Script Frenzy

On Your Mark...Get Set...Write!

This year’s Script Frenzy—the screenwriter cousin of National Novel Writing Month—is in April. That’s right 30 days, 100 pages, and a completed screenplay at the Finish Line.

The point of Script Frenzy is productivity. The math is simple: If you write moving forward, with a page-count goal, you end up with a finished product. The website—Script Frenzy—offers message boards, announcements of local write-ins, resources, and other motivating fare.

Script Frenzy is a donation-funded nonprofit, and there is no fee to participate. The only prize, which is awarded to all who finish, is a Script Frenzy Winner's Certificate and web icon. The best prize? A completed screenplay. Whoo hoo!

According to the site, here are the 5 Basic Rules of Script Frenzy:

1. To be crowned an official Script Frenzy winner, you must write a script (or multiple scripts) of at least 100 total pages and verify this tally on ScriptFrenzy.org


2. You may write individually or in teams of two. Writer teams will have a 100-page total goal for their co-written script or scripts


3. Script writing may begin no earlier than 12:00:01 AM on April 1 and must cease no later than 11:59:59 PM on April 30, local time


4. You may write screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, comic book and graphic novel scripts, adaptations of novels, or any other type of script your heart desires


5. You must, at some point, have ridiculous amounts of fun

Stephanie Palmer Booksigning

Stephanie Palmer, author of Good in a Room: How To Sell Yourself and Your Ideas and Win Over Any Audience, was beaming as she signed books at The Grove in Los Angeles Tuesday night. The crowd of about 50 friends and fans came out to support her first book, and learned a little bit more about taking meetings in the process.

According to Palmer, some of the classic mistakes people make during meetings are "saying too much, speaking too quickly, and asking for more than one thing."

Palmer, a former MGM executive who has taken more than 3,000 meetings with writers, directors, and producers, says "It would be ideal if great ideas sold themselves."

Since that is not often the case, Palmer developed a system to help people take better meetings, so they get the results they want. She started her company—Good in a Room—after she left MGM. She has since coached 12 Oscar winners, 5 Emmy winners, and numerous corporate executives, including Fortune 500 CEOs.

Palmer's book's purpose is to help more people gain access to this important information.

The best part of her job?

"To help someone with a fantastic idea bring their idea to life," Palmer says. "There's nothing better than that for me." For more information, go to The Writers Store.

2008 Cinema City International Film Festival

On Monday, March 10, the ballroom at the Century Park Hyatt sparkled. Soldiers, filmmakers, and supporters came out to honor the winners of the 2008 Cinema City International Film Festival, as they capped off their 2-day screening competition.

Cinema City is dedicated to supporting the next generation of independent filmmakers. Yet the festival was much more than that. The Gala served as a fundraiser for numerous burn foundations, and honored American Soldiers who have endured burn injuries while serving our country.

Final Draft was pleased to sponsor the award for Best TV Pilot Script. Our winner, Liz Alper, who wrote Wheat in Chicago, was absolutely ecstatic.

"I feel like I'm on top of the world," she said. "I have a gold statuette that tells me I can go out and do anything."

Wheat in Chicago is the story of two brothers who went to Chicago during the Great Depression to make a better life, and wound up getting seduced by the gangs.

"The heart of the story," Alper says, "is based on a relationship I had with a friend, who was a role model for me."

The friend has since passed away, and Alper dedicated her award to him. Alper knows her journey as a writer is just beginning.

Congratulations to all the 2008 Cinema City International Film Festival Winners:

Best TV Movie Script - Watching Closely

Best TV Pilot Script - Wheat in Chicago

Best TV Short Form Pilot - The Volt

Best TV Pilot - Loving the InLaws

Special TV Pilot Diversity Award - The New Americans

Best Music Video - Siempre Pude Ver

Best Commercial - Too Many

Student Filmmaker Award - Marcus Clarke

Audience Award - A tie between Gunmen and Undoing Time

For more information, go to Cinema City International Film Festival

Hollywood's Big Night

The Oscars® were really a free for all, tonight … with a few exceptions.

Best Picture and Best Director went to No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen), as did the award for Adapted Screenplay. Best Supporting Actor went to Javier Bardem for the film. No shock there. Ditto for Best Actor winner Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; the film also won Best Cinematography.

Best Actress went to Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose (which also won for Best Makeup) and Best Supporting Actress was Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton (the film’s only major award).

Best Original Screenplay went to Juno’s Diablo Cody, who won Best First Screenplay at Film Independent’s Spirit Awards. Cody, who was cool and excited on Saturday, looked totally blown away by her Sunday win.

Once beat out three songs from Enchanted and one from August Rush, winning the Oscar for Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly," music and lyrics by the film’s stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. (Once took home the Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film the day before.)

Austria’s The Counterfeiters won the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film, and Taxi to the Dark Side took home Best Documentary. Ratatouille won Best Animated Film and Atonement took the award for Best Score. Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street won for Best Art Direction, The Golden Compass won for Visual Effects, and the award for Costume Design went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

The Bourne Ultimatum was full of surprises: it won Best Editing (which usually goes to Best Picture), as well as awards for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

For a complete list of Academy Award winners, go to Oscar.com. For a complete list of Spirit Award Winners, go to Spirit Awards.com.

Turn on Friday Night Lights

NBC’s Friday Night Lights was one of the best new shows last season. And tonight marks the last pre-strike episode of the show, perhaps the last ep of the season, and possible the series finale. Since the ratings were not that great—even with brand new episodes airing against less than stellar strike-fare—season three seems unlikely. (I am still hopeful, as those rose-colored glasses block out a lot of drudge.)

If you haven’t caught this prime-time football drama that’s more about the people affected by the game in small-town Dillon, Texas, than football itself, you are missing out. Friday Night Lights, filmed in TX, is shot more like a feature film than a TV program. The acting is superb—if the plot lines tend to be a bit melodramatic. And even the most fanatical, annoying character at the beginning of the show’s run (Buddy Garrity, I’m talking about you) has become endearing. Meanwhile, the most stable—Matt Saracen—has totally lost it after being tested one too many times. Lucky for Matt, Coach is watching out for him.

Check out FNL before the lights go out for good.

Christmas in January?

You have to hand it to House (Tuesdays on FOX). Who else could pull off doing a Christmas episode nearly a month into the new year? With House scoring the primo post-Super Bowl spot this Sunday, it was only natural the network would pull the fresh ep from the end of last year and put it in a position to promote Feb 3rd's Super Stunt-casted ep with Mira Sorvino (the original proposed Super Ep was postponed, as it apparently still needed rewrites, and therefore was not ready to film, at the time the writers went on strike). Holiday disorientation aside, I'll take a good new episode of House any time of year, no matter how badly the episode is timed in relation to real life. It is, after all, just television. Right?

Decisions, Decisions

The Oscar® nominations just came out last week, and I have already seen three of the Best Picture nominees: Atonement, Juno, and There Will Be Blood. Usually I find myself playing catch-up after the announcements. Given my good foresight, I wonder if I should rush to go see one of the other must-see films--Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men. Or, since I am so far ahead of schedule, if I should say the heck with it, and go see Cloverfield, which is getting excellent reviews, though the likelihood of it making next year's ballot is somewhere between slim and none. (Come on. I am not being harsh. No one releases a movie in January that they think will be the next Great American Movie.) Will let you know what I think of Cloverfield.