Reverse Adaptation Mama Dallas and Augie

  “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” — Sylvia Plath

In August this year, I did one of my hardest projects, adapting a book based on a true story into a screenplay. I love to write stories and make up new characters and story worlds, but since all the characters were real and living, my creative license was restricted. I read the book four times to learn about the characters and what happened so I could write dialog and defend it with "I think he could have said this," but I couldn't add fictitious characters or make the existing characters into something they were not. For example, five of the six pilots were men, and although I'd like to have more than one female pilot, I don't think real-life Andy would like to be played by Andrea.

When I've watched movies, I used to be puzzled by the amount of producers and wonder "How many producers does it take to make a movie?" This movie, Hijacked, started as a book option by the first producer, who is now my friend, Melissa. We have two interesting things in common. First of all, she used to own a manufacturing plant in Detroit, supplying parts to the car factories like Ford, GM, etc. I used to own a technology company that supplied software to dealers to enable them to run their car dealerships and submit warranty claims and other data to the factories. Our other connection is my manager, who owns Little Studio Films and recommended me to Melissa. Melissa and her company Helicopter Productions is now developing my series, Last Hand, set in Las Vegas - and she is co-writing with me the pilot episode. The third producer mentioned in my August blog is sending Hijacked out to 20-30 studios, streamers, etc. When one of them bites, that will mean a fourth producer and finally, another producer will actually get the movie made. In order to get certain talent involved, they might want producer credits (and a share of the profit involved.) That is how a movie ends up with dozens of producers.

As soon as Hijacked was done, I got a job to write a screenplay as a sequel to another movie being made, Mama Dallas - Five Points. I had that screenplay as a guide, along with a treatment by another writer. But the best thing was the actual person whose family this story was about. We talked and emailed, and then I researched her family and the era. I read six different books that were about this time and place and watched the Godfather series again - probably for the 4th or 5th time.  I started a Google Docs file of the newspaper articles and facts from Ancestry.com (I'm a hobby genealogist) and, at one point, commented that I could write a book about the Del Gaizo family! Guess what? I wrote a book and the author's proof arrives today!

This was sort of a reverse adaptation. Studios and streamers like to make projects based on existing IP, but so far, the reviews have been great. It was a tough project, I first got a greenlight on September 3rd, then on September 19th, a big "stop, stop!" The text said firmly,  "Don't write the book of Augie; no activity beyond the script." I was sort of fired.

But since I was still writing the sequel script at the same time as the book, I kept making my notes and writing chapters. But I had a deadline. It was my deadline only - I wanted it done before the AFM - American Film Market November 5-10th in Las Vegas, where they planned to feature the two movies. A book would show the whole story, both screenplays and if they read the first few chapters, even a prequel!

I finally got the full green light again to write the book and signed the contracts on October 22, 2024. I sent the book off for Author proofs the next day. I had already had my amazing cover guy working on the cover for a few months. It was a difficult cover because the story involved NYC, trains, ships, and five key characters. I wanted them all on the cover. I had grown to love each one.

But the fun part was that everyone was dead. Okay, that might seem morbid, but unlike Hijacked, nobody is going to say, "Augie would never say that!" In fact, my co-writer and the actual descendant of this family wrote this to me;

"Your creative license was a big jump but so intriguing. It makes the story so much deeper...for me, watching you put all the pieces together is horrifyingly wonderful! I mean that as a compliment. Fabio becomes so much more disgusting with his entitled wealth. You are a marvel." - Jody Fasanella

That one word, "marvel," meant the world to me - but I call her a jewel because she's had this jewel of a story inside her all these years, and she is truly a jewel. Although painful at times to work with everyone involved, in the end, I hope I've made a long-time friend of my co-author, and I hope she can play Mama Dallas someday or the mother in Last Hand. I need her to meet Melissa at AFM!

What's next? I'm adapting my good friend Mark Saunders's book, Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak, into a comedy pilot with 6-8 episodes, which means I go to bed each night exhausted and laughing. Stay tuned for more!

Chevy and Nature's Way

We recently entered my script, Nature's Way, in The “Writer-Driven Shorts” program, presented by the Black List x General Motors Marketing and Media Incubator Fund, which will grant two emerging filmmakers with $100,000 in production funds to shoot a short film based on their feature scripts. 

My script is about a passionate wildlife biologist who drives an old Chevy Blazer, and is determined to marry the right guy (who wants her to get a new BMW) and then falls for a minister posing as a car salesman.  I think it is pretty "Hallmark-like," but if we win, I can write it into a short that discusses why she wants to get a Chevrolet EV - like I do.  The actual applicant and filmmaker is my cohort in the Native American Medial Alliance fellowship - Derek Quick - who is an aspiring filmmaker. He has an award-winning short, Camping, that is making the festival circuit, and I'll see it next month at LASkinsFest. 

I love Chevrolet.  Next year, I hope to trade in my Equinox for a new Equinox EV.  My first new car was a 1973 Chevrolet Vega we bought during the oil crisis. My dad's first new car was a 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air. My first job was at a Chevrolet dealership in San Diego.

I met my husband at the new Farrell's Ice Cream opening in Escondido while I was in high school.  After being forced to quit Farrell’s, which had a policy against managers (Keith) dating employees (a lowly server like me), I went to an employment agency to find full-time work while attending college.  I aced a “Wonderlic” intelligence test and was quickly sent out on two job interviews, one at a mortuary and another at a car dealership.  The mortuary was wonderful: plush carpets, polished rich mahogany desks, and everyone spoke so softly.  The car dealership was horrible: loud overhead paging, steel desks, rude people and ugly furnishings. 

When I returned from the interview, the agency said, “Good news, you got the job at the dealership!”  I was sad and asked, “Can we wait to hear from the mortuary?”  They replied that I had to accept the first job offered, so I started a long career in accounting and car dealerships, eventually developing software for the industry.  It took me almost a decade to finish college, and I earned a degree in Accounting with a minor in Computer Science and became a CPA, but stayed in the car industry. The picture above is from Automotive News, taken at one of my first clients, a Chevrolet dealership in South Dakota. I sold that tech company last year and picked back up my first choice of career - writing screenplays after getting an Advanced Screenwriting Degree from UCLA.

This picture of my mom and dad was taken with his first Chevrolet that he bought used and eventually traded in on that shiny blue Chevrolet in 1960. I remember how proud he was of that new car; we took a road trip to visit Mom's family in Missouri and his family in Oklahoma. I remember this trip so well because our more rural relatives had outhouses - which reminded me of camping. That gets me back to Derek's script, Camping,  which is based on his years growing up on the reservation in Oklahoma and later being homeless - or, as his mother would say, "camping."

Wish us luck that we'll be able to make Nature's Way into an amazing short!