About Grant Cogswell

Recent posts

• Comment on Kubrick’s Handsome Nephew's answer…

  0 0 Reading a book won't teach you how to write a screenplay. Reading a hundred might, if you have a lifetime grounding in storytelling and dramaturgy. Mid-life is no place to begin a second career. This person should hire someone to help him, or go to Hollywood (!) register his story idea, and pitch it. Grant Cogswell commented about 1 year ago

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  How do I find someone to co-write a screenplay with me?

  0 1 I'm available, but it'll cost you. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 6 more answers »

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  why am i seing more indie films with budgets not paying the talent, but paying the crew in Seattle?

  1 0 What Charles said. Actors are looking for exposure, and will work cheap - free on sub-SAG projects - in order to get it. As a writer, I have come to refuse to work for free, though I'm always writing one script or another 'on spec'. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 6 more answers »

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  Seattle considers themselves as an International city but the crew is made up of 95% caucasians. Why are there no african-am, asians, etc. hired?

  1 4 Seattle may consider itself international, but it really isn't. As far as the ethnic makeup of crews, art has always been the realm of the privileged. And as soon as the American middle class began to seriously diversify in the last decade, it suddenly started to disappear. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 6 more answers »

• Comment on Grant Cogswell's answer…

  0 0 What the hell am I saying? Mexico City!!! Grant Cogswell commented about 1 year ago

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  Best North American city other than NY/LA for TV/Film/Commercial work?

  0 0 Austin. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 5 more answers »

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  What kind of film town should Seattle aspire to be?

  0 1 Lynn is absolutely the model. But still she is stepping onto an elevator (financially)... to elsewhere. There needs to be a culture change around funding films: there are what, 50,000 millionaires here? Where is the money for local film? Unfortunately noblesse oblige seems to be strictly an East coast phenomenon. Honest to God I don't know how to make it happen. Megan Griffiths scrapes for years to get The Off Hours off the ground, Linas Phillips has to move away, Dan Gildark makes a feature with theatrical distro and can't pull together money for a much smaller second one - WTF? The people that fund opera and ballet and SAM are complete strangers to local film. The party needs to get much bigger (SIFF needs to be more FUN). And Seattle needs to stop looking to NY and LA for validation, because until it does, that will be exclusively where the money is and the brain drain will continue. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 7 more answers »

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  Is film school worth going to?

  2 0 No. That's a ton of money to learn what you'll learn on a set or in a job and at least get paid. I think the internet, libraries and Netflix have made film school - such as it exists now - outdated.(I'm not talking about local classes or NWFF or SCCC, that stuff is super-useful.) Educate yourself: I read every book on screenwriting in the Burbank, CA library. I just wish I'd done that before producing my own script. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 9 more answers »

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  When my screenplay is ready Who/ What /When? How is the best way to sell it or submit it to the right person/place ?

  1 0 I think 'ready' is not something the writer alone can define. This is a LONG climb. Send to the Nicholl and Sundance fellowships, and listen to feedback if you get it. Try to get some actors together for a table read. Hear your words from humans, it really clarifies things. Get out in the community: SIFF, NWFF, FilmPAC, Washington Film Works. Show your work to people whose aesthetics you believe in. And good luck. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer and comment »

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  What's the best way to shop around scripts without leaving Seattle?

  3 0 I've had a film I wrote distributed and still haven't found it useful or necessary to get an agent. That said, I haven't sold a script since, and that was five years ago. I know one strong, working, selling screenwriter in Seattle, Douglas Horn. Go to the mayor's office happy hour third Wednesday of the month and track him down. He is the source on this, here. Grant Cogswell answered in Filmmaking Week about 1 year ago Answer, comment & read 3 more answers »

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