E Langley

The black sheep daughter of average middle-classers who found her a bit odd, she found escape from the crushing sameness of small town America in films on Cable. She watched anything and everything, but Billy Wilder and Robert Altman zapped her developing brain.

To her chagrin, she realized no one pays anyone to watch TV. Accustomed to eating three meals a day, she took jobs making TV. Elaine directed live TV, commercials and the public affairs shows insomniacs find at 2AM. She turned attention to screenwriting, hand-scribing her first feature-length screenplay on slow news days. She moved to New York and worked her way up to a Post House Senior Editor.

Inspired to become a rule-breaking filmmaker, she dedicated herself to self-learning the rules so that she might break them more fully and artistically. To this end, she made educational films, corporate pieces, shorts and documentaries. As a hired gun cinematographer and editor, she concretized other filmmaker’s creative visions.

Her first scripts were not very good. She toughed it out, improved, and finally placed in several competitions.

In writing, she lives by the words of Harlan Ellison, “Don’t be afraid to go there,” and Michael Hague’s, “Where are you in the script?”

2021 Nicholl Top 15% placement.