Cole Nominated for 10 Leos

The Leo Award (British Columbia's film and TV awards) have given Cole 10 nominations! Congratulations to Richard, Kandyse, Rebecca, Sonja, Chad, Carl, Mark, Clinton, Irene, Jason, Kimani & Dylan for your nominations... And congratulations to all of us for the Best Picture nomination. Woot!

Read list of Leo nominees here.

The Black Hole in the Kitchen

Four years ago I wrote a short script called 'The Black Hole in the Kitchen" that was performed at the Cold Reading Series in Vancouver. It was the first time in my life that something I had written was performed by other people-- the rush of seeing it live made me realize that being a real writer might actually be possible.

Elliot Eustis, my friend since we were 8 years old (ask us about our first short we filmed when we were 14: "Huntin' City Folk"), just handed me the finished DVD for "The Black Hole in the Kitchen" and I couldn't be more proud. Look for it soon at a film festival near you.

Triggerstreet

I just wanted to pass along a link to Triggerstreet.com in case any writers (screenwriters or otherwise) have not heard about it... for some reason, it's tough to find on a Google search when looking for peer reviews:

Triggerstreet.com is a fantastic site to post your screenplays and other writings. It's a peer review site where you review randomly selected scripts and in turn, your script is randomly reviewed. There are a few other sites like Triggerstreet out there, but if you're looking for a wide variety of honest feedback (for free) this is the site.

Happy writing (and reviewing).

Shawshank: A Scene of Hope

So I'm trying something a little different tonight. I'm about halfway through a new feature script, about to start a spec short for the brilliant Mike McLaughlin, director of my short film "Sleepless," and felt like I was getting into a rut...

I needed hope. I needed some Johnny Cash and the Shawshank Redemption. I listened to Walk the Line and then remembered that I had written a script at VFS supposing that Shawshank needed another scene. The assignment? Hope and nothing but. I dug up the scene and that is posted below in the *hope* that inspiration springs eternal.

A disclaimer here that these pages are now four years old and that I was not really a co-writer on probably the best movie of the '90s.

Shaw Shank

Movies I Wish I Had Time to Write

It took 3.8 years from writing the first page of Cole and to its took to premier in Toronto. I supposed that timeframe is pretty normal (unless you are Carl Bessai, who is a creative-talent-driven-filmmaking-maniac, which is the biggest compliment I can think of at the moment), and usually it takes even longer from idea conception to big screen showcase. Take Deathbed: The Bed Who Eats for example. It was shot in Detroit in 1973 and didn't have its official release until 2003...

Anyway, that being said, here is a brief list of movies I would love to write, but probably will never have the time to finish:

1. Something about astronauts.

NASA astronauts mainly just sit around the office, attend meeting after endless meeting, and give talks to local elementary schools. There's got to be a movie in there somewhere, maybe a Jarhead meets Bad Santa pic?

My favorite movie astronauts: Sam Rockwell in Moon, Dave in 2001, and the entire cast from Danny Boyle's Sunshine (which is an amazing film definitely worth Netflixing).

2. A movie about making movies.

I would love to try this, but don't know if I know enough about the process yet. I think a movie about a film school student or fresh out of film school director trying to make a (short) film about zombies would be great. Or... what about a movie the guy who does trailer voiceovers?

My favorites movies about making movies: Adaptation, State and Main, 8 1/2
My favorite trailers: A Serious Man (seriously, that thing is a masterpiece... the movie is pretty boss too), Where the Wild Things Are, Deathbed: The Bed Who Eats

3. A movie about a supervillain

So we've all seen Spiderman, Batman, and Superman, but what about a feature film dedicated to the rise and fall of Electro or Bizarro Superman? How interesting would their stories be, and how fun would it be to try and make the audience fall in love with an eventual supervillain?

My favorite supervillains: Can't beat Heath and/or Jack's Jokers.

Starting a New Script

So I actually made the bold move of plotting out notecards on a corkboard today to outline a new script idea. Starting a new project is like embarking on a survival mission, a mssion that require a lot of puzzle pieces to fit into place. From my limited experience, here is what you need when you begin work on creating a screenplay:

• A good idea.
• A great story.
• Better characters.

When you have those in order, you can go from the meta to the concrete:

1. A corkboard.
2. A stack of notecards.
3. Thumbtacks.
   
4. Pens of three different colors.
5. A pot of Silver Cup Coffee.
6. A six pack of a microbrew in the fridge.
7. An ipod with a playlist of about 300 background songs which will bring out some kind of empathy/emotion while you work (for me, a huge mix includes, but is not limited to, Chad Van Gaalen, Leonard Cohen, La Roux, Explosions in the Sky, and Al Green).
8. A copy of Blake Snyder's Save the Cat on hand.
9. An inspirational photo/poster on the wall (for me, Bo Jackson circa 1988 hitting a home run).
10. A quick link to the Hero's Journey wikipedia page.
    
11. Good luck.
    

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