Jonathan Mostow '83 (Writer, Director, & Producer, SURROGATES, TERMINATOR 3)

By Anthony Cistaro A.R.T. '97

You’ve seen the provocative billboards everywhere. Beautiful, youthful people lifting their shirts to reveal metal machinery where their midsections should be – “Human perfection. What could go wrong?” The posters announce the arrival of the heavily anticipated Bruce Willis/Ving Rhames action thrill ride, Surrogates, directed by Harvard’s own Jonathan Mostow '83.

Originally from Woodbridge, Connecticut, Jonathan Mostow began his professional paying career in entertainment on the day he turned 16 (he ran down to the local movie theater and got a job as an usher). Later in college, while browsing Harvard’s course catalogue, Mostow found a single filmmaking class – available only to “Visual and Environmental Studies” majors. Mostow declared the VES major so he could take the filmmaking class.

Patric Verrone '81 (Writer, Producer, & Former President of the Writers Guild of America, FUTURAMA)

By Anthony Cistaro A.R.T. '97

As a follow up to Harvardwood’s “Brave New Media” Panel discussion, Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone '81 recently shared additional thoughts with us on how WGA writers are shaping the future of internet content.

Once upon a time, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his fellow novelists were lured out to Hollywood to write for the studios. They largely fell to drink and despair upon discovering they had traded in their artistic autonomy for the role of the well-paid but underestimated lackey.

Not so in the world of new media, according to Patric Verrone, President of the Writers Guild of America West. In the aftermath of the WGA’s 100-day strike last year against the studio conglomerates, Verrone has continued to deliver on his promise that “every piece of media with a moving image on a screen or a recorded voice must have a writer, and every writer must have a WGA contract.”