Career
Once McCanlies started taking graduate classes at Southern Methodist, he learned proper screenplay techniques
and made several short films that were well accepted in national film
competitions. After the making of these films he was offered the opportunity to
direct commercials near the Dallas area, but he decided against this and moved
to Los Angeles to attempt movie screenplays in 1978. After moving to Los Angeles he
planned on attending the American Film Institute. While he was in L.A. he found
his first paying job for writing was a low budget film called Crazies. While these low budget
screenplays did give him experience in the business, it did not pay a great
deal, so he needed another income. He supported himself during this time by writing
computer programs. With money being low during this time, McCanlies decided against
enrolling in the Film Institute as he had planned.
McCanlies worked for Walt Disney Studios in the 1980s (The Fox and the Hound) as a story artist and wrote for all the major motion picture studios at one time or another. After signing a two-year contract
with Disney Studios as his first job in the Hollywood system, he pitched his
own screenplay to the studio, but was turned down. After McCanlies's contract with Disney was finished, and after marrying his wife Suzanne
in 1988, they moved back to Texas. At this time he started to work
with most of the major studios as a script doctor and writer for hire. He worked on films such as Touchstone's Shoot to Kill (1988), Warner Bros’ Little Giants (1994) and My Fellow Americans (1996). Around this
time he was also invited to speak at the first Heart of Austin Heart of Texas
Film Festival and Screenwriters conference in 1994. More recently he adapted a novel written by Turk Pipkin into a film called When Angels Sing.
