Quote of the Day

“I was in love with him instantly. Instantly. Because you see he looked like my father and he acted like my mother.”

- Anne Bancroft, 1984, talking about Mel Brooks.

Just think about that for a minute.

Sixth Borough

Got this over my transom the other day – a mention of a new screenplay competition called Sixth Borough:

The genre for the script is open.  There is an entry fee and the final deadline is April 1, 2010.  The winner of the competition will receive $1,000 and a $10,000+ offer for their script to be made into a 1 to 2 million dollar feature film.

All entries receive written script analysis, and the winning script gets optioned by Sixth Borough Entertainment. Anybody know more? For the website and submission info click here.

Thanks Alexis for the tip!

Let the Rejections Begin

The rules are pretty clear: You should never, never, never, ever send your stuff out until it is as good as it can possibly be. Ever.

Except, of course, for the occasions when you do.

I saw this “script wanted” listing last week:

Psycho Thriller/Suspense
—————
We are looking for completed feature-length ultra-low budget dramatic thriller scripts with psychological elements. We prefer a story with a simple setup and psychological tension over gore (no scripts in the vein of “SAW”). However, sex and violence are fine as long as there is a smart, compelling build-up (no soft-core thrillers). Examples of similar projects would be films like “The Piano Teacher,” “Knife in the Water,” “See the Sea” or “L.I.E.”

Budget will not exceed $200,000. Non-WG writers may submit.

Now, the rewrite of Psycho Ex is not done (not even close), but this is so close of a fit that I shot an email to the contact to pitch it. The contact read the pitch and wanted to see the full script, so I emailed it off yesterday. Except for some (disappointing) discussion and peer-review on zoetrope.com, this is the first industry submission for the script. We’ll see what happens.

Now, back to the rewrite. Time to get this thing out to bluecat and up on inktip.

20 Years Ago

Random Question #50

Do you have a crappy boss?

Justice

(Years Three/Four of Robb’s Illustrious Career)

My third/fourth year in the business I worked for this show-runner who was a real piece of work. He was the most hated figure I’ve ever worked for. He made The Weasel look like a normal, well-adjusted human being. From the writers room to the production office to the stage, everybody hated him.

This guy was a harsh dictator. I’ve never seen anybody better at shutting down creativity in a room. Writers pitching jokes or brainstorming ideas would be cut off and dismissed mid-sentence, mid-pitch. Nice. The in-joke in the writers room was that if he was looking for an integer between 2 and 4 and you pitched 3, you would get shot down.

Strangely, this guy was also helpless. He couldn’t do anything by himself. He had no personal assistant, so we were ALL his personal assistant. I was personally called by the guy on a weekend and compelled to help him out with something personal. Let me repeat, I was NOT his personal assistant. My son was an infant at the time, but apparently the guy didn’t think I had anything more important to do on a Sunday morning than get in the car and go help him out. The in-joke in the production office was that you might get a call from the guy in the toilet demanding that you come help him with the paperwork.

One day Mr. Sunday Morning said his computer monitor “flickered.”

Why They Call it the “First” Draft

“The artist’s life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast.”
- David Bayles & Ted Orland, “Art & Fear,” 1993

“The first draft of Psycho Ex is killing me not because it is a bad first draft, but because I was hoping it was the final draft.”
- Robb, 2009

Based upon the macro feedback from a few rounds of readers, Psycho Ex has some problems. Specifically:

• The first act/half is WAY too slow
• The middle is confusing
• The third act is somewhat clunky
• Nobody “gets” the ending

So it’s merely the beginning, the middle, and the end that need work. I guess that’s why they call it the “first” draft.

Bit the Bullet

After days of agonizing I finally uploaded Psycho Ex (it has a new title) to zoetrope.com for peer review.

I don’t know why I still feel like the thing isn’t done – it’s currently on its third round of readers and responses have been positive. It’s as if there’s some threshold I still haven’t crossed, but I don’t know what it is.

The script will be up for 30 days and due to the way the site/community is designed it should get 4 or 5 reviews. We’ll see how it goes.

Next stop after that: agent queries, contests, and inktip.

Home with Parker

I’m at home with a sick Parker (age 4). We’re watching videos about flights to the moon.

I asked Parker if he is going to be an astronaut when he grows up and go to the moon. He said no. I asked him what he is going to be. He said a teacher.

Then he asked me what I’m going to be when I grow up. I said I don’t know.

Movie Poster for Aftershocks

Look what I found! CNN made me the movie poster for Aftershocks! For free!

See? The guy has a dvd drive in his head!