At an Industry Interview by Writers Boot Camp Founder Jeff Gordon (JG) at our Career Progress Weekend with Devon Shepard (House of Lies, MadTV, Everybody Hates Chris) shares his multiple experiences with Writers Boot Camp and certain career perspectives—

 JG: “Back in the day, how did you find Writers Boot Camp?”

Thinking back to the start of his career, Devon was a student of the craft at heart— “I was I was going everywhere… That’s how I spent my summers. My summers was always ‘how do I get better?’ So whenever we had a hiatus… I would use those months to find writing seminars, writing programs, anything I can get my hands on… Me and Shawn Waynes would always go to these seminars… And so we saw Writers Boot Camp. He called me…  like “yo, let’s do this.”

After joining, Devon recalling first joining his first session: “I remember the first Friday I was in. I was in the room with a couple of writers from Friends, a couple of people who had just regular ass day jobs, and myself. And it was cool because you start from log lines… and then you have to come with your premise. And it was really a step to step to step way of writing the script. I had never done a movie at this point. And movies at that time terrified me.”

Now a part of the Writers Boot Camp community, Devon had the realization: “So I was like, well, I need to sit down here and really learn how to write a movie the right way. That  was that was how we started. It was like ‘oh, we got to learn how to write a movie.’ And so we went together to write a movie. and that’s how it started. And I love the process so much. I would go… every other year…  something like ten years… I would come every other year.”

Now a success, Devon passed the wisdom onto industry connections. However, JG asked about when Devon made it a true family affair— “When did [your wife] go?”

With a bit of a chuckle, Devon recalled “My wife was an assistant for Vincent D’Onofrio. And so she…  just got bitten by storytelling and…  so she comes back home…  and now she’s just full of ideas. Right? So she would come to me and go ‘Devon, I got a great idea, and you should write it.’ He’d respond: ‘And uh, are you going to pay me? You should write it.’ And then after she would have three or four ideas, and a lot of your ideas were pretty good. And I said ‘Oh, you’re just scared to write…  Take that idea and go to Writers Boot Camp… You’ll come out with a script. You’ll have great counselors and people that will help you navigate’… And she wrote a really great pilot. End of selling it. First pilot she ever wrote. Sold it. And she was well on her way after that. But that was because she came through Writers Boot Camp.”