Robert James Atton, born on November 28, 1982 grew up in Worth, IL a south suburb of Chicago. He was raised by two great parents his father ( Robert ) a Police Officer and his mother ( Laura ) a Registered Nurse.

 

He was lucky number two, born out of four having survived his premature birth only weighing two pounds, thirteen ounces and spending the first three  and a half months of his life on an incubator; in which, wasn't the end of hope. He also survived life with his three wonderful sisters ( Melissa, Christy and Donna )

 

After attending The Illinois center for broadcasting majoring in Radio, and Television Broadcasting, he then continued on his journey of education and attended The Illinois Institute of Art Chicago majoring in digital filmmaking and video production with hopes of someday owning his own business in the entertainment industry.

 

When asked about what first drew his to prose, he said he loved being able to escape into the worlds he created. At the age of twelve years old is when I found out about my creative mind and from that point on never let up. I thank my father for being a major influence, for always scaring me at a young age, causing me to have a lot of nightmares which later in the sixth grade become a whole new opportunity to explore and opened up my future passion. His major influence was a jump for me becoming obsessed with the horror film genre.

 

He also mentioned some novelist and screenwriters within the genre had also become major influences along the way, he thanks Dean Koontz, Stephen King, R.L. Stein, Kevin Williamson, and Wes Craven, their work helped generate his work of art.

 

His uncle Bill had a painting talent that you could almost dream to have and never used it; in which, was my inspiration to keeping looking forward and never give up on taking my passion from an unrealistic adventure in my head to making it my own reality.

 

He remembered making his youngest sister donna watch all the scary movies and giving her nightmares... Laugh out loud, that's what older brothers are for. I lucked out getting to see a good amount of horror films at a young age, even thou my parents said I was sick in the head a little bit because of all those movies turning me on....Lol!!

 

The number 12 is a lucky number for him. That's the age he found his passion and his future back in the sixth grade by doing a book report that he had to write out and do an oral presentation; said he got lazy, reading only half the book and made up the other half. Surprisingly, he was the first one picked to give his oral presentation; not knowing that the teacher had read all the books that she had assigned to the class.

 

At the end; she told him what a great job he had done, but broke his dishonesty by saying in front of the whole class..."Is that how it ended?" For a minute he was speechless, pausing, but then omitted the truth. She gave him another chance to go back and read the book, and in the end he received a B for his honesty and creativity. He put his own ending of the story and from their on he continued on writing short stories, until the summer in between 8th grade and high-school he had fallen in love with writing movies.

 

Movie writing in his life came to when he was down visiting his grandparents that summer. Beyond water skiing and riding bikes on the trails his grandparents had taken him on a trip to the video store sometime in July. He had wondered around in the horror section gazing over the gruesome classics, then the new releases trying to figure out what he had wanted to pick out.

 

Then, bam... a movie that had changed his writing process, SCREAM, written by Kevin Williamson, directed by Wes Craven, it was a movie that was getting a lot of great reviews at the time, a movie killing innocent teens by using horror movie questions. Quickly grabbing the movie off the shelf in excitement, now granted he was already a huge Wes Craven fan from all his A nightmare and Elm Street movies.

 

He turned to his grandma showing her the movie he wanted to rent. She of course didn't agree, but ended up calling his mom getting permission. Overall the answer was yes and no his grandparents didn't see what he had seen in the movie, but he loved the story line so much that when he returned home he sat down at his desk in his room in august a couple weeks before attending Alan B. Shepard high school as a freshmen he starting writing his first horror film, THE STALKER OF WOODS-DALE.

 

Now after raving in excitement, Kevin Williamson had soon became his favorite screenwriter. He next did a book to screenplay movie, "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER"! Another great movie, and yet he continued on by coming out with a television show during the same time which turned out to be my favorite show every Wednesday night Seven P.M. he was butt on the couch watching DAWSON'S CREEK. Even thou his friends gave him crap for liking the show, it didn't bother him what so ever.

 

He fell in love with the show, not only because it had such a great writer, but he could relate to the characters, especially the main character Dawson who was teenager wanting to become a filmmaker, working on a horror film. It couldn't of gotten any better. He also could relate to the another character, like Pacey who had three sisters and his father was a cop.

 

He had started imagining what life is like through his creative ways, taking the next years of his personal problems, dreams, and advancing them to much more. His favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life psychologically effected through good and in evil. Because, as far as he was concerned, they both are what make the world everything it is. He's easily excited, thrilled, scared, and shocked.

 

At the present age of 32, he still never stopped jumping up and down when something wonderful happens. His biggest fear is getting bad news. Or, letting someone down. Or, Failing himself.

 

He really loves showing people what he sees when he writer's a screenplay or direct a film, hoping that his vision could possibly help others through a momentarily issue in their own life. So many of his scripts are very emotional and or films are very graphically detailed. Still he goes into a trance when entering a Video Store, Book Store, Hobby Lobby and or Party City around Halloween.

 

He doesn't like it when something or someone turns out to be different than what he originally thought. He enjoys his main life time long group of friends and always is making new ones. He believes that you don't really think you can ever stop making new friends or learning about as many new things as possible. He also doesn't think you should ever take life so seriously that you forget to play.

 

Movies have always been his escape and a magical place to turn to when he gets in a sour situation. When he writes, it helps him to battle whatever it is that he's progressing through at the moment and he hopes that his movies will do the same for future fans.