Watch & Listen In On 'THE DIALOGUE: Learning from the Masters, Volume I' With Screenwriters Paul Haggis, Sheldon Turner and Stuart Beatt

Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) May 17, 2007 -- THE DIALOGUE: Learning from the Masters Volume I, the groundbreaking interview series that goes behind the scenes with fascinating, in-depth interviews with screenwriters Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby), Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and Sheldon Turner (The Longest Yard) hits the street on May 15.

The acclaimed DVD series is available for order at www.thedialogueseries.com, major online retailers such as Netflix and Amazon.com, and at Passion River Films (www.passionriver.com) for $19.95 each.

In 27, 70-90 minute in-depth discussions, 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 with veteran producer and industry executive Mike De Luca. Each screenwriter discusses his or her filmography in great detail and breaks down the mechanics of one favorite scene from their produced work.

THE DIALOGUE: Learning From the Masters, Volume I features the following screenwriters:

• 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.

• Australian screenwriter Stuart Beattie is credited with having written the role no one ever thought they'd see Tom Cruise play: Vincent, the riveting homicidal hit man in Beattie's original screenplay, Collateral, directed by Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat). After 15 years in the business, Beattie has learned a thing or two about how to make characters and plots sing (or sting) on the page. And his long-gestating idea for a rejuvenation of the pirate movie eventually hit pay dirt with the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, on which he has story credit. Listen in as Beattie describes what it feels like when Tom Cruise looks like he wants to kill you, where the best story ideas come from, and how to stay passionate when you can't even get your mother to read your screenplays.

• Sheldon Turner is the prototype for the smart, brash, ambitious young screenwriter -- only he's also got a law degree from NYU and has had his fiction published in the New Yorker. Turner recently broke through with his script for the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, starring Chris Rock and Adam Sandler, and he has half a dozen other scripts in development. He's got insane discipline, writes longhand, and boycotts email. He figured out how to work the system, and he's got more witty axioms for how to play the Hollywood game than a Tropicana craps dealer at 3 a.m. But you'll just have to hear Turner talk to get it -- what being the biggest guy in the room can do for you, how to read an audience, what to say in pitch meetings and why you should let everyone know that you think Lost in Translation sucks.

Additional volumes feature interview with such Oscar® winners and nominees like 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).

About THE DIALOGUE: Learning from the Masters: More than two dozen of today's most sought-after screenwriters are featured in an intriguing, original interview series hosted by veteran producer and industry executive Mike De Luca. The Dialogue: Learning From The Masters was created by screenwriter and entrepreneur Aleks Horvat and produced with his partner, personal manager Larry Shuman. Horvat, owner of theOffice, also created the Hollywood Creative Directory. Shot on location at theOffice, a popular creative workspace in Santa Monica (theofficeonline.com) that is a haven for screenwriters, the 27-part series offers provocative and in-depth one-on-one conversations with successful practitioners of the craft. For more information, please visit www.thedialogueseries.com.

Media Contact:
Loren Pomerantz
loren @ combined-forces.com
212-583-0338/917-612-8166

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