agents/ Truckstop Bloodsuckers/ script editor

This is from my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Sept. 29 Agents: I found this website to get dramatic agents.  I found Association of Aurthor's Representatives through the Linked In Group Two Bits.  I went through it, and this is more for agents and not writers looking for agents.

I then went on the page where there are links of them:

http://aaronline.org/DirDrama

Abrams Artists: This is in LA and NY.
http://www.abramsartists.com/about.html

Curtis Brown: This is in NY and they have made so many books into film and TV like Ella Enchanted.
http://www.curtisbrown.com/film.php

Susan Gurman Agency: This is theatre.
http://gurmanagency.com/

I went through all 9 of them, and most of them I can't send anything to them because they're not looking for what I wrote.

Blogs: There is a page where it has links to all these publisher's blogs.  However, the summaries often talk about publishing for literary and not TV agents.  Still check it out:

http://aaronline.org/blogger

All Freelance Writing: Also from Two Bits, I found this website called All Freelance Writing.  There's a tool called Freelance Writing Rate Calculator.  It's practical.  You put in your salary, days you work a week, days off you need for holidays and vacation.  Then press "calculate" and it will say how much you should charge.

This is a really good and informative website because it has all these articles, writing tips, how to build a portfolio, forums, etc.  I'm going to bookmark this site. 

http://allfreelancewriting.com/freelance-writing-rate-calculator/

Scriptathon: I got this from the Great American Pitchfest.  This is 30 day screenwriting marathon and competition.  The script you write in the contest, you could win $1000, the Final Draft software program, agent consultation.
http://www.thescriptathon.com/prizes.html

Write Brain Workshop: I like the quirky name.  This is also from GAPF.  Anne Norda is a writer/ director/ teacher who gives screenwriting workshops.  There's a blog on it and it gives writing tips.  Her classes are more about being more creative and getting over writer's block.

Here's a description of her class on here site:

"Tap into the flow of your own creativity. Experience different ways to
deepen your relationship to your story, your characters and your imagination.
Learn techniques to explore new perspectives in your own storytelling. "
http://nordawritingworkshop.weebly.com/

Chris Craddock: I also emailed the Writer in Residence 2010 Chris Craddock on Facebook.  He emails back saying he remembers me.

Oct. 1 Linked In: One of my Professional Writing college friends confirmed my invitation on Linked In.  She's using her writing skills as a career.

Inspiration: I was on Two Bits writing group.  I found this inspirational:

Nicole Galloway Miller • I agree I love learning and trying new things. I think it is important for creative people to experience a wide variety of things. I celebrate my curiosity, since it encourages me to expand those horizons. Then when I sit down and write, I feel like I have so much more to say.

Saying: "Opportunities will always surround you if you know where to look."  I look at Two Bits, and there is a lot of self-publishing websites, novelists, and short stories.  There isn't really any TV agents.

Self-publishing: If you want to self-publish your own book, check out these sites.  Or if you want something new to read, then go here.  There's lots of genres.

Infinity publishing: http://www.infinitypublishing.com/book-publishers/we-want-to-be-your-book-publisher.html

Fast Pencil: http://www.fastpencil.com/

Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/

Create Space: https://www.createspace.com/

Book Baby: Book Baby seems more interesting.  You can publish books on an Apple iPad or Amazon Kindle.

http://www.bookbaby.com/

Smash Words: This is more for ebooks.

http://www.smashwords.com/

Hyper Ink: The logo is kind of quirky.  It has a blue octupus with a paintbrush.  It has a "Blog to Book" section.

http://www.hyperink.com/books/Blog%20to%20Book

Truckstop Bloodsuckers: The new Avenue magazine came out today.  There was an article about Truckstop Bloodsuckers.  It's about two waitresses who are vampires as they run Little Hope Diner.  It turns out a EPL writer in residence Chris Craddock mentioned it on Facebook when I was at Bite.ca.

I read the article and tuned into the first ep which is 6min long.  I had called this one person about volunteering and she said they're filming in the Lunch Box Diner back in May 2012.  I had a Mother's Day Dinner so I couldn't go and volunteer.

It's kind of funny and quirky.  This will be aired on bite.ca until it's released as a feature-length film on Bite TV on Oct. 31.

http://www.bite.ca/videos/truckstop-bloodsuckers-ep-1-the-secret/

Script editor: I picked up this work book called Multiple Choices: Planning Your Career for the 21st Century written by alis.alberta.ca.  It was from my career counseling office at MacEwan.  I read it months ago.  There's a section where it goes by industries like entertainment.  It seems like something I would be totally interested in, writing for TV.

On Wikipedia, it says:

A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production. The script editor will work closely with the writer at each draft of their script, giving the writer feedback on the quality of their work, suggesting improvements that can be made whilst also ensuring that practical issues like show continuity and correct running time are adhered to. Unlike the writers, script editors will usually be full-time members of the production team, working closely with the producer.^[1]

pitchfests/ Doug Richardson/ Scriptshadow

 This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:


Sept. 18 Pitchfests: Great American Pitch Fests emailed this video on how the screenwriters Geof Miller and Troy Hunter got 41 requests to read their scripts at one pitch fest.  They said: "And all day long executives were shoving their business cards into our hands.  It felt like a dream.  But it was very real.  We were sending emails and returning calls for the next week non-stop."

They booked 3 deals in 10 days.  They said they needed the right attitude, expectations, and approach.  Don't leave success to chance.  This is a 12 min. video.  It was very entertaining to watch.  At the end it said one of them is a lawyer and the other is a banker.  They each full-time jobs, but they're screenwriters too.

http://www.sceneplay.net/vid1-tgpitch/

Script pitch: GAPF sent me this great interview with the GAPF president Signe Olynyk.  It talks about how to pitch your script.  When some producer asks a question about your script, don't say: "Read the script."  It's like shutting the door.  Answer the question. 

If you're afraid of spoiling or giving something away, then say: "I don't want to spoil it for you, but...." then give something away in vague wording.

http://www.markwtravis.com/2012/05/an-interview-with-signe-olynyk-the-great-american-pitchfest/

Day job: GAPF sent this article "The Day Job is the Writer's Best Friend" by Richard Walter.  By having a day job, you get to interact with people and use it in your writing:

"That’s why the day job is the writer’s friend. It keeps him sane and solvent, which are two closely related enterprises. More important, it keeps writers in touch with the more important resource for their writing: the humanity around them."

It mentions Colin Higgins who won 2nd place in a screenwriting contest.  He got some money and worked cleaning pools which is a really good writer/ actor's job.  He met a movie producer who owned the house and convinced him to read his script.

"The producer ended up buying and producing the script. It was called HAROLD AND MAUDE, and it launched Colin’s substantial career.  'Had my dream come true,' Colin told me years ago, “had I won not second but first prize, I’d be cleaning swimming pools today.”

http://pitchfest.com/the-day-job-is-the-writers-best-friend/

Inspiration: Signe Olynyk wrote an article called "Living without a Net." She mentions these big filmmakers: "These giants of filmmaking all made their films using the resources and contacts they had in the places they were from, and developed their careers from there. There is no reason why we can’t all do the same." 

"Like every great chef, cull the ingredients from your life and use them to create your own great story. You probably have more resources than you think."

http://pitchfest.com/living-without-a-net/

LIFT: This stands for Liason of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.  I get these monthly emails from them.  It's in small Courier new font and all these workshops in Toronto.  I'm going to unsubscribe from them, and like them on Facebook.  I also now follow them on Twitter.

Sept. 21 Doug Richardson: He wrote the action movies Die Hard and Bad Boys.  He also writes books.  I found the interview inspirational because he wrote action movies and that's what I want to do.  Check out his website:


http://dougrichardson.com/

GAPF sent this newsletter with this really good interview with him.  I put it up on my blog.  Here's a good quote from him:

“There are a lot more successful relentless people in Hollywood than there are successful talented people. You need to water and fertilize the grinder side of you as much as your creative side. Grow it. Turn yourself into a grinder because relentless will win over talented every time.”

http://thevertexfighter.blogspot.ca/2012/09/doug-richardson-interview.html

Dialogue: GAPF called this the "most poetic chunk of dialog award for the movie Hugo.
                     HUGO
          Right after my father died, I would
          come up here a lot ... I would
          imagine that the whole world was
          one big machine. Machines never
          have extra parts, you know. 
          They always have the exact number
          they need. So I figured if the
          entire world was a big machine I 
          couldn’t be an extra part, I had to
          be here for some reason ... And
          that means you have to be here for
          some reason, too. 

Sept. 24 TV production companies: I found some old notes like omnitv.ca.  There's OMNI TV channels in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.  I looked for careers on the site, but there weren't any I'm qualified in Edmonton.

I typed in mediajobsearch.ca and found this instead:

http://www.mediajobsearchcanada.com/

There were also 3 positions in Edmonton that I wasn't qualified for like an assistant editor with 3 yrs experience.

Yorkton Film: I had also written down www.yorktonfilm.org and I only got a Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival.   It's held in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkton_Film_Festival

Sept. 25 Inspiration: I was reading my old The Great American Pitchfest newsletter and I found this article called "Inspiration from a Slaughterhouse" by Signe Olynyk.  She talks about how she locked herself in a meat freezer to write her screenplay Below Zero so she could buckle down and write it.

I put up her article on both my blogs.

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2012/09/inspiration-from-slaughterhouse.html

Scriptshadow: There was also an interview on the same newsletter by someone named Scriptshadow.  He gives really good tips on screenwriting.  I put his interview on my blog:

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2012/09/scriptshadow-interview.html

Here's his blog:

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.ca/2011/06/scriptshadow-special-how-to-craft-damn.html

Oct. 1 Poetry: Today I submitted two poems to a contest.  I haven't submitted my writing to contests in 2 months, judging from my notes.

Create Your 2012 In Writing

I got this from the Great American Pitchfest.  This is an inspirational article about writing and positive thinking: 

Create Your 2012 In Writing
by Anne Norda

Anne Norda is the co-director of the Script-a-thon and will be speaking on Intuitive screenwriting at this year's Great American PitchFest. Her next screenwriting workshop will begin on February 29th. She is offering a 10% discount for fans of the Great American PitchFest. Just mention the GAPF to get the discount.

Greetings everyone! Wishing you all a fulfilling and fun-filled 2012!
I've practiced a ritual New Year's writing exercise for many years. I'd like to share it with you and hopefully inspire you to try this inspiring exercise for yourself.

CREATE YOUR 2012:
Get a pen and notebook.
Use any notebook to do this. Write long hand with a pen rather than in your computer. This allows a more direct and visceral connection to your unconscious mind.

Pick a place and time.
Make a date with yourself to spend an hour uninterrupted in a quiet location.

Write your year from the future, looking back.
Pretend you are standing in January 1, 2013. Looking back on the year 2012, describe everything that has happened of significance in your life. Write it in the past tense. Let your imagination run away into fantasy. Write the events that seem realistic, that you may expect from this coming year but allow yourself to go a bit beyond the expected and let some wishful thinking seep in. 

It's about creating the year the way you would LIKE it to happen. Include amazing chance encounters and synchronicities. Get offered that perfect job. Let your business take off magically. Meet the love of your life at a friend's party or at the grocery store. You are the creator, so you get to make it all up. Have fun with it. Include all areas of your life. Mention months and dates: "In March, I met a wonderful man at a party." And so on. Make it fun. Go on for at least 3 pages. Until you hit January 1, 2013.

Save it for the future.
Store it somewhere safe. Take a look at it every few months. You may be amazed down the road at the coincidences and seeming clairvoyance of your predictions.

REASONS TO DO IT:
The act of dreaming your future into being in writing allows you to interact with your subconscious mind and see its musing in a material form. You may discover desires and hopes that you hadn't even realized you had. You also get a chance to be guided by your higher consciousness into possible solutions to puzzles that may be lingering in your mind right now.

ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE!
I read my 2011 creation late in the year (I had misplaced it) and was AMAZED by a few of the events that had actually come to pass at the exact times I had envisioned them. May all your dreams come true!!!

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends!
Peace, Power, and Prosperity in 2012!
Anne

ScriptShadow interview

 I got this from the Great American Pitchfest newsletter.  This is a really good interview with ScriptShadow.  He gives tips on screenwriting.  Here's his blog:

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.ca/2011/06/scriptshadow-special-how-to-craft-damn.html

The Shadow Knows

Q&A With ScriptShadow, Online Script Reviewer

Many reviewers occupy the blogospheres, but ScriptShadow sets himself apart by reviewing spec scripts, not films. With a massive amount of reviews on his blog, ScriptShadow shares his opinions on the scripts bouncing around the executive’s offices in Hollywood.

GAPF: There are lots of formulas and techniques out there for how to get a script written. How do you approach structure, character, and theme when reviewing a script?

SS: It starts with structure. You want to make sure that at every point in your story, there's a central character with a strong goal, driving the action.  Normally that would be your hero (Frodo has to destroy the ring), but sometimes it can be your villain (Darth Vader chasing Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back). And other times still, it can be both (Hans is trying to rob the vault, and John McClane is trying to get his wife back in Die Hard). If you ever hit a spot in your screenplay where there isn't at least one main character with a strong goal driving the story, your story is dead.

On the character side, it's a lot more complicated. Writing interesting characters is the hardest thing to do in a screenplay, so there's no way I can answer that question in a single paragraph. The easiest way to create depth in a character is to give them some sort of character flaw that’s always held them back.  Maybe he doesn't believe in himself (Rocky) or maybe he’s too dependent on lying (Liar Liar).  A character who’s battling something inside of himself is the first step to creating a three-dimensional character. 

Theme is the connective tissue in a screenplay. It's the glue that connects your characters to your structure to your dialogue to all the other little things that make up your script. If somebody hasn't decided on a clear, well-thought-out theme, his or her script will feel disjointed and confused (a very basic breakdown of Avatar’s theme might be – “Everything is connected”).  So whenever a script is tonally all over the place, I usually know that’s a thematic problem.

GAPF: What is your advice for the writer sitting down to write for the first time?

SS: Go become a doctor instead! Your wife will be a lot happier. No, seriously, my advice would be to make sure this is something you really want to do. It's one of the hardest professions out there, and it's going to take a lot more work than you initially think it's going to take. If the only reason you got into screenwriting was because you saw Transformers and thought you could do better than that, you're going to hate screenwriting. It's a lot harder than you think, and it takes a lot of hours to master. Most screenwriters don't break out until they've been at this for seven years. To give you some context, Cormac McCarthy (The Road, No Country For Old Men), one of the great novelists of our time, just wrote his first screenplay (which he sold due to his name), and it’s practically unreadable (this coming from 11 out of 12 hardcore McCarthy fans I know). That’s how difficult this medium is, that even Cormac McCarthy has trouble with it. But if you're getting into this because you truly love writing and the idea of telling stories in visual form, then this is definitely the career choice for you.

GAPF: What is something your favorite scripts have in common? 

SS: My favorite scripts have a very strong narrative drive. You're never confused about what's going on.  There aren't 18,000 subplots confusing you or 14,000 characters, 13,995 of which have nothing to do with the story. The goals are clear. The motivations are clear. And the writer always does a really good job keeping you in the loop of what's going on. The perfect example is Back To The Future. You always know what's going on in that story. You always know what Marty’s next goal or task is. You'd be surprised at how little of this I see in amateur scripts.

GAPF: Why do you think that is?

SS: I know the writer knows what's going on in his story - but he hasn't yet learned how to convey that to the reader. Now the funny thing is, I don't necessarily need this from the movies I see. I can enjoy a movie like Babel or The Thin Red Line, but you just can't do that kind of stuff in screenplays.

GAPF: What qualities do most of your least favorite scripts have?

SS: Sloppiness. You'd be surprised at how sloppy the screenplays I read are, not only from amateurs, but also from professionals. There's a pervading thought because it’s a screenplay (as opposed to a novel), it's okay if you cut corners or don’t put any effort into your subplots or secondary characters. This is a horrible way to approach screenwriting. You have to treat your screenplay as a Bible.

GAPF: What feedback do you wish you could give those writers?

Every single detail needs to be poured over. If something isn't good enough, and you know it, change it. Don't just say to yourself, “Well, it’s okay if this scene sucks because there's a good scene coming up.” Every scene needs to be a good scene. Clint Eastwood said it best when asked how he makes such good movies, “Easy. I just try to make every scene the best scene in the movie.” If you take pride in your work and give 100 percent on every single aspect of your screenplay, you'll put yourself above 90 percent of the screenwriters out there.

GAPF: Talk about some of the scripts you’ve reviewed where the movie was markedly worse?

SS: Well, I infamously had Everything Must Go on the top of my "best unproduced screenplays" Top 25 List for a couple of years, and it really was a clever well-written screenplay. It was about a guy who’d been kicked out of his house by his wife and decides to defiantly set up camp on his front lawn. I won't get into all of the reasons I liked it, but when I saw the movie, I was shocked how boring it was. And I realize the reason it was so boring was because the whole thing took place in one yard. Movies are kinetic and visual. So where the location didn't really matter on the page, it became a huge problem on the screen. We just never went anywhere or did much, and that sunk the movie into Boredom Town. 

GAPF: Which script was better onscreen than on the page?

SS: I'd point to Hanna. To me, the script didn't go anywhere. It had long sections where Hanna would live with a family and not do anything. I thought it was pretty horrible. And it didn't make sense either (Her dad sends her out to meet him in Germany? Why didn’t he just go there with her?). But what Joe Wright did with the style and tone of the film made it infinitely more exciting. They made some script changes to put Hannah on the move more, and also all of the delirious imagery and strangeness that made the movie so unique wasn’t on the page.

GAPF: You have a book coming out. What can you tell us about 

it?

SS: I wanted to write a book meeting two sets of criteria. The first was it couldn’t be like any screenwriting book that had come out before. The second was it would be a book I would want to buy myself. So I thought long and hard, and I realized the most popular part of my site is the section at the end of each review, detailing what I learned from the script. Everybody loves that section. So I decided to build an entire book around that concept, except instead of mining those lessons from unproduced screenplays, I’d mine them from great movies. The book is 500 screenwriting lessons I learned from 50 great movies. I have Die Hard in there, Aliens, Rocky, Star Wars, Good Will Hunting, Pretty Woman, etc. I realize I'm a little biased here, but I believe it will be the most informative screenwriting book on the market. It comes out early March and will be available on my site!

GAPF: Do you have any pitching tips for the writers out there?

SS: With pitching it's all about making sure your pitch is practiced and ready and then having a couple of backup pitches ready to go. I once went into a pitch with a partner, and we didn't have a backup. I could tell within 30 seconds the producer we were pitching hated the idea. My partner, however, did not realize this, so he kept talking and talking and talking. At one point the woman looked so mad I thought she was going to punch my partner. I realized if I had a couple of other pitches practiced, I could've jumped in and given her something different.  

GAPF: Do you have advice on longlines?

SS: As for loglines, they’re tricky little beasts, and I admit to being baffled by them sometimes. But I posted an article on loglines, and it became one of the top 5 posts on my site. 

GAPF: Your blog has come under a lot of criticism for reviewing and/or distributing early drafts of scripts. How do you respond to your critics?

SS: A lot of that criticism came early on when I was posting links for the screenplays I reviewed on the site. I don't do that anymore. I know there are still people who don't like what I do and believe I'm hurting professional screenwriters, and I understand their opinions up to a certain point.  But what some of those screenwriters forget is how lonely and difficult and frustrating it is on the outside. They’ve maybe forgotten nobody wants to read your screenplay, nobody wants to help you, and nobody wants to let you in. What Scriptshadow does is it provides a bridge between these two worlds – the amateur and the professional. I can't tell you how many times writers have e-mailed, telling me they were going to quit screenwriting, until my site demystified the process for them. It gave them something real to measure their own screenplays against. The site gives people hope, and it's important to have hope in a career as difficult as this one.  

GAPF: What’s next for ScriptShadow?

SS: Some great things! I'll be switching over to my own domain (no more Blogspot) within the next couple of months, creating more of a community with the site. I'm jumping on what I believe are a couple of things that will get bigger in the screenwriting world within a year or two, and I hope to be offering screenwriters a way to capitalize on that. And then I'm coming out with my book (early March!), which I plan on toppling the Cat with. So there's a lot of great stuff on the horizon.

Inspiration From a Slaughterhouse

 I was reading the Great American Screenwriter newsletter, and I found this really good article by Signe Olynyk as she discusses writer's block.  I thought I should share it with all of you:

 

Inspiration From a Slaughterhouse

by Signe ‘The Meat Freezer Girl’ Olynyk

Unmotivated.  Lazy.  Creatively constipated .  Is this you?

It happens to all of us.  We’re all overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed, and under-appreciated.  From time to time, this stew of exhaustion can cause us creative types to lose focus and drive, and our artistic engines can stall.  BUT, there is good news.  It is called a solution.

I write this because I have been dealing with my own creative exhaustion.  Let me back up.

Three years ago, I had a low budget concept about a guy locked in a meat freezer.  As someone who is always trying to make ‘Ben Hur in five minutes’, the simplicity of this idea was a personal breakthrough.  But as I wrote the script, I was overcome with the worst case of writer’s block imaginable.

I went to film festivals and conferences.  I took classes and read books.  I stared at my computer screen and drank buckets of caffeine.  One day, I even strapped myself to a chair to keep from fleeing the keyboard.  Where was the inspiration that would get me through the hell of writing this ‘man in a box’, script?

After months of little progress, I tried this wondrous thing called the internet.  I googled.  Meat freezer.  Slaughterhouse.  Trapped in cooler.  Words that I hoped would trigger some sort of creative anything.  As I searched, I came across an abandoned, slaughterhouse near Edson, Alberta that was for sale.  After contacting the woman who owned it, I asked if I could come for a visit.

When I got there, I then asked if she would lock me in her freezer, and NOT LET ME OUT – until the script was done.

Admittedly, this does sound somewhat…extreme.  Looking back, the expression on her face (part fear, part confusion, mixed with a whole lot of ‘are you friggin kidding’) was understandable.  But anyone who knows me also understands how obsession, and the quest for authenticity in one’s craft often removes the ability to reason.

After spending five days locked in the freezer, I emerged with a completed script.  A year later, we were in production on the feature film, ‘Below Zero’, filming in the same location I wrote it, with stars Edward Furlong (Green Hornet, American History X, Terminator II), horror icon, Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes, Weird Science), and Kristin Booth (Young People Fucking, The Kennedys).

I’ll write another time about how we did THAT.  But for now, let’s get back to that solution I promised you.  How do you get past your own creative ice block?  Where do you find inspiration in your own life?

I’m not saying you have to lock yourself in the freezer of an abandoned slaughterhouse to write a great script.  But you do have to be willing to do what it takes.  Inspiration is a luxury, and we should all cling to it when the muse strikes, like the welcome friend she is.  Most of the time, we have to create our own inspiration.  To my workaholic mind, that generally means making a ‘to do list’ and racing around to accomplish a whole bunch of things to ‘inspire’ inspiration.  But the opposite is generally true.  What we really need to do…is often, nothing.

‘Nothing’ means just experiencing the laughter of our children, and the company of good friends and family.  Finding it in the movies, books, and tv shows we love.  Taking walks and ‘nature moments’ where we simply breathe and appreciate the world we live in.  Getting rest and taking vacations, so we are capable of even being inspired.

I haven’t decided what I am going to write next, but having myself locked up in a freezer seemed to be the only way I could overcome my own writer’s block.  Perhaps my next script will be about some guy, trapped in Club Med.  That sounds so…inspiring.

writing for money/ Kill Shakespeare/ Signe Olynyk

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Sept. 11 Writing for money: I remember watching The Dark Knight and the Joker says: "When you're good at something, never do it for free." 

I was watching Duets, and Robin Thicke said: "My dad always told me that when you're good at something, don't do it for free."

I was thinking about the advice I have read in the Freelance Writer's group on Linked In about not writing for free.  I was at Two Bits writing group and found this quote:

"No one but a blockhead writes except for money."-Samuel Johnson

This blog, I'm writing for free.  However, it's my opinion on things like jobs and TV.  It's like worth 2 cents like opinions are.  Unless it's a doctor's opinion about a medical condition. 

This blog gets my writing out there.  It's to promote myself, my writing, my script so I would eventually get paid for it.

Sept. 18 TV Development digital pilot: It's my day off so I'm researching on how to get my script produced.  I went to the Writer's Guild of Canada and found this form to produce your pilot.  At the top, it says: "Applications must be signed by both the Producer and Broadcaster."  I don't have a broadcaster.

Production companies: It must be the law of attraction working for me, because my friend Sherry emailed me this about a production company.  I did a little research on it and I pitched my The Vertex Fighter script to them.

Two Words Productions: I found this company in St. Albert.  It also only makes corporate videos and not drama.

Investors: I'm on Kijiji looking at the TV, media, and fashion job section.  One person is saying he needs:"$200,000-$500,000, which will include money for marketing and film festival fees, hiring a talented film crew, locations, craft service, music score, etc.

Out of the profits the investors will recoup their expenses, and then go on to collect 50 % of profits the film may generate."

Heartland: I was reading the Edmonton Journal about the Alberta- show show Heartland.  It's going into it's 6th season.  The actress Michelle Morgan who is on the show, talked about how a 16 yr old girl came up to her and said: "You look just like a girl in a show I used to watch when I was little..."

The article mentions that the show is multi-generational because there are kids, teens, adults, and seniors watching this show.  The actors on the show grew up on this show.  It's a good show about a family running a horse ranch and farm, check it out.

Kill Shakespeare: I found this when I was looking for production companies over the summer.  The other day I was reading the Edmonton Journal and there was an article about the creators Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery.  It's a comic book.

Del Col: We like to call it Avengers with Shakespeare or the Justice League of Shakespeare.

Making a movie or a video game of it was too expensive, and a theatre play was too traditional.  So a comic book can show the battle scenes without it being expensive on film.  They sold it to U.S. -based IDW Publishing.  Check it out:

 http://www.killshakespeare.com/

Table read: I was going through my old Great American Pitchfest emails and found this "Table Read my Screenplay."  A table read is where the actors and a narrator sits around a table and reads the screenplay out loud.  You can then hear if the dialogue is good, if this scene has a point, etc.

Flashback: I'm getting a flashback of yrs ago I saw a Corner Gas table read.  If I remember correctly, it was part of a W-Five episode about Corner Gas got so big in Canada. 

Back to the table read contest: You have to pay $30 to enter, and you are flown to Park City, Utah during the 2013 Sundance film festival.

http://www.tablereadmyscreenplay.com/Rules.aspx

Distribution: I also got this from Great American Pitchfest.  I went and watched 2 videos/ excerpts of the dvds.  It said "don't sign a contract until you know what the expense caps are."  Like here's the budget, and you can't go over it.

If you need to go over it, then there is a clause on the contract that says you can go over it by like $1000 and nothing more.  You would have to ask for permission, but if you can't get permission, then you can still get the $1000.

https://twitter.com/Distribution411
http://www.facebook.com/FilmDistributionhttp://www.distribution.la/

Signe Olynyk: I got another GAPF email and there was an interview the GAPF president Signe Olynk.  I thought the interview was so good, I put it up on my blog:
http://www.badcb.blogspot.ca/2012/09/interview-with-signe-olynyk-below-zero.html
She has written a movie called Below Zero and it's a horror film shot in Edson, Alberta.  It's where she wrote the movie in an abandoned slaughter house.

SO: Trapped in an abandoned slaughterhouse, a desperate screenwriter is paralyzed by writer’s block and tormented by a horrific serial killer of his own creation. He sinks into a claustrophobia-induced paranoia, where he can’t distinguish what is real from  what is written, with his life hanging on every page.We are proud to say that Below Zero keeps you guessing until the very last frame.

Me: The idea kind of reminded me of The Shining.

No Budget Film School: GAPF also sent this email about No Budget Film School.  They are 1 or 2 day schools that teach you how to create a budget for a film, or "From Script to Screen."  This is in LA.  FAVA in Edmonton has some of these kind of seminars. 
http://cinemalanguage.eventbrite.com/

Scriptposter.com: GAPF sent me this.  Did you know that a movie poster can be called a one sheet?  The ad says this:

"Having a visual representation of your script gives the person you’re trying to sell it to an instant idea of what it’s about, how it looks, feels, what the genre is and, most importantly, what the marketing campaign could look like. You are making sure they make the correct leap of imagination. In 10 seconds you can tell them more about your story than you ever could with a written or verbal pitch."

Their slogan is "Creating your vision."

On my The Vertex Fighter poster, I can see the lead Shawn in the center.  The supporting 3 characters would be in the background.  The back would be black, and all the actors faces are straight, serious, and tough.

http://www.scriptposter.com/#/about-us/4562341068

Good news: A producer is reading my script right now.

Doug Richardson interview

I got this from the Great American Pitchfest.  This is a really good interview from the screenwriter Doug Richardson.  He wrote the movie Die Hard.

http://dougrichardson.com/

Screenwriter Doug Richardson to Speak at GAPF

GAPF is delighted to have screenwriter, Doug Richardson, chatting it up with Jeanne Veillette Bowerman at this year’s GAPF, Saturday, June 2^nd at 4:30pm.

Richardson attended USC’s School of Cinema. After finishing college, Doug signed a two-year contract with Warner Brothers. In 1989 he garnered national attention when his spec screenplay was the first in Hollywood to sell for a million dollars. Doug’s first feature film, the sequel to DIE HARD, DIE HARDER, was produced in 1990. He has since written and produced feature films including the box office smash BAD BOYS and HOSTAGE. To date, Doug’s features have grossed over 800 million dollars worldwide. Doug is crafting his fourth novel and writes a weekly blog sharing his screenwriter war stories - dougrichardson.com.

Get a taste for the chat in Jeanne Veillette Bowerman’s Script Mag Balls of Steel article, Take Your Label and Shove It.

       _______________________________________________ 

Our nature is to define people with labels, even writers. For some reason, it makes us more comfortable to slap a tag on someone in permanent ink, marking them a thriller writer, a rom-com writer, a novelist, or a screenwriter.

I’ve always loathed labels. It’s why I never joined a sorority. Plus, they wanted me to pay dues for the privilege of being pigeonholed. Funk that.

At Cornell, we called a non-Greek student a GDI … God Damn Independent.

That acronym perfectly defines, Doug Richardson, writer of Die Hard 2, Bad Boys, and Hostage.

I met Richardson via friend and best-selling thriller author, JT Ellison. 

Yes, I just labeled Ellison. See how that works?

The first thing I do upon meeting a person online is stalk his or her website. That’s where a writer’s skeletons hide. I clicked Richardson’s site. Wait, he’s an action writer? No, he’s not. He’s a novelist, he’s a screenwriter, he’s a blogger, oh my – I think I just saw Superman fly by.

On Richardson’s blog, he shares war stories from his decades as a professional screenwriter. He calls the tales “catnip for movie writers.” And they are. You’ll soon be addicted, clawing at your computer screen, begging for more.

“I write what I would have wanted to read when I was starting out. I always want to know how stuff went down. I’m fascinated by process, and I want to know how it happened or how it worked out.”

While his blog is full of very cool behind-the-scenes stories, his new novel, The Safety Expert, really sparked my interest. I downloaded the first chapter tease and was hooked.

There is so much more to this writer than car chases, gunfights, and edge-of-the-seat action. He is the real-life example of what I preach in this column – gutsy writing.

He doesn’t just write, he writes with fireballs.

Recently, I asked him what it’s like living with the action-writer label. He shared a story similar to the ones he tells in his blog:

“Years ago, Gary Ross and his wife, Alison Thomas, had a fun scrabble tournament called Quetzal Cup. There was this god-awful trophy for the winner. It started off as kind of a joke. Gary invited all these high-test writers, executives, and agents. Since this business is so damn competitive, it attracts type-A people, so within a couple of years, the tourney became fierce with over a hundred players. In the third year, I won it. There was a sense in the room that something had gone terribly wrong. So, when I gave my silly little acceptance speech, I said, ‘I know you guys think I’m an action writer and can only write in two-syllable words, but apparently I know high value two-syllable words and beat your asses.’”

The success of his first novel, Dark Horse, ripped his action-screenwriter label off.

“Avon/Morrow asked me to give them a list for advance copies. I sent hardcovers to producers and agents all over town. They were thrilled and couldn’t believe I got published. It changed people’s perception of me. Suddenly I was able to get in the room to pitch and sell stories that, prior to the book, wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Novels and movies are on opposite ends of the spectrum. In film, you have a director of photography, actors, costume designers, etc. to aid your story … and to please. But in a novel, the writer is all of those things. All you have to please is your editor and the publisher. And in the new world of self-published e-books, you just need to please your audience.

Writing novels secures Richardson’s sanity.

“It makes writing screenplays that much more fun, because I can stomach the down side of collaborating and the specter of lousy notes. I don’t have to be as precious when I know, at the end of the screenplay, I can crawl back to my cave and pump out a novel in solitude. Carve something in stone. Once I’ve got it my way, the rest is easy, even my own adaptations. Like my second book, True Believers. I don’t think anyone was more merciless as a writer in adapting to film than I was. I was thrilled to take it further away from my book. Writing it as a movie was like reinventing it.”

Balancing both the life of an independent novelist and a collaborative screenwriter requires great discipline.

Traditional book publishers want at least one book on the shelves a year. That’s tough to maintain when you have scripts in development.

“I always planned to do both. When I wrote my first novel, I got a lot of lip service from my film agency, but no real support. At the time, I had taken the job of being the last writer on Bad Boys to make a paycheck in order to have the time to write the novel. Then, once I’d finished the novel and needed to get out and find a publisher, Bad Boys had come out and was a big hit. The agents were frustrated I wasn’t capitalizing on the film’s success with big-dollar rewrites. They wanted me to take more screenwriting gigs, not get published and write another novel. When your stock is up in screenwriting, it’s crazy money. So to pass that up, is not what my agents wanted to hear.”

But Richardson stood firm.

And when he caught his film agents allegedly trying to sabotage the book getting published, he did what any ballsy writer would do – he fired them.

“After I wrote the second book, I found it hard getting to the third because I had two kids in private school, a mortgage to pay, and producers teeing up assignments in front of me, along with money. In hindsight, I think I erred.  A novelist should have a book out at least every 18 months to build up readership. I stalled, and when my literary agent would call about the next book, I’d rationalize that after the adaptation of True Believers came out as a movie, it would jack book sales, and I’d write the next book after that.”

That particular movie didn’t work out. But luckily, fate has a way of leading us down the right path.

“The publishing world as it was then has not been as good to mid-list and genre writers as the e-publishing world has become. Quite possibly, had I been writing for my traditional publisher during that period, it could have proven more frustrating as they continued to tighten their belts and deal with their own shrinking business. Being a writer inside a shrinking house is not fun. Now I don’t have to worry about what that house thinks because I’m e-publishing.”

In the last two years, I’ve seen more and more writers let go of the dream of seeing their book on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and embrace an instant download to their readers’ tablets or computers.

“It was a tough decision to e-publish. No question, it’s a great kick to see your name on something, whether it’s on a movie screen or a book displayed in a bookstore. At the same time, there are so many fewer Barnes and Nobles to see your book displayed at. I’m going to miss seeing my books in a bookstore, but in a few years I hope to see them in a big pile at Costco.”

Surviving this industry for decades isn’t an easy task. As I listened to Richardson speak, I soaked in his advice.

“There are a lot more successful relentless people in Hollywood than there are successful talented people. You need to water and fertilize the grinder side of you as much as your creative side. Grow it. Turn yourself into a grinder because relentless will win over talented every time.”

As an unproduced, scrapper of a screenwriter myself, I wondered what it felt like to successfully climb the ladder and finally break in.

“Every movie is a mountain. Once you climb to the top, you see all the other mountains you want to climb.”

It was at his first official WGA meeting he realized writing novels would be another mountain he was destined to conquer.

“Writers can get really bitter. I heard all these old guys complaining about getting screwed over by studios and directors. My notion was that making movies was a collaborative process that lent itself to emotional scarring. And to avoid that, I’d have to write books to keep my sanity.”

Richardson has done just that and suggests other screenwriters keep an open mind when choosing a path for their careers.

“Wannabe screenwriters dream of having that one ‘magic script’ that garners them attention. They want to define themselves by saying, ‘I’m a writer’ or ‘I wrote that.’ But there’s an enormous difference between ‘I’ve written’ and saying ‘I’m a writer.’ A true writer wants to write one project, then another, and another.  A writer needs to be writing … needs to write. Be a writer. Don’t limit yourself by a label.”

So what label does Richardson put on himself?

“When people ask me what I am, I simply answer, ‘I’m a writer.’ I can’t say what kind. Everything I write — whether a blog post, a novel, or a script — is a form of expression, and I enjoy them all very much. I write because I need to.”

Doug Richardson’s new book The Safety Expert is out. Head on over to his blog and instantly grab yourself a copy. I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.