This week, Ira spoke with James Orr.
Writer-producer-director James Orr, after 30 years in Hollywood, moved to Las Vegas and now is offering “The James Orr Master Class,” a series of three-day intensive seminars, one on screenwriting, March 10-12 and one on directing, April 14-16.
A native of Canada, Orr moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at The American Film Institute as a Director Fellow in 1977 after finishing the undergraduate Film Program at York University in Toronto.
As a director, Orr directed actors from Michael Caine and Jose Ferrer to Jim Belushi and Patrick Swayze; from Courtney Cox and Rene Russo to Jennifer Beals and Linda Hamilton.
He even directed Orson Welles, who did the on-camera narration for a documentary that Orr wrote and directed in 1982 called “Raising the Mary Rose: Preserving A Moment in Time.”
As a producer, Orr’s produced major studio feature films such as “Father of the Bride,” “Father of the Bride 2,” and “Mr. Destiny” for the Walt Disney Studio, as well as television movies such as “My Future Boyfriend” for the ABC Family Network, “The Night Before The Night Before Christmas” for the Hallmark Channel, and “Love On The Run” for NBC.
As a screenwriter, he’s written many successful studio feature films, including “Sister Act 2,” “Mr. Destiny,” “Tough Guys,” and the number-one box-office movie of 1987, “Three Men and A Baby.”
