Martin Copeland

Instructor Biography:

PhD, award-winning screenwriter who has written feature films in both the U.S. and Europe, among them Texas Rangers for Miramax; Handyman, a 2006 Buena Vista International co-production; The Heavenly Kid; and The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

Instructor Statement: The first time I ever sold a script, it happened like a thunderbolt. One day drowning in debt, two days later on a plane first class to Toronto, airport limo and five-star hotel. Naturally after all this I expected bright lights and big stars. Instead, my co-writer and I were ushered into a small room with a big table where we began to rework the script! Scene by scene, line by line. The producer perhaps read our thoughts and said something I've never forgotten: People don't understand, this is how movies are made by some twits sitting around a table. They like to say the film begins with the script. Well, it also ends with the script. I've had a lot of experience since then at tables like that one in Toronto. We'll work on refining the story, improving the structure, deepening the characters, polishing the dialogue, cutting and pasting till the script is as lean and mean as possible. It's nuts and bolts and not so easy, but like the man said, it's making a movie.