"I like to stretch the boundaries of genre and layer in as much interesting material as I can." - Jim Uhls

Jim Uhls is not your average screenwriter. For one thing, his nickname is "Professor Peculiar." For another, as this exclusive off-kilter discussion of his craft demonstrates, Uhls is eager to break the first rule of Fight Club : He talks about Fight Club. A lot. That seminal film, directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Panic Room), pushed every boundary possible for a studio movie, and Uhls' darkly funny script, adapted from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, is a wickedly subversive example of how to successfully adapt an "unadaptable" book. Step inside the mind of the man who figured out how to do it, as Professor Peculiar explains how to use a newspaper story approach to build a brilliant pitch, why you should interview your characters, how to know when to "stick a fork" in your screenplay, and the macabre particulars of how and why he had to murder his brother's cat.

DVD Chapters
1. Intro
2. I Despise Outlines
3. The Sound of Hammering
4. What Is This Grim, Depressing Movie About?
5. Professor Peculiar
6. Solutions, Tricks, and Character Patterns
7. This'll Kill the Project
8. The Scent of Blood
9. No One Knows Anything
10. Is Mr. Peckinpah There?
11. I Never Wind Up Doing A Pitch
12. An Abominable Exploitation of a Mentally Unsound Person
13. The Committee Thing
14. I Can Get Revenge on Them and Humiliate Them

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
83 min
Digital Dolby 2.0