Steve Harshfield
Writer, Director, Producer
Writer, Director, Producer
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My fascination with writing began when I was 8 after an accident in my neighbor's garden ended my hopes of a professional T-Ball career. To stay busy that summer, I turned to writing. My first story was a 20-page illustrated tome called "Dinosaurs and the Universe." Technically, it could be said that at least 80% was plagiarized directly from Time/Life books on the subjects. But it released the writing endorphins within me, and I was hooked!
As a mortgage brat during the '80s real estate boom, I moved around the U.S. A LOT. In one year alone, I attended three different schools. For a while, I was an outsider. It was during those isolated times that I wrote short stories, documenting worlds and characters I found wandering in my brain. Throughout adolescence and into high school, my main characters were like me: isolated, misunderstood, harboring some secret or teetering on the precipice of a meltdown. (I know - surprising!) But writing was my catharsis...
Junior year of high school, I took film study as my elective. There, while watching the great CITIZEN KANE, I started to see stories visually, and the next stage of my journey was underway. My next logical step was film school at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
With the intent of being done with school and starting life, I zoomed through my undergrad in 2 years and 50 weeks, making films and learning as much as I could about screenwriting. After college, I begged the late, great John Hughes to give me a film job in Chicago (to no avail), and I soon realized I had more contacts in L.A. It was after a phone call from an old college buddy - recently graduated and employed in Hollywood - that I decided it was time to make the leap. With an armful of scripts and a handful of contacts, I headed West. For the filmic frontier.
Much like life itself, my time here has been a series of ups and downs. But I've had a grand time. With the "Great Democratization" of media currently underway, I look forward to many wonderful opportunities to tell my stories, and to show that that misstep in my neighbor's garden was actually my first solid step toward being a successful writer and filmmaker.
Take a look around, kick the tires, squeeze the melons. Hope you like what you see, and thank you for visiting!! :-)
As a mortgage brat during the '80s real estate boom, I moved around the U.S. A LOT. In one year alone, I attended three different schools. For a while, I was an outsider. It was during those isolated times that I wrote short stories, documenting worlds and characters I found wandering in my brain. Throughout adolescence and into high school, my main characters were like me: isolated, misunderstood, harboring some secret or teetering on the precipice of a meltdown. (I know - surprising!) But writing was my catharsis...
Junior year of high school, I took film study as my elective. There, while watching the great CITIZEN KANE, I started to see stories visually, and the next stage of my journey was underway. My next logical step was film school at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
With the intent of being done with school and starting life, I zoomed through my undergrad in 2 years and 50 weeks, making films and learning as much as I could about screenwriting. After college, I begged the late, great John Hughes to give me a film job in Chicago (to no avail), and I soon realized I had more contacts in L.A. It was after a phone call from an old college buddy - recently graduated and employed in Hollywood - that I decided it was time to make the leap. With an armful of scripts and a handful of contacts, I headed West. For the filmic frontier.
Much like life itself, my time here has been a series of ups and downs. But I've had a grand time. With the "Great Democratization" of media currently underway, I look forward to many wonderful opportunities to tell my stories, and to show that that misstep in my neighbor's garden was actually my first solid step toward being a successful writer and filmmaker.
Take a look around, kick the tires, squeeze the melons. Hope you like what you see, and thank you for visiting!! :-)
