Craig Fernandez
Craig has sold 22 features, 2 mini-series, 1 pilot, and 2 kids shows in a 28 year career. He has written in every genre, worked in Development for Michael Mann, and sold projects to Disney, Fox, Universal, Sony, Dreamworks, and Warner Brothers.
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Check out Craig’s screenwriting tip, Always Be Writing)
He was born in Sacramento, California, and raised in Los Angeles. After graduating with B.A. in theatre from Bard College, Fernandez returned to LA and eventually became a reader and then a Creative Executive at Michael Mann’s production company, Forward Pass.
After leaving Mann, Fernandez launched his writing career, selling two scripts in rapid succession (a period adaptation of Prosper Merimee’s “Carmen”, and a Mexican Masked Wrestler fantasy “El Phantasma”).
In his twenty-eight-year career, Fernandez has sold projects to Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Sony, Dreamworks, and Warner Brothers. He has worked 6 years in development and written in every conceivable genre, from political thrillers (“Days of Rage”/Disney) to teen rom-coms (“Q”/Developed with Kenny Ortega). He’s adapted comic books “Beasts of Burden”/RealFX), classic literature (“Frankenstein”/Sony), and newspaper articles (“Biker Boyz”/Dreamworks).
Beyond his work in feature films, Fernandez has also worked in Feature Animation (“Everything Must Go”/Dreamworks), Children’s Animation (“Batwheels”/Warner Animation). He’s developed network pilots (“Red Ball”/Fox Network) and has written two four-hour mini-series (“Time’s Eye”/SciFi Channel and “Illegally Yours”/Lifetime).
Fernandez is repped by Jordan Bayer at Original Artists and Alex Lerner at Kaplan Perrone Management. You can find him on Twitter or Instagram at Craig Fernandez @Cauhtli.
Testimonials
I took Craig’s Feature Structure class, having previously taken feature development classes with Craig and another teacher. I thought this class was the best by far. Spending three hours focused on one writer at a time allowed us to go much deeper into each outline. I also found it more productive not having to read everyone’s pages each week and instead focusing on one project. You could tell the students were more involved and committed. By the end, we had much more developed outlines that felt ready to write. I highly recommend this class and hope Craig keeps teaching it. He’s an amazing teacher who gives so much time and care to everyone’s script.
Craig Fernandez’s Feature Structure lab taught me more about impactful story telling than all my years in college. He shows you how to get to the emotional flow of writing a feature, and with a warmth and kindness that’s rare. The first lecture of the class made sense of all the years of writing and watching film. This is the first and best step one could take in writing a feature.
Craig is one of the best teachers I’ve had in the craft of screenwriting and making a commercially-viable movie come to life on the page. His lectures helped so many things click in my mind and connected bits and pieces I had learned from other instructors and books that I never saw before. The way he was able to help every student in class take their “big feature idea” and help craft it into a completely navigable roadmap of an outline was honestly astonishing. His recommendations of scripts and movies in every genre was vast—it’s clear he loves movies and writing and that love is infused in his teaching. If you have the opportunity to take a class from Craig, run don’t walk.