Message Board

Just a note to find out what everyone is working on these days.

I'm still trying to finish that "trek" script (drama) of the pop star who is lost in the wilderness and trying to find her way out.

I have a two page script with one line in it that is scheduled to shoot in late June or July. It's Western and I'm really jazzed about it.

I have finished to re-write of a new ending for the last feature (sci-fi mystery/thriller) and have it on a couple of Producer's desks.

What is everyone else working on at this time. Miriam, Steven, Ashley, Rick, et.al?

A gentleman up here for a television station I am trying to pitch my idea to, told me I should work on my outline(spec script already written). I think I just might have something different. But with the some Native content involved I am not to sure it will sell.

I thought the outline was fine already and explained most of what I wanted from . So I might be needing some help from you people.

Plus, I will pitching this idea to the Canadian Embassy in Germany for something that is happening in Germany. They were looking for 10 companies to fill this gap and only 4 applied. Hopefully they will look at my idea and be interested in it. I think my idea would be good for an European audience. Here is the website (http://www.medienforum.nrw.de). I get the feeling they are looking for completed productions already, but it doesn't hurt to try I say.

This is what I am doing to date. Still many more ideas on the backburner. Just don't know when I will tackle them.

marcel

Things are going quite well. I have a project being looked at right now. I just finished a script and I am in the middle of a touch of re-writes.

I am finishing another script, about 3 weeks away and this is being done based on the spec of some people I queried that like the synopsis I sent them.

My problem if it is one is what I work on next. My queries seem to be leading me to another comedy or police crime feature.

I am almost finished a great sci-fi but there isn't a big market for that right now.

I am lucky right now cause I can spend about 5-8 hours a day on writing. Speaking of which, back to the art I am selling commercially.

Sorry, Oh artistic ones.

Steve

Randy,

I have been polishing the Christian screenplay I previously mentioned in another post. I am also working on a Middle Earth fantasy script - about 60% written.

Steve

I'm putting the final touches on my family coming of age drama. Next I'm going to be starting to scripts, one is a film noir about luck and the other a superhero story. I'll also be shooting one of my short scripts in early June.

rob

I'm finishing up a thriller/action script I started in April for a screenwriting class at a local university. Eighty pages in four weeks.

I'm also taking a fencing class which was a birthday present from my mother. I put a fencing scene in my current script.

Hey Randy, I've been meaning to email you!

Finally was sent my contract to sign for the option on THE RED SEAL. Will go into rewrite immediately. I wrote up an outline for the rewrite and am awaiting the producer's comments.

Meanwhile, marketing my middle grade chapter book with agents and publishers.

Oh, and started a teen novel, which may have to be set aside while rewriting.

And, teaching a creative writing class for adults in community education.

Along with a coupla other jobs . . .

Miriam

One of my screenplays (drama), after a final run-thru and edit has been requested by four different producers and one of them also requested a treatment of another story. None of them required a release because I'm represented. I turned down the fourth because they still required a release and it has some language in it that doesn't sit well.

My hit rate was four for four on query and request, so I have a pretty good idea I'm onto something with this one.

In the next week or so, I'm expecting coverage (not paid) back on two of my other screenplays. A wait and see kind of thing.

I need to line up a couple of interviews for magazine articles this year and I have to finish reading Billy Wilder's Fortune Cookie for an article due the first week of May.

I'm also negotiating with an illustrator on a children's book. But that will take a while, with all the legal aspects of a collaboration.

So, now, all this is almost out of the way and I'm getting back to a dark comedy script I began last year, before all this started up.

A good kind of busy.

I'm stressing out of my mind.

Hey, all...

I haven't posted in a while, but it's good to see everyone busy and working and writing.

As of this moment, I have a biopic at Disney, a film noir thriller at Warner Bros. and a nice-sized ulcer from trying to pretend that none of this is at all significant.

In the meantime, I'm on page 97 of a supernatural drama/pet project that I have developed and nurtured over the last five years. This one, believe it or not, I love more than the other two.

Oh, and I just joined the company softball team. What the hell that has to do with anything I have no idea.

Much luck and good Karma to all of us...

M.

Marleine

The Baseball is a great distraction and it sounds like you're about to hit a grand slam!

I build solid pine furniture when I'm "knot" writing. Joke of the trade.

Ashley

What are you stressing about? Tell Dr. Steve.

To Steven Karels

Have you seen the sight Screen Writers Utopia. There is a producer looking for a writer that has a background in writing styles of Middle earth, Lord of the Rings etc...

Just a thought screenwritersutopia.com

Steve

I'm working on a dilemna.

I'm starting a rewrite on a boxing drama which I just got feedback (paid, sorry to say)on but I also received a request from a prod. co. on a family/comedy I sent queries on. Therein lies my problem I know it's really not ready and I shouldn't have even sent a query on it. (I know, I know, bad move). But I'm using the pressure to clean it up and get it out. We'll see if it works.

John:

Whatever you do, do not send the script out if it is not absolutely, positively in submittable form. Not even to keep the contact, or to keep from wasting the opportunity. If you present these people with a shoddy script, you will not only waste this opportunity, but future opportunities with these people, and depending on who they work with and what coverage they keep, you may begin to earn a reputation as an amateur.

There is so much, so much crap out there. You would not believe the garbage the studios are deluged with every day. Readers are fierce. And though miracles happen, if you are an outsider with no reference from someone in the industry, it takes epic writing to not only be noticed, but considered for recommendation.

Beyond that, there are thousands, literally thousands of unproduced scripts sitting in development at each studio and even the smallest production companies. A great pitch is often useless to a studio if it is wrapped in a poorly crafted script, because it just isn't worth the trouble of having to fix yet another screenplay.

If you've worked before, if you have credentials, the studios will work with you. But if you're outside trying to get in the door and stay there, you have to be stellar. You have to have something they don't already have---a great story with equally great execution.

I had a friend who e-mailed a fantastic pitch to a major studio on a lark---with no script, and no real expectation that they would respond. Well, they did. Furiously excited. They wanted a script by the end of the week. Thinking that the pressure would inspire greatness, my friend banged out a script and gave it to me for a quick review just before it went out---and it was a mess. Most people cannot "bang out" great work. There are only so many John Hugheses in the world. It's just plain truth.

So, my advice, after all that? Get as much time as you can to polish this script. But if it's just not ready, explain to the prodco that you are taking the script in a new direction and you'd like more time, and ask if they would still be interested when you've finished. I've seen too many people blow chances by mishandling these situations, believe me.

Be careful, and good luck.

M.

Marcel,

You might wanna submit your "Native" script to Sundance; they've supported production of a number of scripts out of the mainstream.

I'm feeling totally overwhelmed. Mom died in January. I sold the house and moved in April. Meanwhile, I'm trying to do a big rewrite on "Rochester," revise a TV series proposal, and write a one-hour docudrama for a yet-to-be-funded PBS series. Everyone wants everything NOW, so it makes it hard to work on anything. I work more now than when I had a job!

Just started on another script. It's a drama that centers around the world of NHL hockey.

Still trying to market my Nicholl semifinalist script from last year. It might be too dark for the buyers though. Keep getting the -- "Like your writing, but it's not for us." I'll keep trying though.

Good luck to everybody.

I'm smoking cigarettes and listening to Gomez.

I've been working on some murder drama set on a college campus, been taking me forever though, about 4 months so far. I have a few more ideas I'll put to script once I'm done, eventually!!!

Dear Dr. Steve,

Let's see, where shall I start? How about the "celebrity" figures that were approached to act as the project's host/ess, and have yet to respond? Gosh, they care so much about giving back to society. What a bunch of two-faced, hypocritical, self-centered fakes.

And how about the tech people that can't read, and keep asking me the same questions that were already answered?

Then, how about the shooting schedule that has got to go smoothly, or I run out of money and can't finish the project? Or, how about the jaw-dropping fees that some of these parasites want for their services ($800.00/day for a driver?!?)? Or, how about people not returning my phone calls?

Then, I've got the harassing emails from psycho-freaks that probably are guilty of the crime being addressed, and are taking their self-hatred out on me, for shining a light on their ugliness.

Top this off with a parking ticket, a backed up sewage system, which means my foyer will be torn up in the next month (or so) to replace a pipe, and the cleaning people that still haven't come out to finish the job, and the torn out carpet from my bedroom, and the mildew now growing, and most of my bedroom stuff sitting in the livingroom, and my neck hurts, but the chiropractor costs too much. Then there's also my realization that I'm not ever going to have a family, because it's too late, and men are selfish pigs and the whole world is messed up. Oh, and then there's that wacko neighbor that wakes me up every morning at 4:00, yelling at her son to "turn out the light!" And, gawd damn it, I keep running out of cigarettes.

Will somebody do my dishes?!?

I would do your dishes. But I can't stand being around cigarette smoke.

Craig

(Who has been rewriting and rewriting his script for the big contest season we are now in.)

Ashley,

It does sound like your world is falling apart. So why not push it a little more? Try giving up on the cancer sticks.

The daily cost will help mitigate the repair expenses for your sewer system repairs, the withdrawls will keep you awake all night so the neighbor yelling at 4 a.m. won't wake you, and the additional stress might toss you into a slight psychotic mood swing so you'll see everything from a very humorous point-of-view.

Can't do anything about the children issue. Alas, I'm Married With Children and like the late, defunct TV show, life has already beaten me down into a whimper of the person I use to be. If you don't believe me, just ask my wife. Ah, Yes Dear, I'll be off the computer real soon. Sorry, I'm back.

As a Techie type, I can tell you that we Techies always ask questions even when the answers are written and obvious. It is our feeble attempt to interact with the rest of non-techie humanity at least on some level. Our pitiful gester to reach out and touch someone. But we really prefer our computers to people.

Doing your movie thing can be quite stressful and I know that you will look back on this currently horrible experience and years from now come to the realization: That Steve is a complete idiot.

Shalom.

Rabbi Steve

Ashley

Holy crap! My life is great. This is a real mess for you. The house stuff has to be put aside.

You must focus on the project. Fire the driver. Have someone find a cheaper rip off artist. Techs are techs and that's why they are techs and not us.

Dr. Steve prescribes taking a deep breath. Oh I forgot to mention, you are taking a deep breath of the doobie you just lit up while you are enjoying a icy bottle of Chardonay.

Poof! Stress gone ---until tomorrow.

Craig and Steve K: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Steve: What's a doobie? I thought that was a joint. I don't do joints and I don't do wine, either, but I took a deep breath. Thanks.

I just sent out an application form for a writing grant of 10'000 for my high-killing destructive character called CAINE (name of the play too). I made a minor mistake with the last one. I left my name on the outline and it wasn't suppose to be on there.

The grant is for to sit and write a treatment. This alone will be challenge. I never have written a treatment. A 5 page outline was hard enough.

thanks for the Sundance info, but basically the Sundance is geared for American Natives. I am a partial one liveing here in Canada, but thanks for the information, I might try them again.

My first short film is being shown at film festival in Montreal, Canada. June 16th. Any going there take it in. I can't afford to make the trip. haha and wawa

Terry

and may the Native spirits be with your mother also.

Ashley, if we were rich writers we would chip in and buy your a trailer, but with the luck you seem to be having lately our investment in a trailer might get struck by a tornado.

The good thing about the tornado, I guess, if you are washing clothes you wouldn't have to worry about the spin cycle.

(not too late to have kids) Women are having kids in there 40's and 50's now. How old was the Adrienne Barbot (from Maude the t.v. show) when she had her baby. 52 I believe.

Maybe you can write a screenplay about a woman having a baby around those ages.

Dear Ashley, et.al.,

"If you should try to jump across a ditch which all but passes your capacity, what is decisive is not that you believe you will succeed but that you should give it all you have. If you have faith but do not try as hard as possible, you will not succeed. If you should think that it is most unllikely that you will succeed, but nevertheless you try as hard as you can, you may succeed.

"What matters is not faith but effort; and that effort without faith that we shall succeed is either psychologically impossible or doomed to failure, while faith spells success, that is a myth which most Americans believe -- without sufficient evidence.

"They do not bother to distinguish between hope and faith and are impervious to the glory of the hero who lacks both."

--Walter Kaufmann, Critique of Religion & Philosophy (1958)

Craig

Confucius say, "Man who lay in bed all day makes only wrinkled sheets."

Notice that when a serious, or even semi-serious topic begins, it will eventually deteriorate into worthless drivel when a couple/few posters ignore the topic and then begine to use it as a diss oportunity.

If you want to have a rant section, try to open a new topic and leave the OT at the gate.

Thanks to all who responded honestly. I'm glad to see that so many of us, the vast majority, are currently working on progress for our careers.

Best of luck.

Randy