Alex Epstein | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Citizenship | American, Canadian |
Alma mater | Yale University UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television |
Occupations | |
Notable work | Bon Cop, Bad Cop We Happy Few |
Spouse | Lisa Hunter Epstein |
Awards | Canadian Comedy Award |
Alex Epstein (born January 26, 1963) is a dual citizen American Canadian writer, film producer, director, and educator.
Alex Epstein began his writing career as an author of short stories for literary magazines. [1] In Hollywood, he worked as a development executive for independent films, including with his own and Angelique Gulermovich Epstein's company Muse of Fire, and as a vice-president of Blue Rider Pictures. [1] [2] His first film writing credit was for 1994's Warriors.
In Montreal, he co-created and co-wrote the comedy television series Naked Josh and co-wrote the buddy cop crime film Bon Cop, Bad Cop . [3] He was head writer (executive story editor) for the second half of the sci-fi series Charlie Jade with writer credit on three episodes. [4] [5] He has also written and directed several short films, [6] [7] [8] and wrote young adult historical fantasy novel The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan le Fay. [9]
Epstein has worked in the video game industry as the story and voice director of Contrast by Compulsion Games. [10] For Spearhead Games' Stories: The Path of Destinies , he was brought in to assist with the branching storylines and to add humor. [11] He returned to work for Compulsion Games as the narrative director of We Happy Few . [12]
He was part of the writing team along with Patrick Huard, Leila Bason and Kevin Tierney that was nominated for the Prix Iris (Best Screenplay) [14] and won the Canadian Comedy Award (Best Writing) for Bon Cop, Bad Cop in 2007. [15] Naked Josh which he co-wrote with Laura Kosterski and the short film Role Play which he co-wrote with Lisa Hunter, have been nominated for the WGC Screenwriting Awards in 2005, 2006, and 2014. [16] The Circle Cast was shortlisted for the Quebec Writers' Federation Awards (QWF Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature) in 2011. [17]
In addition, Epstein is also a screenwriting teacher. Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made, published in 2002, is a screenwriting manual for feature films, derived from his career in development. In 2006, he wrote Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box, focusing on his experiences in television and guiding writers in creating series and pilots. He also has a tie-in blog, "Complications Ensue". [18] [19]
Raised in New York, Epstein graduated from the Yale in 1985 in Computer Science and English and has lived in France for a year. Afterwards he graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and has worked in Los Angeles for a decade, before eventually moving to Montreal, Canada. [1]
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