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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, March 26, 2015
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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