Screenwriter Phil Wurdeman Misses Float Trips While Floating Around Backlots

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replying the story in its archived form does not constitute a re-publiccation of the story.

You can move the boy away from Ted Drewes, but you can't take the Drewes out of the boy. St. Louis native, and budding screenwriter, Phil Wurdeman spends his days on Hollywood back lots thinking about St. Louis concretes and float trips while he works as a contributing writer and production assistant on the television show Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen. Phil said, "Every time someone posts new pics of their float trip on Facebook or MySpace I get really jealous!"

Phil left St. Louis in 2002 to study film at Miami International University of Art and Design. Not knowing anyone in Miami made the move a little intimidating he says, "But it was as thrilling as it was scary. I packed everything I owned in my Pontiac Sunfire, ripped off my rearview mirror, and hit the road." After finishing film school, Phil decided to move to Lubbock, TX hoping to avoid coming back to St. Louis and getting too comfortable.

"The problem was that a film degree in West Texas didn't get me anything more than a minimum wage job as a bus boy in an old folks home. Every day I poured coffee for Mrs. Habershmitt who grabbed my ass and asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. And every night I'd fall asleep praying that I'd some day have the money to move to Los Angeles." After getting a letter and a check from a family member to "jump start [his] life as a college grad," he knew exactly what he needed to do. He left Mrs. Habershmitt with her booty grabbing and his gig pouring coffee behind and, "cashed the check, packed [his] car and moved to LA." Now this film buff from St. Louis is working in the industry and developing his screen writing career. Phil talked to me about what he is doing out in LA when he isn't busy thinking about all of the great things here in St. Louis.

How do you land jobs out there?

Phil: When I need a job I send out about 3-5 resumes a day, and I ask around a little. But to be honest with you, I am pretty bad at the networking thing. So many people in entertainment kiss ass and develop synthetic relationships to get ahead. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing that, but I usually end up avoiding it. I value sincere relationships too much I guess, which might mean that it will take me longer to achieve success, but when it's all said and done I'd rather be moderately successful than moderately real.

What kind of projects do you usually work on?

Phil: My own projects are screenplays, which I hope to sell and have produced some day, and spec scripts for TV shows, which I hope will get me a job writing for a sitcom some day. Most of the time I write with my sister, Shmab. We work well together. I like to think of us as kind of like the Coen Brothers or the Farrelly Brothers... only she's not a guy... which pretty much screws up the whole brothers part now that I think about it. I guess it's gonna be her fault if we're never successful. So far we've written one screenplay that we're shopping around, and one sitcom, and we're in the middle of writing our second screenplay.

What projects have you worked on in the past?

Phil: Entertainment Studios recently released Eddie Murphy's Delirious on DVD and I was the Production Associate on The Making of Eddie Murphy's Delirious. That was pretty fun because we got to interview the best comedians in the business. I was also a Production Assistant for an Iron and Wine music video... Sam Beam is a former professor of mine and working on his video was awesome. I've worked for Comics Unleashed as both a Contributing Writer and Production Associate for two seasons now. I've written public service announcements for a Spanish learning channel called Clase Television, I interned for writer/director Randy Wallace... Randy is the guy who wrote Braveheart, Pearl Harbor, and We Were Soldiers. And I edited foreign subtitles for several shows on E! Entertainment Television. I'm not where I'd like to be career wise right now, but when I look back at the past 3 years I'm proud of what I've done, and it's been a pretty fun ride.

What are your career goals at this point?

Phil: Short term goals are to land a job writing for a sitcom and/or to sell a screenplay. Long term is to write my own feature length comedies that my sister and I direct. I'd love to have a Coen Brothers type career or Christopher Guest type career. Those guys have been able to write their own movies and have almost total control when they direct them. It would be awesome if Shmab and I got to direct our own movies some day.

What do you think is the coolest part of your job?

Phil: The fact that I have one. With this economy I have a lot of friends who don't have jobs and I have been blessed so far. The coolest part last season was seeing jokes that I wrote make it on the show. The audience's reaction is real and the feedback is instant and you know that it's not candy coated (at least until they add the canned laughter for television). If something bombs you hear groans in the audience. If something kills you hear applause and cheering. There's nothing cooler than hearing an audience clap and cheer for one of your jokes.

The coolest part this season is having respect from the bellow-the-line crew. When they see your face for season two their level of respect for you immediately goes up. You're a survivor all of the sudden. And working with below-the-line crew members is very healthy, having direct contact with them. You learn to appreciate every member of a show... from the good ol' boys in the lighting department to the flamboyant wardrobe guy. I think understanding and respecting every department is essential to being a good director some day. When I hear writers from other shows badmouth below-the-line crew members I'm always rolling my eyes thinking you have no idea how hard their job can be, and vise versa.

Who are your major influences?

Phil: Billy Bob Thornton because he suffered through a lot before he became successful out here, and because he draws from his roots, not academia, to create his characters and stories. He didn't go to an Ivy League college, but he carved an Academy Award winning screenplay out of an honest story about the world he came from. That's what I try to do, whether I'm writing comedy or drama or somewhere in between. There are so many people out here with fancy pedigrees that lead to fancy college degrees, and they're eloquent writers, but their writing has no soul because they grew up trying to make it from violin lesson to equestrian practice and then to Latin class. Kids shouldn't grow up preparing for Harvard; they should grow up catching fireflies; that's where real stories come from.