Screenplay: Writing the Picture

Designed as a down-to-earth, practical guide to the craft of screenwriting, WRITING THE PICTURE covers everything a screenwriter needs to know, from basic elements to advanced techniques. The book is intended to help writers choose, develop, and perfect their stories while avoiding common mistakes. From conception to completion, it covers every step of the process with a wealth of practical examples and exercises designed to avoid a formulaic approach. Professors Russin and Downs also cover marketing screenplays and the alternatives of television and playwriting.

ROBIN U. RUSSIN
Robin was educated at Harvard, Oxford, Rhode Island School of Design and UCLA, where he received his MFA in screenwriting. Among his credits are the #1 box office feature On Deadly Ground starring Steven Seagal and Michael Caine. Robin has written, produced and directed for America's Most Wanted, and was Senior Producer of the hour-long primetime series Vital Signs on ABC, and co-produced Alcatraz--the True Story on Fox, and sold a one-hour pilot about King David to ABC TV.  His writing has appeared in Script Magazine, Verdad Magazine, Connotation Press, Harvard Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The American Oxonian, Shofar, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Among his produced stage plays are Painted Eggs and The Face in the Reeds. A Rhodes Scholar, Robin is currently Professor of screenwriting and playwriting at UC Riverside.


WILLIAM MISSOURI DOWNS Bill earned an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and an MFA in acting from the University of Illinois. For many years, he studied playwriting under Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt at the Circle Rep Theatre in New York.
In Hollywood he wrote for such NBC sitcoms as My Two Dads, Amen and Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. He sold the movie Executive Privilege to Tri-star, and won the Jack Nicholson Award for screenwriting.
His plays have been produced all over the world, from the Kennedy Center to the Berkeley Rep, and from the International Theatre festival in Israel to the Hexis in Singapore. A few highlights are: Innocent Thoughts winner of the National Playwrights Award, Jewish Sports Heroes and Texas Intellectuals, which took first place at the Mill Mountain Theatre's Festival Of New Plays, Dead White Males a Eugene O'Neill semi-finalist and Kabuki Medea, winner of the Bay Area Critics Award for best production in San Francisco and the Jefferson Award for best production in Chicago. Bill is the co-author of the book, Playwriting: From Formula To Form, published by Harcourt Brace.
He lives in Wyoming.