CinemaNerdz

Interview with Jim Burnstein, writer of Renaissance Man

Dane Jackson

Aside from screening several films throughout the weekend, the 2013 Cinetopia International Film Festival will also be featuring talks by several individuals involved with a variety of the screened films. One such guest is screenwriter Jim Burnstein. Burnstein has been working as a screenwriter for about twenty-five years and is responsible (or partly responsible) for writing such films as Renaissance Man and D3: The Mighty Ducks (both of which are screening at this year’s festival). While his chief focus is screenwriting, Jim has also helped build the University of Michigan’s Screen Arts & Culture Department. This program has seen plenty of well-known alumni come and go. Their success is a testament to Burnstein’s talent and passion for the industry. He will be present at the screenings for the aforementioned Renaissance Man and D3: The Mighty Ducks. Burnstein recently took the time to speak with us about his career and the festival in general.

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CinemaNerdz: First things first, I need to know what it was like working with Penny Marshall. What kind of input did you have on Renaissance Man once the script was complete?

JIM BURNSTEIN: Penny was great. When I first met her in her office at Sony, she gave me only one instruction for my final rewrite of Renaissance Man. “Make it funnier.” Of course, that meant more than just jokes. It was really about deepening the characters and finding all the humor and heart in them. When Penny decided she would make Renaissance Man her next movie, I was in Los Angeles for some other meetings and she was on her way to Detroit to scout locations. I immediately flew back home so that I could be there. We went to a baseball game at old Tiger Stadium and she liked it so much she decided we needed to put a scene there. Then, she cast me, my wife, my son and my daughter as the family that sits behind Danny DeVito and Alanna Ubach who played his daughter in the movie. If they ever give an Oscar for eating popcorn, I believe I should get one.

Once we started shooting, I was pretty much on call whenever there was a question or a line they needed regarding Hamlet, which is the play that Danny’s character Bill Rago teaches the soldiers who are his students. I visited all the sets, spending time at each location, from Detroit to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina to the sound stages on the Sony lot in Los Angeles. Penny was kind enough to let me watch some dailies with her at Ft. Jackson, but I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut whenever I was on the set. This was my first movie. And believe me, I knew what I didn’t know about how big Hollywood films are actually made. The part I related to most was the editing room. Editors work a lot like screenwriters. In fact, editors are known as a film’s “last writer.”

CinemaNerdz: Are you excited having two films you worked on screened at Cinetopia this year?

BURNSTEIN: Absolutely, it’s an honor. Over the years I’ve worked closely with Russ Collins at the Michigan Theatre when we bring in guest artists to screen films to our U of M students as well as to the general public. I’ve also worked with Elliot Wilhelm at the Detroit Film Theatre where we have screened the first three films produced by the Michigan Creative Film Alliance comprised of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University. You won’t find people who know more about film – or are better guys – than Russ and Elliot. It’s a pleasure to help in any way I can.

CinemaNerdz: Speaking of Cinetopia, how important do you think it is for Southeastern Michigan?

BURNSTEIN: You want to look at the big picture here. This festival is only in its second year, and it’s growing like crazy. I imagine by the time we get to year five this festival will be a huge shot in the arm, economically speaking, for the region. All you have to do is look at what Michael Moore and Deb Lake have done up North with the Traverse City Film Festival. I have a pretty good feeling that Russ Collins and Amanda Bynum, the Director of Programming at the Michigan, will do the same for Southeast Michigan. They will build it right – and film lovers will come.

CinemaNerdz: As someone who is in the film industry, and also a resident of Michigan, I’m curious to hear your take on what the changes to the film incentives program have done to the Michigan film industry?

BURNSTEIN: This is painful. As the former Vice Chairman of the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council, I was one of the leading proponents behind the Michigan Film Incentive legislation. Thanks to the work I do in Hollywood and at the University of Michigan, I was well aware of how many talented potential taxpayers we export to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry. I felt that if we passed a truly competitive incentive program, we would have a chance of keeping the kids we educate in this state home. Still, I was shocked when after the law went into effect in April 2008 that our film students actually stayed here in such overwhelming numbers after they graduated. And they were rewarded with the kinds of opportunities they never would have had if they had moved to LA or New York. And then the decision was made in early 2011 to vastly scale back our program.

Let me put it this way. In three short years, we had become a “major league” franchise when it came to film and even television production. And then over night, we went back to the “minor leagues.” Our students did not want to play in the minors, and once again, they moved away after they graduated. It took a lot of work for us to “reverse the brain drain,” and I fear it will be very difficult to convince young writers, directors, actors, etc., a second time that Michigan is a great place to launch and establish their careers. Like I said, this is very painful for me. I gave it nine years of my life, and we were well on our way to being the “Third Coast” in terms of the entertainment industry.

CinemaNerdz: When you set out to write a script, how do you decide what to write about? Is it organic in nature, or are you approached with a treatment that you then flesh out into a full script?

BURNSTEIN: Most of what I have written whether by myself or with Garrett Schiff, my writing partner in Los Angeles, has been original in nature. Renaissance Man, for example, was based on my experience teaching Shakespeare to soldiers. Our most recent film, Love and Honor, was inspired by the experience of a friend of mine who served in Vietnam. Often, Garrett and I will just decide to explore characters and themes that we feel passionate about. Producers also bring us books and true stories that they think we would do a good job of adapting into film for them. If we feel the same passion about these types of projects that we do for the ones we dream up, we will give it a shot. That worked out rather well when we did Ruffian for ESPN and ABC. The thing I’ve learned is [that] you can’t fake passion. It always shows if you are just taking a job for a paycheck.

Ironically, I originally turned down D3: The Mighty Ducks because I didn’t want to do a sequel. But the producers and my own kids convinced me otherwise. And the truth is, I am a huge hockey fan – hell, I come from Hockeytown! – and it was great fun writing this screenplay and seeing it made virtually as soon as I finished it. That almost never happens unless you have a “number” after your film. Somebody at Disney asked after seeing a cut of the film, “Why do the Ducks play like the Red Wings?” Now that made me laugh.

CinemaNerdz: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given in your career?

BURNSTEIN: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

CinemaNerdz: To folks who want to break into Hollywood as a writer, do you have any words of advice (or words of warning for that matter)?

BURNSTEIN: Rewrite your scripts before you send them out. Several times. They aren’t lottery tickets. If you send out a screenplay or a television script hoping it’s good, you don’t stand a chance. You better know it’s great – or at least, the very best you can possibly do. I can’t tell anybody the best way to succeed, but I can all but guarantee you the best way to fail. Just send out your first draft. Learning to rewrite is the rock on which we built the screenwriting program at Michigan.

CinemaNerdz: Aside from your screenplay work, you’re also very active with the U of M Department of Screen Arts & Culture. What does it mean to you to be helping such a talented core of artists?

BURNSTEIN: I am thrilled every time I see their names in the credits. I hope everybody who reads this goes to see Epic, the animated film currently playing around the world. Dan Shere was one of the writers. He was in my first rewrite class. Or, turn on TV and watch Nikita. It was created by Craig Silverstein, another member of that first rewrite class, and a major force in the world of television. Or go to Netflix and watch the award-winning indie, Ocean of Pearls written by V. Prasad, you guessed it, yet another member of that first rewrite class. Somehow we were able to lure Dan and Prasad back from Los Angeles to teach in our screenwriting program. And we were able to get Oliver Thornton who came out of the second rewrite class to teach television writing. It seems like Oliver wins a Michigan Emmy every year for the amazing work he’s done in public broadcasting. I am proud to have built a writing program here and even prouder that my former students, terrific artists in their own right, are sustaining it.

CinemaNerdz: To date, what is your proudest professional accomplishment?

BURNSTEIN: The fact that I’ve been writing in Hollywood for nearly twenty-five years. And I don’t intend on finishing this marathon anytime soon.

CinemaNerdz: What’s next up for you?

BURNSTEIN: Naked Shakespeare. Renaissance Man was about teaching Shakespeare to soldiers. This one is about Shakespeare and strippers. What can I say? I am returning to my roots. Shakespeare, that is. Garrett and I had a blast writing it.

Dane Jackson

Dane Jackson has been writing about movies since high school when he had a monthly column in the school paper about cult movies. His cinematic tastes have matured (slightly) since then.
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