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Eric R. Williams

Eric R. Williams is an American screenwriter, professor, cinematic virtual reality director, and new media storyteller.[1][2][3] He is known for developing alternative narrative and documentary techniques that take advantage of digital technologies.[4][5]

Eric R. Williams

Columbia University

Screenwriter, professor and new media storyteller

Ohio University

The Triangle of Knowledge

williamsonstory.com

Williams's narrative research emphasizes collaboration between storytellers and their audience.[2] While teaching at Ohio University, Williams began combining aspects of traditional film, theater, and literature with emerging communication technologies such as virtual reality and 360-degree video. In 2020, he and his colleagues wrote a book explaining their techniques, naming this new medium "virtual reality cinema" (or cine-VR).[6]


He developed the film classification system called the Screenwriters Taxonomy.

Early life[edit]

Williams graduated from Northwestern University in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in radio/television/film and a minor in education.[7] He earned his MFA in film from Columbia University, directing the feature film Snakes and Arrows as his thesis.[8] Williams chose Columbia so that he could study writing and producing from James Schamus, Richard Brick, David Shaber and Terry Southern.[9]

Career[edit]

Film and television[edit]

Williams' first feature film, Snakes and Arrows, opened the door for him to meet Peter Falk, who hired him to write a Columbo made-for-TV murder mystery for Universal Pictures / Universal Studios in 1998.[10] He later developed and co-produced a pilot for American Movie Classics called Don't Try This At Home.[11]


In the 2000s, Williams worked as a freelance screenwriter and was often hired to write adaptations.[12] Notably, he adapted Luis Alberto Urrea's anthology Across the Wire in 2003; Bill Littlefield's novel The Prospect in 2005; and the anthology Voices from the Heartland in 2008. Williams' work on Voices received the "Ohio Arts Council Award of Individual Excellence in Screenwriting" in 2009.[13] These scripts are shared as examples in his book Screen Adaptation: Beyond the Basics.


By 2010, Williams co-directed and co-produced two documentary television series (Redefining Appalachia and Guyana Pepperpot) as well as the documentary Breaking News (featuring Dianne Rehm, Walter Cronkite and Terry Anderson).[14]


Over the course of ten years as a professor, Williams developed three unique concepts for film and television, publishing two books on the topics:[9][15]

Official website