Screenwriter to Appear at Writers’ Guild Meeting

    Screenwriter Russell Schaumburg will be focusing on his film Tennessee at the Aug. 5 meeting of the Knoxville Writers’ Guild.
    The Knoxville resident will be showing a portion of the 2009 drama during the course of his Guild appearance.
    “I will likely bring copies of the shooting script as well,” said Schaumburg, who plans to “discuss some of the major differences between the script and the film.”
    The meeting, which will be open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. at the Laurel Theater, at the corner of Laurel Avenue and 16th Streets (in Fort Sanders). A $1 donation is requested at the door. The building is handicapped accessible.
    “Tennessee” marked Russell Schaumberg’s debut as a feature-film screenwriter. Produced by Lee Daniels (Precious), the picture had premiered at New York’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.
    Audiences there saw an affecting road movie about two brothers (Adam Rothenberg and Ethan Peck) who made a pressing journey from New Mexico to East Tennessee, in the hopes of locating their estranged father for a life-saving gesture. Mariah Carey portrayed the aspiring singer who joined the young men on their trek eastward.
    Tennessee has held great personal meaning for Schaumberg because the important elements of its story converge in an area with which he is most familiar. The St. Louis-born writer grew up in Knoxville, attending the Webb School. He was, as he related to Metro Pulse, “constantly influenced by the people and places and overall spirit of East Tennessee.”
    Schaumberg graduated from Northwestern University in the mid-1990s, having majored in anthropology/premed. His interests were also directed toward the theatrical, for he had been acting in school productions since his Webb days.
    The desire to act came to take precedence and Russell relocated to Los Angeles after college. Several years – and many auditions and odd jobs – later, he enrolled in LA’s Southwestern Law School.
    He graduated there in 2002, but didn’t pursue a career in law. Instead he chose to zero in on writing, an activity to which he had become increasingly drawn at Southwestern; in the midst of his classroom boredom, Schaumburg had begun writing down ideas for movies – including one that would evolve into Tennessee.
    Russell’s first professional writing credits, two award-winning Elvis Presley television documentaries, came via a Knoxville-based production company. Schaumberg then returned to LA, concentrating on writing screenplays. Shortly thereafter he began to receive recognition for these endeavors. His very first script, Noah’s Light, had in fact placed him a semi-finalist in an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences screenwriting fellowship.
    Noah’s Light (“a Field of Dreams by the sea”) has resurfaced in Russell’s life, being the basis of one of two television pilots he’s developing. Schaumberg has also been involved in two film projects; his script, Izzy’s Yearbook, has been optioned by Lee Daniels and he just completed adapting Chris Bohjalian’s novel, The Buffalo Soldier, for the screen.
    Russell had been dividing his time between Knoxville and LA since 2005. He and his wife have been living here full-time since last October and the birth of their first child. “I am finding the ease and comfort of Knoxville to be a good thing for me, my writing and my family,” says Schaumburg.
   The scenarist looks forward to leading a lively discussion at the August Writers’ Guild meeting. “It will be an open forum for people to ask questions about the film [Tennessee] or writing in general – even the business of it all. But, really; whatever anyone wants to know, I will try to enlighten.”