I haven’t posted in over two weeks, not on here, and really not on any social media. Missing a week of posting, has been something that I’ve been trying desperately not to do since January, but ultimately, work takes priority over blogging, and I spent the last two weeks working, almost non-stop.
While I’m working hard to make this production company my full time job, and I absolutely love making videos of restaurants, and weddings, and really any excuse to interact with people and use my camera equipment; my original dream was making movies. Since I was a kid, I’ve dreamed about writing stories and making movies.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, I wrote my first full length screenplay. Now, twenty years later, I like to refer to it as a poorly written version of 13 Reasons Why. I then spent my entire sophomore year trying to get it made. The process of trying to produce a feature film was daunting, but the screenwriting was rewarding. It was when I fell in love with writing.
Since that experience, I’ve written stories, and started novels, and more scripts, and sketches, and poems and anything that I found rewarding to write down. One thing that I’ve always stuck with, when writing scripts and sketches has always been writing within a scope of something that I could hope to produce myself.
Going into this new year, my focus and concentration has been on this company, and I’ve been trying to make a portfolio that is enticing to future clients, and while it has involved a bit of writing, (and obviously this blog is writing), creative writing has taken a backseat in 2020, until about three weeks ago.
Three weeks ago, I saw an ad for a writer’s program. The main idea being that Ron Howard’s company is looking for ideas for films to develop. Apparently, his company has a deal with Netflix, and they’re looking for different films in different genres, to develop, and in the process help the writer of the idea to do that. Obviously, and opportunity like this is a dream come true.
I read the instructions, and it was simple, you needed to have a 30 second video, pitching an action-adventure movie. You also needed to submit a writing sample that showed you could write a complete screenplay. I had some writing samples, but nothing recent enough, and nothing that I thought was a good representation of my current ability as a writer. So, I had to come up with an idea, make a pitch, and write a first draft of a screenplay.
By the time I had the idea, I only had 2 weeks to write. I spent a couple days writing a scene by scene breakdown, and then ten pages a day for 12 days. It was an intense, and grueling two weeks, the first week of it I was also the main supervisor of my son, and I got behind, and the second week when my wife and son went away, I spent 12 hour days getting caught up and finishing.
Obviously, at this point, I cannot say much about the nature of the screenplay and pitch I submitted, because if they decide to purchase it, I will no longer own the rights to it, but I will say it was a very different experience than anything I had previously. I went from writing script ideas that I had hoped to produce myself on a microbudget, to writing a screenplay for a budget that I have no hopes of producing. It was freeing, and fun, I was never stopped by “oh, how would I do that?”
If anything comes of my application and pitch, I will let you all know what I can, and when. For the time being, I am excited to get back to my real work, here at Chocolate Diamond Media.
Chocolate Diamond Media 