The Working Writer’s Screenplay: Breaking In, Hanging on and Making It Work

Writer-director Jim Makichuk's unique book on screenwriting is based on his UCLA extension class lectures and over 35 years of actual experience. The book has two sections; it begins with his most recent film in which he uses the complete screenplay with marked notes as well as text that adds more detail. Also included are chapters on how to create real characters, dealing with conflict, dialog and many other important aspects of writing all based on working in the trenches rather than mythical formulas and secrets. The second part of the book deals with breaking into screenwriting, hanging on and making it work for you. This includes very detailed chapters on finding agents, working with producers and actors, adapting books, rewrites, pitches and finding those golden moments of writing that makes it all worthwhile.

Jim Makichuk was born and raised in Canada and got his first job at a local TV station where he worked on a TV news crew in the Windsor/Detroit area. After attending a film course he moved to Vancouver and filmed and co-produced a short film directed by Phil Borsos. It won numerous international awards and was a finalist in the 1976 Academy Awards. In 1980 he wrote, produced and directed his first feature, Ghostkeeper which had it’s 30th anniversary DVD in 2012. Jim moved to Los Angeles in 1990 and worked on 50 or more screenplays, of which 20 were produced as well as 30 hours of episodic. Currently he has a screenplay optioned by a Paris company to be made as a French movie and is hoping to direct his book Emperor of Mars which was published on Amazon in 2011. Jim’s also written a screenplay in 2014 for a popular actor to be made in 2014 and is negotiating another screenplay of his.