In 1999, a plastic ball floated in the wind—the most beautiful thing ever seen by the strange boy next door—and with that, Alan Ball won an Academy Award for his very first screenplay, American Beauty. Nine years later, he's making his feature directorial debut with Towelhead, which, even before its release, is confronting controversy for its title and few key scenes.

For most moviemakers, the only place to go after winning an Oscar, ACE and Emmy award is down—or rehab. But multi-hyphenate Paula Mazur is changing the rules. Best known as a producer, Mazur has spent the last three decades building a reputation as a moviemaker with a discerning eye for high-quality content, whether in television or film, fiction or documentary. After shifting gears to make her directorial debut in 1992, Mazur is adding a new title to her business card, this time as a screenwriter on Nim’s Island.

A self-described Midwestern boy from Michigan, screenwriter David Magee is frequenting Hollywood these days. Magee, who actually started as an actor and later honed his writing skills doing novel abridgments, scored both Oscar and Golden Globe nods for his “freshman” feature-length script, Finding Neverland. Now he awaits the release of his “sophomore” effort, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Amy Adams and Frances McDormand, which he calls a lovely, light comedy.

"Don't believe the hype" and other lessons from the writer-director behind Mama's Boy and Something Borrowed.

If it’s true that people are born to do certain things, then Hank Nelken was born to be a moviemaker. Because whether he was filming Bar Mitzvahs as a kid to fund his own short films or editing wedding videos right out of USC Film School to buy bread, Nelken has always known what he wants to do with his life: Make movies.

"When possible, bake cookies in the editing room" and other lessons from one of Hollywood's most prolific writer-producer-directors.

Even as one of Hollywood's most powerful writer-producers, it has taken 15 years for Robin Swicord to get the chance to direct. But she's doing it now with The Jane Austen Book Club.

From Citizen Kane to American Beauty, the history of cinema is filled with examples of "cinematic storytelling" - films that use the full complement of moviemaking tools to tell theis stories.

Determining the roles of "writer" and "director" begins and ends with one simple question: What is the story I'm telling?

Just like the stories they write, a screenwriter's life is one based on cycles. One of Hollywood's most in-demand scribes sounds off about his own.

Whether you're looking for investors for your latest project or getting ready to finance it yourself, make sure your script has these six essential elements - which translate to audience appeal.

With so many of today's successful movies based on existing material, it pays to know how to translate a literary work into a cinematic one.

Know thyself. A Hollywood screenwriter comes clean on the freedom he found when he got his mind and his talent in alignment.

Every script has a beginning, middle and end - but sometimes it can be helpful to write them in reverse order.

Selling a spec script is no easy task. Selling a spec script about a real-life serial killer who was never caught is slightly harder. So how did writer James Vanderbilt manage to do just that with Zodiac? By writing a cohesive, suspenseful and surprisingly humorous screenplay about one of the most fascinating manhunts in U.S history. (It didn't hurt to have David Fincher attached to direct.)

There are a lot of smart and intelligent people working in this business who are excited to make challenging films.

The budget doesn't matter. $5,000 or $50 million, there's always someone to tell you "there's not enough money."

Most screenwriters will tell you they feel a personal connection to the scripts they write, but David Paterson has a whole other layer of attachment. His most recent effort, Bridge to Terabithia, is based on the Newbery Medal-winning novel written by his mother, Katherine.

Only a madman would sit down to write a script believing that it will one day become a successful movie. Be a madman. As the Book of the Samurai notes, "Nothing great was ever accomplished through common sense. One must become insane and desperate."

For a screenwriter, there's no greater risk than throwing in the towel of a life of secure employment and handing yourself over to the writing trade. And there's no greater payoff than writing a hit movie the first time out. As the awards season kicks off, MM chatted with Little Miss Sunshine scribe Michael Arndt about risking it all for Hollywood.

Don't ever let them see you panic or lose your composure.

With a hit movie just barely out of theaters, it's hard to believe Brad Gann's second feature film is already in the can. But as his script for Invincible, starring Mark Wahlberg and Greg Kinnear, was being shot in Philadelphia, Gann was already busy on the set of the 24-day shoot for Black Irish, a movie he wrote, produced and directed.

Be yourself. If you come as somebody else, one day you'll forget who that is, and you'll look a fool.

Jeremy Brock has a knack for depicting the intimate lives of the very famous. Whether it's a grieving Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown or the infamous dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, Brock manages to create complex, larger-than-life characters who are still somehow relatable. But Brock has more than just one trick up his sleeve, as the diversity of his projects attests. In addition to The Last King of Scotland, which is already attracting a healthy amount of Oscar buzz, Brock's first outing as a director, Driving Lessons, hit theaters this month.

Never, ever, give anyone-friend, foe,and especially a professional-a script whose three digit page count has the middle numeral of "three." "One" is preferable. "Two" only if necessary. "Four" or higher means you should not quit your day job.

For writer Steven Peros, overnight success has been a long
time coming. Though he thought he was "on his way" when his
first original screenplay was optioned shortly after his graduation
from NYU, the movie wasn't made. Unlike many neophytes, though,
Peros believed in his talent enough to persevere, and he survived
for a dozen years working as a reader for William Morris and
landing "sporadic, small-change writing gigs." Finally, his
script for The Cat's Meow was brought to the project's
ideal director, Peter Bogdanovich, and the rest was history.

When you're a director embarking on your very first project, it might seem intimidating to have your work backed by one of the world's top fashion magazines. But this is just how Julia Stiles found herself both writing and directing the short film Raving, which premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival in April and aired on The Sundance Channel in May.

I think a major sin in screenwriting is not listening to your critics. However dumb they may seem to you, however brutal their criticism, remember that you are in a room with five people, and if you don't get it right there, you're going to end up out in the world with thousands of people and it doesn't get any better. So listen because they are trying to make it better, however wrong-headed their decisions may be. I think that young writers find criticism is hard because it's very personal, but it's crucial. It's called collaboration; it comes in the form of notes and sometime they're hard. Experience teaches you to take it less personally.

English screenwriter Jeremy Brock had it coming. After cutting his teeth as a writer in British television for over a dozen years, he vaulted into feature writing when Miramax saw gold in his original script, Mrs. Brown. With Charlotte Gray -- his second feature -- in release, Jeremy Brock has returned to the big screen with another complex and fiery heroine. In an interview with MM, Brock discusses his beginnings in the industry, his ways of working and what it takes to create the kinds of characters that stay in your memory long after a movie's over.

Writing with a sibling is a unique collaboration. Because we share similar backgrounds and experiences, there is a kind of unspoken communication between us that can save time.

Five years after their triumph at Sundance with Clockwatchers, sisters Jill and Karen Sprecher have re-emerged with 13 Conversations About One Thing, an extraordinary film that explores the dramatic impact strangers can have on one another.

I didn't realize until years later that my college experience was not like others. SUNY Purchase at least in the era that I attended was a haven for weirdo artists and misfits. It was originally conceived as a state university for the arts, so freaks were the normal people, no frat boys or rich brats. It was a very healthy place to be in that regard. And there's a pretty vast network of Purchase mafia that continue to work together, live together, drink together...

Writer-Director Ilya Chaiken plunged into her first independent
feature, Margarita Happy Hour, even before she found
financing. Set within the community of downtown artists now
relocated to Brooklyn, Margarita Happy Hour is a richly
detailed, funny and unsparing glimpse at motherhood on the
fringe. Chaiken, a single mom herself, first received attention
for her acclaimed short film, The Actress, a festival
favorite later broadcast on PBS.

I've always been a bit nervous about dealing with actors and that relationship. I always feel I don't know the dialogue or the language you speak with actors. I've never rehearsed, so I'm pretty much winging it on-set. Everything happens right there and then, and it's always risky. More money would mean more time and it would mean spending more time with the actors.

Gary Burns, a writer-director from Calgary, Canada, has created
three features in six years. His first, The Suburbanators
was a critical success; his second, Kitchen Party,
was called "the funniest, nastiest comedy of manners to come
down the pike in months" by The New York Times. His
latest feature, waydowntown, a smart satire on corporate
life and modern human existence, was the winner of the Best
Canadian Feature at the Toronto Film Festival in 2001 and
is currently playing in theaters throughout America. Here
Burns discusses the challenges of being a writer-director
and the pleasures involved with dreaming up stories for a
living.