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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, March 26, 2015
the b-side

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hursday 1 p.m. Sixth floor, North Quad, 
just in time for office hours — except this 
time, I’ve arrived at the Screen Arts and 

Cultures Department to pick my teachers’ brains 
about their stories instead of mine.
I arranged to meet with Veerendra “V” Prasad, 
who I had for my introductory screenwriting 
class last semester; then Daniel Shere, who is my 
lecturer for Screenwriting I: the Feature Script; 
and finally, the esteemed James “
Jim” Burnstein, 

the father of the University’s screenwriting pro-
gram. There was a certain generational feeling 
as I walked down the hall, a student of Shere and 
Prasad’s, who in turn were former students and 
success-stories of Burnstein’s.
I sat up straight and wide-eyed as they each 
spewed out their insight about the industry — an 
extensive three-hour synthesis nuanced in ways 
only decades of experience could have detailed. I 
first met with Burnstein, who strung on anecdote 
after anecdote so mellifluously that I became a 
child at story hour rather than an interviewer with 
interrogations. During his time as an undergradu-
ate and graduate Shakespeare-infatuated English 
language and literature student, the University’s 
screenwriting program was nonexistent. It was 
only until his professor proclaimed, “If Shake-
speare were alive today, he’d be a screenwriter,” 
and upon reading Polanski’s “Macbeth” script, 
Burnstein fell in love with creating a visual lan-
guage — words that could translate into emotions 
and actions before our very eyes.
Consequently, Burnstein taught himself the art 
of the script and progressed quickly — selling the 
third screenplay he ever wrote — a fact he recount-
ed with shocking nonchalance, as if the craft were 
simply second nature. However, just weeks before 
CBS was to start shooting the TV drama he wrote, 
they pulled the show to the young Burnstein’s 
devastation.
However, a failed production disseminated Burn-
stein’s name in the industry. While tipsy at a party, 
Michigan native and Academy Award-winning 
screenwriter Kurt Luedtke convinced him to 
go big, or go home (and later, to go Blue). Thus 
sprung an idea based on his poignant personal 
experience teaching Shakespeare to soldiers at 
the Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michi-
gan — what became “Renaissance Man” starring 
Danny DeVito. It was then that Burnstein learned 
the importance of rewriting — a concept he would 
later use to construct the University’s screenwrit-
ing program — and one he would eventually pass 
onto Shere and Prasad as students in his class. Af-
ter three years and four drafts, “Renaissance Man” 
finally sold, proving the validity of the rewriting 
tactic.
Since, Burnstein’s practice of “what if” galvanized 
his 2013 wartime romance “Love and Honor” 
starring Liam Hemsworth, as well as his current 

works, “Naked Shakespeare” and “Palio,” origi-
nal screenplays about a Florida strip club turned 
Shakespeare theater and a Chinese animation set 
in Italy —“bizarre” concepts he never would have 
imagined could come to life.
“I never give up. If I have a good script … I have 
some projects where I say, ‘It’ll get made, maybe 
not in my lifetime, but it’ll get made,’ ” Burnstein 
proclaimed.
His patience eventually landed him an agent who 
allowed him to establish a fruitful screenwriting 
career from his Plymouth home. Conveniently, his 
alma mater also persuaded Burnstein to return as 
the creator and director of what is now one of the 
top screenwriting programs in the country — posi-
tions he has now held for about 20 years. Though 
he has no formal film education at the university 
level, he still decided to return to revamp his roots, 
building the program for future students that he 
dreamed of during his time as a student.
I finally bid Burnstein farewell – a chanceful “see 
you next semester” — as I moved down the hall to 
Shere and Prasad’s shared office. Despite holding 
a third full-time job as a father at home with three 
sick sons, Shere was his usual enthusiastic self — 
emanating a sophisticated passion from his voice 
and body language every time he spoke about film.
Shere’s fascination with movies started during 
his childhood days. In our three-hour class every 
Thursday night, he may spend half an hour raving 
about the storytelling brilliance of “Star Wars,” the 
film series that glittered his juvenile memories.
“My youth was seeing those movies in the theaters, 
and then living with them, and having the little 
play figures and re-imagining it,” Shere noted.
A Detroit native in the pre-digital age — an era his 
son refers to as “the 1800s” — Shere entered the 
University on a quest for wisdom and answers — a 
philosophy major provided a theoretical founda-
tion that he channeled into writing, putting his 
childhood imagination to good use.
“(Burnstein’s classes were) where I gained my 
confidence to try my hand at (screenwriting) 
professionally.” Shere reflected. “He really chal-
lenged us to raise our game. He never coddled us … 
He really instilled in us this work ethic of rewrite, 
rewrite, rewrite.”
Burnstein’s solid encouragement — and Shere’s 
brewing interest-turned-obsession with script 
writing — prompted him to audaciously leap to 
Los Angeles after graduation where he continued 
to live for seven years. He laughed as he admit-
ted he was pitifully paid sub-minimum wage at a 
humdrum agency job “getting coffee for the guy 
who gets coffee.” He has recounted his tale of toil 
often to our class, but what sticks out each time is 
his unrelenting dedication to his passion project — 
the script he started in Burnstein’s class — arriving 
two hours early and staying several hours late each 
day to rewrite.

Returning Home 
to Rewrite by Karen Hua 

Daily TV/New Media Editor

Design by Mariah Gardziola, Photo by Virginia Lozano

See SCREENWRITING, Page 4B

