Christopher Vogler (born 1949) is a

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

development executive In film production, a development executive (often called DE for short) is a high-level position generally above a Creative Executive on the Studio Executive totem pole. Their duties include reading scripts and finding source material which can be ...

, screenwriter, author and educator, best known for working with Disney and his screenwriting guide, '' The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers'', from 2007.

Early life and education

Born in Missouri, Vogler studied filmmaking at the

USC School of Cinema-Television The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...

, the alma mater of

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...

Career

Vogler has worked for

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

studios,

Fox 2000 Fox 2000 Pictures was an American film production company within The Walt Disney Studios. It was a sister studio of the larger film studio 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures specializing in producing independent films in mid-range re ...

pictures, and

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

in the development department. He contributed story material to the Disney animated feature ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance, it ...

''. He has also taught in the

Division of Animation and Digital Arts The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...

as well as at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

extension. He is President of the company ''Storytech Literary Consulting''. It was founded in 1999 and its Vice President, Brad Schreiber, consults on scripts and books, using Vogler's approach.

Campbell and ''Writer's Journey''

Vogler, like Lucas, was inspired by the writings of mythologist

Joseph Campbell Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the ...

, particularly ''

The Hero with a Thousand Faces ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'' (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths ...

'', which detailed the

Hero's Journey In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero's journey, or the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed. Earlie ...

archetype in classical

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

. Vogler used Campbell's work to create a 7-page company memo for Hollywood screenwriters, ''A Practical Guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces'', which Vogler later developed into ''The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters'' in 1992, and then '' The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers'' (). Vogler has since spun off his techniques into worldwide masterclasses.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vogler, Christopher American film studio executives Living people USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni 1949 births American male screenwriters Screenwriting instructors American male non-fiction writers Warner Bros. people Writers of books about writing fiction