Life Rendered
Format: Short Film (Co-Writer, Director)
Logline: A young gay man in rural Colorado leads a double life: one where he takes care of his disabled cowboy father on their family ranch; another in virtual reality, where he's found romance.
Premiered at: TriBeCa Festival 2022, before touring the global festival circuit and qualifying for the Academy Awards.
The film received an Epic MegaGrant to use the game engine Unreal Engine for a hybrid production of live-action filmmaking and virtual production technology.
Selected Works
The Water Man
Format: Feature Film (Writer, Executive Producer)
Logline: A boy embarks on a quest to save his dying mother by seeking out a mythic figure that legend says can cheat death.
Premiered at: Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2020, Now on Netflix and available to rent.
Written at age 24 and featured on The Black List, this breakout script launched my professional Hollywood career.
Read the screenplay HERE.
I'm Emma Needell
Storyteller of the surreal, strange, & soulful.
Film, Fiction, Nonfiction.
I grew up on a solar-powered cattle ranch in Colorado, where I fell in love with the natural beauty of the Front Range and spent my childhood crafting make-believe worlds and writing stories. Today, I split my time between Los Angeles and Denver.
I began my professional career as a writer in Hollywood. I had my "big break" at age 24, when my screenplay, The Water Man, founds its way to Oprah Winfrey, who produced the project. The film premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and then was acquired by Netflix. Since then, I’ve written and directed work that pushes format and form, like Life Rendered, a hybrid live-action/virtual production short that premiered at TriBeCa. I’ve co-written character-driven original screenplays for major Hollywood studios, sold an original pitch to Netflix, and authored personal essays for Business Insider and impact stories for organizations like the American Red Cross.
I was also featured on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list.
Currently, I am wrapping up a new original screenplay and am writing my debut novel as part of the Book Project with the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
Stories for
The American Red Cross
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In the Press
"Her 2015 Black List script 'The Water Man' sold to Disney, with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films producing and David Oyelowo attached to direct. Her second screenplay, a prison break musical, sold to MGM/Orion, and she is also working on a feature project for Netflix with Oscar-winning director Patrick Osborne."
"For Needell, Oyelowo’s connection to The Water Man and his promise to keep her involved throughout the process was something she had to say yes to... She was also the one who encouraged him to take the director’s chair."
"It’s a tricky balancing act to take an audience from a terminally-ill mom to an avalanche of insects, but director David Oyelowo (working from Emma Needell’s Black List screenplay) gets all the tones just right in 'The Water Man.'"
"'I will never forget where I was and the profound effect Emma’s script The Water Man had on me, the day I first read it,' Oyelowo wrote in an email. 'The script took me back to my childhood while also evoking experiences I could relate to as a parent. I just knew I had to be part of making this film.'"
"Life Rendered is a touching story on the humanity of technology and the many ways we find ourselves, our voice, and each other."
Matthew Ball, Author of The Metaverse
