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STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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Staff Member Sarah Lyons was recently featured in Teen Vogue for an article about modern witches. See what she had to say in the article and in her video interview!
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Last Friday, the Jacob Krueger Studio hosted the launch of Space Cadets and the Legend of the Goliathon, an original sci-fi audio adventure by staff member Brent Winzek.
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The show The Other F Word is a comedic web series following the lives of four women forced to rediscover themselves after their kids have all left the nest. Click here to check it out on Amazon or get more info at www.theotherfwordseries.com
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George’s film Alive Inside won the 2014 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
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In March 2014, Monda saw a photo on Twitter of a little African Girl in a Human Zoo. Immediately, a script unfurled in her head. She resolved to shoot a short film. Toward that aim, she attended our Costa Rica Screenwriting Retreat where she wrote what she called “a good story but a bad screenplay.” With the help of Jacob Krueger and her ProTrack coach, Linda Roberts, she was able to put the script in her head onto paper and then onto film. The resulting short, Zoo (Volkerschau) has won an Excellence Award at The International Film Festival for Women, Social Issues, and Zero Discrimination, an Audience Award at The South Carolina Cultural Film Festival Audience Award, and was featured in the marketplace in the Palm Springs Short Festival. Way to go, Monda!
Want to find out more about this very special short, check out the Facebook page. Or watch the behind the scenes featurette.
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Judy’s romantic comedy script, Brand New Brenda, which she started writing at the Costa Rica Screenwriting Retreat, was named a quarterfinalist at the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. Her script is among the top 10% of 7000 entries. We are keeping our fingers crossed for her for the next rounds!
Judy’s thriller, White Lies, developed in Jacob Krueger Studio’s ProLab, also made the quarterfinals at the contest last year.
Check out Judy’s blog HERE.
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Josh explains his “New York Sketches” film:
“For the last 4-5 years, I would make little outings around NYC and set-up the tripod. Usually I’d just sit there for 10-15 minutes while the world did it’s thing. Sometimes these little time-lapse sketches would turn out super cool. Sometimes not. I finally turned some of the cooler bits into a little meditative film (a la Powaqqatsi). It’s under 2 mins and features my friend Nate Kinsella’s Birthmark song ‘swing’.”
Check out the video HERE.
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Co-written by George Strayton, Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, which won the Sundance 2014 Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, releases in theaters across the country on July 18th. The film explores a music-based breakthrough that was achieved in the treatment of dementia patients.
Carly Simon says, “I’m excited to see Alive Inside again when it hits theaters. It’s an incredibly important documentary that everyone, young and old, should see. It’s an intensely moving, beautiful depiction of the power that music has, in so many different ways and for so many different kinds of functioning.”
Additionally, In the past two years, George has had three spec scripts (two features and an hourlong TV pilot) place in the Austin Film Festival. Check out the Festival’s Website for a list of 2014’s semifinalists.
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
Dan’s debut novel, written in our ProTrack program, will be released by Jollyfish Press this June.
Launch event at Barnes and Noble in NYC on July 19th!
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Dan’s novel, Fires of Man,is now available for purchase. This will be the first installment of Dan’s Sci-fi/Fantasy series. The books will tell of a modern-day world where a gifted few have developed the ability to manipulate reality with their minds.
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Jacob Krueger sat down with Dan to talk to him about this experience. Here is a transcript of that interview:
Jake: So we are here with Dan Levinson. Dan’s a student here at Jacob Krueger Studio. You just had a very big thing happen so tell us a little bit about that.
Dan: So I was just signed to a three-book contract with indie publishing house, Jolly Fish Press. They’re a very new house. They’re full of young, hungry people and I’m really excited to be working with them.
Jake: And this is your first contract.
Dan: Yes, this is my first sale, first contract of any kind, so it’s amazing; it’s a brand new experience for me.
Jake: So tell me a little bit about the book that you sold?
Dan: The book is Psionic Earth—that is the name of both the first book and the series as a whole. It takes place in a modern world, not unlike our own, where, unbeknownst to the general population, certain people have started to develop this ability to manipulate reality and energy with the power of the minds. They call these powers “psionic” powers. Now two countries, big super powers like America, are recruiting these people and using them in a secret war, or really like a Cold War, vying for dominance in the global sphere.
Jake: So there’s a kind of allegorical side to it as well.
Dan: Absolutely, and both of these countries, in a way, are kind of America, but not exactly. I hope it’s relevant.
Jake: Do you know what the whole series of books will be? Or do you just start with one book and hopefully figure out some good ideas from there?”
Dan: Believe it or not, I actually have a very clear picture of the entire series and what each installment entails. And, you know, something that I think actually has worked really well for me, that I learned at Jacob Krueger Studio, is this idea of focusing on the first and last image. So even when the middle is not entirely filled in, I always have a last image that I’m writing toward, and I know the first and last image of each installment. So that really sets up a good framework for me and helps me have a really clear picture of where I need to go with each book.
Jake: You started in our screenwriting classes, so that’s where this “first and last image” concept came from. Now you’re working with Linda Roberts who does our one-on-one coaching for novelists. How did you translate screenwriting information into novel information, or have your novels changed your screenplays or vice versa?
Dan: You know, it’s really funny, actually: I’ve found that it translates really well, because so much of what I’ve learned really is universal in terms of story and in terms of character, and the “first and last image” can very easily be applied to a book. Writing from the perspective of character, letting everything emerge from character—all things that I learned and really focused on during the screenwriting. So I would say, actually, so many of the principles are universal; they resonate no matter what medium within the writing you’re pursuing. So I was able to take a lot of what I learned and apply it to writing a novel, and found myself doing that very very easily.
Jake: So, a lot of my students have projects that they would like to sell. And you did this on your own, right?
Dan: I did.
Jake: You didn’t have an agent?
Dan: No, although I did want to note that I did make sure to hire an entertainment lawyer to help me negotiate the contract, which I was really glad that I did, because he helped me get a lot of stuff that I wanted in the contract.
Jake: So how did you do it? How did you break through that impossible wall that everybody talks about?
Dan: You know, I have to say a lot of it was hard work, meeting with Linda, and spending a lot of time revising it after I completed the first draft. It wasn’t until probably three months after I finished that initial draft that I even started sending it out to agents and such. And you’re never going to know exactly what people are looking for. You’re never going to know exactly how people are going to respond to something until they start to respond to it.
I did the query blast. I assembled the list of more than 50 agents and I sent out query letters to all of them, with supplementary material, what they asked for, sample pages, synopsis, that sort of thing. And as responses started to come in, some agents gave me a very standard form rejection letter and others actually had a few things to say. So I listened very closely to the kinds of responses that I was getting, and I made sure to start to tweak different things that I had gotten certain responses about, that I had gotten some criticism about. So, as I continued to look for more avenues to pursue with it, the material that I was sending to them was continuing to improve.
Eventually, when I got around to it, I happened to find this indie publishing house, Jolly Fish, accepting unsolicited submissions, and by the time I actually got around to querying them, I had already done several iterations of my query letter, I had tweaked the prologue and the opening chapters a number of times to really make sure that it was tight and it was popping. And listened to some of the commentary that I got, about where “things were a little slow” or “it didn’t quite land,” to make sure that everything really grabbed you right from the beginning.
So, it’s a process. I was in acting when I was in college and something that I’ve always heard, whether being an actor or being a writer, is that you throw everything at the wall and you see what sticks, and if the material is good enough, if it resonates with people. If it hits people, eventually it’ll find its way. And you just have to keep going, keep persevering. I got one thing that hit and I got lucky. But, I also worked hard and I made sure that I made myself available to the opportunities that were out there. And I got a lot of rejection letters too.
Jake: One of the things that I hear you saying is that it’s so easy to take rejection letters as a personal rejection or as a sign that you should give up, or that you’re not good enough, instead of recognizing this idea that rejection letters are a part of the business, and that you can take from the best rejection letters and decide what are the notes that are actually going to make your book better.
How do you know which rejection letters you should look for opportunity in, which rejection letters you should take seriously, and which ones you should totally ignore?
Dan: Well, usually the rejection letters that hurt a little bit, that sting a little bit, that make you feel a little self conscious, and maybe make you a little upset. “I can’t believe this person said this to me! They’re not right, they can’t be right!” Usually because those are the ones that hit home so much, that on a subconscious level, you know that they’re probably true.
So the ones that don’t hit you in any way, that you read them and it’s just like, “Ah, I really have no idea what this person is talking about.” And they don’t even make you upset, it just seems totally off base: those you can probably dismiss out of hand.
But if it’s the kind that gets you, and it makes you feel like a little hurt, then it hits home. It means that it probably resonated with you on some level, and you have to reexamine that. Those are for sure the toughest ones to try and process, to try and accept because writers, myself included, I think often have very fragile egos, and it’s not easy facing rejection. When something hits home like that, listen.
Jake: How do you know when you’re done? How did you know when it was time to take your novel out, and how did you know when it was not time yet—when it was time to hold on?
Dan: Well, I would say I listened to my gut. I gave it a few months after it was done. And I guess that’s kind of a two part question, because just in the first draft I knew—like I said, I had that last image so I had a particular moment that I was working toward. And so with the first draft I knew it was done when I got to that moment, which is very rewarding. It’s a wonderful experience when you have something that you’re writing toward, an image or a scene, and you get there and it’s just, “Ah, that’s a great feeling.”
Some people say you’ve got to let it sit for a little while after you finish. I didn’t follow that advice. I think you have to find what works for you, and in this case, because I still had a passion for it and an energy for it, I just was very gung-ho and kept going with it.
The first draft clocked in about 145,000 words and right now I’ve continued throughout the entire process of querying, and even now, the manuscript is due on October 31, and I’m taking these last few weeks to do one last tightening pass at it. I’ve gotten it down now to about 125,000 words, and that’s without removing virtually anything. That I did all through just trimming, cutting, tightening it up, and making sure that everything pops as much as it can. That’s so important.
I knew that a lot of the work that I was going to have to do before I sent it anywhere was going to come from that, was going to come from cutting out all this extraneous stuff: the same kind of stuff that’s present in a screenplay. You know, all this extra dialogue, extra description, and, “Is this scene really necessary? Can we get rid of this?” You want to make sure that everything is really flowing nicely, and that every single scene or line is important and has purpose. So when I felt that I had gotten it to that place, that was when I started to send it out.
Jake: You know, it is really related to screenwriting too, this idea that editing is often about compression. Sometimes we start to think that editing is about perfection, but it’s really about compression and making sure that everything you have is doing everything it can do, and making sure that anything that is not doing something is either changed or gone.
What was your experience like working with Linda Roberts in our personal training for novelists program? You were working with her biweekly on this project?
Dan: Biweekly—twice a month.
Jake: And what was that experience like. What did you get from it, and how does it work?
Dan: I have to say that the most fun and best thing about it for me was that in a way it was almost like writing therapy. I had an opportunity with Linda to talk through story problems and to say, “Is this working? Is that working? I’m thinking about going in this direction…” and having a neutral, objective party to bounce things off of was really amazing.
I mean, everybody has their own personal readers—their family, their friends—but they can’t provide you with an objective opinion. And to have somebody who’s really coming at it from a literary perspective, from a perspective of having been in the industry for a long time and knowing what they’re talking about, really having a love for stories, was amazingly helpful and also very encouraging, because Linda is so great, and such a great encouragement. So that really let me know that the work that I was doing was good and that was very important for my confidence.
And then aside from that, doing all the editing with Linda was integral when I was finally sending out the manuscript and making sure that I had this really clean, really well edited manuscript that people are looking at and saying, “Wow, this is really nice.” There are no typos, nothing to distract from it. In terms of presentation, that is very important, and it makes your work seem a lot more saleable, because someone who’s going to represent you or publish this work is not going to have to invest the time, and ultimately the money, that it takes to fix a manuscript.
Jake: I’m always interested in process. So tell me a little bit about what your writing process is like. How does it work? When do you write? How do you write?
Dan: Let’s start with the easy one: “when do I write?” I write at different times. I don’t keep regular hours, and some people need to keep regular hours, so that’s just me. But actually, I write long hand. I love the moleskin notebooks. I just feel like, for me, my creativity flows better when I’m using a pen.
Also, I set a manageable goal—another really important thing that I learned from the screenwriting courses—which for me is five pages a day. And, generally, I try to leave off writing each day having a thread that I could just sort of pull on, that I can pick up on the next day. I already have the next page, or the next two pages already written in my mind when I leave off writing, so that the next day I can sort of pick that up and generate some momentum.
Another important thing that I learned from the screenwriting courses is not being afraid to write lousy pages. I make sure that I just write pages, and when I’m feeling blocked, when I don’t know what to do, I just try and take it one beat at a time: “What’s the next thing that happens, and what’s the very next thing that happens?” And eventually, something will start to move there. There will start to be a little bit of a ball rolling, and that’ll carry me through until I’ve gotten to my goal for the day. You can’t always expect to be on a roll. Just keep putting words on the page.
Jake: Talk about keeping words on the page. What’s next for you? What is your next project?
Dan: Well, I’m working on a young adult fantasy novel, which is almost finished, the first draft of it. It’s a much much shorter book because it’s young adult. Once that’s done, the primary focus is, of course, going to be editing Psionic Earth. That’s priority number one. I’m going to go through three edits with the publisher, but then in my other time I will be editing that manuscript. My deadline for the second book of the Psionic Earth series is due a year from Halloween. I’ve already got close to 200 pages of the second book written, and I’m going to have about a year to finish the whole thing. I wrote the first book, the first draft of it, in about eight months, so I think I can do it.
Jake: So when is Psionic Earth due to hit the presses?
Dan: Right now, it’s set for Spring 2014. So little bit of a ways away. But you know what, it’s going to go by really quickly I think.
Jake: Well, congratulations Dan, we’re incredibly proud of you, and good luck with all the future writing.
Dan: Thank you very much.
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Puy’s first screenplay, Life Is a Dream, was a finalist at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.
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Two of Jonathan’s feature-length screenplays won the two highest honors possible in the 2015 Las Vegas Screenplay Contest.
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The film had its theatrical release in November 2013. It is now available to watch on demand through iTunes, Amazon, and other VOD platforms.
Set in present-day Pasadena and constructed around a series of meals, Cold Turkey is about what happens when you set a match to a powder keg. Ultimately, it’s about the kind of emotional terrorism that only families can inflict upon one another.
Find out more about David and Cold Turkey.
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Puy’s first screenplay, Life Is a Dream, was a finalist at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. It was then selected for the prestigious, international Dreamago Writers Lab in Switzerland. Puy’s Indiegogo fundraising campaign will finance her trip to the Lab.
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Emma wrote, directed, and produced the film Take the Reins. The film is currently in post-production.
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
Writer/Actor Laura Gomez wins Best Student Film Award from NYU &
books recurring role on Orange is the The Black!
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The following is a transcript of Jacob Krueger’s interview with our student, writer, director, producer and actress, Laura Gomez, who won NYU’s Best Student Film Award for her film To Kill A Roach.
JK: I’m Jacob Krueger. I’m here with Laura Gomez. And this is a student success story.
LG: That sounds good to hear.
JK: So tell us a little bit about your short and what’s happening for you right now.
LG: Wow. So I started writing a short film called Hallelujah way back when I started in your class at Jacob Krueger Studio. And out of that the idea of directing came later on, and I decided if I’m going to direct this I might as well know what I’m doing. What happened was that another short was born in that process called To Kill a Roach, which is the one that I just finished that I wrote, directed, produced, acted in and edited.
All those things! It’s like the whole package. And it’s been a great journey! From writing and considering directing Hallelujah came this new idea, and I won an award for Best Student Film from NYU for it. Now, they’ve provided me all the technical equipment for my second short, which will be Hallelujah and which will be done soon. End of May. That’s been established.
JK: And in addition to the award you’ve had some other festival stuff going on too.
LG: The short, To Kill A Roach, has been selected at three festivals. It’s going to be shown at the New York Havana Film Festival, then it’s going to be at the Muestra de Cine de Santa Domingo which is a film festival in the Dominican Republic and finally, I’ve just been notified, it’s going to be shown in Uruguay, so that’s super cool.
It’s beyond my wildest dreams. I mean, I thought it could be something, but it was a student project. So I thought I would treat it not like a student project and see what happened. I guess that was a good trick, right?
JK: Yeah. So you started as an actor?
LG: I am an actor. That’s right.
JK: We have a lot of students who are looking to write a role for themselves and looking to make that transition. Can you talk a little bit about what it’s like making that transition from an actor to a writer and then from a writer to a filmmaker?
LG: It’s kind of natural that an actor understands writing, whether it’s a play or a film because that’s what you do. You study and learn and read so many scripts and plays that in a way without realizing you understand much more than you know. You understand character already.
So when I started writing it came as a need I have as an actor to have a creative outlet, something other than waiting for someone to choose me. That was so frustrating. In my case it was also a way to write a role for Latinos that is not stereotyped. That’s a very important idea that I have in my writing.
In that sense, the process was easy, but because of my training as an actor I really like the idea of having a process. I started looking for screenwriting classes.
I went through a few and didn’t feel they were very technical or organic enough for me. Then I found you! I found your classes through a friend. Honestly, for me it was the perfect kind of training because it kind of went in line with my training as an actor.
The whole process of building a character and a story and Seven Act Structure made sense to me. I kept writing from that type of process.
Then directing came along, and that’s why I went to filmmaking school so I could have a sense of process as a director and as a filmmaker.
I think an actor has that as an advantage that comes from understanding so much about both sides when applying that process. Just as screenwriters should take an acting class, it’s fantastic to be able to write as an actor.
JK: Some people may not know what organic means in relation to writing. So talk a little about organic screenwriting and what that means to you.
LG: To me it means that I’m not forcing stuff. I’m not prepping something to happen or tricking it. It’s a way of having a process where either the character grows in a way that is valuable to the story or where the story has a sense of beginning, middle, and end without being manipulated. In a way you’re letting yourself be set in your writing without judging yourself or editing yourself.
Like you talk about in your classes. Then you start a process that is a little more conscious after it’s all out there. I feel like sometimes it happens to me. And I know it’s not organic. I’m not letting it happen. I’m manipulating or pushing. I feel like the process you teach is fantastic in that sense because it really teaches you to let it be.
It was fantastic because at that point I knew I was writing roles for myself and my friends and people that I know that I want to work with. I found a way to develop this work to a point where I can actually produce it and have a whole ball game ready to rock and roll, basically. That was the case with To Kill A Roach and that’s the case now with Hallelujah. It’s great.
JK: How did your background as a writer and an actor affect you as a producer? Did that change the decisions you made?
LG: Yes. A lot. It’s a learning process. The cliché that producers are just about numbers or things that or boring kind of went out the window. Yes, there are portions that are a pain in the ass like fundraising. You do have to deal with that, but I think what I’ve learned as an actor and a writer is to be able to change the hats. That’s something that resonates with me, because at some point it gets so overwhelming. I was overwhelmed on To Kill A Roach. I was in school, I was writing it, I was producing, and also had to direct it, and I had friends in it.
It was a learning experience. Taking the time to understand each hat you’re wearing and changing them. Say, this is Laura the Director. Now this is Laura the Actor, and this is Laura the Producer, which has nothing to do with Laura the Actor. It’s important and it’s a process to learn, but I think I’m on my way
JK: Does Laura the Director ever edit Laura the Writer’s scripts? How do those two get along?.
LG: I feel like a schizophrenic or something! Multiple personalities. I noticed in my last writing process that I was trying to manipulate where things took place. Then I just split myself and let the writer take over and just write. This is actually before I even thought about producing and directing. When I did get into that, those portions of me wanted to edit it. But I just let it be.
I just wrote without Laura the Producer or Laura the Director in mind. Then those two read the script and had a conversation. They said it was great. In Hallelujah, for example, I wanted it to take place on a cruise. Laura the Writer wanted that. It gave the story a value for what the writer wanted for those characters.
My friend who is associate producer said maybe we could find a way to keep the sensation that the writer wants that works production-wise. I’m very open to…not necessarily change just because someone tells me to but to listening and adjusting. In production value, maybe that cruise would have been ten thousand dollars more. Now I change it into a car. They’re on the way and they’re trapped without cell phone signals. The feeling is that same and the writer is happy. Okay, I’ll compromise for that.
It’s challenging in terms of creativity. Your writing should be doable. Otherwise what’s the point? If you’re in Hollywood that’s great but I’m not. I’m self-producing my projects. I have to be able to do them. The fact that I’m doing all these things and learning the production side is helping me. I’m writing openly and in a creative way and then the producer comes and talks. Is there any way you can adapt this so that you can actually shoot it?
JK: So you write what’s in your soul first and then you figure out how to adapt it?
LG: Yes. Basically. That’s a great process to have. Throw it all out. Then, figure it out.
JK: How do you know what to change and who to listen to?
It’s instinctual, I guess. I respond instinctually to a certain teacher or actor or director. In me it has been a way to find these types of teachers. It’s funny because in the acting world I also had a great teacher, and then working with you on my screenplay, and then when I was ready to move into production, Molly Pearson was another person I found in that sense.
I think that when it comes to getting feedback it’s important to find the right people. I found the right people. I didn’t give it to a hundred thousand people. That’s a mess. I’ve made that mistake. You kind of choose the right people and listen. Being new at writing, I was humble and open. When you’re good at something you don’t listen. I listened. I didn’t touch it for a moment and I let it sink in. I went back to it and then it just came out in the direction that it should.
You’re not going to write exactly what you’re told. Some people that I respect a lot told me things that I didn’t really use. But I listened. Writing is funny. If you’re in the right moment at the right place it’s like…what? Really? Yes! This is so different. I was scared when Hallelujah changed so much, but it was still the essence of what I wanted.
JK: Tell me about fundraising. How did you start? What was successful for you and what wasn’t successful?
LG: With To Kill A Roach …I was in school so they were providing me with equipment and what not. Some of the money came from my pocket. A lot. But it wasn’t overwhelming yet.
It was something I could get myself to do. With Hallelujah the stakes are higher and the expectations are higher. I do need funds and they can’t be from my rent money. We’re working on a fundraising plan and I think it’s important to plan ahead and know where the money is coming from. It’s something we talk about a lot. You can’t just do a campaign. There’s so many layers to it. Go check out videos on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. What are people doing? What can I make that’s different?
As I writer I have to create a script and be as creative as possible so someone watches the video and maybe shares it. You have to be as creative in your fundraising process as you have to be when you’re writing a script. That’s what I’ve found out and I’m dealing with.
Today we talked about the fundraising plan and my video and how I’m going to make it interesting to people. There’s so many out there. How am I going to make people want to give me money? I think that’s where creativity and all these things blend together and work in your advantage.
JK: If you were going to give one piece of advice to an actor who is thinking about starting a screenplay, what advice would you give?
LG: It’s so funny. When I started writing, I was judging myself a lot. First of all, it was because I’m an actor. I respect the craft a lot. It’s what people do and it’s not easy. In my case, I felt that honesty with your work and with your writing is the most important.
Creative? Of course we want to be creative but nothing is new. I think we have this mistake in perception. I want to be original, but everything has been said. So it’s not necessarily about being original. It’s about being authentic and honest in your work, like you talk about in class.
I was very afraid of To Kill A Roach because I felt it was kind of self-indulgent. There is a lot of me in it. I finished the writing process and all the rewrites. You have to be patient and go back. It has so much of me and my experiences. It’s not like a diary. I just stopped judging and let it be. The part that I’m most proud of is how honest it is. It has mistakes. It’s a student film and I was learning.
There’s things where I go “Oh my God!” the editing or the camera but you know what? It’s honest. If you’re coming as an actor, there’s nothing we have more than that. We’re so exposed. I feel like that’s the main advice I can give.
JK: How do you feel your success as a writer and director has affected your acting career?
LG: I’m in a show now! I didn’t mention that.
JK: What show are you in?
LG: Orange is the New Black, which is going to come out on Netflix. Netflix original show. You know that House of Cards is doing so great.
JK: So not only did you win an award for your short film, you’ve also had huge success as an actor.
LG: It happened when I went to school to make To Kill a Roach. I was waiting and waiting and going through auditions and nothing happened. I decided I was going to take care of my own stuff and create my own projects.
Then this audition came up for a recurring role for a new show for Netflix called Orange is the New Black. I went to my audition. I felt like I did good. I nailed it, but my energy was also on my project. I wasn’t worried about getting it. I thought if that happens it will be fantastic.
JK: There’s a real sense of power than comes with feeling that you’re controlling your own destiny.
LG: It is. At least as much as you can. That’s how I felt when they called me and told me I booked the part. So I have a recurring role. We finished shooting just now in March. It should be coming out in May or June.
It’s very funny. It takes place in prison and is based on a book of the same title. It’s starring Taylor Schilling, Jason Biggs, and Natasha Leon. It’s a great cast with a lot of Latinos and black actresses and a lot of women. In terms of casting it’s a very interesting mix. Michael Trim is the executive producer from Weeds and Jodie Foster directed an episode. The shows on Netflix are getting a lot of attention. It’s great material. That’s super exciting.
JK: Where can people watch To Kill A Roach?
LG: It’s been selected for three festivals. The New York Havana Film Festival is going to take place in April. You can go on www.facebook.com/tokillaroach to find information about it.
I’m going to keep updates about when it’s going to be up and if I’m going to make it public. So far, it’s going to be in festivals first.
JK: And Hallelujah? If people want to support it is there some page they can go to?
LG: Yes, you can go to our indiegogo campaign to support the film!
JK: Wonderful. Thank you so much and congratulations!
LG: Thank you! You were a part of this process. It all started in those classes.
JK: Thank you so much.
LG: Thank you Jake.
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Karl Jacob’s film Pollywogs had its NYC Premiere at the Big Apple Film Festival.
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Sujay won the 2013 Royal Reel Award from the Canada International Film Festival Screenplay Competition.
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Karl wrote, starred in and directed the film. Check out this fabulous article by Karl about the 10 Steps to Producing Your Own Work, as well as these press interviews with Karl about Producing and the Inspiration Behind Pollywogs.
Also, be sure to visit the Pollywogs Website, where you can watch a trailer or buy the film via iTunes.
On the heels of a bitter breakup, Dylan travels home to Minnesota for a family reunion. There, he runs into his childhood sweetheart, Sarah, who was relocated to a religious compound when they were young. In the very place he discovered love for the first time, Dylan confronts the fantasies of his youth and realizes that the past may hold the key for what lies ahead.
Congrats to Karl!
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After winning the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Award and the Audience Choice Award at KATRA Screening Series, and premiering at the Big Apple Film Festival, Sandy’s film, Out of the Ash, which she wrote, directed and produced, was named as an Official Selection of the prestigious Edinburgh International Film Festival. Click HERE to watch the trailer. And check out the Festival’s website for more information.
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Sujay won the 2013 Royal Reel Award from the Canada International Film Festival Screenplay Competition for his feature screenplay, Mops and Stones, completed in the Jacob Krueger Masterclass. In an effort to foster new and undiscovered writing talent, the Canada International Film Festival awards top screenplays in three competition categories.
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Ciara signed a domestic distribution deal with PBS for her film OUT OF STATE, a documentary about hula among Hawaiian inmates. Currently in production, the film received grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Princess Grace JustFilms Documentary Award, Pacific Islanders in Communication, Tribeca All Access, and the Hawaii Peoples Fund. Based on her success, Ciara has been a fellow with the Sundance Institute’s NativeLab, Firelight Media’s Producer’s Lab, and IFP’s Producer of Marketing and Distribution Lab.
“Working with Jake has been amazing creative “cross training” for my documentary, helping me to frame my film with a scripted but still accurate mindset. He’s guided me to step outside the box of what I see and truly tap into what is possible. Our conversations have led me to feel like I am making the film the way it should be – true, honest, but engaging!”
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
Adrian’s award-winning film Sex, Love & Salsa
had its official release.
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Jacob Krueger had a chance to catch up with Adrian to discuss his experience as an indie-filmmaker, his process as a writer, director, and actor and lots of great advice for writers interested in producing their own screenplays.
JK: Tell me about the inspiration for the film.
AM: The film is about a salsa-dancing womanizer who gets a taste of his own medicine. It’s loosely based on my own experiences dating in NYC in my 20’s. I basically took my worst, most embarrassing experiences and character flaws and put them into a dramatic story with lots of salsa dancing and music.
JK: And what was your process like as a writer?
AM: It came together very quickly when was home alone, heart-broken from a recent break up. I wanted to watch Annie Hall, but couldn’t find it, so I found Manhattan instead. And then that night I started writing the story with the idea of making a New York film inspired by Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese… but on the Latino tip.
The three women were inspired by women I had dated, and some were amalgamated composites of women. Once I had the characters defined I, often let them just talk to me. Character dialogue is one of my strengths in writing. Structure is not. So the three women are for the most part three separate narratives and only intertwine at the very end.
I’m very much a great believer in “good artists copy, great artists steal.” So I “stole” some structure from films such as Manhattan and Saturday Night Fever.
JK: What was it like acting in and directing your own screenplay?
AM: I’m not an actor by profession. I’ve done years of theatre in high school and college and even won a few awards. But it was always a hobby. When it came time to cast the lead, the actor I had in mind was in LA. And paying his flight for a three week shoot was not possible. My producer convinced me that since it was already so personal in nature, that acting in it would be interesting. Unfortunately I took her advice, and I now found myself performing the most embarrassing, gut wrenching anti-hero… despicable. I even had to be naked for a sex scene.
But on the positive side, she was right. I didn’t have to do much other than be myself and be truthful in the moment. Also by being the actor. I was able to rewrite my scenes in the moment. But this in large part I owe to my amazing cast. I got mostly New York theatre actors to join the film. Gabi Ruiz, our lead, was working on the Tony Award-Winning musical In The Heights. So she brought a professional work ethic to the character and she was delighted to be working in film for the first time.
In fact all the actors were eager to work on a character driven screenplay with some meaty moments. Every character showed vulnerabilities and had moments to shine. And shine they did, delivering magical performances. As a former actor I know the director types who over direct. I’ve been one. So this time I was extremely hands-off, and just let them fly. I agree 100 percent with the Robert Altman quote that most of directing is in the script and casting. The writing and the acting. That’s the 20% that will give you 80% of your results.
The camera, that’s all details. People don’t go to the movies to look at dolly moves. Sorry DP.
We shot it as a mocumentary so many scenes were hand held or POV style. giving it a very real sense. And as the film progressed we played with it, breaking the 4th wall and heightening emotions with color correction.
In one scene with Susan Quinn playing Ingrid, she asks me to help have a baby. We shot that POV style, with no crew, just two actors half naked in a bed with a camera. That’s it! I don’t know if anyone has ever done anything like this before but it brought a level of realism and
intimacy to the scene that energized me to keep going. And it was moments like these where we improvised off the script that really led to the magic.
The budget was embarrassingly low. No one got paid. And we never paid for a location. We stole every night club, shooting incognito with the hacked GH1 lumix camera and the 20mm 1.7F lens that let us get close and wide in low light situations and have automatic focus… which
wasn’t the best decision in retrospect. Live and learn.
So for one year we shot nights and weekends. Saved up money, shot, worked, etc.
2 years of post, also doing most of the editing myself and then getting Patrick Morris to help me with dialogue scenes when I had lost all perspective. I edited most of the musical scenes. I’m a musician at heart…
JK: What mistakes did you make? And what advice would you give to other writers who wish to produce their own work.
AM: I overdid it with the hand held. I should have studied Paranormal Activity, because they have taken that style to great lengths. I admire those guys. But I’m not a horror fan so I can
barely sit through them. But I could have “cheated” more and made it less realistic and more easier to watch…
Hire a DP. My producer was a DP because I couldn’t pay anyone. But now I know a
bunch of DPs that would have done it for credit. I just need it.
Acting. I get mixed feelings about this. I know the film would be totally different with another actor. But I also know that I gave a very personal performance for what was a personal story, and it shows. But its hard to watch myself, all my ticks and facial expressions, for 90 minutes… I’m actually quite shy and self-conscious. But the response has been good… I actually won an award for best actor at the Reel Independent film festival.
Advice. Write write write and write some more. And then shoot a short. I like the fast method of being a filmmaker, which is, make 10 short films in year. Make them fast. Short and
cheap, and the best one is your voice. Sometimes I wish I did that. It’s so cheap to make films now. There really is no excuse. You live in NYC or LA, there is so much talent here. You just need to hustle and hustle some more. It’s work. But luckily it’s not a lot money. For the price of a used Hyundai, you can make an award-winning feature film. I know because I did.
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Hector served as the screenwriter/producer on Kayan Ahla, a narrative film about the horrible reality of human trafficking. The film had its premiere at the SOHO Film Festival in May 2014.
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Charley was interviewed by NPR in Baltimore to discuss his role on The Wire and his new screenplay. Listen to the interview HERE.
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Claire’s 5 Minute documentary exploring Hollywood’s fascination with Brooklyn was published by the New York Times. Hundreds of productions each year are shot in Brooklyn, which offers a tantalizing array of homes and neighborhoods, and cheaper location fees than Manhattan. Check out the video.
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Jay’s play, 20th Century Photograph was produced at the Access Theater in NYC as part of an evening of Latvian-based plays. This production was the culmination of numerous research trips to Latvia as well as workshop development at the prestigious Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
Jay also directed Stephen Garvey’s musical comedy, The Bardy Bunch. The play was produced at the Theatre at St. Clement’s in NYC after having a successful run at the 2011 NYC Fringe Festival.
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
Michael’s first feature, Maybe Tomorrow, wins over 7 Awards,
including Best Picture, Best Actor & Best Screenplay at Golden Door Film Festival.
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Jacob Krueger sat down with Michael to discuss his new film. Here is a transcript of that interview:
Jake: So we’re here with Michael Wolfe. Michael is an actor, writer, director… You just completed your first film—
Michael: This is true.
Jake: —and you have had some pretty impressive success. So why don’t you talk to us a little bit about that.
Michael: Yeah, the film is Maybe Tomorrow and we’ve been doing the festival circuit for about the last 6-9 months. And yeah, I’m doing well. You know, having some good screenings, winning some awards, and getting a little bit of love. So it’s been an interesting journey, but we’re happy with things.
Jake: So tell us about your awards. What have you won?
Michael: Okay, the last festival we got nominations for Best Film, Best Director & Best Ensemble Performance. At the Golden Door Festival in Jersey we won Best Picture, I won Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Lead Actor and Dominik Tiefenthaler, my castmate, won Best Supporting Actor. So yeah, we had a good night.
Jake: So this is your first produced movie and you did it yourself. So talk to us a little about what was the inspiration for this? Where did this come from?
Michael: Well, it came from basically working as a writer and an actor for about a decade and not making the progress I wanted to in either avenue. And sitting down with Mark Montgomery, whose my producing partner on the film, and Dominik Tiefenthaler, who is one of the actors in it. We were kind of talking about how we weren’t getting the love we wanted from the industry and we weren’t making the progress we wanted. So we just decided to create our own work, and this film came out of that.
Jake: As an actor, how important is it to create your own work?
Michael: It’s really crucial man. I mean, it’s so competitive out there. There are so many ways in which you can produce your own work and you can really write those great roles that you’re not getting. The roles in this film, they’re all really wonderful roles and the opportunity to play a lead that has that much meat on it—the options are limited for up-and-coming actors, struggling actors, who don’t have representation or who don’t have a name. To get a showcase of your work, like this film does for me and my co-stars, is so rare. So whether its theatre or film, if you’re an actor, writing those good roles for yourself is really something you need to be pursuing.
Jake: So how do you do it? How do you sit down and know what role you should write for yourself? How do you create a character’s journey?
Michael: I have been working for ten years. I know which roles I suck in. I know which roles I’m good in. For whatever reason I play really emotional, volatile characters very well. I like curious, inquisitive characters who are looking for truth–looking for the truth about themselves—those are the roles that I excel in. So I wrote that for myself. And I’ve known Dominik for years and the roles he’s good at, so I wrote a role that was in his wheelhouse. And you really just have to know yourself, know what your strengths are as an actor, know the roles that you can deliver and really kind of tailor make it based on that.
Jake: Talk to me a little about what are the similarities between writing and acting.
Michael: I think of a lot of it just starts with ideas. Like, if you’re an actor and you’re reading a script and you’re like, “Oh, well maybe this character walks this way. Maybe this character orders a drink like this. Maybe he falls in love with every woman he meets. Maybe he’s in love with himself,” and you just have these ideas and you piece together a character based on all that. And you find a way to physicalize it. And as a writer, it’s kind of the same muscle. It’s like, “Alright, I have an idea about this character who maybe has a fight with his girlfriend about this. Maybe he loses his job and maybe this happens,” and all of a sudden these ideas kind of coalesce into a story, and then out of that story comes, “Alright, well maybe this could happen to him on this journey. Maybe he tries to do this, fails, but this happens as a side effect,” and all of a sudden you have all these ideas swimming around, and eventually they become enough to make a 90-minute script.
Jake: How much fiction and how much truth ends up in your movie?
Michael: A lot of fiction I hope and not much truth—a lot of circumstantial fiction, but emotional truth. Like they always say, “Write what you know.” That’s true to an extent, but it’s also true from an emotional perspective. I write emotional circumstances that I’m familiar with because that’s where I’m comfortable. I know what it’s like to be disenchanted with life or to be hurt by someone so I write about people who’ve been disenchanted by life or hurt by someone. I know what it’s like to be betrayed by someone close to you. I write about that. I know what it’s like to want a better relationship with your parents than I have. I write about that. And, you know, my characters go to jail, my characters do horrible things—I don’t do those, but I know what it’s like to regret things I’ve done. I know what it’s like to do things that I’m not proud of. So I think it’s more about an emotional truth than circumstantial truth.
Jake: So drawing on those things that feel true.
Michael: Yes. So when I’m writing about, you know, a 70 year old man reconciling with his son, I don’t know what that’s like because I’m not a 70 year old man, and I don’t have children, but I know what it’s like to reconcile. I know what it’s like to want something to be better and to make moves towards that. I also don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, but I still have to write them so…yeah, for me it’s about emotional truth, emotional perspective.
Jake: How do you write a woman? Tell us. Because a lot of women ask, “How do you write men?” and a lot of men ask, “How do you write women?”
Michael: (laughing) My women curse a lot. I don’t know. They’re kind of just like me with breasts. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but yeah…
Jake: It’s very true that a lot of our characters do, they grow from a place in us.
Michael: Yeah, and you have to find where that place is. Some people, like, some writers write the world that they come from occupationally. Like, if they come from the food service industry they write a movie like Waiting. If they come from politics or something like that maybe they’ll write The West Wing. They write the world they know. My world—my emotional world—that’s where I feel like I have the most to lend as a writer, so all my scripts come from there. You know, some are political, some are about sports, some are about psychology, some are about other things. But, the emotional dynamics of them are all the ones I’m familiar with.
Jake: So tell us about your writing process. What is the shape of that for you?
Michael: For me, you know I have an idea that kind of pesters me and it keeps me up at night and it won’t go away and it gets louder and louder and louder until I’ll eventually have to write it down. And what I do is I usually lock myself in my apartment for as many days as I can, uninterrupted, and using index cards, I map out the script. I know how it begins, I know how it ends, and I know approximately how I want to get there. And usually I barf out a first draft in about a week. I write very fast. I overwrite so it’s not the greatest first draft in the world, but it’s a good representation of the story I want to tell and it’s a jumping off point. Luckily, I have people in my life that I send that script to and they tell me, pretty accurately, what’s wrong with it, and how to make it stronger and better.
Jake: Talk to me about how you allow yourself to write badly.
Michael: Well, you really just have to accept that you’re not going to write perfectly, man. I’ve written 13 scripts, and every one I thought was done after the first draft. Like, “This is it. One draft. I’m done with the movie.” And I was always wrong.
Jake: How many drafts on this movie?
Michael: On Maybe Tomorrow, 27. And then we had to edit the shit out of it to correct all the other mistakes. And it’s a very good movie now. So be easy on yourself and be honest with yourself when something’s not working, and learn to take criticism because that’s how you get better. And you really have to lose your ego. You have to know that you have the best story in the world, but at the same time admit that you don’t know how to tell it yet. You need to be able to listen to people who have good ideas about how to tell it better than you can.
Jake: Talk to me about listening to your character. How does getting to know your character change your movie?
Michael: Well, the more you get to know your character, the more you understand where they’re going and why. And, you understand their reason for doing things and that feeds why they do things, why the plot unfolds the way it does and why some moments have to happen because they explain why your character is the way he is, where he’s going, why he’s going, and whether or not he’ll get there. A lot of writers write character bios to help with that. Once in a while I do. If it’s a character I don’t fully understand I’ll tinker around with something like that just so I can try and get some more colors on him or her. Yeah, understanding character motivation, the reason for being, where they’re going—really informs the plot.
Jake: You talked about this idea of starting with flashcards, having markers for the place that you might go. How does, as you start to get to know your character more, affect the way that you deal with that outline?
Michael: Well, depending on how you understand your character, you’re either getting him to those markers or you’re taking him somewhere else. You have to be open to both. You have to say, “All right, I think this character wants this and he’s gonna accomplish it by doing this, this, and this.” But if, as you’re writing, you’re like, “Oh wait, this doesn’t work. Maybe if he does that instead it takes him in a different direction,” you’ll still ultimately takes him on the journey you want him to take. You have to be open to that. You have to have ideas, but not be married to them—through every step of the filmmaking process. As an actor, you become so set with the concrete ideas and you’re like, “Yes! This is what he wants!” and then the director might be like, “No. It doesn’t work. Try something else”…same in the editing room. You may have wanted it to go a certain way in your head for four years and then when you get there you have to be able to admit, “Shit, that doesn’t work so let’s find a new way to do this.”
Jake: So how do you keep yourself in that open creative mode as opposed to feeling that something you’ve had in mind for four years doesn’t work?
Michael: It’s the most humbling thing that I’ve experienced as a filmmaker. You know, I’ve written 27 drafts of this moment, I’ve rehearsed for three weeks, I’ve shot it for three weeks, I got the editing bay, I edited together, and fuck it doesn’t work! And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And you have to be willing to fail. You have to say, “I tried to make this moment work. I failed. Having it in this movie hurts the movie, hurts the story—lose it.” Every day you’re editing, you feel like you’re killing puppies, you’re slaughtering babies, because these things that you love are just like [fffttt]—getting destroyed. Lose it man. You gotta be able to do that. You gotta be able to completely divorce yourself from any emotional attachment you have to the work. It’s a weird thing to happen. It’s just a mechanism you have to develop. If you don’t, then you’re gonna make your life really, really difficult.
Jake: I imagine your acting training probably helps a lot with that.
Michael: It does because you learn to come up with ideas and rehearse ideas and then maybe find out they don’t work. Or maybe they work at first, but then after the course of doing a piece, they stop working and then you have to find a new way to kind of approach those moments, and a new way to kind to look at the character and look at this exchange. So yeah, you do develop that mechanism to an extent—
Jake: Recognizing how many ways you can do this.
Michael: Yes. Your first idea, you may think it’s the best idea to get there, but there’s other ideas that get you to the same place and you have to be open to that.
Jake: A lot of student would love to make movies, but maybe they’re never written one, maybe they’re an actor who’s just kind of getting fed up like you were getting fed up, or maybe they’re a writer who’s just starting a first draft right now and they want to be able to do this for themselves. How do you do it? How do you go from concept to actually making your own movie?
Michael: I’ve worked enough as an actor to know what the [filmmaking] process entails, so I felt confident about doing it myself. I’ve been on enough film sets to know what I need to be able to do to communicate with my cast and crew and run a set. Basically, I’ve been on a lot of shitty films, which taught me, “Do the opposite of what those directors did and you’ll be fine.” But yeah, making a movie is team building. So surround yourself with good producers, good cast, good crew. In terms of getting money for a movie, you can use Kick Starter, you can use Indie Go Go—you can use a lot of things like that for crowd sourcing. We wanted to raise a little bit more money so what we did was we started in LLC and we got investors first through friends and families, and then through their friends and their families. If you want to go that route there’s a website called legalzoom.com where you can pretty much set up an LLC for very minimal expenditures and it’s cost effective. Once you do all that, then just make a movie.
Jake: So what was your total budget on this movie? Was it more or less than a million?
Michael: It was definitely less than a million. It was in the ballpark of 100k and that’s a good ballpark because—I mean, you could make a movie for 10, 20 grand these days. With the technology out there you can make a movie that looks and feels good for much less. But we wanted our production value to be at a certain level. We wanted it to look and feel like a million dollar movie.
Jake: And that’s why I asked you the question. Because I know for a lot of people they say, “A movie costs 20 million dollars. A movie costs 100 million dollars. How am I going to do that?” You know, you were talking to me earlier about how you had a helicopter shot in this movie—
Michael: Yeah, there were certain things that I wanted—aerial shots. I wanted steady cam shots I wanted jib shots. I wanted some more expensive shots. I wanted it to look and feel at times like a bigger movie just to make it, what I hope to be, more commercial. But you can shoot on the Red camera, the 5 D—you can make some very good looking films for very little money these days.
Jake: So that’s an amazing thing for people to know. You also were able to get some money from Suffolk County?
Michael: Yeah, after we had shot the film we got a post-production grant from Suffolk County Film Commission that helped us with money for sound mixing, for color correction, stuff like that. We also used a trailer to raise more money. And for filmmakers, especially if they’re making a documentary, or something based on a social issue, there are a lot of film grants out there that are available that they can use in conjunction with crowd sourcing if they’re going that route, or in conjunction with getting investors.
Jake: It’s this idea that sometimes as writers, or as producers, or as directors we think we are the beggars. Realizing that there are also people out there who are fighting for your business, that you have something valuable for them is important. In fact, cities and states are fighting to attract filmmakers and they’ll give you money and give you credits to do that.
Michael: Yeah, and that’s another thing. If you’re making a film, research different cities and states and what kind of tax breaks they’re giving for shooting films there, because a lot of cities and states are really making an effort to promote the arts. You can get tremendous tax breaks in states like Louisiana, Michigan, and New York. If you shoot in a studio for a day, a percentage of your entire production budget is tax deductible. If you build your own set in a studio, it’s even more so. If you look into that, there’s a lot of money that can be trimmed from the budget from tax breaks.
Jake: So tell us one good experience you had on set. Something that surprised you, that was amazing, that changed something creatively for you.
Michael: We had a location for a courthouse in Brooklyn and we had it all set. I think it was like, five or six days before we had to shoot there, and they backed out inexplicably. And I was losing my shit, I’m on the phone, the guy doesn’t return my calls. I don’t know why (laughs). So we went on this scramble trying to find another location, and we found the New York Court House, and it was huge and beautiful and so much better than anything we had ever imagined. So once we got there, we had to rewrite scenes, or chop up scenes based on the amount of locations we actually had access to. And we got, what I think, are some of the most beautiful images in the film shot on locations that we didn’t scout, didn’t think we were going to have to find. Some of the most visually stunning moments in the film, in fact, the climax of the film—which takes place on these steps in front of this gorgeous building—it’s very cinematic and came out of a really big headache because the members of my location team scrambled and they found that location. And once we got on set we were like, “Okay, what do we have to do to take these four pages of dialogue that were supposed to take place in an office, but we don’t have an office, so how do we make it take place in this hallway, in this stairwell, in this little nook?” And it turned into some of the most beautiful shots we have in the film. When you’re making a film on this budget level, you gotta think on your feet like that.
Jake: If you’re hiring a crew for your first production, you only have a certain amount of money, and you want everyone to be an expert and that’s hard. If there’s one person who you think is the person that you should blow your money on, who’s that person?
Michael: I think there’s several. I think the cinematographer and the sound guy and the first A.D. I mean, I could go down the list and say there’s a thousand, but the bottom line is, if the movie doesn’t look good or sound good, it’s a piece of shit. I mean, you could have the best script in the world, the best acting. But it’s film, you know. You need it to look and sound good for it to be a good film. The first A.D is pretty much the guy who runs the production, but a lot of small sets can’t even afford that. And we had a big enough set where if I was the one running the show and acting in it, I would have been overwhelmed. I had a first A.D. who kept us on schedule, who kept us moving along. It was great.
And obviously, my producing partner. Having a partner in crime who shares all the headaches with you and all the glory at every step of the road helps, because if you don’t have that kind of support, then it’s going to feel like a very long and lonely road.
Jake: So congratulation on all your success. I’m sure a lot of people would like to check out Maybe Tomorrow. So can you share a website, Facebook?
Michael: Sure, the website is www.maybetomorrowthefilm.com and the Facebook is also {Facebook/MaybeTomorrowTheFilm}. If you like the Facebook page, then we keep you posted on all screenings that are coming up down the road, and any other press and fun stuff.
Jake: And you have a new screening coming up in New York.
Michael: Yes. We have a screening November 18th. That’s going to be screening in Tribeca Cinemas. All the info will be on our Facebook page.
Jake: Fantastic. Thank you so much.
Michael: My pleasure buddy, my pleasure.
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Talie wrote, produced, and starred in her solo show, Maison des Reves at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. She will take her show on the road to London and Canada.
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Larry’s play Love will be having a public reading at The Player’s Club in Gramercy Park on June 4th. Love is a romantic comedy about two widowers who have a torrid affair after a blind date that leads to Sex! Romance! And Love! Email Larry to reserve a seat.
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Fritz’s short film, I Gotta Go, will be featured in The Iron Mule Short Comedy Series at Symphony Space on NY’s Upper West Side on June 1st. Buy tickets to the event HERE. And if you can’t make the screening, you can watch the short film HERE.
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Alexandra directed the documentary, Bombay Movie, which followed the independent filmmaker, Raja Menon, as he lives in the shadows of India’s Bollywood. The film had its premiere at the IFC in NY and is now available for purchase on iTunes and other VOD platforms.
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
Marco created the film project, Zombie Parkour.
The film has received over 3 million YouTube hits and counting!
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The following is a transcript with Marco Aguilar:
Jake: Hello I’m Jacob Krueger and I’m here with Marco Aguilar who is a student in my Master Class. Marco has just completed a film project a little while ago and you have had some pretty impressive success with that. So tell us about the success you’ve had.
Marco: The film was called Zombie Parkour. I just had an idea for a zombie movie and Parkour runners – the idea just came to me. I kind of inquired about it and saw the nobody ever did it so I was like, “Oh, I’ll just jump at the chance and do it!” I always wanted to learn about the world of Parkour and free running. And I just put some money away for a couple months—it took me about a year or so to save up for it—and I just decided to go out and do it. I put an ad out on Backstage and mandy.com and all these places and just started meeting with people. I had to figure out what I needed to get the film done. I needed actors, I needed a co-producer, I needed a sound person, and I just put an ad out for each and figured out who the best one was for each job. I mean, you’re in New York City. Everyone’s looking to do something and how many people actually go out and say we’re gonna do a zombie movie?
Jake: And you got a million hits, is that correct?
Marco: Yeah, over a million—a million and counting. It’s been pretty crazy.
Jake: What does that feel like to have a million people?
Marco: I don’t know. It’s weird. I was thinking about it afterwards….there’ve been times when I’m at some place random, usually Parkour-related, but then someone starts talking about the film and I’m thinking, “How many people have seen this thing? How did someone come across my movie of all movies?”
Jake: I just want to make this really clear for everybody – you don’t have a distribution, right? There’s not like a studio involved, there’s nobody. But you’ve had a million people see your movie.
Marco: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, a big part of it is because one of the actors who has the lead in the movie is doing well in L.A, so he’s been marketing himself and becoming very popular. He’s a big part of it all, but once he got the ball rolling the word of mouth started spreading.
Jake: So where did you start? Let’s start at the idea. What is Parkour running? 
Marco: Parkour and free running. Parkour is basically moving over obstacles in the most efficient manner possible. Just basically using your body. You know, you could vault over this table and roll and land and jump and run up the wall smoothly…you train. You have to be really agile and strong and you have to have balance because sometimes you’re going from rooftop to rooftop. Basically, the entire city is your jungle gym…. There’s a certain creativity behind it, a certain fluidity behind it.
Jake: And do you do Parkour running yourself?
Marco: I do, but first of all, I’m older…I’m not a spring chicken anymore…. I do it so I stay in shape and I do it to understand it and get better at it especially as a filmmaker. The thing about it is that you never see the world the same…the world just becomes that much bigger, you see it in a whole different way.
Jake: And nobody had ever combined, as far as you know, Parkour and zombies?
Marco: There was one guy who did it. They did a Michael Jackson spoof so it was a funny one. Nobody had ever done a serious one. So I did all kinds of searches for it and nobody had done it so I was just like, “This is crazy.” Of course, when I did it I realized why nobody had done it because you normally would need like serious backing. It’s really hard to do without any kind of like insurance or permits. 
Jake: So how did you do it?
Marco: We just did it. I’m too stupid to know any better. I was like, “Well, if we do it in Brooklyn, we’re most likely to get away with it instead of doing it in Manhattan.” And I just picked places that looked cool, that looked dangerous enough to throw zombies in….
Jake: And where do you find these Parkour runners?
Marco: I just put an ad out. These guys are all looking to be stuntmen, looking to be actors, because they have that skill. Seeing the actual person do [Parkour] is always a useful thing for directors and producers- anyone making the movie.
Jake: How much of it was scripted? Was any of the film scripted or did you just improvise it using the locations you were at?
Marco: Well I kind of wrote it based on the locations. That’s the thing with this kind of filmmaking- you can’t build sets. So like, “Ok, well here’s what I have to use. What kind of story can I write?” And you start coming up with different ideas within that space. So I said, “Alright, well why would he need to be hanging from this bridge? What would be happening here?” and I just came up with this little scenario.
Jake: So you started with locations and you created a story out of them. 
Marco: Yeah, I mean I’ve done one music video and five short films—and the five short films all pretty much came about that way. I said, “Okay, here’s the location that I’m going to write stories about.”
Jake: You have an interesting process. How long does it take you to write a screenplay for a project like this?
Marco: Well, after this one it’s going to be a lot longer. You have to spend a little bit more of time on the screenplay. There were times when I was just like, “Fuck. This isn’t going to work and I’ve already shot stuff. “ You try to rewrite before the next shoot and it just doesn’t work out that way. So from now on, I’m gonna spend a lot more time. Whatever time it takes. But it was good to do it that way I did it because I just did it. I learned how slow to go and I just made mistakes. That’s the thing you just have to not be scared to make mistakes.
Jake: We do a lot of character driven stuff here at the studio, building your structure out of character. How does that relate to a zombie movie when you’re working in a genre film? Has that stuff changed your writing, has it changed the way you approach a zombie film? 
Marco: Oh, completely. I have an action background I guess…that’s the way I direct movies—very much like a fast paced action movie. So taking the writing class, it’s just been looking at making those movements, making those actions mean something. Something that I’m like, “Alright, that’s the right way to approach action.” So it’s definitely helped in that regard, you know, “Why is this person doing this? Why are they in the situation?” and it has that much more meaning to the scene. I mean, it still can be scary on a superficial level, or exciting, but when it has something a little more to it, I think that it’s definitely better. And just learning how to get there slowly but surely has been cool.
Jake: So what are you working on now?
Marco: Well, I’m working on the future version of that one.
Jake: So this is a short of what you’ve produced right now. And now you’re working on a full length.
Marco: Yeah exactly. I mean, I’m kind of promoting it as Zombie Parkour: Part 2 but I’m just taking the concept even further to have it be like, “What is a Parkour runner in a zombie apocalypse? What would you have on him? What kind of warrior would he be, what kind of world would it be?” Just writing a feature length version of it, which is a lot harder than I expected it to be….I’m trying to build an idea from scratch and I’m not even sure where I’m gonna go with it. I have to really find out what is the story going to be. It wasn’t like I had a story idea and expanded on it. It was like, “Okay, I have this setting, you know a Parkour runner, zombies, and the setting. It’s not the story though.” For a short it works like that, but not for a feature…I think I learned from you is always have script percolating in the back of your head for the next, after you’re done with this one. So I have another horror film percolating in the back of my head now.
Jake: What brought you to zombies, why zombies? 
Marco: I was the youngest in the household. My brother was 11 years older, so they were watching all kinds of adult movies. My mom didn’t speak really good English so she was into horror films because they were easy to follow. You know, the guy in the gas mask is the killer. My dad was into Kung-Fu films and actions films, and my brother was too at a certain age. But then he started watching more serious rated R films. So I’m eight years old watching Amadeus, Jason, a martial art film like Lethal Weapon. The only thing that really scared me was zombies. I remember watching Dawn of the Dead and just being terrifying at the guy being torn apart. I’d watch all these other horror films—the guy slashing whatever, getting killed—so for some reason zombies just always scared me. When you become a zombie fan, you’re always imagining like, “Oh, what would you do here? How would we defend ourselves if we were in this place?”
So I guess this eventually led me coming across this George Romero competition. I think it was “Diary of the Dead.” They said that the top five get to be on the DVD release of the movie so I said, “Oh, I know zombies. I used to be scared of zombies. I’ll just do a zombie movie.” And suddenly I did a good one…
Jake: So this is a little bit different from zombie Parkour, but I know you’re also working on some zombie movies that are kind of family stories. So talk to me about that. How does using the genre of zombies allow you to tell these stories that wouldn’t necessarily be clear, obvious choices for future films?
Marco: Well, I’ve always had a sort of complicated relationship with my parents and my siblings. I’m sure a lot of that [idea] comes from that. And I find it interesting—any zombie story is always treated like some sort of outbreak and people have to rely on each other to some degree. You can never really be alone. That’s sort of the nature [of our family dynamic]…we have this unstoppable force that never gets tired and just wants to devour you. [That feeling of concentrated togetherness] always leads to interesting dynamics between the characters. That’s always been the thing that has fascinated me with zombie movies. Like Night of the Living Dead…it’s one house, you have a black man, some racists white dude, you got these three people…who have to survive together and trust each other. 
Jake: So there’s a metaphor.
Marco: Yeah, I guess if you wanna call it that. I guess I just find it interesting to be stuck with your family…it’s be great, but at the same time, eventually… they’ll start to annoy you just as they do now.
Jake: We think that in a character driven movie, a drama, a thriller even…it’s obvious how you need to draw on something that’s very real in you to tell a story honestly. When you think of genre films, there’s often a misperception that it’s only about the genre and not something real in you. So I think it’s interesting in your writing that you’re wrestling with real issues in the genre.
Marco: I never thought of it that way, but yeah I guess it’s true. People having certain preconceived notions about the genre. I’ve taken some acting at HBO Studios so whenever actors hear that you’re a director who’s done short films, they’re just like, “Oh, what kind of films do you do?” And I mention I’ve done zombie films and they’re like, “Oh, if you do anything else let me know.” They don’t mean to be rude, but they have this preconceived notion and it’s understandable. But [zombie movies] have a whole other side….they are about characters, they all have something to say. Like Dawn of the Dead has something to say about consumerism. You have these people who live in a mall—you can go every weekend and buy whatever you want. But when [the mall] becomes your sanctuary it becomes very empty and meaningless. Like, what do these things mean to you when you’re alone?
Jake: What do you want to say?
Marco: I don’t know…I mean, this is why I’m taking your class, to figure out what my voice is, what do I want to say. Obviously, I have something to say about family, about how we get along, about how we relate to each other. But as far as what I want to say, I’m not sure. I think at the moment I’m having fun just finding my voice. I’m playing. 
Jake: You know we talk about this idea that we can’t escape theme, the things that drive you to write in the first place, the things that you want to say. It’s interesting that you , not just with this film but many films, do have something to say, without being able to actually verbalize what that thing is. I think that’s just one of the true things that emerges when you allow yourself to playfully explore and when you allow yourself to seek your voice.
Marco: I hope so, yeah. That’s the hardest part is to gauge what the audience is reacting to. And you just do the best you can. Just make the best film you can…and be honest about it. You’re not going to knock it out of the park the first draft.
Jake: How many drafts do you normally write of a script?
Marco: Well this is the first feature I’ve tried to write so I’ve done like, five or six crazy ass drafts already. It takes patience.
Jake: For one of my students who’s looking to get into this world, who wants to direct, wants to produce their first film, want to write their first film and make it happen themselves, what would you say to them? What should they focus on? What should they watch out for? What should they be aware of?
Marco: Something I’ve noticed this in the art world in general is it’s one thing to try to learn from people that came ahead of you, but don’t try to be like any other director or filmmaker. Like, don’t let anybody tell you, “Oh you should be doing this kind of film.” Because I’ve heard that since I started filmmaking. The way I look at it is don’t limit yourself to certain genres. Don’t let people dictate what kind of film you should make. If you want to get into genre films, if you want to get into comedies, if you want to do action—whatever you want to do, just do it.
Jake: If you don’t even have a camera, what do you do? How do you start? 
Marco: Honestly, just find one other person who’s making movies and you have your house free for a couple hours a day…just write something, rehearse it with somebody, write a story that comes to mind. It could be a silent film, it could be a dialogue film, do a film in one room, think small, think, “How am I going to tell a story in this one room? What are the elements I have in my disposal? I don’t have a lot of actors. I have just one other person and me. How do I tell the story in this environment using sound, using lighting, using the actor…” And once you use that you’ll be able to better expand out further and do much more efficiently. That’s the thing. You need to learn how to make something in a timely, efficient manner, but also give yourself enough time to get it done. Yeah, you’re gonna be rushed and you’re never going to get as much time as you want, but you want to be able to work it so that you can do that…. and the more you do it, the better you get at it. And, when you start small, in one room, and you expand out, you learn how to gradually make a bigger and bigger film.
Jake: Obviously, you didn’t have a big advertising budget, so you’re not like flooding the market with print advertising.
Marco: No, not at all.
Jake: How did you build that word of mouth? How did you get it out to the community?
Marco: I did a lot of things, and I’m not a marketing person, so it’s hard for me to gauge if the stuff I did have any impact.
Jake: Well first off, where do you host the movie?
Marco: Go to zombieparkour.com and you can watch the movie and it will tell you about the other projects I’m working on as well. It’s on YouTube, which is where it got over a million hits and became a hit right away. Like I said, nobody had done it before. I spent about six months editing the thing and I edited a trailer, so that started getting the hits gradually and gradually. People started realizing this movie’s coming out. So when it finally came out, it got a lot of hits and it grew from there. And once the actor got to L.A. and started talking to people, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. The big thing is, he won a Ninja Warrior…this crazy ass obstacle course that you’d have to be Jackie Chan to be able to do. It’s a competition that if you win a grand prize if you win the whole thing. So he got selected for that and auditioned, and that’s when [the buzz] started to pick up even more.
As far as marketing goes, I also went to a lot of Parkour jams…I went to Boston and there were like 300 kids just doing Parkour in this place and I printed out like 100 t-shirts and gave them all out within ten minutes. And then those kids spread the word because they all came from different states and different parts of the country.
There was a strategy behind it. I did know that calling it Zombie Parkour would get a lot of hits….If you type in Zombie Parkour, if anybody just ever types in one or the other it’s going to come up…so there was thought behind [the name]. 
Jake: It’s important to find a title that’s clear.
Marco: Yeah, and you mention how important title is. So the title definitely helped, and me throwing out the trailer, and then me being active in the community, just putting up the page and talking to as many people as possible.
Jake: That’s an interesting thought. When you’re out there and you’re trying to get recognized, a part of it is about identifying who are the people who are going to dig this, as opposed to trying to write for what you think they’ll like. Writing what you like and then going, “Who’s gonna be into this?” and reaching out and becoming active in that community.
Marco: Yeah it is. It’s about finding community. There’s an audience for everything, it doesn’t matter what it is. So just find out who it is that will like your kind of movie.
Jake: Well, thank you so much Marco and congratulations! I hope you hit 2 million hits. You can see Marco’s film on zombieparkour.com.
Marco: Yes. Go to zombieparkour.com and it will tell you about the feature film, which you can also watch on the page.
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Matthew James Thompson created the short film/music video hybrid, Mass, with Bill Reddington and Kevin T. Collins. The film is a self-described plotless story of a former friendship gone dangerously awry set to the music of The Malpractice. The disjointed non-linear storytelling technique gives the video an anxious feeling to match the emotions of the characters to the experience of the viewer. From the ending to the beginning, we watch two characters evolve from madness to madness.
Watch the film and read an interview with Matthew HERE
Find out more about Matthew HERE
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Martin starred in the upcoming film, Relentless. The film was shot primarily in El Salvador and tells the story of an American mother’s search for her daughter who has been kidnapped by human traffickers in Central America.
Watch the trailer HERE
Find out more about Martin HERE
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After workshopping her screenplay at the Studio, Samantha co-wrote a feature script with her writing partner Michael Borowiec. They will be co-directing it in August 2014. It will be her feature film debut!
The film is about an alien conspiracy theorist who enlists his friends to help him make a low budget movie about his past as a government geologist.
Find out more about the film HERE.
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Matthew’s short film, August Heat, won the Directors Discovery Award at Rhode Island Film Festival where it also had it’s world premiere. The award is presented to a director whose outstanding work on a short or feature film represents a new unique and compelling vision that will resonate well into the future.
Find out more about the film and watch the trailer HERE.
Find out more about the award HERE.
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– STUDENT INTERVIEW –
JT wrote, directed, and starred in the feature film Angel’s Perch,
starring Joyce Van Patten (Grown Ups).
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Jacob Krueger interviewed JT about Angel’s Perch. Here is the transcript of that interview:
JK: How did the idea for the film come about?
JT: The inspiration for the film came from my roots in West Virginia and my grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. My family is from a very small lumber town turned State Park in Pocahontas County named Cass. 50 years ago, after the lumber mill shut down and the industry left, my grandfather and a small group of locals worked their tails off to convince the state bring Cass Scenic Railroad State Park to life. They believed this little town and this little community was something special… something that should be shared with the world. I spent much of my life trying to figure out a way to carry on that legacy and, after my grandmother’s passing with Alzheimer’s, I knew I had found my inspiration. Watching my family struggle with the difficult challenges and decisions that come when faced with this disease, I started to see a way to both carry on that legacy and write a story that might address Alzheimer’s in a way that we don’t normally see on screen.
JK: What was the writing process like for you? What were your biggest challenges? Were there things you learned that were helpful in overcoming them?
JT: This story wouldn’t let me go and I knew I wanted to write it…but, I honestly had no idea where to even begin. I was living in New York at the time and started searching around for a class. I had read books but, ultimately, there is something about a class experience that is so much more fulfilling than any instructional book could every be. And something about Jake’s class caught my eye…it wasn’t about an end game, it was about the process. The class kept me on a weekly schedule that helped me get into the routine of writing. It’s just like going to the gym…you may not want to do it sometimes, but you have to exercise the muscles every day.
There were lots of exercises that I took from class that helped me get “unstuck” when I came to a crossroads. But, honestly, the biggest takeaways for me were:
1. Turn off the editor side of my brain and just write – It can feel impossible, but it is essential to actually being able to write.
2. It’s a marathon, not a sprint…don’t set yourself up to fail – Writing a little each day is much easier than writing everything all at once. Sitting down and saying, “I’m going to write for 4 hours today,” for me, was just asking for failure. Sitting down and saying, “I’m going to write 4 pages,” or “I’m going to write for 20 minutes,” was much more manageable. If I wrote more, awesome…but, if not, that was okay too. If you set the bar too high, you could find yourself easily discouraged.
3. Seven act structure – I appreciated Jake’s approach to form and breaking down the script further than the traditional 3 act structure. Again, it makes the script and story much more manageable and, ultimately, allows you to focus on characters and story rather than getting lost in 45 – 60 pages of a “second act.”
JK: How did you go about producing your own work?
JT: Both my wife and I are actors, first and foremost. As an actor in this business, you can spend a lot of time waiting by the phone for someone to call you and say you get to do the thing you want to do. And, even then, it’s often brief. This was really about taking control of the career and telling a story that we wanted to tell. we had both produced theatre in the past, but this was our first foray into filmmaking.
Prior to moving to L.A., I spent six years in New York working as the Associate Director of the National Comedy Theatre and also produced a successful run of the musical Love Jerry at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. My wife was working as the Director of Operations at a Haitian non-profit and had also produced a play that she wrote (touring New York, Los Angeles and Florida). Had we known what we were getting into when we decided to produce a film, I don’t know that we would’ve done it…then again, that’s life, isn’t it.
We read as many books, case studies, interviews as we could and surrounded ourselves with a team of people who knew the things that we didn’t know. And we were never afraid to ask questions.
JK: How did you arrange financing and distribution?
JT: Our project began with a very successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2011. After that, we initially were headed down the traditional route of finding investors but found that, in the current economy, getting people to invest in an independent film with no stars attached was going to be extremely difficult. Even though we had a cause and a subject that folks would rally behind, independent film is an inherently risky proposition and we just weren’t able to connect the dots.
We had reached out pretty early to the Alzheimer’s Association, West Virginia Chapter because it was important for me, as a writer, to ensure that we were giving an accurate depiction of the disease. As the partnership grew, we realized that there may be something in working with them on multiple levels. They came on board as our fiscal agents, which allowed us to apply for grants, sponsorship and take donations to raise the money needed to make it happen. Though we didn’t get all the way there, this provided us with a significant portion of our budget. Partnerships with other local WV organizations like the NRAO, Snowshoe Ski Resort and the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau helped us slash our costs in housing and equipment and tax incentives through the WV Film Office helped us to pay for post production and distribution.
In terms of our approach to distribution, we initially imagined going to festival route to drum up interest and press but, as we looked at the landscape of what is currently being programmed at festivals, we realized pretty quickly that we were not a great fit. The great thing about being a filmmaker right now are the tools that are developing that allow us to get our film to an audience. Through our partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association and a fan base that we’ve been developing for the last 3 years working on this product, we’re utilizing a new service called Tugg that empowers our audience to bring the film to their town!
People can go on our website and request a screening. They become the promoter and, through social networks and word of mouth, gather an audience to come to a one night only event. We provide them with posters, postcards, social images, press releases and whatever else they might need and work with them to ensure the success of the screening. So, really, we are crowdsourcing our theatrical distribution which is incredible. We’ve had about 25 screenings so far, over half of them sold out, and we’ve got another 25+ on the books with more rolling in each week.
Beyond that, we aim to leverage the success of the screening series into a T.V./VOD deal.
JK: What advice do you have for other writers hoping to produce their own work?
JT: So many things! It all starts with the script…do not move forward until the you feel great about it.
Build a team of people who believe 100% that the project you are working on MUST HAPPEN! You are going to spend so much time and energy on this thing that there is no time for someone who isn’t on board.
Identify your audience and get them involved early. Obviously we built a following through Kickstarter but, beyond that, we’ve been talking to and building our audience from the very beginning of this project…and we got very specific about who that was so that we could target them early. It will be all the more important when you are finishing the project.
Constantly be thinking outside the box. Every day we were asking ourselves, “What if we tried this?”
Take great joy in the small successes, there will be times that it feels you aren’t moving the ball forward at all and you need to remember those moments. Much like Jake’s approach to screenwriting, breaking the project down into attainable tasks will help get it done, bit by bit.
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2013 was a great year for Heidi. A writer and photographer, she received two awards at NYC’s Soho Gallery for Digital Art and was featured in Art Bodega magazine. Heidi remains driven to reach new heights and recently completed her first documentary film, Dirty. Pretty. Things. The film can be viewed on her website. Dirty. Pretty. Things. combines Heidi’s words, stills and video, providing the viewer with a portrait of a mostly-unknown place, giving it life and meaning again.
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Turncoat: Prologue is the latest film conceived by Mav Block, a third-year student in the film program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. It is the first fifteen minutes of a feature-length concept.
Isaac plays the lead, Grey Matthews. To find out more about Isaac, check out his website.
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Find out more about Karin HERE.
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George Petersen’s short film “The Devil & Mrs. McGuire” was a finalist at the Fade In Awards. And his feature script, The Summer of Love, was a quarter finalist for the Shore Scripts Screenwriting Competition in London.
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Bill’s feature film, Quitter, had a successful week-long run at Regal Cinemas in NYC.
Here’s a short synopsis of the film:
When a failed baseball player’s ex-girlfriend moves back to the neighborhood with her seven-year-old daughter, he realizes he carries more regrets than how he handled his baseball career. What follows is his earnest, awkward, and at times hilarious fight to become the father he never was.
To find out more, click HERE
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Angela Page’s spec script for “Louie” (The One Percent) was a quarter finalist for the Final Draft Big Break Competition in the Television category.
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Carolyn Keating was one of 12 people accepted into Stony Brook Southampton’s Children’s Lit Fellow Program for Spring 2015.
She is planning to get the first book in her middle-grade trilogy ready for publication.
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Production on NightFire, an Action and Espionage Thriller, wrapped Jan 2015 in Verona, Italy. The feature film stars Dylan Baker (Spider 2 & 3) and was co-written by writer/director Los Silva.
Check out more of Los’s work HERE
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Raymond’s short film, Sid’s New Glasses, premiered in 2015.
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Laura is directing and producing Hilary Bettis’ The Iron Warehouse.
Here’s a short synopsis of the film:
For a widowed iron worker and her daughter, the cost of freedom came at a high price. They promised to never forget, but was it worth the sacrifice?
To find out more, click HERE
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Cafe Antoinette is about an independent, intelligent woman, and her journey through the mine fields of modern marriage, autonomy, and desire. It’s about the narratives that go on in our heads (some reliable, some not) and how every choice we make defines us for better or worse.
To learn more, check our Gina’s website.
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American Jesus is an exploration of Christianity in every faction of American Life, from the breadline to the yoga studio, from the humble churches of snake handlers to the mega churches in the ex-urbs. Find out more about Carles.
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Aimi’s screenplay, A Day in the Life of Who, follows a Korean-American photojournalism student who must confront her own troubled past when she inadvertently documents the last day of a homeless woman’s life.
This submission of this screenplay made Aimi a finalist for the 2015 CineStory fellowship. The CineStory fellow will receive 12-months of mentorship as well as a cash reward and admittance to the CineStory Writers’ Retreat.
We’re rooting for you, Aimi!
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American Titans premiered on American Heroes Channel (AHC), A Discovery Communications Channel, on Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 10pm EST.
The show is about the Titans of Industry: Rockefeller, Carnegie, Edison, Tesla, Hearst, and Pulitzer. Shawn and Brian were contributing writers on the premiere episode “Carnegie vs. Frick”.
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When a couple’s last wish is for the Woodstock Festival of 1969 to be recreated for their funeral, life long friends pull out their bell bottoms, beads, and marijuana and trek from New York City to Arizona. And, with the help of the younger generation, Woodstock is rediscovered.
Find out more about Taking Arizona and Jess Goldstein at Jeff’s website.
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Scream Box is a 10 minute short film about a trained opera singer who is stuck in an office job and takes one last stab at her dream. But she faces an unexpected obstacle before her final audition.
Katie not only wrote Scream Box, she also directed and produced it. Way to go, Katie!
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“Sabrina is a prime example of how hard work and dedication can bring about great things… She was able to attract the attention of two Artistic Directors and two Producers, not to mention four actors who have performed on Broadway to be a part of her reading…
The reading was very well received and I’m thrilled for her success. Let Sabrina be a lesson to us all that you can see your show come to life if you put the work in!…
And, through her outreach and networking after the reading, Sabrina has been able to secure an established Director to come on board for the Los Angeles production of Greyson Matters.” — Tony Award-winning Broadway Producer Ken Davenport
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