Tag: screenwriting

There Are No Rock Stars

You do not need to take a class with a “rock star” to be creative. This faith in the magical ability of experts to transform lives is ironic in our secular  society. Gurus, rock stars, life coaches, Oprah – they can make you change. Most people don’t go to a priest for career advice yet believe that taking the workshop of a famous person will cure their creative funk.

I was thinking about this after reading comments by a talented photographer friend of mine, Mary Kate McKenna. She was writing about “rock star” wedding photographers and their high-priced workshops:

REALLY tired of newbie photogs (I still consider myself a newbie in the industry!) doing workshops for other professionals, charging a lot of money, with no real business skills and embellishing the amount of money they make in the industry. Before attending a “rockstar” workshop, do your research. Continue reading “There Are No Rock Stars”

Mount Pleasant, Award-Winning Screenplay, Now Online

Every last page of my award-winning screenplay, Mount Pleasant, is now available online. This script won the Film DC Screenplay Competition. It is a feature-length script, inspired by true events, about gentrification and urban politics in Washington, DC.

Read the whole thing.

Funky Prairie Boy – My Favorite Film of DC Shorts

Go see the best of DC Shorts on Thursday night at E Street Cinema.

It was a great festival again. I’ve volunteered with DC Shorts for more than four years now and each year it gets better and better.

My personal favorite film in the festival was Funky Prairie Boy. It won the Diversity Award (presented by Verizon). This short Canadian film is about:

A young boy living in a small prairie town during the early 1980s, befriends the only black kid at his school and soon discovers the prejudice that exists within his friends, his family and even in himself.

It’s got the most well-developed story of all the films I saw at DC Shorts. The characters seem real, all of them a mix of good and bad impulses. The short film captures the awkwardness of children dealing with adult issues of race and prejudice. Yet, it’s not an afterschool special, where the plot is driven by social points to be made. Instead, it’s a messy and funny look at kids trying to be kids. While they’re trapped in a rigid world that they didn’t create, they just want to dance and hangout.

Funky Prairie Boy
Funky Prairie Boy

Continue reading “Funky Prairie Boy – My Favorite Film of DC Shorts”

Eurabia Now a Semi-Finalist in PAGE Awards

After three rounds of competition, the PAGE Awards judges have selected the top 25 Semi-Finalists in each of the ten genre categories. My screenplay, Eurabia, is a Semi-Finalist in the Science Fiction category.

Eurabia is set twenty years in the future. In my timely story, America has lost the war on terror and Europe is controlled by radical Islam. But the CIA has a plan to change the course of history…

Read the first ten pages online.

Eurabia is Quarterfinalist in The 2009 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards

My screenplay Eurabia is a Quarterfinalist in the The 2009 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. After the first two rounds of competition, my script has made it to the top 10% of all entries. Eurabia is the timely story of what would happen if Europe was ruled by radical mullahs like in Iran.

Read the first ten pages online.

Murder in Ocean Hall – Where'd the Idea Come From?

Since I finished writing Murder in Ocean Hall, I’ve gotten questions from friends and family regarding the book. Creating something from nothing seems enough of a magical act to inspire some questioning. The question I’ve gotten most is:

Where’d you get the idea from?

I originally planned to write a much different book, something much more serious and literary. It’s a manuscript that I’ve worked on for three or four years and exists on my laptop as a mix of disparate scenes and ideas that have never quite come together. The novel that I had in mind was a much grimmer story, about DC during the summer before 9/11. The book is about people chasing success, unaware that their world is about to be undone.

Finishing that big serious book was my plan. It’s why I decided to leave my government contractor job. Continue reading “Murder in Ocean Hall – Where'd the Idea Come From?”

Eurabia is Semifinalist in 2008 Screenwriting Expo Screenplay Competition

Eurabia, my screenplay about what might happen if the US lost the war on terror, was a Semifinalist in the 2008 Screenwriting Expo Screenplay Competition. The Screenwriting Expo is a huge conference in LA for screenwriters.  

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride…

Actually, this script has done really well, making it to at least the semifinalist stages in the Austin, Writers on the Storm and American Screenwriters Association contests.

You can read the first ten pages online.

DC Shorts – It's On!

I’ve been involved with the DC Shorts Film Festival as a film and screenplay judge for the past couple years. It’s such a good time.  The movies are interesting, the parties are awesome and there’s a very friendly, constructive buzz about the whole affair. This isn’t Hollywood – these are real people, just like you, who make great short films

DC Shorts will take place Sept 11 – 18 and will feature more 100 short films from around the world plus parties, seminars and a screenplay competition. I was a judge for this year’s screenplay competition. From dozens of submissions, we selected six finalists – these are short scripts which will be read aloud at a staged reading during the festival. The audience will get to vote on the winner, who will receive $2000 to turn their script into a short film.

All the action takes place at E Street Cinema downtown and nearby venues.  If you like booze, creative people and interesting films, then it’s an excellent festival to attend.

http://www.dcshorts.com

 

 

Screenplay Updates

It’s been a busy summer and I’ve continued to write and enter screenplays in contests.

Accept All Changes
This somewhat saccharine short script is about a romance between a bike courier and a bored technical writer. I was inspired to write this after being a judge for the DC Shorts Short Screenplay Contest. After judging other people’s work, I wanted to see if I could write a cute short script. Accept All Changes is a Quarterfinalist in the American Gem Literary Festival.

Mount Pleasant
Despite winning the Film DC Screenplay Competition a couple years ago with this feature-length script, I’ve continued to enter it into well-known screenplay competitions to get the word out about this urban drama. I learned recently that Mount Pleasant is a Quarterfinalist in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. 

Both of these scripts are set in DC, where I live.  Write what you know!

After the Gold Rush is 2008 BlueCat Lab Semi Finalist

My screenplay, After the Gold Rush, has been selected as a Semi Finalist for the 2008 BlueCat Screenwriting Lab.

The BlueCat Screenwriting Lab is a really interesting project. Founded by Gordy Hoffman (brother of Phillip Seymour Hoffman), BlueCat has become one of the best screenwriting contests in the country. What distinguishes them from other contests is that Gordy is a writer and tries to further development of screenwriting as a craft. If I’m a finalist, I’ll receive an all-expenses paid trip to LA to attend one week of screenplay mentoring (including a staged reading of my script) at the BlueCat Screenwriting Lab.

What’s my screenplay about? After the Gold Rush is about a dotcom failure, washed up at the age of 24, who goes abroad to end it all. But he can’t escape the sensual pull of Italy…

I wrote it in the wake of the dotcom crash, inspired by my own work on web sites and a couple of “research” visits to Europe. I was interested in how people regain their creativity after crushing defeat.

Read the first five pages of After the Gold Rush. And, if you want to read more, let me know and I’ll send you a PDF of the complete script.