I haven't written a journal entry in a while, since I've been busy working on a new script, a variation on the Pygmalion and Galatea story.
In Ovid's version, Pygamalion is a confirmed bachelor, misogynist, and sculptor. One day, he starts carving a statue of a woman. He keeps carving it, perfecting it, till it is more beautiful than any woman, or statue of a...
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In Ovid's version, Pygamalion is a confirmed bachelor, misogynist, and sculptor. One day, he starts carving a statue of a woman. He keeps carving it, perfecting it, till it is more beautiful than any woman, or statue of a...
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I'm giving up on screenplay contests. I have submissions in three contests now: Scriptpalooza, Scr(i)pt Magazine, and Slamdance. At least with Slamdance, they send you a coverage (the reader's screenplay analysis). In any case, if I'm not a winner or runner-up in any of those, I'm just going to pursue a screenwriting career the old-fashioned way--by contacting agents an producers directly.
I've also decided to...
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I've also decided to...
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VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
sgmonotony:
Where the heck is heck. It was funny, i was reading your journal and 420 says you are cute. If you remember , when i first met you , you told me folks said you were cute and I didnt believe you!
I had to witness it , no I am a believer. Maybe you should go back to your old nickname. and heck,
update your journal , please?
I had to witness it , no I am a believer. Maybe you should go back to your old nickname. and heck,
update your journal , please?
belllla:
Seriously. 
I wrote Kelly (the object of my unrequited love), telling her about my script and the character I based on her. I ended my missive by asking her to write back to let me know if she wanted to see the script. Well, she didn't write back. I sent her the script, anyway. All I can say is I hope she reads it, especially the...
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sgmonotony:
You inspired me. I saw in our high school alumni magazine that the father of my high school passion had died.
I didnt know her married name. Was able to find her sister in CA. Her sister has a very unique name. My passion is on a YEARLONG sailing trip "with her family".
The sister didnt have address at work. would email when she gets home. Get this she thinks her sister is in Bermuda.
I imagine I will never hear from her either.
Apparently we have longer memories than our lady friends.
This must be a phase, it has to be a phase. HAHA
I agree with you calling is just a slap. If she wanted to contact you at all email would get it done.
BUT if you want to be shamed into never thinking about this again , call her. Dan
You inspired me. I saw in our high school alumni magazine that the father of my high school passion had died.
I didnt know her married name. Was able to find her sister in CA. Her sister has a very unique name. My passion is on a YEARLONG sailing trip "with her family".
The sister didnt have address at work. would email when she gets home. Get this she thinks her sister is in Bermuda.
I imagine I will never hear from her either.
Apparently we have longer memories than our lady friends.
This must be a phase, it has to be a phase. HAHA
I agree with you calling is just a slap. If she wanted to contact you at all email would get it done.
BUT if you want to be shamed into never thinking about this again , call her. Dan
sgmonotony:
Hey , I destroyed my profile the other night.
Could I add you back as a friend
Im trying to put it back together
Could I add you back as a friend
Im trying to put it back together
I e-mailed Kelly, the woman who's the real-life basis for Eva Jane (the rejector) in my script "JILTED." I hope she doesn't die of shock, since I haven't seen her or spoken to her since 1987! Knowing that she's a lawyer in Los Angeles, I took the liberty of looking her up on Martindale Hubble's online attorney directory. There was an e-mail link right there...
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belllla:
Okay, so you really need to update, cuz I'm dying to hear if you've heard back from her!!! 
I'm thinking about entering yet another screenplay contest. I'm not sure, though, that contests are a good way of selling a script. I mean, so many people enter these contests today that the readers are overburdened. By the time they get to your script, the umteenth one they've read, it's unlikely they'll have much enthusiam for reading it.
It reminds me of when I was...
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It reminds me of when I was...
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Saint Patrick's Day is coming up, which has me thinking: Why is it that no other saint days are celebrated with parades and day-long drinking binges? You know, there are plenty of saints credited with the Christianization of their countries--like the saints from the Scandinavian countries. There's no parade for, say, Saint Olaf's Day. Maybe there is in Scandinavia. I don't know. My guess is...
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VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
sydfloyd:
They should have St. Geronimo Day. He was the patron saint of teaching white people their lesson. Except you don't get pinched for not wearing green: you get a foot broken off in your ass for not being Indian.
Even King David had his downfalls. And he was "a man after God's own heart." Whether you like a president or not, our jobs as citizens is to pray that he makes the right choices.
Even King David had his downfalls. And he was "a man after God's own heart." Whether you like a president or not, our jobs as citizens is to pray that he makes the right choices.
cynicminded:
hey thanx for your post on beatman. check the board for a response.
I let a couple of people read my screenplay "Jilted", and, while they both liked parts of it, they felt that the script, as a whole, didn't work. One reader criticized the script for not "fitting into a solid enough category" and for containing too little fiction and too many "actual facts." The other reader, who seems to have thought the script fit the category...
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deceptiviewfilm:
As a fellow writer, two things i've learned....You will never please everyone. 2) You cant justify your work for everyone, they will get it or not.
If its helpful great if its not well fine too. And also think to yourself are you too close to the source material.
If its helpful great if its not well fine too. And also think to yourself are you too close to the source material.
sydfloyd:
Update your journal dude!
Super Bowl Sunday, American Zoetrope on its web site, www.zoetrope.com, announced the results of its First Annual Screenplay Contest. Somehow the judges overlooked my script "Jilted," an unrequited love story set in a first year law school class.
I was so confident of winning that I told everyone, for weeks ahead of time, to check the web site that day, since my script would be...
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I was so confident of winning that I told everyone, for weeks ahead of time, to check the web site that day, since my script would be...
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hecklongtree:
I let a couple of people read my screenplay "Jilted", and, while they both liked parts of it, they felt that the script as a whole didn't work. One reader criticized the script for not "fitting into a solid enough category" and for containing too many "actual facts" and not enough fiction. The other reader, who seems to have thought the script fit the category "romantic comedy," criticized the story for failing to conform to the rules of that genre:"boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back." I'd like now to respond to these criticisms, criticisms which. I beleive, say more about the critics than they say about my work.
"Jilted" does fit a solid enough category, but that category is not "romantic comedy." Rather, it is the screenplay equivalent of a bildungsroman (novel of formation), recounting the formative experiences through which a young man comes to discover his true vocation. "Jilted" actually fits into a subset of that genre, the knstlerroman (from ein knstler, German for artist), in which the young man comes to discover his vocation as an artist.
In "Jilted," a young man, Jim Rudin, goes through a series of experiences involving rejection. Jim is "jilted" not only by a girl, but by his parents who won't accept him for who he is, an audience that is hostile to his standup act, and the law school that kicks him out (or the law, in general, if you want to look at it that way). He comes to terms with these experiences by writing about them and, in the process, comes to discover his true vocation: to be a screenwriter.
After leaving New York, going to Los Angeles, attending law school, and performing standup, Jim returns home. He gets his old job back, and moves back with his parents. Then , one day, he returns from work at his old job, goes to his old room, sits down at his old desk, and writes the screenplay for "Jilted." At this point Jim has a satori (Japanese, loosely translated, an insight).
Jim who has always listened to other poeple (his parents who wanted him to go to law school, the people who wanted him to change his standup act) is now able to shut other people out. At the very end, Jim gets in his car and, as his father continues to yell at him and tell him what to do, he rolls up the window, shutting out his father's voice, and heads out on his own with his screenplay on the passenger seat.
As to the charge that the screenplay contains too many actual facts, I plead nolo contendere (I will not contest it). I choose to draw on the facts of my life, rather than to rehash movies or other works of art. As to the more general charge, that my work does not conform to established dramatic rules, I will not contest that either.
In "Jilted," there is a scene in which a law school class is engaged in the discussion of a "case of first impression" (one for which there is no precedent in the court's jurisdiction). To reach its decision, the court drew on various sources including the Institutes of Justinian. Jim, perplexed as to why a 19 century American court needed to look to ancient Roman law to resolve a simple hunting dispute, asks the obvious but rather impertinent question: Why couldn't the court just come up with its own law? So I now ask, when it comes to screenwriting, why can't we just come up with our own rules?
I guess, what I'm saying is this: Listen to criticism and accept the criticm that makes sense to you. But, at a certain point, you have to shut other people out. At that point, you have to roll up your car window and head out on life's highway--alone.
[Edited on Feb 15, 2004 1:23AM]
"Jilted" does fit a solid enough category, but that category is not "romantic comedy." Rather, it is the screenplay equivalent of a bildungsroman (novel of formation), recounting the formative experiences through which a young man comes to discover his true vocation. "Jilted" actually fits into a subset of that genre, the knstlerroman (from ein knstler, German for artist), in which the young man comes to discover his vocation as an artist.
In "Jilted," a young man, Jim Rudin, goes through a series of experiences involving rejection. Jim is "jilted" not only by a girl, but by his parents who won't accept him for who he is, an audience that is hostile to his standup act, and the law school that kicks him out (or the law, in general, if you want to look at it that way). He comes to terms with these experiences by writing about them and, in the process, comes to discover his true vocation: to be a screenwriter.
After leaving New York, going to Los Angeles, attending law school, and performing standup, Jim returns home. He gets his old job back, and moves back with his parents. Then , one day, he returns from work at his old job, goes to his old room, sits down at his old desk, and writes the screenplay for "Jilted." At this point Jim has a satori (Japanese, loosely translated, an insight).
Jim who has always listened to other poeple (his parents who wanted him to go to law school, the people who wanted him to change his standup act) is now able to shut other people out. At the very end, Jim gets in his car and, as his father continues to yell at him and tell him what to do, he rolls up the window, shutting out his father's voice, and heads out on his own with his screenplay on the passenger seat.
As to the charge that the screenplay contains too many actual facts, I plead nolo contendere (I will not contest it). I choose to draw on the facts of my life, rather than to rehash movies or other works of art. As to the more general charge, that my work does not conform to established dramatic rules, I will not contest that either.
In "Jilted," there is a scene in which a law school class is engaged in the discussion of a "case of first impression" (one for which there is no precedent in the court's jurisdiction). To reach its decision, the court drew on various sources including the Institutes of Justinian. Jim, perplexed as to why a 19 century American court needed to look to ancient Roman law to resolve a simple hunting dispute, asks the obvious but rather impertinent question: Why couldn't the court just come up with its own law? So I now ask, when it comes to screenwriting, why can't we just come up with our own rules?
I guess, what I'm saying is this: Listen to criticism and accept the criticm that makes sense to you. But, at a certain point, you have to shut other people out. At that point, you have to roll up your car window and head out on life's highway--alone.
[Edited on Feb 15, 2004 1:23AM]
...read your post over in Regional Misfits and thought it would be neighborly to drop in on your page and chat you up.
You're a screenwriter, that's interesting 'cos I've been mulling over the idea of moving to Orlando to attend the Full Sail School of Film. I've always wanted to direct (man, that sounds dweebish). I think that I have some comedic writing skills, I'd hesitate to say I have any talent. I never attempted to write a screenplay before, the notion to do so has always intrigued me.
I see that you're also a fan of classic rock and roll, cool. Although you're not missing anything right now, perhaps you'd consider joining the Classic Rock SG group. We could certainly use more members with something intelligent and articulate to add to the discussions.
Well, that's it for now...
Oh, and if you don't already have enough SG Friends, please feel free to Add Me.
Peace