Occupation Screenwriter, author | Name Daniel Eckhart | |
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Genre Fiction: Thriller, Crime, fantasy | ||
Nasscom HR Summit 2016: Session VIII A: Mashup
Daniel Martin Eckhart is a screenwriter and author. His work as a screenwriter has been Grimme-Prize nominated. He is the author of The Champ, Barnaby Smith, Home, Tales of Wychwood and The Way It is. He is also the author of the screenwriting book Write Write Write.
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Early life
Eckhart was born and raised in St. Gallen, Switzerland. After completing military service in Switzerland, Eckhart joined the Vatican State's Swiss Guards. He served from 1983–1985. He joined the United Nations in 1985 as a security officer at the New York headquarters for the 1985 UN General Assembly. From 1986–1990 he worked as a United Nations Field Service Officer in Israel, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.
Writing
Eckhart began his screenwriting career while studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York from 1990–1992. He has written episodes for two German TV series, Die Cleveren and GSG9 – Die Elite Einheit. He has written three of Germany's Tatort films, and has adapted two of Craig Russell's novels in the Jan Fabel series, Blood Eagle and Brother Grimm. Eckhart has also adapted the as yet unproduced The Coffee Trader by David Liss and Dead Simple by Peter James. He has published three novels, The Champ, in 2012, Barnaby Smith in 2015, Home and Tales of Wychwood in 2016.
Teaching
Eckhart has been involved with the London Screenwriters' Festival for a number of years. In 2010 he participated in a panel discussion on TV crime drama with screenwriters Rick Drew, Barbara Machin and Andrew Taft. Another 2010 session with Ollie Madden, Nik Bower, Kate Harwood and Jonny Newman focused on writing spec scripts. In 2011 Eckhart was part of the lecture on writers' pitfalls, together with Paul Andrew Williams, Evan Leighton-Davis, Danny Stack and Steven Russell. In 2012 Eckhart was one of the panelists on the screenwriting survival guide session.
In 2014 Eckhart teamed up with Academy Award winning screenwriter Ted Tally. At the London Screenwriters' Festival the two screenwriters hosted a session on adaptations, with a focus on craft and collaboration. The same year Eckhart also talked about screenwriting adaptations at the European TV Drama Series Lab in Berlin.