Interview: Joshua Golden (2014 Black List)

One of the best ways to learn the craft is read what professional screenwriters have to say about it. To that end for the next few weeks, I will be featuring interviews I have conducted with Black List screenwriters.

Today: Joshua Golden who wrote the spec script “Road to Oz” which was not only a finalist in the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition, it sold in September of that year to New Line.

Here are links to the five installments of my November 2104 interview with Josh:

Part 1: “I had a terrific English teacher who knew I loved writing, and loved film, and she kind of came to me and was like, ‘You know, there are people that do this thing for a living. They write movies.’”

Part 2: “A big part of it was wanting to tell this story about this man that a lot of people really don’t know anything about. You’d be surprised how many people don’t even know the Oz books came before the movie.”

Part 3: “I knew that was the way in which I wanted to tell the story. I wanted the audience to see the world how Frank sees it and how Dorothy sees it, with the help of Frank.”

Part 4: “ I knew one of the first things he was going to see was the hot air balloon taking off into the stormy sky. I knew the way he was going to be welcomed to Aberdeen was going to be reflective of how Dorothy is welcomed into Munchkin Land when she arrives in Oz.”

Part 5: “I’m a big proponent of theme and character. That’s the place I usually start from. The concept, of course, has to be original. But if you have strong characters, the rest will follow.”

Josh is repped by ICM and Heretic Literary Management.

Twitter: @joshmgolden.