By Shannon Muir
Currently
exclusive to this site
***
Kevin showed after a while, eagerly telling me about his day, and
I asked him to let me check my PalmPilot one last
time before we hit the road for a meeting of animation writers we would attend
that evening. I didn't really expect to
find anything, but wanted to be sure not to miss anything. Kevin kept talking, I can't remember about
what anymore, as I got to the listing of new mail. One of the messages started out to the effect
of: "Fwd: Passing of..." and came from someone at
Instantly I abruptly asked Kevin to shut up as the message took
forever to download completely. Who
would have passed away that they would go to the trouble to locate ten-year-old
alumni who are out of the area? As the
message finished loading, I read something that made me crumble to the core.
Dr. David Terwische, or Dr. Dave as we all called him, my screenwriting
professor at
I wrote an article in December 2002 for Digital Media FX, as a
tribute to my one-time opportunity to sit down with animation writer Hilary J.
Bader, in which I recommended people grab every opportunity they could to learn
from others. Writing this, I want to
grab a bullhorn and stand on the tallest rooftop and scream it until my lungs
are hoarse and keep on going and going and going.
My studies at Eastern began in Fall of
1989, when I came as a half-time student concurrently enrolled for my senior
year at
I wish I could remember how it came up during Summerstock
(as the workshop was informally known) that I wanted to write. Never having had me in a class, not knowing
the strengths and limitations of my abilities, Dr. Dave gave me that chance. The result, Give and Take, was written
in three weeks and in all honesty is a dreadful script. I know the class hated working on it; in
fact, the directors wanted to turn this meant-to-be-dramatic-script into a
full-out comedy to try and make it somewhat redeemable, it was so bad. In fact, I later came to learn that the
master copy was bulk-erased, but I don't think Dr. Dave ever found out it
happened. Probably for the best to be
honest, as airing it over community cable was not the best representation of
what our department could do. I'm forever grateful Dr. Dave stood up and made
the students producing it as it was written, because I learned a lot about what
didn't work from paper to screen and became very aware of my weaknesses. The Give and Take debacle was probably
one of the more positive experiences of my educational career, and the lessons
I learned about plot, character, theme, and execution apply to animation and
live-action equally.
The best part is despite the results of producing Give and Take, Dr. Dave didn't give up on me, for which I never
could thank him enough. I would go on to
do a directed study with him in television scriptwriting that produced two more
half-hour scripts, From the Fatal Heart and Shattered; From
the Fatal Heart would be produced the following summer drama workshop with
a much better outcome, and both scripts went on to receive Honorable Mentions
from the National Broadcasting Society-Alpha Epsilon Rho
student production awards. Dr. Dave
would also guide me in a directed study to develop my first (again live-action)
dramatic series, and I would also work with him in the first screenwriting
seminar taught in the department, in which I wrote my first full-length
screenplay as an ambitious blend of intercut live-action
and animation that I hope someday I can get into a workable form that isn't a
budget breaker. Back then it was known
as Come to Life, but nowadays is better known as Inspiration's Hand,
which made it to the second round of judging in the Austin Film Festival in
1997.
Another growth area for me came in working behind the camera,
where I not only co-directed someone else's script in the second year of the
summer drama workshop, but also ended up having to work in a Story Editor
capacity when the writer burned out on rewrites. Changing someone's story as little as
possible while trying to get it down to length is a delicate balance, and I
know what all is at stake now when I get to doing that professionally.
After all those classes, plus a third year in the drama workshop
in a diminished capacity via directed study (you could only register for the
class twice), and working as a writer and video editor on Deception Pass,
the Radio-TV department's first attempt at a mini-soap opera that gave me an
idea about the grind of a weekly dramatic show, my emphasis switched mainly to
the English department for poetry and fiction, but I never turned away from my
scriptwriting roots. I know that all of
Dr. Dave's efforts exposing me to so many areas helped me survive and thrive
when I moved to Los Angeles, by teaching me to be flexible and be prepared and
step up to do what is needed. I came to
Thank you, Dr. Dave, for everything you did for myself and other students over the years. You will be missed.
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