MANCHESTER - Dan Hannon co-wrote the independent feature film “The Shortcut” and saw his script “get rewritten 50 million times” by others.

So last year, when he wrote and directed a 20-minute short film, “The Pond,” there were fewer tweaks in his writing.

“I worked it to death by the time I got to shooting,” the city resident said. And having more of the final say didn't hurt either.

Hannon hopes he can graduate to direct full-length feature films in the coming years.

The biology major out of the University of New Hampshire also helped co-found the New Hampshire Film Festival with three others more than a decade ago.

Hannon called the film festival “the best film school you could buy.” Seeing other filmmakers' story lines and techniques helped him and hundreds of others who have shown their films over the years.

Hannon, development writer for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, co-writes scripts with Sandler's brother, Scott.

“We develop material that is outside (Adam Sandler's) starring comedy vehicles that he's done,” Hannon said. “The Shortcut” represented one of those efforts.
Hannon, who called himself a huge Adam Sandler fan from his “Saturday Night Live” days, served as a set production assistant on Sandler's 2000 movie, “Little Nicky.” He called Adam “super-nice, super-respectful” and a “real hard worker.”

But scriptwriting isn't all hobnobbing with famous actors.

“It can be a lot of fun, but it's not all the time. The work is hard,” he said. Sometimes he prefers someone “give me some numbers to crunch rather than being creative.”

The film world moves slowly and presents plenty of speed bumps for film writers and directors.

“You just put all the juices in another idea you're just as excited about,” Hannon said.

“You always have to have new material,” Hannon said. “You always have to be feeding the irons in the (fire) because you don't know what's going to hit – new ideas, new ideas.”