Peter Barsocchini | |
---|---|
Born | San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of California, Santa Cruz (BA) |
Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, Producer, Author |
Years active | 1986–present |
Peter Barsocchini is an American screenwriter, author, former journalist, and television producer best known for his scripts for the High School Musical series.
Barsocchini was born in San Francisco, California. He attended Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, California and graduated in 1970. He began his professional writing career while attending high school in the San Francisco Bay Area, writing more than 300 columns about popular music for The San Mateo Times . He also worked as a freelance reporter for the Associated Press and the San Francisco Examiner , and contributed reviews to the Associated Press and Rolling Stone . Barsocchini graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in creative writing.
As a young journalist, he spent weeks backstage at Fillmore West, covering Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead, the Kinks, and Elton John. After graduating from college, Barsocchini was hired by the Merv Griffin Company as an interviewer for the Merv Griffin Show . In 1979, Barsocchini was named producer, a position he held for seven years. He won an Emmy Award twice as producer, the youngest talk-show producer ever to receive the award. He also was the ghostwriter for Griffin's autobiography which became a national bestseller, and was followed by a collection of interviews, "From Where I Sit", published in 1981. His first novel "Ghost" was published to laudatory reviews in the late 1980s with the screen rights being purchased by Paramount Pictures, beginning the transition to the film business. His screenplay Drop Zone was produced by Paramount and starred Wesley Snipes. He also wrote the novelization of Mission Impossible . [1]
In 2004, Peter Barsocchini wrote the first draft of a script for the Disney Channel Original Movie, High School Musical for his preteen daughter Gabriella and many of her friends for whom he also named characters. He recalled knowing the film could be a success when the first draft was given a green light from Disney. [2] The television film became a phenomenon that spawned billions in revenue and two sequels. The first sequel, High School Musical 2 , shattered expectations and records becoming the highest rated cable broadcast in history with well over seventeen million viewers. High School Musical 3: Senior Year was released in theaters worldwide and had the biggest opening weekend gross for any movie musical in history. The writer has already been contacted to pen yet another book in the series that centres around characters introduced in the third movie. Unfortunately, there is no formal announcement on the production of the movie. [3]
College of San Mateo (CSM) is a public community college in San Mateo, California. It is part of the San Mateo County Community College District. College of San Mateo is located at the northern corridor of Silicon Valley and situated on a 153-acre site in the San Mateo hills. The college currently serves approximately 10,000 day, evening and weekend students. The college offers 69 A.A./A.S. degree majors and 81 certificate programs.
Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway. From 1962 to 1986, Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show. Griffin also created the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune through his own production companies, Merv Griffin Enterprises and Merv Griffin Entertainment.
Alfred Gough is an American screenwriter, producer, writer, director, showrunner and creator. He is best known as the developer of The WB/The CW's Superman-prequel television hit series Smallville. Alongside longtime writing/producing partner Miles Millar, Gough also co-created other television programs like AMC's 2015 wuxia-influenced dystopian television series Into the Badlands, MTV's 2016 epic fantasy television series The Shannara Chronicles and Netflix's Wednesday, the Tim Burton helmed Addams Family spin-off. Among his many feature film credits he wrote or produced are Shanghai Noon, as well as its sequel, Shanghai Knights, Spider-Man 2, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Hannah Montana: The Movie and Burton's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Karey Kirkpatrick is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. His films include Chicken Run, The Rescuers Down Under, James and the Giant Peach,Over the Hedge, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlotte's Web, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He has also directed the films, Over the Hedge, Imagine That starring Eddie Murphy and Smallfoot. Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplays for the U.S. releases of the Studio Ghibli films The Secret World of Arrietty in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013.
James Allen Mangold is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Noted for his versatility in tackling a range of genres, Mangold made his debut as a film director with Heavy (1995), and is best known for the films Cop Land (1997), Girl, Interrupted (1999), Identity (2003), Walk the Line (2005), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and two films in the X-Men franchise with The Wolverine (2013) and Logan (2017), the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He then directed the sports drama film Ford v Ferrari (2019), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and directed and co-wrote Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), the fifth and final installment in the Indiana Jones series.
San Mateo High School is a National Blue Ribbon comprehensive four-year public high school in San Mateo, California, United States. It serves grades 9–12 and is one of the seven San Mateo Union High School District public high schools.
Mike Johnson is an American stop motion animator who has worked on films such as James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas, short films such as an animation of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and TV programmes such as The PJs. He is best known for directing Corpse Bride with Tim Burton; they were jointly nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He directed Ping Pong Rabbit, from a script by Peter Barsocchini. The film was released by Mili Pictures Worldwide in 2017 in Turkey and 2019 in the United States. Johnson was also attached to direct Oz Wars, a CGI/Stop-motion hybrid film.
High School Musical is a 2006 American musical television film produced by and aired on Disney Channel as part of the network's slate of original television films. The first installment of the High School Musical series, the film was directed by choreographer and filmmaker Kenny Ortega from a screenplay by Peter Barsocchini. It stars Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Alyson Reed, Corbin Bleu, and Monique Coleman. High School Musical follows student Troy Bolton (Efron), the captain of his school basketball team, and Gabriella Montez (Hudgens), an academically gifted transfer student, who together audition for the lead roles in their school musical, causing division among the school's cliques.
Kenneth "Kenny" John Ortega is an American director, producer, choreographer, and concert creator. He is most well-known for his work with Disney Channel, notably the High School Musical film trilogy, cult classics such as Newsies and Hocus Pocus, The Cheetah Girls 2, and the first three Descendants films. In 2019 he signed a five year deal with Netflix, producing the original series Julie and the Phantoms, which was cancelled after only one season. He has also choreographed multiple iconic 80's films such as, Xanadu, One from the Heart, St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Dirty Dancing. Ortega has worked on multiple music videos and produced concert tours for the likes of, KISS, Cher, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, and Michael Jackson, notably the cancelled This is It Concert Residency. He also wrote, directed, and produced Jackson's posthumous documentary film, Michael Jackson's This Is It. For his work, Ortega was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Disney Legend Award in 2019.
Linda Woolverton is an American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist, whose most prominent works include the screenplays and books of several acclaimed Disney films and stage musicals. She is the first woman to have written an animated feature for Disney, Beauty and the Beast (1991), which is also the first animated film ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. She also co-wrote the screenplay of The Lion King (1994), provided additional story material for Mulan (1998), and adapted her own Beauty and the Beast screenplay into the book of the Broadway adaptation of the film, for which she received a Tony Award nomination and won an Olivier Award.
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Mercy High School is a private all-girls high school in Burlingame, California, United States. The school is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, and is run by the Sisters of Mercy, founded by Catherine McAuley. It is housed in Kohl Mansion.
James Dalessandro is an American writer and filmmaker. He is best known for his historical-fiction novel 1906 based on events surrounding the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.
High School Musical is an American media franchise centered on a series of musical romantic comedy-drama films created by Peter Barsocchini. The franchise also includes stage musicals, books, comics, live shows, video games, and a television series.
Dale Van Every was an American writer, film producer, and studio executive.
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Mili Pictures Worldwide is a feature film animation company based in Shanghai, China. The company's first film, Dragon Nest: Warriors' Dawn, based on the online game Dragon Nest, was released in China in July 2014. The company opened an office in Los Angeles, California in spring 2014, headed by producer Bill Borden. The company's most recent feature project, Ping Pong Rabbit, filmed in Los Angeles. Ping Pong Rabbit was directed by Mike Johnson, who was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as co-director of Corpse Bride.
Mark Swift and Damian Shannon are American screenwriters and film producers. They are known for their collaborative script-writing projects, in particular Freddy vs. Jason and later the 2009 reboot Friday the 13th.
Milo Jacob Manheim is an American actor. He is best known for his starring role as Zed in the 2018 Disney Channel Original Movie Zombies, and its sequels Zombies 2 (2020) and Zombies 3 (2022). In 2018, he finished in second place on season 27 of Dancing with the Stars.
Patrick Burleigh is an American screenwriter, playwright, and essayist. He is best known as a screenwriter for Eternals, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, and Ant-Man and the Wasp. Burleigh grew up in New York City and Los Angeles before attending Dartmouth College and Trinity College Dublin. In 2015, he sold his screenplay adaptation of Nicholas Griffin’s book Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game That Changed the World to Village Roadshow Pictures.