August is Scriptwriting Month — Day 01

Day #1!

Filmmakers and wannabes…we here at Wired4Film have fielded a LAWT of questions about Scriptwriting, screenplays and mostly how to break into the industry.  So much so, that we’ve decided to make August 2011 Scriptwriting Month.  The WHOLE month.  We’re gonna talk about the ins and outs the screenwriting craft, conduct interviews with experts and all in all fill your curious noggins with Screenplay knowledge and lore.

AUGUST 2011 = Scriptwriting Month

Where are you at in the process?  Trying to find a good idea?  Trying to navigate the sea of Act II?  Polishing a rough draft?  Getting a Production house to buy your script?  Finding an Agent?  Maybe you’re a Producer wanting to find a good script.  I’m telling you, if you stick with us, by September, you will have WRITTEN AND SOLD YOUR FIRST SCRIPT!  Okay, not really.  Puh-lease!  These things take time, Filmmakers!  Don’t believe anyone if they feed you that instant success line.  There’s no such thing as a sure thing.  But, what I can guarantee is that your writing process, your craftsmanship, your salesmanship will become more informed if you keep up!

ScreenwritingMasterClass.com

To start, Wired4Film has partnered with ScreenwritingMasterClass.com on a special deal.  For the Month of August, any class you enroll in and mention Wired4Film, you will receive a 10% discount (CODE: Discount10).  Why?  Because step 1 of the writing process is getting hooked up with a Screenplay Sherpa to guide you along the perilous route of self-discovery and writerly wit and wisdom.

Yes, I highly recommend all the screenwriting books by Syd Field and Robert McKee, etc etc etc but in the end, they won’t talk back to you.  Taking a screenwriting class from someone who has actual screen credits to their name is gold, baby.  So do consider that.

The ScreenwritingMasterClass.com is taught by Tom Benedek and Scott Myers.  Click their names to see their IMDb resumes.  And remember, that those are their published credits.  I know for a fact that Scott was contracted on over 20 Feature film scripts that never saw the greenlight o’ day.  Just part of the biz.  He still got paid, though.

Website: ScreenwritingMasterClass.com
Discount Code: Discount10

Here’s some info from their website.

We are professional screenwriters: Both longtime members of the Writers’ Guild of America, we have worked as writers in the entertainment business for a combined five decades, having written over fifty film and TV projects including the hit movies Cocoon and K-9.

We are professional educators: Tom and I have been teaching since 2002: Tom at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and in the MFA program at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts; I have taught through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, winning their Outstanding Instructor Award in 2005, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

We have sold spec scripts: Tom wrote and sold the original script Zeus and Roxanne which MGM produced.  I wrote and sold the original screenplay K-9 which Universal produced.  Together we have written seven spec scripts which have been optioned or sold.  Moreover I doubt there is anybody who teaches screenwriting who knows more about the spec script market than we do because we have followed it daily for twenty-five years.

We know how the movie business works: The spec script market, pitching, working with managers and agents, producers, studio executives, directors, actors, writing and rewriting, generating and developing story concepts, tracking trends — there is a ton to know in order to survive and thrive in the movie business. Based on our decades of professional experience, Tom and I understand that business, and share our insights with Screenwriting Master Class participants.

Last week I talked to Scott about the classes to ask how they were going.  He had this to say:

Screenwriting Master Class has been a big success. I’ve written perhaps 300 pages of lectures since January and worked with perhaps 60 different writers either in our public online classes or private script workshops. Looks like one of the latter is going to sign with a big Hollywood manager based on a script I mentored him through. And I’ve got high hopes for another who is already a best-selling non-fiction author.

So, that’s exciting.  But even if you’re not interested in their classes, I advise you to bookmark Scott’s Screenwriting Blog with this warning…it’s the equivalent of drinking from a fire hose.  So get ready to get soaked…academically speaking.  So much information in one place.  You should go to there:

Go Into the Story

There you go, filmmakers!  And are you ready for your first homework assignment?  Good!  Remember as kids, your neighbor Johnny would say, “You’re a goo-faced booger butt!” and you would smile calmly and yell back, “It takes one to know one!”  Okay, maybe that only happened in my neighborhood.  But, that was a valuable screenwriting lesson for us.  It DOES take one to know one.  Meaning, it takes a good Script to know a good script.

That’s what our 14 Days of Screenplays challenge by Scott Myers is all about.  Reading the works of the masters in order to identify good writing and perceive great storytelling.  Take a look.  Be inspired.

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Priest Fights Gangs With ‘Boundless Compassion’

With 3 or 4 Jesus movies clogging up the Christian Film pipeline, I can tell we’re in need of some fresh film ideas.  Wired4Film is only happy to oblige with this very unique, non-bible-drama, non-end-times-drama story that came through the NPR newswire.

It centers around a Priest who has counseled over 12,000 gang members over the last 20 years through his Homeboy Industries Ministry in the City of Angels.

(EXCERPT)  Homeboy Industries is the largest gang-intervention program in the country, serving the needs of thousands of East Los Angeles gang members who are looking for a way to leave the streets behind. Its motto is: “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” For the past 20 years, the Rev. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who started Homeboy, has mentored and counseled the more than 12,000 gang members who pass through Homeboy each year to learn job skills, get their gang tattoos removed and attend therapy sessions on everything from alcohol abuse to anger management.

Rev. Gregory Boyle, Homeboy Industries of Los Angeles

In the past three years, Boyle explains, Homeboy moved to a new headquarters to provide more room for the five businesses it runs for ex-gang members. In that time, Homeboy quadrupled the number of people it serves. Now, the operation is in severe financial trouble. On May 14, Boyle had to lay off most of the employees working at Homeboy. He has stopped taking a paycheck.

“We’ve been in trouble since November,” Boyle tells Terry Gross. “We sort of publicly announced and we got from November to here. But what we really needed was that $5 million cushion when we moved to our new headquarters three years ago to really factor that in. We built the building and … suddenly, we didn’t double the people we served. We quadrupled the people we served. The place was packed and the recession only added to the need and the fact that we’re the only game in town. There is no other place that people go to, so it was hard and we sort of needed an angel and we didn’t get it.”

Boyle recently published a memoir, Tattoos on the Heart, which recounts his decision to leave his position at the Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles in 1992 to focus on helping ex-gang members find jobs. He says that he looks at his position as a calling.

“I don’t save people. God saves people. I can point them in the right direction. I can say, ‘There’s that door. I think if you walked through it, you’d be happier than you are.’ “

What are you waiting for?  Go find yourself a good producer, option the rights to the story and then hire a professional scriptwriter!  This story is gold!  It could be the next “Chariots of Fire”!

Oh, and one more thing.  Make it a comedy.  There is PLENTY of mushy gushy heartwearming stuff and gang violence and themes like that in this story to weigh it down emotionally.  So you’re going to have to balance it out with laughs.

Also, do NOT even think about putting Erik Estrada in this film.  I personally will graffiti your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life when St. Pete’s not looking.

You can read the FULL STORY HERE at NPR.org

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