From PRX.

This is Studio 360.

I'm Kurti Anderson.

On this week's Studio 360 podcast, a conversation with a writer, mainly of movies,

whose stories cover a wide range from a night out that goes horribly wrong for a bunch of young partygoers.

On the plus side, the only witnesses are you, me, and him, and I don't think any one of us are going to want to talk about this anytime soon.

So I really, really didn't go as bad as it could have.

To a southern Gothic fantasy world of circus performers and a giant catfish.

Others claimed he was a dinosaur left over from the Croatia's period.

I didn't put any stock into such speculation or superstition.

All I knew was I'd been trying to catch that fish since I was a boy no bigger than you.

My name is John August. I am a screenwriter. I am also an author. I host a podcast called Script Notes, and I also make software.

I do a lot of things.

Among other movies, John August wrote two of the Charlie's Angels features and several projects with the director Tim Burton,

including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Not long ago, at the most recent Austin Film Festival, which is focused on writing,

he sat in a cozy Victorian room overlooking festival goers bustling through the lobby of the old Driscoll hotel

and talked about how his career began.

I would watch the Oscars

and people would get like, you know,

best screenplay, and I just didn't even know

what a screenplay was.

...