Hello everyone!
I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly introduce myself.
I’m married with children, and I’ve been together with my lovely wife for more than forty-four years — but hey, who’s counting, right?
My wife and I share a passion for film, and we have the privilege of writing screenplays together. The name we use within the industry is OurTales, which has become our creative identity.
My interest in film and photography actually goes back to my teenage years, when I took part in several photography and filmmaking courses. I have always been curious about how things work, from filmmaking, electronics to modern technology.
After completing my education, I worked in a variety of fields, from craftsmanship and technology to what eventually became my professional career: IT solutions, and IT security.
For more than thirty-four years, I have worked with IT solutions and security, primarily within medicine and healthcare. Today, both my wife and I work in the IT and telecommunications sector, while pursuing our passion for screenwriting in our spare time. Our ambition is to make the leap and work with screenplays in full-time.
My passion for filmmaking was truly rekindled in 2018 when I attended together with my wife one-week filmmaking course just outside the Stockholm. My wife participated as an actor and gained valuable experience performing in front of the camera. So, in many ways, filmmaking became something we could explore and create together.
During that week, I was given the task of writing a fifteen-minute short-film screenplay. I ended up revising the script seven or eight times before it was finally read around the table, brought to life by actors, and recorded as part of the course. That experience was fascinating.
For the first time, I was able to see the entire process — from my idea to words on a page, and finally seeing those words transformed into something performed and filmed, that I made. Experiencing that, was incredibly exciting and deeply inspiring.
I was so captivated by the experience that my wife and I decided to sit down together that summer and develop our first feature-length screenplay, a thriller titled Acontum, based on idea from my short story.
Since then, we entered our screenplay in several international competitions through FilmFreeway. Along the way, we have received an Honorable Mention, and even more excitingly, won two competitions in New York.
For us, screenwriting is not simply about writing stories. It’s about exploring ideas, and hopefully giving other people the opportunity to experience exciting and captivating tales we have imagined.
And after more than forty-four years together, my wife and I have discovered that we still enjoy creating things together — which I think, is a pretty good OurTales in itself.
2 people like this
Hi, Michael Haggstrom! Welcome to the community. Great to meet you. Congratulations on being together more than forty-four years! It's cool that you two share a passion for film and write screenplays together. Congratulations to you both on the success!
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Michael, thank you for sharing your story, it’s inspiring to see how your passion for film and storytelling has grown alongside such a long and meaningful journey with your wife. I really admire how you’ve turned creativity into something you both share and build together. Winning competitions and developing feature‑length work is no small feat, and it’s clear that your dedication runs deep. I look forward to seeing more of your projects and learning from your experiences here in the community.
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Welcome, Michael! I really like the idea behind OurTales. After writing together for so long, I’d be curious how you and your wife actually divide the creative process do you develop the story together from the beginning, or does one of you usually write the first draft while the other focuses more on development and rewriting?
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Thank you all so much for these welcoming words
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As an answer to the above question about our process in our writing. One of us gets an idea, we sit down in our comfortable "author's armchair" and start brainstorming about characters, events, plots and a good ending, or conclude with possibility of a sequel, if we feel that there should be one. I write in FinalDraft, Maria reviews, we have a dialogue about the script, we revise a couple of time, when we feel really satisfied, we registers the script on the US copyright and then send it in to a good and selected competition of our choice. That was briefly about our work. Really nothing more than what others do, I think.
You're welcome, Michael Haggstrom. You could post loglines, synopses, and scripts on your profile. Producers search profiles for projects. That and networking on here are how I sold four short scripts to a producer. Here's the link. www.stage32.com/loglines Click "Add a Logline" to the left of the page.