Faculty member writing Hallmark Channel script
Being in the throes of writing a television movie for the Hallmark Channel while teaching screenwriting classes at Emerson is not how Walter Klenhard predicted his semester would go, but it’s fine with him.
“I’m teaching a screenwriting workshop where students have to write scripts under deadlines. Suddenly I found myself in the same situation as my students,” said Klenhard, visiting screenwriter-in-residence for the Department of Visual and Media Arts. “We’re having a parallel kind of experience. I think it’s valuable for them to be exposed to the process.”
Klenhard’s script, tentatively called Murder for Sale, stars Lori Laughlin (who played Becky, the aunt on Full House) and is expected to air on the Hallmark Channel June 22, he said.
“I was pleased that at least a third of my class had heard of her,” he said.
Klenhard was approached last month and asked if he could write a script “really fast,” he said.
“I got a call from the network saying they were in a jam,” Klenhard said.
The two-hour murder mystery is about a woman who owns a store that sells products obtained on eBay whose her business partner is killed.
“There’s kind of a big thing in the country right now, where people are fascinated with people who go to garage sales and storage lockers and re-sell the items,” said Klenhard, referencing the popular show Storage Wars.
“Our star, Jennifer, is a wife and mother and has a normal family life,” he said. “She realizes she has an investigative ability that she’s never really used before.”
Klenhard, who has spent much of his career writing TV movies, said his new movie will start filming any day now.
He said the experience has been positive for his students.
“It was really good to show them how to respond as a professional when on a deadline, and you have to get it done,” Klenhard said.
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