Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Jan. 24, 2005

Wilmington, N.C. - The Department of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington presents veteran screenwriter Rich Leder from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28 in Morton Hall, Bryan Auditorium, Room 100 on the UNCW campus.

Leder’s talk, entitled "How to Be a Screenwriter: Passion, Craft and Career Path Insanity," will also include information about his career and the real-life emotion and war stories of the screenwriting trade. His talk will be illustrated with clips from the work he has done for television, including 17 movies for CBS, and other writing credits with NBC, LIFETIME and Court TV. He has a special passion for adaptations and succeeded in adapting Bernard Slade's play Special Occasions for Ave Pictures and Sinclair Lewis' novel Main Street for NBC Productions. His movie scripts have been optioned by Tri-Star Pictures, Itasca Pictures and Saraband Productions.

Leder believes passion for good story telling still plays a key role in Hollywood despite the dispassionate people often involved in making movies. He believes "luck" is the result of enormous effort and that personal commitment is what makes one triumph. Leder believes screenwriting is a craft that has to be learned from the inside out and will explain how he did this in his own life and career.

Rich Leder graduated from Lafayette College and went on to pursue a career in writing for television and the movies. His special interests are in fiction and true-story adaptation in feature films and telefilms. He wrote "Scared Silent" for LIFETIME and "Amber & Nichole" for Court TV. Leder has taken his experience into the classroom where he is a popular instructor in the Department of Film Studies. He teaches introduction to screenwriting, advanced screenwriting and a course showing how to adapt short stories and novels into screenplays.