"All you have is your voice and your unique take on the world. If you can follow that and forget about everything else, that's where you'll achieve success" - John Hamburg
John Hamburg is a very funny guy. After starting a humor magazine called The Dalton Lampoon in high school and making a popular comedic short film about “slacker bomb defusers” while attending NYU’s graduate filmmaking program, Hamburg wrote and directed the crime comedy Safe Men, which played at Sundance and spawned a devoted cult following. A sure-thing comedy closer, the New York City native built hilarious set pieces and character work into Meet the Parents, Zoolander, and Meet the Fockers that not only helped lift them to huge box office but also pushed a few new catchphrases into the American lexicon. A veteran of the uncredited production rewrite, Hamburg also wrote and directed the romantic comedy Along Came Polly in 2004. In this amusing interview, Hamburg discusses how he developed his talent for writing actor-hooking dialogue in the humorous monologues he performed in college, why he'd do a thousand test screenings if he could, and what it's like to hand a new scene to Robert De Niro and stand there waiting to see if he likes it.
DVD Chapters
1. Intro
2. You're Gonna Be a Millionaire Tomorrow
3. The Mid-Point Pinch
4. Sleeping in the Camera Truck
5. A Jew Who Was Going Out With a Shikse
6. Whose Movie Is It?
7. What's Hansel's Emotional Journey?
8. In a Suite of Shrinks
9. Taxi Drivers
10. Put Them in the Urinal
11. How Can We Make It Better?
12. The Tenderizer
13. 13 Takes of a Sweaty Guy on a Trampoline
14. Two Weeks Is Never Two Weeks
15. All You Have Is Your Voice
THE DIALOGUE: In these in-depth discussions some of today's most successful screenwriters share their work habits, methods and inspirations, secrets of the trade, and eye-opening stories from life in the trenches of the film business. It's powerful knowledge-straight from the source.
DVD-Video - 90 min - Digital Dolby 2.0