Mike Donald’s writing career started at the BBC, writing comedy sketches, and developing sit-coms while working behind the cameras. Mike left the BBC to go freelance and develop his screenwriting career. It was while working on documentaries, filming warlords in Beirut and going undercover in Baghdad, that Mike's writing began to move away from comedy towards action thrillers as he experienced those war zone situations first-hand.
Mike worked for 18 Months as a script analyst for Aramid Capital, reading hundreds of scripts and producing commercial viability reports on many high level screenplays including, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Wrestler, Beyond Reasonable Doubt and The Hurt Locker.
As a result of this experience, Mike went on to hone his skills writing over 25 screenplays and winning or placing in over fifty screenplay competitions. One of his most successful scripts was LOUISIANA BLOOD, an action thriller that placed or won in over 20 competitions alone and was highlighted by Scriptshadow blogger Carson, as one to watch.
Though comfortable writing in multiple genres, Mike is drawn to fast-paced action thrillers and feels that this is his natural speciality. After winning the competition to adapt Jessica Bendinger’s novel “The Seven Rays” into a screenplay, Mike realised that this was also a skill he could employ and enjoy.
Mike went on to win both the Thriller and Animation categories of the Indie Producer screenplay contest which resulted in his techno thriller SHADOW TRADE being optioned by L.A producer Kerry David (Cody Banks I & 2). In 2013 his action thriller CRITICAL was a Finalist in Page International and the Nichols fellowship and his TV Pilot THE DEMON BUREAU, was a second rounder at the Austin Film Festival. Mike is also publishing an adaption of his award winning screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD as a novel.
SCREENPLAYS STATUS YEAR
CRITICAL Optioned by Four Quadrant pictures. 2015
THE DEMON BUREAU Available 2015
LOUISIANA BLOOD Available and Novel coming out. 2016
SHADOW TRADE Available 2016
DEADEYE – IONA BLUE Available 2016
Unique traits: I can interpret and translate ideas into screenplays very quickly. Usually a half hour meeting is sufficient to provide enough insight to produce a first draft within weeks.