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 listed there among the winners. I even started writing a sequel, tentatively titled either "Jilted Reloaded" or "Jilted Full Throttle"--I couldn't decide which. Anyway, you can just imagine my disappointment when "Jilted" wasn't on the list. Might as well put off work on the rest of the series till I sell the intial installment, I guess.
I do have another script idea, though. It's a story about Vikings--not the football team, but the actual Vikings. If nothing else, I could come up with something better than "The Vikings" with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. For one thing, I'd insist on appropriate casting. Tony Curtis--great accent--I guess he was supposed to be from the lower east side of Scandinavia. The only good thing about that movie--they didn't wear those helmets with the horns on them. I hate those. I don't think Vikings actually wore them, and, in any case, they look really silly.
If my fellow SG members have any script ideas, I'd love to hear them. Don't worry, if I use them, I'll give you credit.
jg1453@yahoo.com
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 listed there among the winners. I even started writing a sequel, tentatively titled either "Jilted Reloaded" or "Jilted Full Throttle"--I couldn't decide which. Anyway, you can just imagine my disappointment when "Jilted" wasn't on the list. Might as well put off work on the rest of the series till I sell the intial installment, I guess.
I do have another script idea, though. It's a story about Vikings--not the football team, but the actual Vikings. If nothing else, I could come up with something better than "The Vikings" with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. For one thing, I'd insist on appropriate casting. Tony Curtis--great accent--I guess he was supposed to be from the lower east side of Scandinavia. The only good thing about that movie--they didn't wear those helmets with the horns on them. I hate those. I don't think Vikings actually wore them, and, in any case, they look really silly.
If my fellow SG members have any script ideas, I'd love to hear them. Don't worry, if I use them, I'll give you credit.
jg1453@yahoo.com
"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]