The Dialogue: Learning From The Masters - Paul Haggis

"At the center of every story is some question I do not have the answer for, and something that really scares me."
-Paul Haggis

Acclaimed writer-director Paul Haggis has been a fixture of television and film for over 25 years. In this wide-ranging interview, the Oscar®-winning co-screenwriter, director, and producer of Crash (Best Picture 2005) discusses a three-decade career that led from writing for sitcoms like Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life to his breakthrough screenplay for Oscar®-winning director Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby (Best Picture 2004).

Haggis's matter-of-fact stories of navigating the entertainment industry are an indelible primer for how to manage the screenwriting life, make a successful transition from TV to film, develop a strong story and characters, pitch an idea, and surmount Hollywood's more frustrating obstacles.

About The Dialogue Series: 

THE DIALOGUE: Learning From the Masters is a groundbreaking interview series that goes behind the scenes of the fascinating craft of screenwriting. In these extensive in-depth discussions with savvy industry interviewers, more than two-dozen of today's most successful screenwriters share their work habits, methods and inspirations, secrets of the trade, business advice, and eye-opening stories from life in the trenches of the film industry. Each screenwriter discusses his or her filmography in great detail and breaks down the mechanics of one favorite scene from their produced work.

The subjects include Oscar® winners and nominees like Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby), Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise), Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost), and Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, Donnie Brasco); comedy masters like Peter & Bobby Farrelly (There's Something About Mary, Stuck on You) and Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel (Parenthood, City Slickers, Fever Pitch); big-budget writers like Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (The Legend of Zorro, M:i:III), Scott Rosenberg (Con Air, Beautiful Girls), and Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich, In Her Shoes); and industry mavericks like Jim Uhls (Fight Club) and David S. Goyer (Dark City, Blade, Batman Begins).

These incisive discussions are essential viewing for anyone wanting to learn the screenwriting trade, film lovers of all types, and industry professionals in other fields. The writers' insights about the screenwriting life are rare and indispensable tools for how to make your screenplays better and crack the Hollywood code: the hard-earned practical and tactical wisdom of those already thriving in the industry.

It's powerful knowledge - straight from the source.