Saturday, September 24

Blood Bond

Spoke to HK Director, if the rewrite goes as planned (based on a treatment he and I reworked back in November) Blood Bond will go into casting in November.

Thursday, September 22

Meeting

Apparently the meeting at Hyde Park went well. I say apparently because I wasn't there and HK director met with co-writer no. 2 to discuss this all with him. Co-writer no. 2 informed me that Hyde Park wants to make "Blood Bond"now but it still has ties over at Fortune Star Entertainment. I'm not quite sure about the logistics of how that all works. But of course, they want us to fix it before they move on anything or make any kind of commitment. Co-writer no. 2 and HK director will be overseeing the rewrite based on the reworked treatment the director and I came up with almost a year ago. I'll be doing a polish as co-writer no. 2 gets pages done. I suspect that we will be spending about a week on or so on it and then pass it along to Hyde Park for the next step.

There was one meeting at Nu Image/millennium films that we pitched nearly two years ago that went very well. We optioned that sucker (for a very small amount) but nothing ever came of it (a sci-fi Matrix-esque idea called "Quantum Ascension").

I don't want to get my hopes up. It's just the way of things. I've had other meetings before with other scripts that never quite went anywhere. My confidence in such things is waning.

Monday, September 19

5.0

Beyond the Mat draft 5 was finished over the weekend. Things are progressing nicely with the project and I'm excited to see what the director and producer come back with as far as notes are concerned. They're gearing up to shoot a 5 minute trailer for investors the end of next month.

In other news, Hong Kong director is taking one of our old scripts, Blood Bond, to Hyde Park Entertainment this week for a meeting. Hopefully the right people like it.

Thursday, September 15

Uno, dos, tres

Writing is going well. Beyond the Mat (the wrestling movie) just acquired a producer, who primarily works in reality TV and has been looking to jump aboard a promising indie script. I guess that would be this one. We had a story meeting with the director, producer and lead actor last week and it went over famously. Working in a group has never been so easy and synergistic. Awesome notes. Script is being rewritten (5th draft). And I'm excited. Sweet.

Californio (Mexican-American Braveheart) made it to the second round of the Austin Film Festival screenwriting competition (top ten percent). It was our first draft of the script. So that's good. We're now on the 3rd draft working towards a fourth. We received some awesome and very positive notes from a professional reader... "I think this is a really solid screenplay. I like the setting, the story and the characters quite a lot. Braveheart meets Zorro meets Robin Hood, all in gold-rush California. It should be a movie." Side note: There would be no Zorro is it were not for the legend of Joaquin Murrieta (who the film is based on).

My co-writer and I are also prepping other projects to sell ourselves as a writing team. He made it pretty far in the Nicholls and is being included on the list of people who go out to studios/producers/agents, etc. I'm going to do a polish on the script (another western) that he entered into the competition. He's doing a rewrite on Los Coyotes (US/Mexican border action/drama), which were also considering turning into a comic book. We're also working on a treatment for another script and coming up with a few rough ideas to pitch if necessary.

Warren over at The Screenwriting Life has a great post about sequence structure. This is the method I learned while going to film school at Chapman University. It's a great process and worth a look.

Monday, September 12

Friday, September 2

Change of pace

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for this guy to talk smack and chat with friends. Now it exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested.

Thursday, September 1

Quickly

For the last few weeks I have been vying for an internship that, quite frankly, would have kicked ass to have. Yesterday, I received my rejection letter in the mail. At least they had the courtesy to inform me about it. Most of the people who were applying for it where at least 5 years younger than me but I'd like to think my qualifications were/are exceptional. Ah well, there shall be others. But I would have kicked ass at this one.

I've been spending the last few days working on comic book scripts. I rewrote issue one of my collaboration (When the Sleeper Wakes) with Mark Smith. I have four scripts to read for my work with the other guy, Matt, and need to get back to him asap. I'm also kicking around the idea of turning one of my screenplays into a comic book. Decisions, decisions.

Californio (western) has garnered some very positive feedback from a professional reader, which is making us all the more excited about the project.

The director of Beyond the Mat (wrestling), the movie I'm getting paid (gasp) to write has just found us a producer, who's credits primarily include reality TV shows. The guy has read a lot of scripts and immediately wanted to make himself apart of ours after reading it.

More later.