Dan Ochwat graduated from Northwestern’s Writing for Screen + Stage MFA program in June. He concentrates on feature films, having written six full-length scripts. His most recent script “Forked” is a Quarterfinalist in the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship, as well as a Quarterfinalist in the International Page Awards. His short film based on that script is being submitted to festivals now. Currently, Dan is collaborating on a feature-length script with filmmaker Spencer Parsons, inspired by Parsons’ short films. The project’s just under way. Parsons teaches at Northwestern and his current film Saturday Morning Massacre played the Los Angeles Film Festival and more.
Dan’s short film “Love vs. Porn,” which he wrote and directed, played at the Chicago International REEL Film Festival and Chicago’s Incubator Festival. Dan interned at International Creative Management and MGM in Los Angeles
Dan on...
The ProcessI work on deadlines. Since I do quite a bit of freelance writing for marketing magazines and the occasional book review for The Chicago Sun-Times, I’m always structuring my weeks around deadlines that need to be met. I include screenwriting and give myself deadlines for pages. I also stay at home with my son half the week, so my writing’s pretty planned out. It’s not at all romantic, aside from the occasional can’t sleep and rip through some pages at 4 a.m. The process can actually be an uncomfortable way to write, in some respects, but the structure is also nice because as we all know, writers can be lazy. I block out hours or days and that’s when I write. I’ll do some drills or review some pages that I’ve written to get my head in the game. Then I write.
SatisfactionI’m always scared that I suck, and I’m also very hard on myself, always telling myself that I suck, so I don’t know if I’m ever satisfied about my particular writing or my particular work. But I will say, in the moment, in those now blocked out and structured slots of writing, I’m a satisfied person. When I get to put words on a page, when I sit at my laptop at the coffee shop, there’s an absolute release. There’s a constant, pent up need to write, a nervous energy about what to write, or if it’s any good, but in that moment, it’s hugely satisfying and calming to just write and live in that space for a few hours. I need it.
KnowingWell, viable, I don’t know yet. My career has just begun. But toward the end of getting my MFA at Northwestern was the first time I started to have confidence that I could make this my career. In high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer of some sort, but I didn’t know where to begin and never got a shove from a teacher or anyone, so I just never tried. Then in undergrad, I fell in love with film-- and to date myself, this was the heyday of the Sundance movies of the mid-to-late ’90s-- PT Anderson, Solondz, David O. Russell. To be specific, “Swingers,” “In the Company of Men,” “Happiness,” “Flirting With Disaster,” and “Magnolia,” were inspirational. It’s an era that mastered melodrama and tone. Anyway, I began watching everything though, and reading screenwriting books. Eventually, screenwriting morphed into a hobby, also known as a safe way to write without ever really trying. I studied journalism to be practical, and I did love it, working on the school paper and all of that, but deep down I really wanted to write movies. I just couldn’t fathom how one did it, and I went to a small college that had no film program or even film studies. So I did my own film studies and continued to write features for “fun.” In 2010, I wrote a short film and directed it with a friend-- he did most of the directing. It was a two-day, weekend shoot, and by that Sunday, I was so charged up and inspired that I knew this is what I should be doing. Northwestern came next. Then some major life changes, and then some very, very serious writing.
The First TimeYeah, it was auditions for my first short, and this might be odd, but for me, I get so energized by auditions. From the first short film to the most recent ones, I still feel that same excitement around hearing the pages out loud from a wide range of actors who all have a different take. Granted, they’re reading like a two-page side, but it’s a thrill to see how they interpret the words. It reminds you how amazing actors are, but also, for the writer, auditions are part of the honeymoon period for your writing. You’re full of gratification from completing a solid draft, and then you hear these actors read a few of your lines with passion, and it’s exciting. You’re filled with promise. Then you make the film, and it’s so damn difficult, and you have to rewrite based on locations, and then you torture yourself thinking about what you could’ve changed or improved and it spirals until you never want to hear those words for at least a few years. Maybe that’s just me.
AdviceAgain, my career is really just beginning. But I can say, speaking from when I was a hobbyist or self-learner, I wish someone told me very early on about the importance of getting a proper education in screenwriting and about all of the different MFA programs. I would’ve begun applying years ago. When you’re reading the books and magazines, and taking the weekend version of Screenwriting I at the local whatever, like I did, you’re walking away with a script that’s been given very little feedback and no real community to turn to for feedback. You’re sort of left with nothing but the option of submitting it to contests and falling for online gimmicks like pitch websites. And most of all, it’s much harder to get a manager or production company to even look at you.
An excerpt from the FORKED script
For more information on Dan's past, present, and future endeavors, check here.
