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Weekend Recap: Nominate me for Awards!

I am still sick, I have been sick for so so long.  I mean, I’m 87% better.  Which is to say I’m not totally exhausted but I’m still coughing and my nose is still icky.  I finished my course of antibiotics, so I’m guessing there’s nothing to do now but hope.

My posting is probably going to be erratic at best starting Tuesday — I’m going to be in South Carolina for a week.  I’m hoping to start getting some feelers for raising money there.

I was on set all weekend, shooting two different things.  I was script supervising the pilot for Alice and the Monster, which is from the same creative team as Gold: The Series, and then I “starred” in a makeover shoot from which I got a super cute dress that I wore to my company’s holiday party.  So, huzzah.

Also, you can nominate Gold: The Series and/or my editing of Gold for the Streamys.  They’re pushing for Gold to get Best Comedy and Best Ensemble.  Under individuals, you can nominate me for Best Editing, and you can nominate the super awesome Frederick Snyder for Best Director.  The site address is www.goldtheseries.com

That’s all for now!

Weekend Recap: Nominate me for Awards!

Bible Con: the rewrite

I’ve been sort of kind of rewriting Bible Con for the last two months, but I think I’ve had a breakthrough.

It’s a Mockumentary and has a lot of characters and a fair few balls in the air at any time, and the most consistent note I’ve gotten on it is that the conflict needs to be heightened and specified.  It’s tough, in an ensemble piece, to make sure that every character has a goal, flaws, and something stopping them from being happy.  It’s not that these things didn’t exist in the previous draft, but they are a bit murky.

So I’ve decided to completely rewrite one of the 6 main characters and make him, essentially, not a main character at all.  There’s a lot that’s going to be coming out of this draft, I’m a little worried it’s going to drop too many pages, but hopefully it’ll all balance out.

Bible Con: the rewrite

InkTip: 3 months in, first Script download

My script has been up on InkTip since the beginning of September.  Today, for the first time, it was downloaded.  The logline has come up in someone’s search 94 times, 34 of those hits were from LA Feature Film Academy.

Today someone at LA Feature Film Academy actually downloaded it.  Anyone know anything about them?

Other stats: My resume has been downloaded once, the synopsis three times, the script once.  Interestingly, though one person looked at the synopsis twice, no one’s looked at any two of those, let alone all three.

InkTip: 3 months in, first Script download

PitchQ: Highest rated of November; A winner is me

So, I guess I won this contest of the highest rated pitch of November on Pitch Q.  They didn’t alert me or anything, nor did I know I had comments, I just happened to go to the page and see my face all huge and pink on the front.  So… yay for me!

http://www.pitchq.com/?pitch/&4490

I also got a note that I cannot decipher.  I’ll assume it was useless.

PitchQ: Highest rated of November; A winner is me

3 weeks to Christmas

I wanted to have my rewrite of Bible Con and first draft of Dyke for a Day done by Thanksgiving.  I also wanted to have a business plan for the former ready for my trip to SC at Christmas.  You know, so I could sort of test the waters for raising the money there.  So new deadline, Dec. 22.  Except I’m working days, nights and weekends.

It would help if my health wasn’t undermining my energy and I was less easily distracted by QI, which is my new favorite thing in the universe.

In other news, I got my feedback from ScriptSavvy, and for the most part the notes are very good.  If you really want decent notes on your script, I would send off to them long before I did to Zoetrope or any other script contest.  My only complaint is that the notes have a tendency to talk down to the writer, as though they aren’t terribly bright and don’t know anything about screenwriting.  I’m sure this comes from an attempt to guess what you can assume the author knows.  They don’t appear to have a terribly high opinion.

I got a 48, which is about 5 points off an honorable mention score, and 7 off a win.  I guess that means a strong rewrite could be a winner.  One thing I really don’t like about the Nicholl is the complete lack of notes, even for the people who advance.  That’s true of many contests, but it’s definitely a flaw in the Nicholl and a strength of ScriptSavvy.

Go to 47:55 of this YouTube video to be incredibly impressed by Senator Parker of NY.

3 weeks to Christmas

ScriptSavvy: Delay

I submitted my script to ScriptSavvy way way back in October.  Like October 2nd.  It didn’t really occur to me that it could be 2 months before I heard anything from this monthly contest.  But they say worst case scenario, you find out by the last day of the month after you submit (Nov 30) and you should get your feedback/analysis before that.  Which meant that today I should have already have gotten my feedback and would hear the results.

Dear Ashley,

We had hoped that we could announce contest results on time in spite of the holiday, but it looks like Thanksgiving has put us a bit behind.

Those of you who ordered feedback or analysis will be receiving it in the next couple of days.

Results will be announced on the website before midnight on Wednesday December 2nd.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay. We are working very hard to make the announcement as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Donna White, Coordinator
www.ScriptSavvy.net

No real worries, but dern.  You know?  It’s fine, it’s a two day delay.  But still.  It’s not like they didn’t know Thanksgiving was going to happen.

ScriptSavvy: Delay

PitchQ Pitch; Will not acknowledge being embarrassed by my speaking voice

http://www.pitchq.com

If you go here, there is a little place that says GuestCode where you can put in the following: thx1138  This will take you to my pitch, which you can then watch and rate.

You can also mock my marginal public speaking skills and how weird the pitch of my voice is in real life versus how it sounds in my head.  I mean, you don’t know that, but trust me.  I will also not talk about how I blink one eye more than the other and talk about of one side of my mouth more than the other.  Because, you don’t care.

Also, check out the face I’m making in the still frame.

-_-;;
PitchQ Pitch; Will not acknowledge being embarrassed by my speaking voice

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming: Pitching, Zombies, Glee and Otters

So, I have actually had a good couple of days.  I had a pitch with PitchQ.  They’re a service that records your pitch and posts it online.  I submitted a pitch to a specific call and got to go in and record it without paying the usual fee on the website.  It was a really great experience.  The guy behind the service is really cool, supportive, and open about the process.  He says they accept about 2-3% of the pitches they receive, and then have about a 1% success rate.

He also said if you’ve written a zombie script, you’re in.  Which reminds me that I have that zombie idea that I keep meaning to write about.  It’s actually web series in my mind — but maybe I could Love Actually that thing up.

And I found out last week that I got a promotion — I’ll now be Lead AE on a full season of a reality show, which is exciting.  It won’t start until February, but it’s a decent raise, and an excellent job.  I’ll even get to edit the webisodes, which I am stoked about.  Because I have a strong attachment to the idea that the web is the new distribution method… as soon as it figures out how to do that.

I also watched the entire first season (so far) of Glee.  Which I love.  Like, I want to work on that show because it is everything I love: musical numbers, awkward high schoolers, comically over the top bad guys you love, and occasional really touching and honest moments.  Also, the gayness.  The only thing that would make it better would be otters.

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Programming: Pitching, Zombies, Glee and Otters

Eddie Kritzer Cont’d

His response to my email: “Which incorrect blog are you talking about?”

Boy does this say a lot.  I think he just saw my blog and sent me a blanket threatening e-mail that he sends all blogs that say bad things about him.  And there are quite a few*.  Which makes sense, since nothing in his e-mail actually applies to me or our discussions.  In other words, he saw a blog saying things about him and sent the e-mail without bothering to figure out what his behavior towards that person had been.

To be more specific: He never offered me notes on my story.  He asked for a $600 advance to just read it.  I told him that was against the WGA policy for Agents and Managers, and not something I was interested in.  I told him over e-mail and phone.  He called me again, and again I explained to him I was not interested.  So, telling him I was not interested did not end the phone calls.

As for credibility and credits, I’ll let his words speak for him.  And this page can speak for me.  Take whichever side makes more sense.

* Just do a Find search on Eddie Kritzer or Scam on any of these pages:

http://www.thoughts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1739

http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2005/02/youd_think_anyb.html

http://207.5.19.9/boards/showthread.php?t=40257

http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/archive/index.php/t-33766.html

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32362

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090608123451AA80wfq

http://www.writers.net/forum/read.php?f=10&t=1547&a=1&

Eddie Kritzer Cont’d