Nobody Knows

 

I finished a TV pilot this month with an old friend, Mark, and we entered it into SeriesFest to see if we could get some bites - or bliss. It is a pretty interesting story. Mark and his wife, Arlene, moved to Mexico to find their bliss. In this picture (left) is our cousin, John, Mark and his wife, Arlene. Our TV pilot is based on Mark's comedy book Nobody Knows the Spanish I Speak. I got the coverage on it back this month, and it is fantastic!

"The writer has created an absolutely fantastic premise. The concept of Americans (from Portland) moving to Mexico to realize some idealized dream that is far from ideal is great and will provide endless setups for future episodes. I could see this done as a single-camera or multicamera show, though the format is very much a single-camera show. It's a concept that also has wide audience appeal, especially depending on how much you dig into cultural discussions and commentary.  I also love your three main characters, Charlie, Marty, and Adele. The dynamic between Charlie and Marty feels reminiscent of ALL IN THE FAMILY, though with completely different archetypes that fit contemporary audiences. They each have a very distinct personality with its own quirks, positives, and negatives. You do introduce a few locals into the pilot, but it would be great to see them even more so we get a sense of the regulars within this world that our central family will be interacting with from week to week."

Getting back to Mark, decades ago, we found that we liked to write and were both going to the Willamette Writers Conference that summer. We agreed to meet in the big tent for lunch. When Keith and I walked in, I said, "Isn't that your cousin, John, sitting next to Mark?" Yup, in Portland, a town of 2 million+, the only two people we knew - were friends with each other!  Mark and I stayed in touch over the next few decades, and it was Mark who told us when Cousin John died this year. John was an LA lawyer who moved to Portland to find his bliss and write plays. That is also Mark's bliss, writing plays, although he's quite the accomplished comedian and has written for shows like Leno. But his book has been on my Kindle all these years and has been my "go-to" book when I'm feeling sad - which has happened a few times this year. After I read it again this fall, I knew it could be a TV pilot and convinced Mark to take a leap of faith with me. He gave me the option on it and agreed to co-write the pilot.  

I changed "Mark and Arlene" to Marty and Adele - fictitious characters and then merely told Mark's story. He and Arlene have moved to San Miguel de Allende three times! They are now back in Portland. I made a fictitious city, too, to protect the huge expat community in San Miguel "where if you swing an artist, you'll hit a writer and if that writer ducks, you'll hit a jazz musician." In addition, the locals speak Spanish with the speed of a particle accelerator.
So that is what I've been knee-deep in this past month. Here's the Nobody Knows Pitch Deck.

Now, I'm starting on a horror movie, writing it with a famous artist, Guy Vasilovich, based on Edgar Allan Poe's last living relative, titled Last Poe —more on that next month!

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!

Wolf Clan

 Happy New Year!

I can't believe my new writing career is now two years old. If I had stayed on my original screenwriting path, I'd be about 26 right now - but since the women in my family live into their 90s - I'm right on schedule for a long writing career! Sure, my brain is filled with a ton of programming code after a successful technology career - but I got out early by selling my software company so that I could write. A huge part of my work involves my Native American heritage, which is odd, because I didn't find out I was Cherokee until Grandma Cook died, and I asked, where? My dad said she went back to the reservation.

I immersed myself in everything Cherokee, joined the tribe, applied for the Native American Media Alliance Fellowship and traced my ancestors back to North Carolina - finding out we were part of the Wolf Clan. I then wrote a script about the reintroduction of wolves into National Parks called Nature’s Way. 

I wondered - what if we all returned to the reservation - not to die, but to live? Then I thought, why not reintroduce us to the National Parks like wolves?  Imagine a futuristic virus-infected world where corporations are the governments, AI runs the world, and humans are stuck in their homes, monitoring the robots that grow our food, maintain the elderly in rest homes, and for kids - their education and relationships are online.

Reintroduction of Humans is about a Cherokee woman in a futuristic world, who convinces her family to participate in the reintroduction of Native Americans back into the National Parks to find her son, who was taken from her family because he was obese. A scripted Survivor!

My idea expanded after my AFI instructor, Matt Black, showed us Blade Runner's Voight-Kampff Test scene during my Native American Media Fellowship.  The writer's strike was going strong and a big issue was AI - Artificial Intelligence.  I put these three ideas together and wrote this as a short. I have no desire to be a filmmaker - I'm a writer, but one of my cohorts in the Native American Medial Alliance fellowship - Derek Quick - is an aspiring filmmaker.  He has an award-winning short, Camping, that is making the festival circuit. There was a short fellowship that was sponsored by Indeed with the theme of getting a job - so I wrote the first ten pages and he submitted. Our short didn't win, but Reintroduction of Humans was still in my head - so I had to tell the story and I made it into a sitcom.

I wrote a scene similar to the clip in Blade Runner but made it funny. AI is confused - and it knows that she is Cherokee and must understand why Native Americans would shoot arrows into trees. She goes home excited - instead of monitoring robots that kill pigs, she will monitor the National Parks! Plus, she thinks this is where their son has been taken, and she might see him on the screen. But when 3 radio collars arrive, she realizes the job is much more - they have been selected for the project to reintroduce animals into the wild - including humans. Again excited  - but the rest of the family is not, especially after their first orientation lesson. Kill their food? Possibly be the food?  Seriously? The theme is survival - at first.

After the pilot, each episode involves another challenge. In the first season, it is all about survival;  how to get water, what to eat, and most importantly - how to avoid things that want to eat them. They have lived in a world where they rarely encountered animals and their food was piped into their house and formed by a replicator oven. They must enlist the help of the other Native Americans living in the parks. In the second season, the survival concept changes as history repeats itself as there is fighting amongst the various tribes for territory and resources. The conflict moves from within their tribe to the other tribes.  In the third season, outside forces threaten their existence. The AI ruling program wants to terminate the program and return them to "civilization," and she thinks her family will be delighted - but she's wrong. 

The story engine is driven by each of the problems they encounter and the conflict from disagreements on how to solve their problems. For example, the daughter doesn't like in-person relationships and insists that another Native American boy leave "texts" - or carvings on trees to communicate. The pilot is titled Not Food and ends with the wolves and Cherokees being chased by the Apaches. Next is Training Day. The family starts their training on the reservation - and they learn about Derek. Then there is Flunked Out. Both Talitha and Alex want to go home, but Natalie insists on staying to see Derek again, and Episode 4 is Moving Day. It is time for the family to enter the park with other members of their “tribe.” Episode 5 is Bad Water - the new tribe finds out the hard way that there is good water - and “bad” water, followed by Run Faster. Alex is sure that something is stalking them - wanting to eat them and then Berries and Bears. Talitha convinces the family that bears can live on berries - but the bears are not happy with humans eating their food. The first season ends with I love you, Deer.  Victory for the family when they bring down a deer, but this attracts the attention of the other tribes.

Characters

Natalie is in her (30s) - our fearless Cherokee protagonist who wants to find her son and a better life for her family - but at what cost?

Talitha is a skeptical teen about 14 or 15, a passionate animal lover, but hooked on technology and being vegan. 

Dakota (17) An older teen, he's their Native American guide and teacher to help them survive in the wilderness and find Derek.

Derek was originally obese but is now 13; he's spent the past year in the wild and is now fit but concerned for his family.

Alex (30s)- is a Navajo hypochondriac, afraid of everything - especially bacteria and things that can eat him.

Like The Good Place, which made death funny - this dramedy maintains humor with exciting survival situations - for example, the pilot ends with Derek and Dakota being chased by a rival tribe - wearing radio collars and getting zapped, which is funny. But full of Indian culture, like Reservation Dogs.

View on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx_8Ja4anZU7427aV5A98VQUPYtmdfWJc 

Canva (my entry for SeriesFest in May 2024)

https://www.canva.com/design/DAF3szItxdU/LJF6EVCDBLPZVh07bmqaDQ/edit?utm_content=DAF3szItxdU&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

I Can Fly

I grew up thinking I could fly. I was a skinny and energetic kid, running instead of walking and constantly fidgeting. I grew up on an avocado and citrus ranch. Every year, the commercial pickers would come and harvest the fruit, but after they left, my mom would have me climb up to the top of the trees to get the ones they missed. I'd toss them into the thick pile of leaves and then jump (or fly, as I thought) down to a soft landing.  After I grew up and became a computer programmer and consultant, I got to work in Australia and went diving on the Great Barrier Reef. That was the closest I've been to flying again - a wonderful feeling.

I liked to make up stories to tell kids and one of my favorites was of Kira - a fearless princess who had trained her whole life to rule, but then her father remarried, and a male heir was born. I wrote it while working with a large dealership group, Lithia - in Medford, Oregon. Their head of IT was Kyra, and loved that name. Today, Lithia has 290 dealerships, including 40 in the UK. My favorite movie then was Princess Bride, so I wrote Princess Quest as my first project after graduating from UCLA's Advanced Screenwriting Program.

I shelved it until last year when I wanted to enter as many scripts as possible into The Austin Film Festival. I completed the Native American Media Alliance Fellowship and learned more about screenwriting. I rewrote the original Princess Quest script and renamed it Kira and Henry to make it more the story of both characters and appeal to teen boys and girls. I wanted Kira to have a secret - so I added that she could fly, but had to hide that because raptors are banished because of their mutation. I had learned how to write TV pilots in my fellowship, so I wrote it as TV series. I made over a thousand changes and then wrote the young adult novel Kira and Henry using what I learned by taking classes through Good Story. This time, is was published by SmilingEagle Press - specializing in books written by Native Americans and older folks. I hit both marks of their target market!

Kira and Henry did well at The Austin Film Festival, enabling me to get a coveted 2nd Rounder Badge and here are the reader's notes, "This is a solid script that showcases the writer’s creativity and knack for world-building. It sets the stage for an abundance of storylines while, at its heart, drawing the reader into Kira’s character development and her relationship with Henry." I also got these notes from my entry into Final Draft's Big Break, "The reader enjoyed KIRA AND HENRY, which held their attention cover to cover through successive reads. It is a classic GAME OF THRONES style of tale, albeit in the animation format that will likely appeal to a younger demographic rather than adults." 

Next up is entering it into SeriesFest, and if I get accepted to pitch in Denver in May, I will be soaring and truly believing that I can fly!

You can order Kira and Henry on Amazon -https://www.amazon.com/Kira-Henry-Young-Fantasy-Forbidden-ebook/dp/B0CPYY7Q5C

Here's my pitch deck of the TV pilot.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFvpYX2w74/IfD4mFgVynLq6uBNhpV7nA/edit?utm_content=DAFvpYX2w74&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

 

Goals and Dreams

 As we near the end of the year, I look toward 2024 and start thinking of my goals and dreams.   After winning the Native American Media Alliance fellowship TWICE this year, I have a dream to win Disney, CBS/Paramount, NBC, Nickelodeon, and/or Warner Brothers in 2024. If I got selected - that would mean a year in Hollywood - and possibly getting hired to write for a TV show.  When I started this new career a year ago, I made a  three-phase plan.  Phase One was to write and rewrite lots of "inventory" of good scripts and then submit them to contests and fellowships during Phase Two.  

I've done well on the contest circuit, including being a finalist in The Austin Film Festival with my script. Kira and Henry.  I traveled to Austin for a few days to pitch my script, Blood Moon Wolf and meet and greet - but the BEST part was seeing my lovely niece (Stan's daughter) Andrea.  As I talked to her oldest son, Alec  - I realized that the last time I saw him was 20 years ago, when he was about 9.  After my mom died, I arranged a trip for my Dad and Aunt Madenia, to travel with me to visit Austin and see Andrea's family - but we haven't been back since. What a fun trip this was for me to see my gorgeous niece and her sons and handsome husband. 

The AFF - Austin Film Festival was amazing! I was first focused on pitching.  I had snagged a pitch ticket on Friday in the 3rd session. I completed Carole Kirschner's course, How to Pitch a TV Script that Sells and learned how to write and deliver a pitch - a method to "sell" a screenplay.  I was terrified, but it was amazing.  I had not allotted time for the laughs my pitch got.  I left the session - not as a winner, but elated that it went well, and so many came up to me after and said I should have won.  I truly felt like a winner. 

The AFF is also a writer's conference with tons of panels and roundtables to attend.  As the holder of the precious 2nd Rounder badge, I got to pick some special "finalists" only roundtables.  The two I wanted to meet the most were Megan Alderson, Creative Development Executive, Pixar Animation Studios and  Liz Kelly, Creative Talent Development Executive, at Disney.  I wasn't able to snag Megan's panel, But I did get a spot at Liz's roundtable. But I couldn't find her - the volunteer from AFF said that she hadn't shown up, so I sat at the closest table to the door - extremely disappointed.  I had come all this way and didn't see the two people I wanted to meet.

But then the BEST thing about AFF happened.  My table was led by Larry Postel, a non-represented screenwriter living in Dallas. Larry’s story is unique in that he has managed to have four original spec screenplays purchased, produced and released since 2020. He told us his secret; he sent out query emails after doing lots of research on who would be a good producer for his scripts.  Research?  That is my middle name!!!  Emails?  That is my life!!! I left walking on air and found a new direction.  

So Phase Three starts.  I want to sell a screenplay.  Another Carole course (How to Get the F* Unstuck)  that I took carefully taught me not to have goals that I can't control.  Times are tough in the entertainment industry after two long strikes.  There are backlogs of scripts, shows, and meetings. TV writer's rooms are filled. Everyone is too busy for emerging screenwriters like me. I can't control someone buying one of my scripts. So, as Carole taught me, I set a goal to send out 5 weekly queries. I will carefully write and record 5 pitches, write 5 query letters for my top 5 scripts and then read the trades, research producers, and send.  I finished my query pitch for Blood Moon Wolf, and I'm rewriting my pitch documents and creating pitches for my top 5 scripts. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx_8Ja4anZU7427aV5A98VQUPYtmdfWJc

I made a YouTube of my trip to the Austin Film Festival with my visit with Andrea.  https://youtu.be/MOxjDbqX0sQ?si=YX0JXhxwjpnIavJw  - it is a little long, 28 minutes; beware!

I have now reached 68,000+ views on my YouTube channel! I do not have many subscribers, but I'm happy to get many views. Be sure and Like and Subscribe to be notified of the AFF video.  Next month, I will talk about my script, Kira and Henry and how I grew up thinking I could fly.