Jacques E. Bouchard
Screenwriter

(or, "How I Turned Daydreaming Into A Paying Job")

A short bio...

IT'S ALL TRUE! Life imitates art, and to borrow from a cliché, my career in screenwriting started in the mailroom. Yes, really!

Actually, it's a little more complex than that. After working with computers for ten years in Los Angeles (the big, refrigerator-sized kind found in old sci-fi movies), my years of training and expertise as a mainframe operator became obsolete and I was replaced by a clapper and a gerbil in an exercise wheel.

Upon returning to my hometown of Montreal I went on an eighteen-month sabbatical as a bike messenger, during which time I gleefully dodged responsibility, worries and city buses in minus 40 degree weather. But I longed for a job where downsizing didn't mean being flattened by a taxi cab, so I went to work in the mailroom of a major animation production company. And that is where I was invited to write my first screenplay for television.

I left the mailroom years ago, and my lifelong passion for writing has developed into an impressive résumé. Who ever thought I'd one day make a living doing something I love? Certainly not that job-stealing gerbil, you can bet on that!

My resume can be viewed here.

Writing samples of my produced work include scripts as well as a few videos that show the finished products as they were broadcast on television (and still are, in many cases).

Spec and development work that I've been working on, either for myself or for hire, but that hasn't (yet) gone into production.