robert f. godwin III
Compelling stories, engaging characters
recent Projects
butchie & Me
Two childhood friends navigate the turbulent transition from innocence to adulthood, confronting challenges of life, love, and loss, and discover the strongest bonds are those rooted in a shared past.
Available on WeShort.com streaming service.
blood legacy
The story follows a thrilling blend of supernatural intrigue and contemporary activism. Special Agent Nick Charles investigates Ulysses, a centuries-old vampire cursed to wander the earth. With themes of loyalty, love and redemption, BLOOD LEGACY merges the fantastic with a modern-day battle for justice in an epic struggle for the future of humanity.
BLACK PAWN PRESS
Available at Barnes&Noble
the basement remains
It shouldn’t have happened in an American town. It shouldn’t happen to hard-working people. Greed demolished everything above ground, but the basement door still stands. Now Skip Bennett wants to breathe new life into a dying small town. He also wants to make millions. Has he awakened a remnant of the past? The answer lies beneath the surface, where THE BASEMENT REMAINS.
Winner: Best Screenplay - Los Angeles Crime & Horror Film Festival 2024
HOLLYWOOD ADJACENT
1972, southern California. An upper middle class mom risks her comfortable life to find a greater purpose in life. In film school, the wild and creative characters provide sexual discovery, romance, Hollywood greed, and personal treachery. With both political and sexual revolutions in full swing, she learns what she needs, avoids the pitfalls of a movie career, and enjoys every moment to the fullest.
Inspiring characters
ROBERT GODWIN in conversation with ML HART
QYour readers latch onto the characters that drive your stories, wanting to know more about them. How do you come up with such relatable and memorable characters?
ASome of the quirky traits come from people I grew up with, worked with in a range of job situations. Lots of oddball folks! But really, it’s letting my imagination run riot, picturing what they might do with the obstacles I throw at them. Pushing them to their limit — and beyond — to see what they would do. I’m always asking “what if…?” and then “what now…?” QSome writers say their characters speak to them. Is that your approach? AThe characters and their story get to be a part of you. So yes, it’s fair to say I listen to them. If I overthink and try to write them into a situation, paint them into a corner that doesn’t mesh with the personality I’ve created, then the writing becomes labored, and the story goes flat. But if I go with it and don’t force anything, it’s more real, in a sense, even in a decidedly unreal environment. Often I can’t wait to see where they lead me — and I want the reader to feel the same way.
QThese characters sound like your imaginary friends, and enemies!
AWell yes. Something like a child playing with action figures or dolls. You give them a personality and play with their boundaries and limitations. Just as in life, some character conflicts are not resolved which leaves the reader or the audience to fill in what may be. I don’t always treat them really well.
QThese characters sound like your imaginary friends, and enemies!
AWell yes. Something like a child playing with action figures or dolls. You give them a personality and play with their boundaries and limitations. Just as in life, some character conflicts are not resolved which leaves the reader or the audience to fill in what may be. I don’t always treat them really well.
About Robert F. Godwin
ROBERT FRANKLIN GODWIN IIIRobert Godwin is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker. Growing up in Burbank, California, next door to Hollywood, it was inevitable he would be drawn to the stories on cinema screens.
As a young teenager, fascinated by the power of visual imagery, he wrote his first stories. In the cinema programs at Los Angeles City College, Art Center College of Design and UCLA, he made his first films.
A few decades later, Robert tapped into his film-school experiences for a screenplay: HOLLYWOOD ADJACENT.
Together with his degrees in cinema and in studio art, Robert holds an MBA in Marketing, all combining to fuel his vision of the sometimes-uneasy and always dynamic relationship between art and business.
During the between years, Robert pursued an unconventional career path, from college professor, commercial photographer, corporate enterprise software for movie marketing campaigns with the major film studios, which led him back to creative storytelling.