My Backup Plan and My Casting Post

Now that I’ve raved about the DFA, I do have one other admission… part of why I’ve been so busy this past month is that I am also applying for Ph.D programs in Literature, and Film. Before the horror sinks in that, despite my blog, I’m considering going back to school, I’ll explain my reasoning…

First of all, and in keeping with the No MFA philosophy, I decided a long time ago never to pay another dime for a degree. The vast majority of Ph.D. programs are fully funded, and I’m not applying to any programs that wouldn’t give me a free ride if accepted. Furthermore, I'm not applying to any Ph.D. programs that don't in some way tie into my goals. All the programs I've looked at, while they focus primarily on literature and writing, also give the option of a concentration in film/drama.

Second, my reasons for wanting a Ph.D., even though I’m trying to make it with my writing. Writing is still my dream and my goal, and I’m incredibly lucky in that I have this next half year or so to focus just on my writing and my dreams. But, as you all know, it’s a risky business. I’m going to be giving it my all and, hopefully, through the DFA, may even get freelance film work that could sustain me for however long I choose to go that route. However, if September rolls around and I still haven’t seen a lot of progress, I’d like to create other options for myself which could still give me a lifestyle that would allow me to pursue writing, while also offering more stability. My publishing job made it impossible to pursue anything else. A professor job, however, would make it fully possible to spend at least summers writing. You know the old saying, shoot for the moon because even if you miss you land among the stars? I’m shooting for a screenwriting career, but if I miss, I want a backup plan that, unlike my disastrous turn in publishing, gives me close proximity to the things I love and the flexibility to never stop pursuing the dream. For creative careers especially, I think it's important not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Now that you're all up-to-date on that, I want you to know that, as of this morning, I have put out my casting call for my short DFA film. I posted both on mandy.com, a good for-free site for all you student directors/producers out there, and also craigslist, even though the results from there are sometimes hit or miss. The Mandy post will be visible once approved, but in the meantime, here's the craigslist ad:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tlg/2770783294.html

Feel free to send any amazing actors you know my way. :)

Living and Loving the DFA

You’d think that since leaving my job, I’d have more time to be posting, wouldn’t you? Well, my classes at the DFA are only part of why I’ve been pretty short on time… the other part of the equation I’ll get to in a future post.

First, the DFA. Classes started on November 21^st and typically take up 9-12 hours per week. What can I say about this program except that I absolutely love it? The school is unlike any other I’ve experienced.

For starters, I’m one in a class of 4, which means a lot of participation and hands-on learning. We learn literally all aspects of the film business, rotating between screenwriting, producing, directing, camera equipment, and lighting. Also, we’ll soon be getting to sound and editing. The professors are absolutely packed with knowledge and load us up with industry tips and advice. What’s also a huge, huge bonus - my other classmates.

Everyone in the class is serious about learning all there is to know about filmmaking. Another student, like me, started out as a writer, and has a feature script he’s determined to shoot this summer. Being a small group, we’ve really bonded, and all plan to partner together on one project after the next. Soon, we’ll be into our ‘finals’ – and each one of us will need to complete a short film with our class as our crew. I think that, already, we all trust each other to help us all achieve great results.

Another great thing about the DFA is that, once enrolled, you have a year-long membership to use all their equipment, and they try to hook you up with freelance jobs you can complete on their premises. This is just icing on the cake.

One last note, to any of you considering taking courses like these, another student in the class had taken a similar program at the New York Film Academy, and warned that their classes are so stuffed with students that he didn't always even get into classes (which, even with being enrolled, might fill up before you get there.) It's also more money than the DFA. I strongly recommend the DFA!

Right now, I’m finalizing my script for my short film project and will be putting out a casting call within the next few days… can’t wait to keep you posted!

The Digital Film Academy

I mentioned it once before on this blog: the DFA (Digital Film Academy.) While searching for affordable film-making courses, I discovered they give one of the best for the money in New York City.

In particular, there’s a twelve-week course that covers all the basics of the craft and also grants the course-taker with one full year of access to editing, film, and sound equipment following ‘graduation.’ To top it off, there’s a career services center that will monitor students during this one year and hook them up with paying jobs. The price-tag on the 12-week, with one-year equipment access and career services help, is $3k, which, all things considered, I think is actually a pretty great deal (and a hell of a lot better than $100k!)

With my newfound freedom, I finally have the time and mental space to do something like this – and so I went for an admissions interview! The DFA was all a-buzz with excitement while I was there; one of their students had just won the New York International Film Festival this past weekend with the short he’d done during his stint in the12-week course. (Over the course of twelve weeks, all students complete a short film project (from writing through editing) which has been one of the big goals of my No MFA Project since the beginning.)

The next 12-week course starts on November 21^st, and I’m going to be a part of it. I registered at the end of my interview, after both meeting the very-impressive founder, Patrick (a true DIY-type who built his first theater with his own two hands back in the eighties, and whose theatre career eventually led him to film) and also viewing three surprisingly good student films.

As we watched the films and talked, Patrick made me think of things I hadn’t previously considered. For example: the importance of expression over dialogue, and how film-making isn’t just about mastering equipment, but also learning how to read faces and what the response in a human brain will be to certain facial expressions. I began to get the feeling that I’ll be learning about both film-making and people.

I QUIT!!!

There have been plenty of upheavals in my life lately. Surgery, getting married… and now the latest: I QUIT MY JOB!

This was not by any means an easy decision, especially in the current economy. But (aside from some unsettling things going on in the company) the knowledge that what I was doing had nothing to do with my hopes, goals, or passions started to become more and more difficult to ignore. My head would be filled with ideas, my heart would be filled with things I wanted to learn – but my days would be jammed with tedious tasks, all intended to make someone else rich while the years of my life just kept ticking by.

I had enough.

It certainly feels a little scary. My last day was November 1^st, and since then, I’ve definitely had a few moments of wondering whether or not it was the right choice. But, overwhelmingly, I feel that it was. And one clear thought keeps ringing through my mind: This will be the best thing that ever happened to me, because I will make it the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now I can see what happens to my MFA Project when I’m really able to give it all the time and effort it deserves. Which brings me to…

ONE MORE YEAR! I actually decided quite a while ago to keep the project rolling on for one more year. After all, MFA programs are typically 2 yrs, right? So why should mine be any different?

My New Baby

A quick post to proclaim my undying love for my new camera! (And, of course, for the husband who gave it to me.) Following our wonderful wedding, we left for our week-long honeymoon in Disney World (don’t knock it, we had an absolute blast). The first half of the week, I’ll confess, my new camera stayed in its packaging. We were too busy doing a delirious honeymoon circuit from beach to pool to spa to parks to room. Then, one morning, when my husband went off to work out (such discipline), I took the time to sit and study my new baby.

It. Is. Awesome. If anyone out there is considering buying a digital video camera, I highly recommend it. The high-def touch screen is incredible, with a picture that’s far sharper than I had dared to hope. The battery power is decent, although it doesn’t last for as many hours as they said on Amazon, which I’m going to look into further.

My mission now is to condense about two hours of honeymoon video down into four or five minutes of edited highlights, set to one of our favorite songs. It’s a great starter project, I think, for my amateur skills. I guess I’ll get a better sense of the sound and overall quality when I get to this step, and actually see what I’ve filmed up on a larger screen.

A lot of people have asked me if I’m sad now that the wedding is over. I thought I would be, but am pleasantly surprised to feel the exact opposite. I feel excited that, now the wedding came together and was an amazing day, I have the time and mental space to get re-focused on my goals and on shifting my life in a new direction. And to do it with a new last name. J

Cameras and Classes

Really, really exciting news! As you know, my wedding is coming up in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS (Sept. 10). I’m incredibly excited, especially now that I’m recovered from the surgery and have Hurricane Irene behind me.

As our nuptials grow ever closer, my fiancé and I have started to think about what we can give each other as wedding gifts; my absolutely incredible, generous, brilliant husband-to-be decided to give me a digital video camera, something I can use to learn about filmmaking.

We spent a few hours researching different cameras, trying to figure out what would be great for an amateur filmmaker, but still less expensive than the really high-quality cameras. We finally chose (drumroll):

The Canon VIXIA HF S30!

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-S30-Camcorder-SuperRange-Stabilizer/dp/B004HW7E0Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314632866&sr=8-1

The price was still a little high, but after cobbling together some coupons and promos (we are master couponers), we managed to get this camera for about half the price you’ll see on the above link, which is a great deal. Not only was this camera highly recommended on a few amateur filmmaker sites we found, but in comparing its reviews and description with other cameras in the same price-range, we saw that it can film way more hours of footage than others without having to cart around an extra battery (12), and it also makes incredible high-definition, quality video. The sound, a few people noted, may be problematic, but it also has a ‘mic’ jack for adding an external microphone which a reviewer said made the sound ‘amazing.’ The mic jack is a feature that less-expensive cameras are lacking.

All in all, I think it’s the best camera we could have found for the money, and I can’t wait to start using it. My first videos, of course, will be taken on our honeymoon. J

Now I just need to figure out what gift I could possibly get him that would be as amazing as this…

In other news, I’ve recently discovered the Digital Film Academy in NY:

http://www.digitalfilmacademy.com/

Still learning about this place, but they have a three-month digital film-making program that seems great, for about $3k. (Three three-hour classes a week.) This is a nice chunk of change (but obviously way better than a $100k mfa!) and seems to be a great value for the money compared to other workshops and programs I’ve seen. There’s a chance to view their students’ work on Sept. 21 for $5 – I plan to go and check out the quality.

And I'm Off...

…and running. I’ve officially started the new feature-length script, even as I’m wrapping up revisions on the first one. I’ve got nine pages down. Getting to hammer out my characters on the page, instead of in my mind, is helping the rest of the idea take shape.

Already, I’m catching myself leaning toward making this more of a scary script, even though the story as a whole is more drama than horror. Or maybe it’s just that, no matter what the serious subject matter, I tend to see the horror in it.

To be honest, I feel more thoroughly entertained when I watch horror than I typically do watching any other genre. There’s something about horror that I find makes it easier to be transported – maybe the way it keeps you totally on your toes; you’re more involved with a horror movie because, unlike lots of other movies, which you can watch passively, hoping for an effect, a horror movie quickens your pulse from the very beginning, because you just don’t know what it’s going to expose you to. People think it’s a cheaper form of entertainment, but I disagree – although, obviously, a lot of industry professionals cheapen it with lots of unnecessary boobs and gore, forgetting to create brilliant stories. Guess all genres do that, though.

It feels great to be off and running on a new script. Of course, I’m off in another way, too – still off from work, if you can believe it, and will be for another week! Here’s hoping to get lots of writing done.

Gift of Time

So I’ve now been with my parents in Pennsylvania for about three weeks, with two more to go, and yes, I did have surgery. I had originally hoped to be up and running in a mere two weeks, but then the surgery wound up being a bigger deal than we expected, and so on… It’s been a very surreal feeling, to not go into work, to just have, well… time. For the first time in years.

At least, that's how it feels this week. The first two weeks went by in a blur of pain and crazy mood swings, which I’ll continue to blame on the painkillers. This week, I’m off the painkillers, my thoughts are clearing up, I’m working a bit from home, and I’m feeling more and more like myself every day.

I know it’s off subject for the No MFA Project, but I never had a major surgery before, and I feel like I’ve learned so much from the experience about both the physical and psychological process of recovery. I learned quickly that small victories – the first time I was able to turn onto my side, the first time I could get my own juice, figuring out how to get out of bed without getting hurt, etc. – were really important. I encouraged myself by thinking that each day I’d tackle a new, small victory. I also learned the importance of constantly reminding myself to be tough, something I should probably do in my every day life, pain or no pain.

What’s on subject for the No MFA Project is that this experience has given me an idea for a new screenplay, one I very loosely outlined a couple days ago. (Gotta admit, this one has a bit of a horror flair, too – do you know how scary a surgery ward is at night? Screaming, rattling chains, the works – but it’s more of a drama than the first script, which I’ve been revising).

Also on subject is the fact I wrote a new short script two days ago. It was a piece I’d wanted to write for a long time: a script that is the exact length of a cross country race, and which, in the space of the race and very little dialogue, sheds light into the lives of the runners: their mindsets, their fears, and their (for better or worse) competitive spirits. (I ran cross country for a number of years, and writing this piece took me back to all those long-ago meets.)

When I first realized I’d have to take off so much more time than originally planned, I panicked. I actually burst into tears. But now, I’m taking the situation for what it can be at its best: a great opportunity to work on my writing.

You're Now a Broom

Writers have it tough. You can slave over a script, love it with every ethereal fiber of your soul – and then, as soon as it’s optioned and you’re thinking your life just got made, the studio or production company can take your precious baby and turn it into something unrecognizable.

Imagine a person you adore sitting across from you, you blink, and in their place is a broom. It’s a little like that.

Chris Keane, my former screenwriting teacher and present-day friend at Emerson College, knows all about this. Growing up, Chris had heard the story of his father’s crossing the Atlantic after World War 2. It meant something to him. It became a story that he felt destined to write.

On his father’s incredible journey home, there was a poker tournament. A ship full of men eager to leave war behind meant a ship full of men thinking about their future, and wanting it to be bright. The pot grew to over a million dollars (still a lot today, but imagine it in 1945), and the competition turned brutal. Think violence, cheating, and lots of sabotage.

Chris finally managed to capture the real-life story in a screenplay – both a fulfillment of a lifelong dream and an homage to his father – and to get the script optioned.

And then, the unthinkable.

The studio decided that, instead of a ship, they wanted a spaceship, and instead of poker… how about the ultimate X-Games? And World War 2 - forget it. Let's set this baby in the future!

You may have wondered from time to time how some movies get made, or how someone could have sold such a terrible script. Well, maybe the script wasn’t so terrible when they first sold it.

So what happened? Under option, Chris had no choice. He had to rewrite his script to meet the dubious new criteria. Every line he cut, every detail that had to be modified from gritty war ship to rocket in outer space, was painful. Luckily, the script was never filmed (no wonder), the option ran out, and now Chris has another chance to try and get his work to the big screen the way he intended it.

Do you know of any stories like this?

Revisions, Revisions... And Some Decisions

Sorry for the lengthy silence! A bit more on my prolonged absence below, but first I’ll just let you know that, yes, I have been working on my revisions.

Revisions are the most annoying part of the process to me, and sadly, they’re also one of the most important. Wouldn’t life be great if we could just sit down, bang it out, and have that be that?

Alas, this is rarely the case. But I’m happy to report that I think my first draft script was actually in far better shape than I thought while I was writing it. Sure, there were some typos, and, hilariously, one character’s name changed from Kate to Michelle about a third of the way in… but for the most part, it wasn’t too shabby.

I’ve been able to do my first-pass revision (fixing the typos, the messed up names, etc.), but now it’s time for the second, more difficult pass. This is the pass where I have to make decisions on overall themes and, also, on whether or not to include a certain twist at the end. This pass involves going through and tweaking all the details so they support said themes, or said twist. This pass is the annoying one.

The themes/key points are pretty solid in my mind, but figuring out whether or not to keep the twist is a little trickier. On one hand, who doesn’t love a good twist? On the other, I feel like it might cheapen the story a bit. It’s a horror flick, but I really am trying to say something about my generation’s psychological experience with work, and putting a twist in feels a little cheesy – but maybe that’s the kind of too-serious thinking that actually holds a person back when they're trying to do a commerical script. Maybe the best solution is to do one draft with the twist, one without, and then gather some opinions from readers.

AS AN ASIDE

Along with these decisions, there is one more I’ve made, which will partially explain the long gap since my last post. That is that I’ve decided to go a little easier on myself this summer, as much as I want to be 100% No MFA Project. (It is summer break from school, right?) Not to worry, I’ll still be revising, looking for the right NYC pitchfest, starting another script, trying to learn more about film-making, and posting all about it, but I’m also going to be cutting myself some slack, and here’s why:

1. I’m getting married in September (then again in India in November. Same person both times, don't worry!) Ever plan even one wedding? Enough said.

2. Nothing serious, but I may need to have surgery this summer, which will require some time to recuperate. While planning the weddings…

3. I’m supposed to be getting a promotion in July! We’ll see if this actually happens, but if it does, I’ll be handling the promotion, recuperating from surgery, and planning the weddings…

I think you see my point. But life is all about learning to balance, and the one thing I really, truly know about myself is that I have to find a way to balance it all with the writing, or I’m just not the same.

DONE!

It’s done. Today was my deadline to finish the first draft of my screenplay, and I’m thrilled to say I made this deadline (a good testament to the fact that a person can both hold down a job and find time to write, even if it is difficult!) It felt a bit surreal. After typing the final words, I sat in silence for a long moment, then got up, walked up behind my fiancé as he was doing laundry, and said “Stop, turn around, and congratulate me.”

Of course, the thing about writing is that, until a book is published or a screenplay is turned into a film, it isn’t really time to celebrate. It’s good to acknowledge the milestones – finishing the first draft and all – but then you still have to keep your head in the work. This is maybe why really being serious about writing is so daunting to so many. It’s an accomplishment to finish writing a piece – but there’s still so much work to do even after the initial writing part is done. This is where most writers give up - myself included, on past projects. My computer, desk, and the attic at my parents’ house are filled with first drafts I then was never motivated enough to revise or send out.

The thing about the No MFA Project, though, is that now, with a finished full-length script, it’s time to really get started with the most interesting parts of my ‘syllabus.’ Writing is only phase one to a writing career. Phase two (the much trickier phase, the phase that I would have hoped to achieve in an MFA program) is getting the writing out there.

May is going to be all about revision and also research - where to go from here.

I love the script. The final scenes turned out better than I’d anticipated. A few of the mid-way scenes are a bit blurry, though. There are things that need to be tighter, dialog that needs to be shortened. I feel I owe it to the work and myself to get it as polished as I can and then do all I can to get it out into the world.

If, up to this point, my project has been first-year MFA, it's time to get into second-year form. :)

Long Time, No Post

I know, I know. This was bad. Almost a month! Life has been crazy these past few weeks, but I’ve been making progress, I swear…

You’re maybe wondering whether or not I met my deadline of having the second act finished by April 1. Sadly, no. But it did get finished – on April 8^th. It was a bit longer than I’d anticipated. Now, I’m almost done the third act, and in fact, might be done even before my ultimate May 1^st deadline. If I really hit my stride, I might be done this weekend.

In May comes the tricky part – the revisions. But I have such faith in the story that I’m actually looking forward to the revisions this time around. I can’t wait to get this baby into shape so that I can move on to the next step in my project – trying out a pitchfest.

I now get the Final Draft newsletter, as well (courtesy of my Final Draft scriptwriting software), which is also loaded with advice about script consultants and the like… no idea yet if I’ll choose to go that route, but if I do, you’ll be the first to know.  :)

The Writing Group

My big adventure this week was going to my first writing group get-together! I was one of six women eating cheese, drinking wine, and talking about writing.

(Which eventually segwayed, somehow, into a huge discussion on online dating?)

I thought the girls in the group were fantastic. The host, Maria, is the former roommate of one of my former roommates, which is how we connected. Sitting in her envy-inducing apartment in the village, I learned that Maria’s working on a memoir about emigration from Russia. Another girl, Ally, submitted a piece about the drinking differences between her native Australia and the US. Priya is writing about her two grandfathers, and just returned from a book research trip to India. Still another girl, Stacey, is writing about her real life mis-adventures in the world of dating, which may soon include one stormy week spent at SXSW with a semi-ex-boyfriend who works as a rock poster artist.

Are you picking up on a theme? All non-fiction.

I hadn’t realized this when I submitted a piece to workshop, which was a totally fictional, somewhat violent story I wrote four years ago and promptly put away and never looked at again – until now. I think people were horrified when they first started to read, thinking it was real.

So it’s not a group that I’ll be bringing a script to anytime soon, but it was really valuable for a few reasons:

1. It’s important to have a circle of writers to talk to and exchange ideas with. Not only can they share stories about their own creative struggles, but they know how to critique creative work.
2. As for critiquing, they’re fantastic! I submitted a short story, not a script, but we still debated over dialogue – which is the core of script-writing. What’s more, since I don’t think a writer should really fall under ‘scriptwriter’ or ‘story writer,’ but rather, be able to use whatever form is best for the story she's telling, it’s good to workshop things in different styles. Short stories can eventually be written as scripts and vice versa.
3. After being out of school for a few years, a writing group is a great way to get back into a ‘school’ mindset. In creative writing schools, the process is much the same as in a writing group. People read your work, then offer praise and criticism. You start to learn to read their work in the same way – what works, what doesn't? You develop an awareness of how to improve writing and provide intelligent feedback, which will help you, too, in the long run.

We’re meeting again on April 27^th. This time, maybe I’ll do something I’ve only done a very few times before, most recently with Memoirs of Meanness – write some non-fiction.

When Inspiration Does/Does Not Strike

A word to the wise – when you’re feeling inspired, don’t stop!

Although, inevitably, there are going to be things that make you stop. Desperate need of sleep. Plans with friends and loved ones. The afore-mentioned day job. But when you really hit your stride and just get going, it is a magical experience – and one that’s not always easy to recreate a few days later.

This is what happened to me last week. I had the most amazing night of writing. I got completely sucked into my script, and rattled off about 12 pages with little to no effort. (I find that amount of pages is a bit harder to do when in the middle of a large project than if you have one strong idea and blast out one short, focused script.) I finally forced myself to stop – it was getting late, I knew I needed sleep – but I was so wired, it was impossible to sleep, anyway, and by the time I sat down to write again, the streak was gone. It took about a half hour of sifting through my notes, re-reading what I’d written before, and getting into the right mindset before I could start.

Part of being a writer, though, is also forcing yourself to do the work even when uninspired. Being able to pick up the voice even after you’ve dropped it. With this project, I’ve been forcing myself to do this more than at any point in the past, and it’s been good for me. Writing – to the point of completing a large project that no one is paying you to work on – is as much an act of intense discipline as it is anything else. Any good writer will tell you to make time for it every day if you ever hope to improve. Stephen King says it takes at least 4-6 hours a day to be any good (and FYI, SK, that’s literally all my free time in a day).

I feel that a big part of it is just developing such a steady writing routine that your mind begins to automatically shift into the right place when, say, the clock strikes 7. Setting an easy goal – say, two pages a day – is also helpful, since usually, with a script, I find you’ll go much beyond that, then feel like a champ. (A page a day when we're talking prose is probably good.) One other helpful tip I picked up while reading about Hemingway’s tactics earlier: stop writing mid-sentence so that the next day, you have an easy way of getting started, and of slipping right back into the voice you’d been using previously.

I’m curious, from all the other writers out there – what helps you stick to a writing routine, even when uninspired?

To Quit or Not to Quit

All creative types have probably at one point or another been faced with this question: should you quit your day job?

For two years, I worked as a freelance scriptwriter, in addition to being an adjunct English teacher at two universities in my home state of PA. I loved this time in my life. I spent a summer in Alaska while writing a script for a tour guide company, was flown out to New Mexico when a small production company filmed the ‘sizzle reel’ for a screenplay I’d written, and had weekly assignments churning out episodes for the web show Stock Rockets and the Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Access Asia (that last one never aired, but it was still a blast and provided me with many all-expenses paid weekends in NYC).

The problem? It wasn’t enough to make a living. (Or, at least, to make a decent living.)

Enter my day job, which is in international marketing for a publishing company. At least it’s tangentially related to books, but the sad sorry truth is that I feel like it pulls me further from my goals. I’m often there late (once until 1a.m.) and have been known to go in on a couple of Saturdays. Every so often I stop and wonder, what am I doing this for? The pay is low (publishing is notorious for this), the work is tedious, and it has nothing to do with writing.

There are pros to having a day job, though – beyond the benefits and steady pay:

1. It helps you learn more about business, which is crucial for creative people who might otherwise be clueless on this front. In my case, I now know all about publishing, which is good for a writer.

2. By extension, I have lots of contacts in publishing, so the next time I complete a manuscript, I know who to talk to.

3. A day job helps to keep you social. Many full-time writers are alone all day, having little to no contact with others, and as a result might be far more awkward when it is time to go network. (Also, you don’t want to contract “The Shining” syndrome and go crazy from all the solitude.)

I have the opportunity to teach again, starting mid-May, and it’s very tempting. I would have so much more time for my writing and the related projects that have started to spring up. (Extra tempting is the fact I’m getting married in September, which in and of itself is a bit stressful and going to require a lot of time in the summer.) I could go back to freelancing while I teach, this time with the added incentive of having done the 9-5 and not wanting to return. I could do this, and I bet it would be great.

But in the long run, is it smart?

First Quarter Evaluation

It’s been a full three months since starting the No MFA Project, so I thought it was as good a time as any to evaluate how things are going.

When I was in college, I had a professor who would grade in two ways…. The obvious way was on the overall quality of the work. The other was to look at how far the student had come. A paper might not be the best in the world, but if it was a 100% improvement over what the student had turned in at the beginning of the semester, the student could still get an A. I’m going to evaluate myself in both ways.

As for the quality of my writing, it has remained pretty much the same as it was when I first began this project. It’s good, it’s solid. For quality, I’d probably give it a B+. For improvement, I’d give it a D. I haven’t done much to push the quality of my writing beyond what it was – I’ve been more focused on just making sure that I actually AM writing to worry about taking it further. Don’t get me wrong, the sheer act of devoting time to writing is a big step, but this project is about becoming a sell-able scriptwriter, and to that end, I need to hone the writing so that it’s not just good, but great.

This first quarter was a lot about establishing the project and figuring out where to go from here. It was about learning new things, things I’d never done before, like sound editing. It was also about networking, meeting new people, and lining up new projects. Overall, I’ve met maybe ten people in the industry. I’m now going to be helping out on the web series ‘50 to Death’ and organizing the production and filming of Brooke’s short project ‘What Do You Care?’ I’ve reconnected with a Manhattan director who directed a small stage piece of mine last year to work on one of my scripts that he’ll be using for a short film, and I’m helping a friend to move her documentary project forward. For trying new things, meeting new people, and lining up projects, I would give this first quarter an A.

From here on, things will become more challenging. I’ll need to balance projects with making time to write and, most importantly, improve my writing. I’ll be going to writing groups and reading up on the craft. While the first quarter was about setting things up, the second will be about getting things done.

Act One = Done!

Yes! I’m very pleased and happy to say that I did in fact meet my deadline and, today, have finished act one of my new screenplay. As a memory-refresher, my aim is to complete one act a month, and have a finished script by May 1^st.

March is going to be the most difficult month. Screenplays follow a formula of three acts, and the first and third acts are each about 25% of the total. Act one sets up the story, and ends with the first major plot-driving event. Act two is the real meat of the piece, accounting for 50% of the total, and is where the story either develops successfully – or crashes and burns. It also ends with the second major plot point – the one that’s going to drive the story to its conclusion. Act three is all about reaching the grand finale and/or wrapping things up.

Screenplays should come in around 90-120 pages, so most ‘act ones’ are in the 22-30 page range. Mine has come in at 27 pages. Act two should be around 50-60 pages, so March is looking very writing-intensive.

Writing this first act has felt very good. I’ve written screenplays before, but working on any project always brings the same feelings of inspiration and purpose. Wrapping up this first act was particularly rewarding, since the way I first envisioned one character dramatically changed (for the better) earlier today. The change of this one character – from supportive boyfriend to just another stressful element pressuring our main character – helps the overall story to make a lot more sense, and the leading lady’s bad choices seem more realistic. Instead of there now being an element in the story that offers her ‘a way out,’ her struggles just got more intense, and the story just got better.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It’s been so long since I posted, but that’s actually a good thing, since instead of blogging, I’ve been networking! My life lately has been an explosion of meeting new people. 

At the center of most of these new people (bursting with creativity over cups of coffee and slices of pizza) is a short film project called “What Do We Care?” A concept of Brooke Allen’s, this is a piece that will be about 5-10 minutes when completed, and which shares some of his cutting edge philosophies on finance.

It’s also turning out to be the ultimate learning tool, since, to see the project completed, I’m organizing a group of these great, creative people I'm meeting who also want to learn more about film-making to tackle it with me. As we move forward, we’ll all be sharing with each other what we know (pretty much everyone knows at least a little bit about one area), and tackling one step at a time in this process until we have a finished product. By the time it’s over, our respective film-making knowledge will have (hopefully) doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled, depending on how much we each have to learn going in.

As for my own feature-length script (of which I set a deadline to be finished with the first act by March 1^st,) making the time for it has been a struggle. Ok, that’s putting it lightly – I’ve barely written a thing. But there’s still one whole weekend between me and March 1^st, and I’m determined, even if it’s a shoddy, pathetic first draft which will need countless revising, to finished that first draft by my deadline!

Met My First Deadline!

The first official deadline I set for myself was to be finished writing a treatment and a pitch for a screenplay by today, February 1st. And – success! Although the treatment I wound up writing was not the treatment I first set out to write… actually, the idea I had back on January 1^st, when I set the deadline, was for a romantic comedy. Now, here I am – with horror.

I’m something of a horror fanatic. I’m not talking about slasher flicks with zero plot. (When I saw the remake of Halloween, I was so disgusted and furious that I ran home to write an article about how much I hated it – which you can read HERE. I was determined to at least earn back the price of my movie ticket by selling my scathing review.) No, I love, LOVE horror movies that are smart, that secretly reference the things that really do scare us in our everyday lives through a clever story. Those have been the kind of scary scripts I’ve tried to write in the past, and, also, the kind of story I want to tell with this new script.

Time to set some more deadlines:

Complete two more versions of the pitch, for a total of three different angles: 
Feb. 16^th.

Finished first draft of script: May 1^st. (On that timeframe, I need to complete one act of a three-act screenplay per month.)

My spring semester is in full swing!

Meetings galore!

Meeting great new people has been the theme for this past week.

1. First, there was Elissa, who I originally met almost a year ago during a mass interview with Brooke Allen. In mind-blowing fashion, she had made the decision to pick up and pursue her dream the year before, by spending 6 months in India filming a documentary on a girls’ vocational school. Now, she has 25 hours of un-translated footage, and a burning desire to see her documentary completed.

            Being engaged to a native Hindi speaker, I brought Ajit (my fiancé) to our meeting. While 25 hours of translation was too huge a project for him to take on alone, we later got on the phone with Ajit’s mother in India, who recommended a Hindi institute she’s familiar with. The next step is to look into whether or not the folks there can help Elissa out. This, coupled with a few other folks that Elissa has helping to translate smaller chunks of the project, should help her to get the job done. Once we get Elissa squared away with translation, I’ll be helping her to edit her project, learning about documentary film-making and how it works, as opposed to feature films.

2. I also had a fascinating lunch with Brooke and three other folks that he’s working with: Sam, a girl about my age who has been involved with film-making all her life, and Norm and Joan, a dynamic acting couple.

Sam is fantastic. The daughter of a cinematographer who has worked on such documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth, she knows pretty much all there is to know about film-making. She’s also interested in doing a No MFA Project of her own, focusing on writing and philosophy. She’s very generously offered to help connect me with others in the film industry, to help me learn the things I want to learn, and I will be trying to help her with her writing. I feel like we could create sort of a co-No MFA Project support system, helping each other out along our paths.

As for Norm and Joan: Norm I recognized as the dad from a famous Citi Card commercial (you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xvUkHqEDX4). Together, Norm, Joan, and their friend Jon Freda formed the show “50 to Death.” (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=50todeath&aq=f). They’re interested in opening the development of the show up to a larger team, including people such as myself who want to learn about the total process of putting something like this together. (The show, btw, is absolutely delightful, and a great concept – and couldn’t have more charming stars.)

I’m incredibly excited about getting to know all of these people better, and to move forward on all of their/my respective projects. I feel this week has been a true testament to the number of fascinating, helpful people you can come into contact with – if you just ask! 

First-ever sound editing project - complete!

At last!

Managing time is one of the more difficult aspects of this project, as the past two weeks prove. Between crises at work (our shipper lost their TSA license), some frantic weekend wedding planning (I’m getting married next September, in Pennsylvania, which requires the occasional frenzied meeting-filled trip), and life in general, I finally managed to finish editing this file.

This has been a tremendous learning experience. Not just on the basics of sound editing, but myself. As I played and re-played the interview, the more I thought about how I would like to craft my answers in the future, and how I’d like to present myself. Likewise, I had the opportunity to closely listen and re-listen to the thoughts of Brooke Allen, a great mentor, and compare how he presents himself with how I present myself. One thing I noticed in particular is that he’s not afraid to pause and really collect his thoughts before speaking, something which denotes confidence. Since working on this file, I’ve realized that this is a confidence less experienced people lack. They, as I did at times in this conversation, rush to give answers, thinking that to pause will betray a lack of forethought.

Here now is a 26-minute, down-to-the-basics talk about the No MFA Project, where before there was a 65-minute, much less engaging one. More than that, through the advice Brooke offers during the conversation, there is a road map for my next steps, and the next steps of others doing No MFA projects of their own. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be calling out the items that I felt most important, and tackling them one by one.

For now, hope you enjoy - and feel free to leave feedback!

http://www.mediafire.com/?klav1n5vbkc18p9

AUDACITY

What I did: Downloaded Audacity Sound Editing software – for Free!

What I’m Learning: How to Edit Sound (and, by extension… how I sound)

A few weeks ago, I had a phone interview with Brooke Allen, founder of No Shortage of Work (http://www.noshortageofwork.com/) about my No MFA Project. A comment Brooke made last spring was actually the inspiration for this project. While discussing education and how overpriced degrees often wind up being a bad deal for the money, he mentioned that it would be interesting to see what someone who set out to get an education could do if they instead invested their money in gaining other real-life valuable experiences. Since I started the No MFA Project a little over a month ago, he has been full of useful suggestions for moving the project forward.

The idea that I edit our rough conversation and post it online as a sort of virtual radio interview was his – and, so far, it has been the most eye-opening mini-project I’ve undertaken within my larger No MFA Project.

To get started, I downloaded Audacity at http://gofree.com/download/Audio/Sounds/audacity.php?gclid=CO_fv9SLqaYCFUS8Kgod-RKgoA. (Word to the wise – this download won’t work for Macs. I had to borrow my fiance’s Toshiba to do this.)

This sound-editing software is incredibly easy to use. While the “help” feature could be more, well, helpful (it just shows you where the term you’ve searched appears on the menu, rather than explaining how to do something), it’s fairly easy to figure things out. Within moments of importing my audio file, I was editing.

An unexpected benefit of doing this has been getting to analyze how I come across in an interview. Even before it played over my headphones, I knew when I was about to say “Uuuummmm” because of the shape of the sound waves on my audio file. (My “umm” looks like a large cup tipped over on its side. I got really sick of seeing that cup.) I also realized that I have a tendency to repeat words while I formulate my thoughts. It was fascinating to dive into my own language, pick it apart, get annoyed with it, and learn how I’d like to change the way I talk.

Another interesting side benefit of this experience was getting to compare what it’s like to edit sound with what it’s like to edit writing. When what I needed to edit was in my ear instead of on a page in front of me, it required a different set of skills – sharper listening, better memory, and a sense of how something would unfold to a listener as opposed to a reader.

This all gave me the feel of being back in school, and of having my abilities stretched to accommodate new techniques. And - for free!

What started as 65 minutes of raw, unpolished talk is now approaching just 30 minutes of tighter, more interesting back-and-forth. It’s still a work in progress, but I’ll be posting the final results within the next few days for your listening pleasure!

Year of the Script Pitch

Happy New Year!

This is the time of year when everyone's planning for what lies ahead. For my part, I’ve spent this past week loading up on reading material to sharpen my scriptwriting skills (The Art of Dramatic Writing, Hero with 1000 Faces), submitted a script to a director friend looking to do a short project, and discovered a new resource for scriptwriters: the pitchfest.

Pitching scripts was the third thing I mentioned in an earlier blog post about what Tisch does for its students. It was also a skill I wanted to learn for myself, and now I’ve discovered that the perfect opportunity to do so already exists.

At events called pitchfests a writer (for a fee) can pitch her script to a number of industry professionals. Pitchfests range in scope, price, and exposure, but in each scenario, the writer can test-drive her pitches in the real world. If the pitch is in great shape, she might get an agent or a studio to pick up the script. If not, she might learn how to improve (or at least gain the awareness that she needs to improve).

Doing online research, I see there’s some debate over whether or not a pitchfest is a good thing. While the majority of what I’ve found suggests they’re good, I’ve also seen complaints that they’re stressful, that you usually pitch to an assistant instead of a producer or director, and that it’s not really fair to have to pay to pitch your work. However, dealing with stress is a must, and assistants are the people screening scripts 99.9999% of the time, anyway. As for the cost, the fee typically goes toward being part of the overall one or two-day conference in which the script pitching takes place, where writers can also attend seminars and networking events. Since some pitchfests are as cheap as $100, this is an experience that is a must-have on my list. So…

Time to get ready for a pitchfest!

This week, I’ve begun developing the storyline for the next feature length script I’m going to write. Once I have my finished treatment and a pitch I feel is adequate, I’ll be selecting which pitchfest I want to attend this spring.

Deadline for my finished script treatment and pitch: February 1^st.

To learn more about this, google pitchfests or visit:

http://www.scriptmag.com/2010/12/16/best-of-the-rest-pitchfests/

Here’s to 2011!