Nuh Omar (pictured right) is a director and writer born in Karachi, Pakistan. He works in film, new media, shorts, advertising, and music videos. Christian Villarreal (pictured left) is a producer and storyteller from Bowling Green, KY. He began his career working as a script supervisor in Los Angeles, eventually expanding into the world of producing. Nuh and Christian's co-scribed time travel episodic"A Matter of Time" recently won season 6 of the Filmmatic TV Pilot Awards. More about the talented duo below...
1) How long have you both been writing?
NUH OMAR
I’ve been writing essentially my entire life. I used to make storybooks as a kid, and in my teens my mother would issue me weekly “writing challenges”, so I had notebooks filled with stories. Eventually, I started mimicking examples of screenplays I would find online in the early days of the internet. I don’t think I’ve stopped writing since I was 5.
CHRISTIAN VILLARREAL
Technically, since high school for me. With A Matter of Time, we’ve been writing this project since 2009. It was something that we worked on together in film school, and has been in and out of our lives ever since then, being rediscovered and refined.
2) What screenwriting training have you each received?
NUH
I went to both The New York Film Academy and Full Sail University for my degrees, so I’d consider that my professional training. Beyond that, just reading a lot of scripts.
CHRISTIAN
We both went to Full Sail University, so my screenwriting training is simply from the course as part of our degree program.
3) How long have you been writing together as a team? Is this your only co-authored work?
NUH
Christian and I have been collaborating for a good twelve years at this point. We clicked at Full Sail with our mutual love of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and we sync really well. If one of us has an idea, the other has usually already had the same thought. It works because we’re able to critique, analyze, or resolve each other’s ideas without dismissing them. We’re involved in all of each other’s projects, writing or otherwise, in some capacity or another.