[5][6] Meise is a German-language surname he found was difficult to pronounce and wished to change; he eventually settled on August, both his father's middle name and the month he was born.

[7] He earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa; while there, he participated in a summer film program at Stanford and decided to pursue screenwriting.

Though the script never sold, it resulted in August finding agent representation and helped launch his screenwriting career.

[9] August's debut film was 1999's crime-comedy Go, directed by Doug Liman, for which he also served as co-producer and second unit director.

In the same year, August also wrote the animated science fiction feature Titan A.E., and the McG-directed Charlie's Angels.

[14] In the fall of 1998, while Go was still in post-production, August had acquired the film rights to Daniel Wallace's novel Big Fish after reading it as a not-yet published manuscript.

[17] He reunited with Big Fish director Burton in 2005 for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, an adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book.

The two films were in production simultaneously, with actors including Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Lee appearing in both.

August made his feature directorial debut in 2007 with science fiction psychological thriller The Nines, starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning.

August co-wrote the screenplay for Walt Disney Pictures' live action musical fantasy film Aladdin (2019), alongside director Guy Ritchie.

[26] In July 2016, August signed a deal to write a three-book series aimed at middle-grade children, inspired by his experience as a Boy Scout.

[29] August established a complementary site, screenwriting.io, to provide concise answers to a wide range of screenwriting craft-related questions.

Their releases include FDX Reader , an iOS application that displays Final Draft files;[1] Less IMDb, a browser extension for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox that reorganizes the layout of IMDb pages; and Bronson Watermarker, an OS X watermarking application that supports multiple outputs.

[30] In 2012, the Quote-Unquote team, along with Stu Maschwitz, developed Fountain, a simple markup syntax for screenplays.