Month: October 2009

Nicholl: Responses from 2/8

Ashley F. Miller, , , 2 Comments

I sent the first act of Dyke for a Day out to the manager I’d been talking to before the Nicholl thing.  He probably won’t see it til Monday.

Two responses so far, neither of them surprising.  Mockumentaries aren’t for everyone.  Although I think it’d be pretty easily produced, I imagine it’s not something Hollywood is necessarily looking for.  Indie markets are different.  I’m excited that the manager liked the writing, but I guess I really need to get on getting D4aD finished.

1st: Thanks for sending this over, ultimately it wasn’t for me.

4th: Hey Ashley,

Hope all is well. Thanks for letting me have a chance to look over BIBLE-CON. Definitely a fun read. I’m a little on the fence about the material — as mockumentaries aren’t the easiest thing to set up around town. Regardless, I was impressed with the writing. I’d love to read more of your work. Do you have any other feature specs? How long til Dyke for a Day will be ready?

Fill me in.

—

My response:  Dyke for a Day will probably be finished in the next couple of weeks. I have a polished first act that I’m sending out to another manager who’s asked to see it, would you be interested in that or should I just get in touch when I’m finished with the entire draft? I also have my TV script if you’re just interested in further writing samples.

Mockumentaries are tough, they really work better in the indie feature world in terms of raising the capital for them; the nice thing is that it could be pretty low budget. I originally wrote it with the thought of trying to get investors behind it, but I decided I just didn’t have enough contacts and producing experience to do that on my own.

Thank you for reading it, and I’m glad you enjoyed the writing.

—

Definitely send me the script when it is finished – assuming you’re not repped by then.

Nicholl: Responses from 2/8
{advertisement}

Nicholl: OMFG! please SEND via email! thx!

Ashley F. Miller, , , , 4 Comments

4th:
Congrats on your achievement in the Nicholl Fellowship Competition!

Formerly a producer with *** and lit manager with ***, I now run my own mgmt/prod co. Currently, I have client specs with *** and others attached/packaging them. Representing writers from every top contest, I discovered former Nicholl’s quaterfinalist *** and set his project *** up at ***.

I would love to learn more about you. Has your material already been exposed to the industry? Please also let me know if your repped or looking? I’d love to hear about your fellowship script…as well as the loglines to any others you have.
—
I sent my logline, as well as the loglines for other things I have.  I explained that I’d sent out the script to a couple managers, agents and productions.
—
Hey Ashley,

Good to hear from you and congrats again. Wow — how did those other people get the list so early? It just came out today. Would love to see the script. Can you send me a pdf.

5th:
First, I would like to say huge congrats on your Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist placement!

My name is ***. I am a producer:*** I own a new production company by the name of ***. I was mentored by ***, who produced *** and *** among other films. I am simply seeking out great, well-executed scripts to option/purchase, attach elements to (directors and actors) and set up at the studios.

My company recently received the Nicholl semi-finalist contact list as we do every year and we would love to take a look at a logline or short description of your script. If it is something that is up our alley, we will request the script and read it for our consideration.

About *** Prods:
*** Prods has several projects in development and pre-production and one film in post-production, ***: ***. Three of our projects were discovered through The Nicholl Fellowships. *** and *** are attached to star in our quirky comedy, Academy Award-winning director of *** and the *** franchise, *** is directing our biopic based on the life of ***, *** is attached to play the lead in our horror/thriller and three other projects we are producing with *** at *** Films.

We are looking forward to taking a look! Please send loglines or short descriptions in the body of the e-mail; no attachments please.
—
I sent my logline
—
OMFG!
please SEND via email!
thx!

6th:
Congrats on placing in the Semifinals! We’d love to read your script. Our company has found a lot of clients in the Nicholls and we’ve helped them achieve great success.

If you’re not familiar with us, please go to our website (***) and check us out. You’ll find our submission form attached so please feel free to reply with a PDF.

Congratulations again and look forward to hearing from you.

7th:
Hi Ashley,

I’m sure you’re getting bombarded with email, so I hope this finds you well. I’m with ***, a writer-driven company based at *** Pictures.

We’ve heard great things about your script ‘Bible Con’ and would love to read it – we’re always interested in finding new material to produce and discovering new voices to work with.

Who knows if they heard anything at all, but it’s a classy touch to put my name and the script’s name in there.

I’ve also gotten an e-mail that I have yet to respond to because I can’t find any reputable info on the company and their contract makes me nervous.  Has anyone heard anything on Abbot Management?

8th:
Hey Ashley F. Miller,

Congratulations on being a Semifinalist in 2009 Nicholl Fellowships.  As you know, this is quite an accomplishment.

My name is Tim Lambert and I am writing from Abbot Management, a Literary Management company.

It is our hope that if you do not already have representation that you will send us ‘Bible Con or another one of your scripts via our submission form. www.abbotmanagement.com/screenplaysubmission.php.

We offer traditional representation and are also launching our “Buyers Login” which is further discussed on our website.

We never charge a writer a penny unless we are 100% directly responsible for the sale and welcome all of our writers to pursue alternate routes of selling their material. We also share our coverage with the screenwriter free of cost regardless of our decision.

If you decide to submit, please let me know so I can skip the queue and move your material directly into the needing coverage basket.

Nicholl: OMFG! please SEND via email! thx!

Strange Dreams: Zombies, The Civil War, Count Olaf, and Obama’s Nobel Prize

Ashley F. Miller, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

From last night:

1. Zombies were attacking and every time anyone felt under the weather they had to be chained up outside on the roof until it was clear that they were not turning into Zombies.  I blame F for showing me Plants vs Zombies.

2. I was writing a paper for a history class in High School where my old student teacher who is now married to my step-cousin, Mary Leslie, was the teacher.  I was writing a really long involved thing on how the conflicting policies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and their actions in divorcing the British Government and forming their own led to the Civil War.  If this is in any way true, I have no idea, but it sounds interesting.

3. I shot Count Olaf and planted his fingerprints on the gun to save the Baudelaire children.  They came to live with me in California.  This is strange because I haven’t even read all those Series of Unfortunate Events books.

4. This turned out not to be a dream, but I thought it was when I woke up.  The zombie dream woke me up and I felt really terrible — nauseous — so I looked at my email on my phone.  I had an email from HuffPo about Obama winning the peace prize.  That didn’t make any sense, because I’ve never gotten email from HuffPo and also what?  When I woke up I decided it was a dream that sort of made sense that it would happen some day if he ever managed to end the war on gays, drugs, health, Afghanistan, and/or Iraq.  But then it wasn’t a dream, and I was confused, because he hasn’t done any of that.

Actually, I feel a bit sorry for Obama.  He already had enough pressure on him, this is just adding to it.  It’s politically sort of not that great for him because he’s got nothing he can really point to and be like “Yes, look at what I did!”  I think we treat him like a man who can do a lot more than the system allows him to.  In reality, decisions are made by a bunch of assholes in Congress who play to their bases instead of the good of the country.

We’re currently occupying and waging wars in two separate Muslim countries and making clear we reserve the “right” to attack a third.  Someone who made meaningful changes to those realities would truly be a man of peace.  It’s unreasonable to expect that Obama would magically transform all of this in nine months, and he certainly hasn’t.  Instead, he presides over it and is continuing much of it.  One can reasonably debate how much blame he merits for all of that, but there are simply no meaningful “peace” accomplishment in his record — at least not yet — and there’s plenty of the opposite.  That’s what makes this Prize so painfully and self-evidently ludicrous.  – Glenn Greenwald

Strange Dreams: Zombies, The Civil War, Count Olaf, and Obama’s Nobel Prize

Good and Bad; They want to read my script, hopefully I won’t vomit!

Ashley F. Miller, , , , 9 Comments

Good:
1. Email from very legitimate and known lit management company:

Congrats on placing in the Semi’s of the Nicholl Fellowship! I’ve actually judged plenty of screenplay contest before so just placing in the semis is a wonderful accomplishment, so again, congrats!!!

I’m a literary manager at *** we rep some of the hottest up and coming screenwriters and directors and I’d love to read your screenplay!

If you could email me a PDF, I’d love a chance to read your material!

2. E-mail from Legitimate Production Company

Thank you for submitting your script. We would like to read your screenplay. You can e-mail us a PDF or Final Draft file if you’d like.

My name is ***. I work with Producer *** who has a first-look deal at Warner Bros. And I also co-founded a company called *** Productions. ***’ has done various web-series and commercials. *** recently got private funding to make our first feature film. Thus, we are on the search for an undiscovered script that is affordable and marketable.

We understand the time and hard work that goes into writing a screenplay and only hold the up-most respect for writers. Thank you for being open to share your story with us.

3. Email from production company I’ve actually heard of and didn’t have to google:

Congrats on your success in the Nicholl Fellowship!  I am travelling , but I work at *** Entertainment, a management and production company in Beverly Hills.  I’d love to take a look at your script and will try and respond as quickly as possible .  Please include a logline.

Bad:
1. Nausea. Even though I finished the course of Antibiotics days ago, I’m nauseous all the time. I got caught in Dodgers traffic last night and the stop and go… Yeah, when traffic makes you vomit, you gotta reconsider the wisdom of life in LA.

2.a. The Internet is Filled with Assholes. I am implementing a new policy on my site which is that if you say something off-topic and/or stupidly mean and confrontational, I’m just going to delete the comment. Trolls are mildly entertaining, but not worth the effort. And if you really want to post something I imagine you can make sure it’s within the bounds of civilized discourse. (Exceptions obviously made for things I think are really funny.)  But this means no more people saying that gays are gross and no more people leaving vaguely threatening comments on unrelated posts.

2.b. The Internet is Filled with Assholes. Once my 30 days on this script are up, I don’t know that I’m going to use Zoetrope again. The community has a lot of good things, and I’ve certainly gotten some useful thoughts, but it’s probably best for people who don’t mind others being really confrontational and juvenile. (“You’re really immature, nener nener nener.” “Insert video of a clapping seal.” No really.)  Every thread on their discussion board devolves into name calling and even the private messages involve people being just as hateful as they are helpful.  “Sorry, I read a few pages and I was bored so I stopped.  Good luck.”  Yeah, I’d pretty much rather get advice from people who don’t have the internet to anonymize their asshattery.

Good and Bad; They want to read my script, hopefully I won’t vomit!

Female Filmmakers; Women Directors

Ashley F. Miller, , , , 1 Comment

There’s an interesting article over at Film School Rejects which basically lists about a hundred films directed by women.  Now, I do appreciate that there are not very many women directors, or at least, not a lot of successful ones, but I do think that it’s useful to look at the entire field of filmmaking.  After all, directing is just one part of the puzzle — movies are written, edited, produced, and a million other things.  Even movies with leading females aren’t that common.  Statistics from San Diego State University.  Last Year (2008):

  • Only 6 of the top 50 grossing films (12 of the top 100 films) starred or were focused on women.
  • Women comprised 9% of all directors.
  • Women accounted for 12% of writers.
  • Women comprised 16% of all executive producers.
  • Women accounted for 23% of all producers.
  • Women accounted for 17% of all editors.
  • Women accounted for 25% of production managers.
  • Women comprised 44% of production supervisors.
  • Women accounted for 20% of all production designers working on the top 250 films.
  • Women comprised 5% of sound designers.
  • Women accounted for 5% of supervising sound editors working on the top 250 films.
  • Women comprised 1% of key grips.
  • Women accounted for 1% of gaffers working on the top 250 films of 2008.

Even film critics are overwhelmingly male:

In Fall 2007, men penned 70% and women 30% of all reviews.  Furthermore, of the newspapers featuring film reviews, 47% had no reviews written by women critics, writers or freelancers. In contrast, only 12% had no reviews written by men critics, writers or freelancers.

So what do I have to offer as a way to remedy this?  Not much.  There are some resources out there, but you usually have to pay money to join.  Or else they’re just not updated that often.

Go and be depressed now.

http://www.allianceofwomendirectors.org/

http://www.wif.org/

http://blog.moviesbywomen.com/

Female Filmmakers; Women Directors

Zoetrope: Thoughts

Ashley F. Miller, , 1 Comment

I have now read and reviewed two scripts on this site and I was impressed.  They’re not great scripts, but they’ve got potential.  And they are so much better than the crap I was stuck reading when I read for development.  (With the exception of the Gumby script, that shit rocked!)

I read a fantasy idea that had a lot of problems but it was actually tonally quite nice and had very evocative imagery.  If this author does a second draft, I will be excited to read it.  And I read a piece that was Top Gun meets Taken, with a female lead… tonally it was all over the place, but the quality of the writing itself (the prose and dialogue) was really quite good.

I was pleasantly surprised having read… well just awful awful screenplays from writers that had representation that got their work into my hands.

Bible Con hasn’t gotten any reviews yet, but it’s got 14 reads.

Grraaah
Grraaah
Zoetrope: Thoughts

First Act: One person officially liked it

Ashley F. Miller, , , , , Leave a comment

Woo!

Minor adjustments and it may be ready to ship off!  I’m still waiting on one reader to send their thoughts, but it’s always so exciting the first time someone reads something you’ve written.

I also signed up for Zoetrope.com where I put up Bible Con to get thoughts.  I have to review 4 other scripts to read it, but hopefully I’ll be able to do that by the time anyone actually reviews it.

First Act: One person officially liked it

Nicholl Debacle: A PM from Facebook

Ashley F. Miller, 3 Comments

Ashley,

I just read your blog and wanted you to know I had a similar experience. I am 2009 semi.

I got the same three emails and wrote to Greg Beal for an accounting. It’s a monumental screw-up that slammed 84 other semi-finalists.  First of all, they’re not the most gracious folks over there… except if you’re a fellow.

With that said, the response you got on the phone was just plain rude and inconsiderate.

When I mentioned to Greg that perhaps one monumental computer error might also indicate another…as in the calculation of semi-finalist script scores. He quickly wrote back saying he was sorry I felt a fraud had been perpetrated upon me. I never used the word fraud. I was however implying incompetence.

He quickly shifted blame to an unnamed database supplier.

The response of course was inadequate for what happened to all of us. Beal and staff were last week scrambling to cover their butts. I’m sure they’re still working extra hard to hide this mess.

Hang in there. I feel your pain.

—

I’ll not post their name, as I’ve no permission to do so.

It’s frustrating, I was shocked at the phone call, especially because Greg Beal seems so open and on top of things.  He is always gracious in e-mails.  I don’t know who the woman was but I was, well, embarrassed for them that they’d hired someone so clearly unable to manage the phone calls the mistake was getting them.

I don’t feel like I was mistreated intentionally, and I think that’s important.  I do think that these hiccups do happen when an organization makes the switch to a computerized system, though it’s shocking it took them til 2009 to do so.  I got an apology, and while that isn’t quite satisfactory, I’m trying to be understanding and just accept it as a mistake that affected a whole lot of people, myself included.  I’ll still apply to the Nicholl next year, if I’m still eligible.  So I guess that speaks volumes.

Nicholl Debacle: A PM from Facebook

First Act: Complete

Ashley F. Miller, , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

First acts are probably the easiest. And I write short anyway. This one clocks in at exactly 22 pages, written in just over a week. 9 days coming out to over 2 pages a day, though that’s certainly not how it was written. 12 last weekend, 10 this weekend. Nothing like my 15 page a day peek last summer, but then, I have a full time job and several part time gigs.

I am going to polish it up and send it to the manager guy sometime this week. Although it’s a first draft kind of, it’s not really.

I first wrote out the idea as a short film, which I shot 2 summers ago. Then, last summer, I wrote out a 4 page treatment and character profiles. And then, last fall, I did 40 index card outline. And then I hand wrote it the last month. So the typed version is not really a first draft, but it still feels fresh, new and exciting.

Hopefully I can get some feedback before I send it off to more judgmental eyes.
—
Tomorrow, the editor starts on the show I’m working on. I’m hoping to get to know him at least somewhat.

Sometime this week I need to meet with the actress whose reel I’m working on. She has some notes on it. Unfortunately, for what she’s paying me, I can’t afford to spend much more time on it, so hopefully when we meet this week we’ll be able to put it to bed.

I also need to finish this assembly/rough of the short I got last weekend. I’m about halfway through, but I wanted to be done tonight.

I also wanted to have the pilot for this web series written. I just need to sit down and bang something out, even if it’s crap, to get it off my plate. I’m just having a hard time drumming up enthusiasm for a 3 page script. It’s so little to work with.

The web series that I worked on and was going to post supervise and edit isn’t going to be happening. The deal they were getting was just unmanageable, which is a shame.
—
I have no idea what I’ll be doing as a job come Nov. 2. I spent the day e-mailing back and forth with my G.G.Aunt Margaret. I’m learning a lot about my family history and it’s all very cool and strange at the same time.

Tonight was the last night of my antibiotics for my weird strep, which the doctor thinks may be the cause of my severe fatigue and dizziness. Thank God, because I’m having to really focus on keeping it down. Nothing like knowing you can’t throw up because you’ll lose your medication.
—
Obviously I’m still a bit bummed on the Nicholl Snafu but I’m excited that there are possibly going to be phone calls this week. I really should have busted my ass to get a new draft of Bible Con done, but who knows, I may have gotten rid of whatever made it SF material.

And their cock up (sorry, too much Gordon Ramsay) was good in the sense that I broke 200 visitors in a day by posting it. And I discovered a few new screenwriting resources because message boards linked to me and sent traffic my way. DoneDeal and Zoetrope, if anyone is curious. I’ve never been much a part of the online screenwriting community because I know so many writers in the flesh, but it could be a cool avenue.

And if I haven’t said it before, Greg Beal is a class act — he’s everywhere online apologizing, explaining, and taking people’s thoughts into consideration. I’m really impressed with him. Now, if he could get some different people working the phones…

First Act: Complete

Tales from the way out there wierdness that is my life

Ashley F. Miller, Leave a comment

My Great Great Aunt just friended me on facebook. I’ve never met this woman, never heard of her, never knew she existed. She saw my picture on someone else’s friends list and asked who I was because I looked so much like my grandmother, her niece, Cleo.

I never met Cleo, who died when my mom younger than I am now. Mom never had many pictures — Cleo’s death left her an orphan, so I don’t really know what Cleo looked like other than she had red hair in a bob. Mom’s grandparents, who I only know as Pa and MeMa, died when I was young.

MeMa would be this woman’s sister. Pa died 3 days after I was born, having been asked to stay alive long enough for my mom to get in the car and drive her newborn the 8 hours to meet him. He met me and died the next day. MeMa I knew when I was very little, but I don’t have any memories of her. She was the only grandparent I ever had, and she was my great grandmother.

So today I was surprised to find out that, no, no grandparents, but yes, a great great aunt. And I was also surprised to find out I look like Cleo. I find it cool that I look so much like her that, though I was an apparent stranger, this 84 year old woman asked about me. And I find it cool because she’s like ancient history that I know nothing about yet am connected to.

Tales from the way out there wierdness that is my life