Amy Holden Jones

Amy Holden Jones is an American screenwriter and film director.^[1][2][3][4]

Jones began her career as a documentary filmmaker, then entered the film industry editing low-budget films, then studio films, and ultimately began directing and writing. Her genres range from fun summer movies to kids movies to romance to horror. From 2003 on she has worked in television writing pilots every year for every major network and cable.

Life and career

Jones grew up in Florida and lived in Buffalo, New York during her high school years. She attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, majoring in art history, so she could also take film studies courses at nearby MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

After she won first place at the American Film Institute National Student Festival for her short film A Weekend Home (1975), Martin Scorsese, one of the judges, liked her work and offered her a job as his assistant as he directed Taxi Driver. It was there that she met her husband cinematographer Michael Chapman. She went on to work for Roger Corman editing Joe Dante's first film, Hollywood Boulevard, when she was only 22 years old. She became the youngest film editor in the business, and edited American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince for Scorsese, Corvette Summer for MGM, and Second-Hand Hearts for Hal Ashby. She directed Slumber Party Massacre by the age of 27, also for Roger Corman. It became a cult classic and was recently re-released on Blu-Ray.

Jones has stated that there are times when actors will have scenes rewritten in order to make themselves more appealing to the public, even though it may not be the best thing for the film itself.^[5]

Jones is featured in the first chapter of Julie MacLusky's book Is There Life After Film School? as well as in The First Time I Got Paid for It by Peter Lefcourt and Laura J. Shapiro.

Work

References

External links

• Amy Holden Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• The Relic - early draft