Finished a Script for a Horror Contest

I decided to enter a Horror Movie script contest. I thought it was time to see how my work could fair against a sea of Horror lovers.

So, I came up with, "Smoke"

SMOKE 

A quiet weekend becomes a bloody fight for survival as demons attack a small college campus. 

It’s Die Hard on a College Campus with Demons 

It’s Fall Break at Waltham College and Kevin Dunn couldn’t be happier. He’s planned an awesome date weekend, filled with video games and double pepperoni pizzas. However across the campus, an ancient evil has been unleashed! Foul creatures who hunt their prey through thick green mist.  Now Kevin’s romantic evening becomes a bloody supernatural nightmare as he and a small band of students fight to survive the night!

In this script, Kevin is gay and he's doing everything possible to save his date who's trapped on the top floor of residence hall. It my ode to 80s Horror films that were completely creative and over the top. I'm posting it on Saturday. 

Gay Male Writer Life Problems

I'm in a dilemma, y'all. For a couple of years, I've been thinking about going back for a 2nd masters for Writing for TV/Film. However, my former professor and writer John August said that grad school in Cinema is not necessary.

Both of them said the Writing program is a chance to focus on your writing and get some scripts under your belt. Well, I've already done that through my summer classes. I've wrote 1 film, 2 TV pilots, 4 shorts and 1 short film. I have some contacts and access to film equipment too. So, I think I'm somewhat ready.

Last week, I talked to one of my old professors about school. He told me that I should just go for it. He said that grad school's an excuse for writers to stall, but the best education is actually getting out there. I asked him if I was ready and he said, "No one is truly ready, you just have to make it happen."

Fast Forward a couple of days later. I (randomly) ran into an old classmate, Dedi, who was taking a couple classes at UCLA. Dedi decided to just take classes and avoid grad school. Her classes were helping her fine tune her craft and her classmates were awesome. She also told me to get out there and join her in this scary journey.

After that run-in, I was all over the place. I realized I have the tools, I have the skills and... I'm stalling. I mean, I will still take classes, but I have to get my pretty ass out there. I know a few folks and I'm a good persuader, so I need to do this. I know I need to and what better way to learn the business, right?

I'm going to put myself out there and do it. I have to, I got to.

So, here it goes. The game begins.

Get Ready for... IT the Feature Film

You remember IT. The Stephen King masterpiece and later a mini-series in the 90s.

Well, it's about to be a feature film. The screenwriter, David Kajganich talked about the progress.

When I heard Warner Bros. was going to give the novel a go theatrically, I went after the job hard. I knew the studio was committed to adapting IT as a single film, so I went back and reread the novel to see if I thought this was even possible, and to try to find a structure that would accommodate such a large number of characters in two different time periods, around 120 pages, which was another of the studio�s stipulations.

and..

In all of my talks with the studio, it has only ever been discussed as a single feature film. The book's length is clearly more suited to a mini-series�and I understand very well why they went that route the last time around�but I think the book�s content is really more appropriate for cinema. I told the studio from the beginning that I felt I needed to be able to write for an R rating, since I wanted to be as candid as the novel about the terrible things the characters go through as kids. They agreed and off I went.

I hope he can pull it off, IT is no joke. I wish him luck.

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The 1-2 Punch of KICK-ASS, comes to X-Men

X-Men: First Class will more 'Kick-Ass' scenes thanks to the new screenwriter, Jane Goldman.

When Matthew Vaughn was announced as director of X-Men: First Class, you wouldn’t have been errant in guessing that this news would quickly follow. Vaughn and Jane Goldman worked closely together on Stardust and Kick-Ass, so it was logical to guess that she might contribute to First Class as well. Indeed, we’re now hearing that Goldman will work on the script for the X-Men prequel.

The news comes via Goldman’s husband, Jonathan Ross, who said on Twitter, “The wife is away writing X Men 4,” which he later followed with “Also, for those who need to know, my wife IS currently writing X men First Class. It’s just referred to as X men 4 around the house…”

I was pleased with Kick-Ass, so I trust she will hold it down.

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Michael Dougherty's vision for X-Men 3

I should let go, but I can't especially when X2 and Trick R Treat screenwriter (and cutie) Michael Dougherty talks about his ideas he suggested to Bryan Singer for the X3.

"You found out was that Phoenix was going round the world taking things into her own hands and that she had basically returned as a god, which they did in X3. She had viewed herself as above the conflict, that she was here to end things on her terms, she was sick of the fighting and she was going to take things into her own hands and she did not give a s**t what the X-Men or the Brotherhood had to say about it.

"And ultimately the way it was going to end, at least the version I was pushing for, would be that Phoenix was kind of like the Starchild at the end of 2001, she didn't just get stabbed and die again, but she kind of chose to leave.

"The one idea that I loved, that I really wanted to do, was that Cyclops would build the Danger Room. He felt guilty that because the X-Men were too weak, they weren't strong enough or fast enough, that was the reason Jean died. If they were a ittle bit better at fighting, then she might still be alive. It was all about this guilt he had about her death and he built the Danger Room to train them to be better. In the end it really was about him not being able to let go of her and that causes the chaos and disruption in the movie and in the end it's about him letting her go.

"Ultimately she kind of becomes that cosmic force that Phoenix is known to be, she leaves Earth and becomes a god, or at least a higher level of intelligence, and she goes into the cosmos possibly to kick-start life somewhere else. The final scene for me would have been her telling Cyclops or her telling the X-Men 'I'll be watching.'"

He said Phoenix eventually realised her new-found abilities were causing chaos and destruction but could be used for creating life instead.

Dougherty added: "I would love to have done a huge mythic film that sets up it up for even more stories."

Interesting, what do you think?