John August

John August
August at the Sundance Film Festival 2007
Born	John Meise (1970-08-04) August 4, 1970 Boulder, Colorado, United States
Education	Drake University, USC (MFA)
Occupation	Screenwriter, Director, Producer
Years active	1998-present
Spouse(s)	Michael August (m. 2008)
Children	1

John August (born August 4, 1970) is an American screenwriter and film director.

He writes and maintains the popular screenwriting blog johnaugust.com, and develops screenwriter-targeted software.

He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, voting in the Writers branch.

Early life

August was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado. He earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and an MFA in film from The Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles.

Career

August's debut film was 1999's critically acclaimed Go, for which he also served as co-producer and second unit director.

In 1998, August acquired the film rights to Daniel Wallace's Big Fish. His adaptation became the 2003 Tim Burton film of the same name and earned August a 2003 BAFTA Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Since 2003, August has written the screenplay for several Tim Burton films, including Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (an adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's book), and Frankenweenie. August also shared story credit with Seth Grahame-Smith on Burton's Dark Shadows.

The Nines, his writing/directing debut starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and Venice Film Festival's Critics’ Week.

For television, August has developed three projects. D.C, a one-hour drama for the WB Network, ran in April 2000. Alaska, a crime drama for ABC, shot a pilot in 2004 directed by Kim Manners but was not picked up for series. Ops, a one-hour drama co-created by Jordan Mechner, was developed for 20th Television/Fox, but never filmed a pilot.

August wrote the book for the Broadway musical adaptation of Big Fish, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman.

August earned a 2006 Grammy nomination for lyrics for "Wonka's Welcome Song" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Other work

In 2003, August established johnaugust.com as a repository for the 100+ screenwriting advice columns he had written for IMDb. The site now has over 1,500 posts.

He founded Quote-Unquote Apps in 2010, which develops software related to film and the film industry. Their releases include FDX Reader, an iOS application that displays Final Draft files; Less IMDb, a browser extension for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox that reorganizes the layout of IMDb pages; and Bronson Watermarker, an OS X watermarking application that supports multiple outputs. He also commissioned the typeface Courier Prime from Alan Dague-Greene, intended to be a more readable alternative to Courier New.

In 2012, the Quote-Unquote team, along with Stu Maschwitz, developed Fountain, a simple markup syntax for screenplays. Later that year, Quote-Unquote released the first public beta of Highland, an OS X utility that converts screenplays between PDF, FDX, and Fountain formats, and works as a Fountain text editor.

August, along with fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin, also hosts Scriptnotes, a weekly podcast on the craft of screenwriting and the film industry.

August launched a Kickstarter called Writer Emergency Pack, a deck of cards designed to help writers when they're stuck. The Kickstarter raised $158,104 from 5,714 backers. It is now for sale to the public.

In May 2015, August launched a Kickstarter for a card game called One Hit Kill.

Personal life

August is openly gay. He married Michael August on June 28, 2008 during the four months same-sex marriage in California was recognized. They have a daughter, born in 2005.

Filmography

Year	Title	Credit	Notes
1998	God	Writer, director	Short, starring Melissa McCarthy
1999	Go	Written by	Also co-producer, 2nd unit director
2000	D.C.	Creator, Co-executive producer	TV series
2000	Titan A.E.	Screenplay	With Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund
2000	Charlie's Angels	Written by	With Ryan Rowe & Ed Solomon, based on the TV series created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts
2003	Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle	Screenplay, story	With Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley, based on the TV series created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts
2003	Big Fish	Screenplay	Based on the novel by Daniel Wallace; also wrote the song "Twice the Love"
2005	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Screenplay	Based on the book by Roald Dahl; also wrote the lyrics to "Wonka's Welcome Song"
2005	Corpse Bride	Screenplay	With Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler; also wrote the lyrics to "Remains of the Day", "Tears to Shed", "According to Plan"
2007	The Nines	Written by, director
2010	Prince of Persia: Sands of Time	Executive producer	Based on the video game franchise created by Jordan Mechner
2012	Dark Shadows	Story	With Seth Grahame-Smith, based on the soap opera created by Dan Curtis
2012	Frankenweenie	Screenplay	Based on the short film by Tim Burton

External links

• John August Interview
• johnaugust.com
• Quote-Unquote Apps
• John August at the Internet Movie Database