My short film will also be screening at Newport Beach Film Festival! I’m so excited!
Details here: Newport Beach Film Festival
Category Archives: Writing
My short film is hitting the festival circuit!
Sonny Poster
I’m so excited and proud to announce that my short film, SONNY, will have it’s world premiere on March 22nd at a film festival in Los Angeles. Then it will hit a festival in Austin, TX in April. Then it will return to California for a screening at a festival in Burbank! Here’s the details!
Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival - tickets here.
March 21, 2013 to March 24, 2013
International Family Film Festival
May 1, 2013 to May 5, 2013
The ATTIC Film Festival
April 19, 2013 to April 20th, 2013
How to write a screenplay!
A friend of mine asked via email how one goes about writing a screenplay. I answered his question with this silly little list:
- Start with an idea. Often this sounds like: “What if this happened?” Where “this” is the crazy idea.
- Give the idea a hero.
- Give the hero a goal.
- Set up obstacles to that goal.
- Write an outline (which is basically just a list of “things that happen”).
- Flesh out the outline with more details in for each of the “things that happen.”
- Run the outline by someone who understands story. Revise accordingly.
- Repeat Step #7 until the outline is really good.
- Imagine the “things than happen” in your head and then write down what you “see” and “hear” in proper script format.
- Run the script by someone who understands story. Revise accordingly.
- Repeat Step #10 until the script is really good.
Then what? Well, then the real work begins.
Is this how you go about writing? What would your list look like?
Filed under Writing
The poster for my short film!
Here it is! Hot off the presses! The poster for my short film, SONNY! We’re getting so close to begin done with post-production. I can taste it!
Design by Marilee Sweeney. Photography by Lonnie Urven.
Third Trimester!
I have three projects in their third trimester: two short films and a baby.
Sonny is so close to being finished, I can almost taste it! I’ve even started thinking about what to write for my “director’s statement” and am just giddy with the thought of getting to write one! We’re still finishing the score (with the amazing Joel Davis), and we’ve still got the sound design and final mix to do. Also, Ryan is in the middle of working on the color. But we expect to have all these things finished by the end of March! And then we will begin submitting to film festivals.
Jerry & Diane, the short film we shot just before Christmas (December 2011), is in post. I completed an assembly cut and then handed it off to Ryan, who will put his spin on it, then we will slam-bam-thank-you-maam post it here at home: colour, sound mix and everything. I’m really excited with how it turned out! And am excited for people to see and experience these quirky, funny characters. They’re odd and endearing. 
Finally, I’m 6.5 weeks away from my due date with our first child. Even as I type this blog post, the little one is squirming around in my belly. I just had some dark chocolate and I think he (or she?) approves. This is why we’re doing our darndest to get these projects done before April. Because after that, I will focus on the one most important, squishiest, messiest, cutest little project that I’m currently incubating. Literally.
I’ve also got a project in it’s first trimester. I’m working to get a screenplay done before the babe arrives. It’s called Tent City and it’s inspired by a combination of things, such as the short film Sonny to a small extent and to a greater extent the current homelessness crisis in the United States and Canada. It’s currently in outline/treatment form and will hopefully begin to take shape as script pages in early March (second trimester?). I’ve spent the most time crafting the structure and story because I feel more confident with popping out script pages than getting the story right. I’ve just handed off a draft of the treatment to my producing partner (Ryan, again) and am waiting on notes.
I wonder what sort of metaphor I could use Braxton Hick contractions for in the filmmaking process. Any ideas? Perhaps contract negotiations?
Write What You Don’t Know!
They like to say, “Write what you know.” And often they mean that literally. To wit: write about the kind of life with which you’re familiar. They think that’s honest writing.
I think it’s a cop-out.
To be frank, the kind of life with which I’m familiar can sometimes seem rather boring. I’m a normal Canadian kid from a [somewhat unique] Canadian town. I spent some time in Texas, Oklahoma, Ontario, British Columbia, Los Angeles, and now I live in New York City. My parents are still together. I’m an only child and, for the most part, my relatives are all cordial, at the very least, and loving, during the best of times.
See?
Noah Baumbach would be depressed at the normalcy of my life.
I think the phrase “write what you know” should relate more to theme than subject matter. While I’ve led a normal life on the surface, I’ve experienced pain, fear, pride, insecurity, and, as a quirky Canadian that moved to Texas at thirteen-years-old who played basketball and was a drama nerd, I’ve experienced my fair share of identity issues. I’m also quite familiar with feminism and femininity issues, as a pear-shaped tom-boy (see also: identity issues).
So what do I know? I know universal human fears. I know how it feels to not know who you are nor who you should be. I know the quandary of a person fighting a sense of duty and responsibility with a deep personal passion for something other.
So sometimes I’m writing about 30-something guitar teachers. Sometimes I’m writing about 60-year-old homeless felons. But I’m always writing about my own fears and insecurities. About what I don’t know. About the things for which I have questions.
And ideally, it’s writing that’s honest.
Filed under Writing
Cars 2: Under The Hood, It’s Kind Of A Clunker
I’m not one to write reviews; but I felt so disappointed by Disney-Pixar’s most recent offering that I felt compelled to share my thoughts.
The story should have been about Mater being too afraid to be himself in the big wide world; instead it was about Mater behaving badly and getting off easy. It wasn’t about friendship. It wasn’t about anything meaningful.
It should have started with a “big promise” spy-action-type scene with Mater as the hero somewhere near or in Radiator Springs. Instead it was a car we don’t know and don’t yet care for… In a place we don’t recognize.
Then after showing Mater with hero-potential, we could have introduced the spys and that plot…
In most stories, it’s supposed to be the protagonist that needs changing. In this film Mater is the protagonist, but he’s not the one who changes. Lightning is the one who changes. But we haven’t really followed his story.
Sure it’s a fun ride; but the story is not meaningful.
Disappointing, Pixar. 
Bum in chair, then what?
A little while ago, screenwriter Scott Myers, who runs the blog Go Into The Story, reposted a reader question about how to actually go about writing once you’re sitting in the chair staring at a black page. He asked for his readers to post helpful hints in the comments section.
This was my answer:
I think a writer has to decide if they’re more productive by being disciplined to write a little bit each day or if they’re better to set aside a chunk of time (a couple days, a week or a block of evenings) to focus. I tried both ways and I found that I’m better with huge blocks of time. Once I get going, it’s hard to stop me until I’m done.
Also, you have to decide if you’re the type of person who needs to outline first and write pages second, or if you’re the type of person who needs to “poop out the pages” first and figure out the outline second (rearranging the script). For me, it’s a combination – but it was gold to me to figure out my working style.
Now I don’t stress about it. I just write a rough outline, put it through a few development passes (with outside feedback), and then sit down to write the pages. If another scene comes to me while I’m writing that’s not in the outline, I just write it, but then I keep going with the outline. If I have ideas that deviate from the outline, I make notes, but keep going with the outline. Then once I’m done with the first draft, and I can see flesh on my skeleton of an idea, it’s easier to see if that outline worked or not. Then the real work begins…
Rewriting!
What do you think? What are your tricks?
Filed under Writing
Sonny on IndieGoGo
Most of you know that I’m a filmmaker! Now I’m getting ready to be a film director! I’ve been a first AD and producer for a while now and it’s time for me to be what I’ve always been meant to be… A director.
My project is called “Sonny” and it’s about a homeless man that loses his only connection to his past but finds a future and identity he could not have imagined.
We’re shooting in mid-July but we need a bit more moolah for set design, catering, and locations. I’m hoping to raise $2100 in 21 days. July 1st is my deadline.
Can you help?
If you can’t help, but if you know someone who can, then please forward this link! Thanks!
Good Advice for both writers and execs!
When I was in the Act One Executive Program, they offered a class on How to Give Notes to Writers! I thought it was a great class. And when I went through the Writing Program, one year later, I tried to give notes like I’d been taught in that Exec Program class. I also tried to receive notes through the filter of what I’d learned in that class. So not only was it helpful for me as a producer, it became helpful for me as a writer!
I just got my CS Weekly email and this was one of the quotes at the top:
“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
- Neil Gaiman
This is good advice for both writers and executives.
As a writer, I need to hear about what’s not working. However, an executive’s assumption about why it’s not working affects his or her perspective about how it should be fixed! Often, only the writer knows why something’s not working. Or, integrity demands of the executive that he or she let the writer figure out why it’s not working. Often the fix isn’t in the scene that isn’t working. Often it’s several pages or scenes back!
So if you’re a writer getting notes, ignore the fixes and try to hear the underlying truth – something’s not working. Figure out what that is, and then figure out how to fix it.
If you’re an executive giving notes, don’t try to do the writer’s job! Just let him or her know that you’re confused on page 7, page 36 doesn’t ring true, and the climax on page 89 falls flat. Often, the writer will already know why it’s falling flat and will already have three ideas for how to fix it. He or she just needed to know whether or not what they wrote worked!
Filed under Writing
