 |
Zach Helm | |
|---|---|
| Born | Zachary E. Helm [1] January 21, 1975 Santa Clara, California, United States |
| Education | DePaul University (BFA) |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, film producer, screenwriter |
| Spouse | |
Zach Helm (born January 21, 1975) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He's known for his work on the films Stranger than Fiction (2006) and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007), as well as the stage play Good Canary and its 2009 screen adaptation.
In 1996, Helm graduated from DePaul University, where he trained as an actor. [2] After being chosen for a writer's program by Fox 2000 Pictures, he spent several years doing uncredited rewrites for film scripts. [2] [3]
He wrote the 2006 fantasy comedy-drama film Stranger than Fiction . [4] He won the National Board of Review Award for Best Original Screenplay [5] and the PEN Center USA West Literary Award in the Screenplay category. He was also nominated for the Critics Choice Award for Best Writer, [6] the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay [7] and the Saturn Award for Best Writing.
In 2006, Helm was approached to direct Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium , for which he had previously written a screenplay. [3] In 2013, he described the movie as a "Technicolor train-wreck" as reported by online tabloid news source TMZ. [8]
He began Interviewing the Audience in 2008, a revival of one of Spalding Gray's performance pieces which he had seen while in college. As the title suggests, audience members are brought onto stage and interviewed, their personal stories and insights extracted in long-form conversations meant to create a sense of communal intimacy but challenge the convention of theater and story. Helm's approach differed from Gray's in that Helm's conversations were entirely extemporaneous, without any prepared questions, and the audience members were drawn at random. Helm tended to find and illuminate themes and connections within the interviews, thereby creating a through-line for each performance as it happened. [9]
Helm wrote Le Bon Canari (Good Canary), which was produced in France in 2007, then translated into Spanish (El Buen Canario) and produced in Mexico. It was translated into English in 2016 for the Rose Theatre Kingston. Drawn from Helm's personal experiences, the play is known for its dark humor, coarse language, and views on sexism and misogyny as well as its use of Brechtian devices. [10]
In 2015, Helm directed Culo Quasars Cocaine Chaos, which he adapted from the true story of Paul Frampton. [11] He adapted the Epic Magazine article "The Mercenary" for Fox in 2016, collaborating with journalists Josh Davis and Josh Bearman. [12]
Helm was married to actress Kiele Sanchez [13] from 2001 to 2008. [14]
TV movies
| Year | Title | Writer | Executive Producer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Other People's Business | Yes | Yes |
| 2009 | Good Canary | Yes | No |
Feature films
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Stranger than Fiction | No | Yes |
| 2007 | Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium | Yes | Yes |
| 2022 | Deep Water | No | Yes |
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor. He has had a long association with filmmaker Wes Anderson with whom he shared writing and acting credits for Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore (1998), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), the last of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay. He has also appeared in Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and The French Dispatch (2021). Wilson also starred in the Woody Allen romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011) as unsatisfied screenwriter Gil Pender, a role which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 2014 he appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, and Peter Bogdanovich's She's Funny That Way.
David Friedman, known professionally as David Benioff, is an American writer and producer. Along with his collaborator D. B. Weiss, he is best known for co-creating Game of Thrones (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's series of books A Song of Ice and Fire. He also wrote 25th Hour (2002), Troy (2004), City of Thieves (2008) and co-wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).
Kiele Michelle Sanchez is an American actress who starred in the A&E Network drama The Glades. Previously, she had starred as Anne Sorelli in The WB comedy-drama Related and as Nikki Fernandez on the main cast in the third season of the ABC television drama series Lost. She also starred in the DirecTV drama series Kingdom on the Audience Network.
Stranger than Fiction is a 2006 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Marc Forster, produced by Lindsay Doran, and written by Zach Helm. The film stars Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson. The main plot follows Harold Crick (Ferrell), an IRS agent who begins hearing a disembodied voice narrating his life as it happens – seemingly the text of a novel in which it is stated that he, the main character, will soon die – and he frantically seeks to somehow prevent that ending.
Andrew Brion Hogan Goddard is an American filmmaker. He began his career writing episodes for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost. After moving into screenwriting in film, he wrote Cloverfield (2008), World War Z (2013), and The Martian (2015), the latter earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2011, he made his directorial debut with The Cabin in the Woods.
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is a 2007 children's fantasy comedy film written and directed by Zach Helm, produced by FilmColony, Mandate Pictures, Walden Media, Richard N. Gladstein and James Garavente, and with music composed by Alexandre Desplat and Aaron Zigman.
Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat is a French film composer and conductor. He has received numerous accolades throughout his career spanning over four decades, including, two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three César Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Grammy Awards. Desplat was made an Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite and a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres both in 2016.
Zachary Michael Gilford is an American actor, best known for his role as Matt Saracen on the NBC sports drama series Friday Night Lights. In 2021, he starred in the Netflix horror limited series Midnight Mass. In 2022, he appeared in the horror mystery-thriller series The Midnight Club, and in 2023, he had a main role in the horror drama miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher.
Zachary Mills is an American former actor. He is known for his roles in the films, Hollywoodland (2006), Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007), Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), and Super 8 (2011).
The Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay is one of the annual awards given out by Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers. It was first presented in 1985 with Horton Foote being the first winner of the awards for The Trip to Bountiful, Foote also received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film.
Mandate Pictures was a full-service film production company acquired by Lionsgate in 2007.
Zachary Michael Cregger is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. He first came to prominence as one of the three founding members, alongside Trevor Moore and Sam Brown, of the New York City-based comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U' Know. He later starred in the sitcoms Friends with Benefits, Guys with Kids, and Wrecked. He also starred in the film Miss March, which he co-directed and co-wrote with Moore. In 2022, Cregger wrote and directed the horror film Barbarian, which was a commercial success and opened to positive critical reviews.
The Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Comedy Series is an award presented by the Writers Guild of America to the writers of the best television comedy series of the season. It has been awarded since the 58th Annual Writers Guild of America Awards in 2006. The year indicates when each season aired.
Steven Charles Weisberg was an American film editor known for his collaborations with directors Alfonso Cuarón and Barry Sonnenfeld.
Michael H. Weber is an American screenwriter and producer. He and his writing partner, Scott Neustadter, are best known for writing the screenplay for the romantic comedy film 500 Days of Summer. The film is based on two real relationships Neustadter had. They also wrote the screenplays for the film adaptations of the novels The Spectacular Now, The Fault in Our Stars, and Paper Towns.
Shawn Christensen is an American musician, filmmaker, podcaster and artist. He is a graduate of Pratt Institute, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration and graphic design. Christensen was the frontman of the indie rock band Stellastarr. In 2013, he won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his short film Curfew.
Kevin Tod Haug is a visual effects supervisor who has worked in the film industry since the 1970s. He and Chris Corbould were nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects for their work on Quantum of Solace (2008). He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for his work on American Gods (2017).
Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, often credited as the Duffer Brothers, are American film and television writers, directors, and producers. They are best known as the creators, directors and executive producers of the hit Netflix science fiction horror drama series Stranger Things. They also wrote and directed the 2015 psychological horror film Hidden, and wrote and produced episodes for the Fox mystery-science fiction series Wayward Pines.
Henry Gayden is an American screenwriter, best known for writing the films Earth to Echo (2014), Shazam! (2019) and There's Someone Inside Your House (2021).
American Fiction is a 2023 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cord Jefferson. Based on the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett, the film follows a frustrated novelist-professor who jokingly writes an outlandishly stereotypical "Black" book out of spite, only for the book to be published and receive widespread fame and acclaim. It stars Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Sterling K. Brown.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
