Lately, I've had a few projects, one being my short little 8 minute macabre horror film, The Rapping (an homage to Edgar Allen Poe and sorry, not Rap music). Here's the trailer as I've submitted it to several film festivals.
I have also produced a shorter short titled, Below in the Dark.
Back to the bigger and cooler project. In 1974 something very unique happened to me. I was eighteen years old at the time. It took place during a single week in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington. A week I never talked about to anyone. That next year I traveled some, my younger brother died, I went into the Air Force, through basic training (always fun stuff), technical school, and got married.
All in that next year of 1975. And then I forgot all about that week.
Until about five years ago when I was looking for a personal story to base a new screenplay on. In running through my mental catalog of things I could draw upon, I came up with several. Stories about my childhood, that week in 1974, my years in the USAF, various orientations on my life related to subcultures, my years during college and for a while working at Tower Records at three stores (Posters, Records and what were the new Video stores), in two different cities and, a few other stories.
I easily settled on that week in 1974 as the most marketable.
Obviously. I needed a working title so I called it Teenage Bodyguard (later, The Teenage Bodyguard, that "The" has an important reason as it's very specific). I thought about it, did some brief research on it and realized, I had something. So I spent some months researching it in depth. It started with a murder, the local mafia and a witness who was female. The more I researched, the more I uncovered, the more fascinating the story became and t more I realized I actually had some connections, more than the one I thought I had.
I realized a couple of my "friends" especially one in particular whom I had known for years since I was in about tenth grade, sort of threw me under the bus to save himself. Now I haven't spoken to him since I started doing this research, so I haven't heard his side of this story. But at this point, it's pretty damning.
This whole thing started with giving a woman a lift to a new home, and a newspaper clipping.
This is a copy of the actual article she handed me that day.
The story is a simple one: damsel in distress asks for help and gets it.
She contended that the mafia types were after her for having been there and witnessed the murder. A murder which she said was of one of their own by one of their own. It was to this day labeled a murder by unknown suspect. She was adamant that it was a murder her bosses committed and they wanted to "talk" to her about it. She was pretty sure if that happened, she would never do anything else ever again. And would I protect her for a week until she could escape and leave town, forever, for her hometown in another state far away.
I agreed. The rest is history and now, a feature film screenplay. Which by all accounts to date is a very good and timely story that needs to be on the big screen. Well? Cool. Right?
This wasn't an easy story to write or an easy screenplay to produce.
So for a while, I put the story away. There were other more immediate things to work on. A year or so later I get a request to contact a producer in London about an adaptation I did for an author on her book. She said it was optioned once and expired and now there was renewed interest. So we converse via email this producer and me. I send him a copy of the screenplay adaptation, a spy romance titled, "Sealed in Lies", by Kelly Abell.
Then the producer asked if I had any other projects of my own. So I make a list of written screenplays and ones I was considering writing. He quickly zeroed right into the Teenage Bodyguard screenplay concept. He said he liked the title and the idea and if I ever write it to please think of him first.
I take that as a green light (as any screenwriter should). I spend the next nineteen days writing it and then sent it to him. He was surprised by the speed at which I got him a copy of a previously unwritten screenplay and sent it on to his readers. He now had two of my screenplays. And I never heard from him again. So, I tucked the situation under my arm and moved on with other things.
The upside in that? I had a new screenplay that I had been too intimidated before to write. Having a work you can work on is always better than one that doesn't exist and may never get written in the first place. Once you have a finished draft it is far easier to work it and it almost has to get better.
I put it away, again. In part because I was bummed at the prospects of having a producer with TWO of my screenplays and then, nothing came of it. Same old story for any kind of a writer really. I'd been through things like that before and more than once.
Then one day I took up the screenplay again. I sent it to a screenplay contest and got notes back on it. I had to pay extra for notes but I researched the contests and found one that was considered good and got the notes back. They were good notes. I got notes from another contest and they had good notes and other considerations.
I took the notes and rewrote the screenplay while doing more research on it and finding more. I contacted the Pierce County Sheriff's office and had them search for the murder report. They couldn't find it. Which fits how corrupt that era was in that area back in the 70s.
I sent the screenplay to another contest and updated it appropriately. Then I found The Blacklist. I spent $75 for coverage and did a new draft and posted it. Then I got another coverage again, this time two. I fixed the issues and reposted it. It sat there for a while.
Then one day I met someone who had a friend in the industry. We were able to get him to read the latest version of my screenplay. He liked it! Although he was an entertainment attorney with long standing in Hollywood, he said now was the time to hit with this kind of screenplay but he wasn't the one to get me there.
I realized after years of not spending literally thousands on one screenplay, as some have done and some have done getting nowhere, it was time to spend some money and get to the next level.
That was when I contacted Jen Grisanti. She isn't cheap, but there are others out there costing a lot more who just aren't worth it. Jen is. I have a meeting on Zoom with her tomorrow but just her screenplay notes alone were worth a bundle.
BLACKLIST's own coverage said, "pursue to production." BlueCat contest: "Why this isn't on screen yet!" Well-known entertainment attorney said: "It's the perfect time for this story." Sex, drugs & rock-n-roll meet sex, drugs & mayhem. For a week in 1974, a naive but well trained & savvy young man is asked by a more experienced woman to protect her for a week from local Mafia-type crime family for witnessing their murder. of one of their own.
And here we are today. I have a screenplay that is almost polished enough and ready to go. I have the rights to the screenplay, the story no one else knows about and my own story.
I'm ready to go.
Almost....
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