how they adapted these beloved novels for various storytelling mediums, and why they think Jane Austen’s themes and stories remain so beloved and powerful today.

With six novels that produced over sixty adaptations for the screen, the talents of Jane Austen have lived on long past her time on earth. On this episode, the filmmakers behind Sense and Sensibility, The Jane Austen Book Club, and YouTube’s web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, as well as the academic behind the interactive website What Jane Saw dot org discuss how Jane Austen’s themes and stories remain so beloved and powerful today.

Producer and studio executive Lindsay Doran has worked in the movie business for more than 30 years as a studio executive and producer. Her numerous credits on film and television include The Firm, Stranger Than Fiction and the Sense and Sensibility which earned Emma Thompson an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Screenwriter, director and producer Robin Swicord wrote the screenplays for such classics as Little Women, Memoirs of a Geisha and The Jane Austen Book Club which she also directed. 

Janine Barchas is a Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity. She’s also the creator behind the digital heritage project “What Jane Saw” (www dot whatjanesaw dot org) and most recently, she co-curated the exhibition “Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity,” at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. 

Bernie Su is the two-time Emmy Award-winning producer and creator behind YouTube’s web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Emma Approved and Vanity.

Barbara Morgan spoke with this distinguished panel at the 23rd Austin Film Festival in 2016.

Clips in this episode courtesy of: 

Sense and Sensibility: Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.,

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Agreeable Entertainment, Pemberley Digital

 

Direct download: DECONSTRUCTING_JANE_AUSTEN.mp3
Category:Film and Television -- posted at: 12:50pm CDT

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