April has been a jam-packed, incredible month, filled with many blessings and surprises… and it’s not even over yet!

April began with a speaking engagement at the RT Convention about the importance of script coverage, and what to expect from your story analyst. Merrel Davis was on the panel with me, and we spoke to a full-house crowd of published, aspiring, and undiscovered writers and readers who were willing and eager to learn.

We were met with such a warm welcome thanks to, popular and sensational author, Viviana, who hosted and moderated our panel. She paid keen attention to novelists and how they too can benefit from a writing assessment. What the writers left the panel with was a solid understanding of the steps required to start their careers in screen / novel writing and why being open to feedback goes a long way once you achieve your goal of selling your work. We also made sure to get out the word on branding. Just because you’re a writer and you’re sitting at home hunting and pecking out your opus, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a proper web and professional presence. It’s easily achieved and is so integral to your success.

Next we were on to the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival, where Merrel and I were sponsors. It was more branding talk and networking with some very, very funny people and exceptionally talented filmmakers. The event was a 4-day non-stop, hilarity-filled extravaganza, with fantastic nighttime parties at the Kyoto Grand, ESPN Zone, and J Restaurant and Lounge. The liquor was ever-flowing, the attendees loads of fun and with every short we screened, it reignited my passion for making film.

As fate would have it, my recently reignited cinematic passion would get instantly put to good use, because Merrel and I are off to shoot a documentary pilot in Nebraska. It is an awesome time and a most exciting adventure traveling to a town of 292 people about 4 hours south of South Dekota. It’s a town that time forgot. The residents harken back to a way a life that is all but extinguished. It is a place where men work the land and rear their cattle to support their families. We’re going in search of the last bastion of the original American way of life and some sexy cowboys!

The last two weeks have been pre-pro central; work-shopping cameras, production meetings and shot lists. With cameras and crew locked in, we’re off to start location scouting / casting on 4000 acres of rich ranch land and local prep for our shoot.

Even though I can barely sleep for excitement about what’s coming in just a matter of days, beyond our awesome Midwestern Safari shoot, there’s loads to look forward to this summer!! GAPF in June, Screenwriter Karaoke NYC edition in July and much more! Stay tuned!

The CoverMyScript.com team has been working diligently on lots of super exciting events. And bless our lucky little hearts when today  Merrel Davis and I stopped by over at the offices of the LA Comedy Shorts Films Festival.

We sat down with Artistic Director and festival co-founder Gary Anthony Williams (you may remember him from such comedy things as, everything) and along with Festival Director and co-founder, Jeannie Roshar – and I’ll admit it, we were originally just going to transcribe an interview, but our time with them so lively, it kinda turned into a podcast.

Listen below to Gary Anthony Williams and Jeannie Roshar talk the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival

So, how are we a part of all this awesomeness? CoverMyScript.com is delighted to offer a special Branding and Next Steps Consultation Package prize for the winners of the Movie Magic Screenwriter Screenplay Competition for Best Comedy Feature and for the winner of the Funny Or Die’s Best-of-Fest Grand Prize Short!

What comes in a Branding and Next Steps Consultation Package and why is it so freaking important?

When a filmmaker needs branding, it means they need to effectively set-themselves apart and above from their peers. Good writing and production is vitally important, but so much is how you present yourself in the context of your good work!

What’s the first thing anyone is going to do after they meet you or view your film? If they are interested, they’ll Google you or IMDB you. If somebody Googles your name now, is what comes up representative of you?

Take control.

The Branding and Next Steps Consultation includes:

• 1 hour Branding Consultation – how to leverage the brand of YOU and your body of work with Xandy Sussan and Merrel Davis
• Website Strategies
• Design Strategies
• 1 Design choice of business card, flier, movie poster, one sheet, or splash page
• 1 Inflatable ducky with eye-patch and fakey hipster mustache finger tattoo (while supplies last)
  

Hope to see you all there, after all, who couldn’t have a great time when the most coveted prize is a horse’s ass!

I am a total rule breaker, a rebel, Dottie, a loner. I cut in line when I don’t feel like I should have to wait (that’s the entitled New Yorker in me). I write my emails in all lower-case because I know, somewhere in writer heaven, William Strunk and E. B. White are sharing a drink and would approve of my minor rebellion. And I live in a special Eden reserved only for those who can stomach / thrive in the smoggy entertainment industry that is Los Angeles. Nothing about me is commonplace or pedestrian; everything about me is wild, edgy and unexpected… especially my writing.

I realized, after a heated debate during last night’s #scriptchat on twitter, some writers are flat out refusing to outline and I was shocked. I am no hobbyist. Writing is my profession, and as such, when I sell my work, people expect my scripts to not only be correct, ground-breaking, and unexcelled, it also has to be worth paying for. So, how do I make sure that I not only deliver a solid product that is exactly what the story editor / producer / client wants and still get to run free through the fields of creativity?  I OUTLINE EVERYTHING!

Don’t get me wrong. Outlining sucks. I hate doing what feels like extra work for free. HATE! Outlining is boring and hard and annoying and not as fun as running through the fields of creativity untethered to such banalities as a plan. Who needs a plan when it feels so good just to write? Well, writing for pay, or any writing really is not about the masturbatory feeling of creation. If you’re lucky, sometimes you get a happy ending and that’s awesome, but that’s not usually the end goal. It’s about getting the work done correctly and excellently. And the way to ensure that happens is to outline.

I can hear all of you non-outlining writers and your myriad of excuses like a Greek Chorus: it “hinders my creativity,” “forces me into a box,” “doesn’t allow me to find new angles with my story…” Yeah, I totally get it. But without an outline, the fields of creativity turn into a hall of mirrors and you will get lost in the reflection of what your story was supposed to be, not what it actually is. It is the very rare writer who is able to wing it and churn out a salable product at the end. So, basically, not you. Not me. Not 99% of working or aspiring writers. We all must outline, so we have a basic road map of the story we’re trying to communicate or your story will literally get lost in translation.

Outlining does not, in fact, hinder anything. It in no way hampers your ability to fantasize and create inventive scenarios for your characters to live out. It forces you to do all that awesome “thinking-it-through” before you ever hit page 1. It’s a twisted version of instant gratification. Outlining affords you the chance to play with your characters without spending tedious hours churning out pages that suck and eventually get deleted. In reality, outlining will help you and your story stay focused, and if you follow a few of my tips, you’ll discover that you’re in fact freer to do all the fun writing because your foundation is solid.

There’s a few ways / steps to tackle outlining:

I generally will have the client start by writing a simple beat sheet. Just a basic shopping list of story beats: this happens, then this happens, and then that happens, etc. It’s never more than a page, but it helps them see what their story really is, the important beats, the basic ideas and characters and helps them discover plot holes, lacking character arcs, and story misfires. The simple act of “thinking-it-through” always helps the writers see what is working and what still needs work.

Then, once we’ve gone over the 1-page and talked through the story they want to tell, versus what I’ve read, and they’re at a place where I feel like their barest skeleton is solid, I ask them to expand that simple 1-page into 5. It’s then, they can add more flourish, but not too much… this is an outline, not a short story, some important or funny snippets of dialogue they don’t want to forget, and flesh out the story a bit more.

After we review that, see how it’s working, discuss tweaks if necessary, I send them back to expand their 5-page outline further to 30-ish pages. I say “ish” because this isn’t an exact science. Some writers who are honed and in practice can deliver a solid feature outline in 20-pages, some are gabbier and need 40-pages. But 30-pages is a good number to shoot for. In this pass, I ask the writer to really tell the whole story (without florid language), scene by scene. 30-pages is enough to develop your characters’ emotional pathos, embellish your sub-plots, and still allow for dialogue quips, etc.

Then (and here’s my trick) what I do, and what I instruct my clients to do, is take that solid 30-page outline, and pop it into the script. Since you’ve been so painstaking in setting forth your story, you can use your outline as the basis of your first draft, building out your script from there. It always seems to the clients “God! Why is she such a sadist?!” until they realize, that they never have to stare at a blank screen. You’ve immediately got 30-pages of your script done, just by popping in the outline. It removes the pressure of facing that white page, with only FADE IN:. It’s a cheap trick, but it’s a good one. By then, you’ve already got a leg up on expanding your 30-pages into 90 or 120, but no more, because my bladder can’t take anymore 3-hour movies.

When you write from within the outline, you know which scene is next, where to plant the misdirection and how to heighten the tension, because you’ve already planned for it. But let’s say, now you’re into draft 1 and you think, “Eh, this isn’t working.” You’ve at least got your 1-page list of scenes, your 5-page outline and your notes to reference, which makes plot changes way easier to implement and keep track of, especially if it’s a major shift. You need to remember all the stuff that builds around it, and fix whatever is impacted by it. How are you supposed to keep track of all those balls in the air, if you forget one? Outlining will help keep your writing on the ball.

Writing without an outline can be fun and dangerous, but rarely yields successful results. Why not expend that same level of effort and enthusiasm by furiously typing in a constructive manner? Then, you will be free to run through the fields of creativity untethered by banalities… you’ll be able to have your script and write it too.

Photo courtesy of regrifters.com / Photo Credit – Jon Shaivitz

As Valentine’s Day draws near, hopefully your mailboxes are filled with sweet cards, your hearts are filled with glowing love and may the chocolate from the shiny red box not end up on your ass. My fingers are crossed for all three for me!!!

But chocolate and valentines are not nearly as important as your romantic comedy script. Is it merely in need of a new outfit and a bikini wax for that first date? Or is it so rusty, from being benched in a drawer that it needs a whole new shine before getting back out on the town? Either way, we’re here to help!

So, between now and the end of February, Covermyscript.com is offering a SPECIAL: book coverage on any ROMANTIC COMEDY / DRAMEDY (or ZOMBIE / HORROR flick if you’re just anti the whole “love” thing) and you’ll get a FREE QUERY letter as our valentine to you. That’s a $65 gift… something that should hopefully warm your cockles… and help your success.

I’m so excited to get all, hot, bothered and in-the-mood reading all of your steamy romantic movies. February is going to be a very special month, indeed!

This past week CoverMyScript was a premiere guest sponsor of Screenwriter Karaoke at the Screenwriting Expo 2010.  We were there to support our brother event and get the word out about how to make you and your script the best for you. It was under this backdrop of some real fun networking that I’m reminded of the ways NOT to interact at such events.

Make no mistake, your singular purpose and goal of these pitchfest / expos / conferences, where you pay a premium to interface, one-on-one with execs and managers, should be to cultivate relationships. You want to make the good impression that you are a person worth knowing; someone worth doing business with at some point in the future. Ideally, everyone wants to make a sale in the room, but the chances of you selling your pitch, for cash money, on-the-spot, are basically nil. Even Shane Black will tell you that, and he sold a million-dollar movie idea on a napkin over lunch. Where these conferences are concerned, it’s never about the short term. It’s really about beginning your long-term career and fostering these relationships.

But not all writers got the memo. There is the right way to approach and the “not-so-right” way to impress yourself upon someone.

If you find out somebody is an agent or produced writer do not pitch to them willy nilly.

Whether it was the gal who followed us into four (!) elevators to tell us she’s “thinking about writing comedy” or the wait staff that “gave” me his “idea” for “Cheers” that wasn’t “Cheers” even though it took place in a bar and was about the people in it. As thankful as I was to have that already produced gold nugget, my asking you for directions isn’t an open invitation to tell me your life story. Know when it’s appropriate to bombard someone.

Merrel, my partner in crime, was speaking with an agent when an excited expo goer got wind and didn’t even wait for them to finish a sentence. “So you’re an agent?” he said and began to pitch. No! Buy me a drink first before you try and take me home. Warm me up a little bit. Let me like you before you go pitching wild. Cornering someone mid-conversation and giving them an unsolicited pitch wins no points, with anyone. Desperation doesn’t look good in any shade.

Don’t stalk people.

If there’s someone you’re interested in talking with, talk with them. When the conversation is done, it’s done. Pay attention. If they’re not into you, just wrap it up and move on. If it goes well, use your time wisely, impress upon them your message, get their card and keep the train moving. My friend, Zac Sanford, a development exec, remarked after an exhausting impromptu post-panel networking assault:

“My time is valuable. Pick one thing I said that resonated with you, hand me your card, let me give you mine if I want to, and move on. The real work comes after the convention.” And this goes for exhibitors too!

There was an odd fellow who insisted he could and would help with our exhibitor’s booth. He was looking for a job and thought hanging around me might get him one. He then proceeded to loiter and interact with my potential clients as if he were an official representative of my company and that just didn’t fly. Perhaps if he played it cool, and not been so clingy, things might’ve gone differently. But alas, this is a lesson he’ll have to learn the hard way.

Don’t be creepy or gush!

Approach people like human beings, not majestic ponies. If you know of someone from a previous seminar,  online or just from their body of work, don’t exalt them. Just say, “Hey.” And on the other hand, if you know who someone is and don’t like them, do like your mother said and keep your mouth shut. At a networking event, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, wait until you get in the car to bash them.

One gal made an odd and specific point of introducing herself whilst demanding to remain anonymous, “I know who you guys all are, but I don’t want to tell you who I am” she said.   We all respected her choice, however strange it seemed, seeing as she was wearing a name badge. She took it a step further and let me know that she had unfollowed me on Twitter for “talking too much even though I was writerly.” I know I’m not for everyone, but I couldn’t understand why someone wearing a name badge and wishing to remain anonymous, would seek me out just to be hurtful? In what way was she hoping to ingratiate herself to me by being unkind? If you aren’t interested in people knowing who you are or if you aren’t interested in knowing them, keep it to yourself; then they won’t.

Don’t offer unsolicited advice.

If you don’t like my product, you’re not interested in my service, you feel like I’ve got it all wrong, again, keep it to yourself. You are at an event selling yourself. Tearing someone else down or their work may make you feel more important in the short term, especially if it’s someone you’re meeting for the first time and think they’re a schmuck, but you never know who someone REALLY is. This is the techno-age people. Use your phone with the Googles, and find out who that schmuck is before mouthing off to them. They could just be a studio head and you would’ve blown it.

I encountered a man who’s familiar banter went from charming to uncomfortably presumptuous in a bizarre instant. He decided he knew what was wrong with my business and wanted to tell me all about how wrong I had gotten it. Listen folks, don’t spend your time attempting to assert your knowledge onto others. You don’t gain friends, just annoyed glances and a place in my long-memory, next to my unmitigated ire. I shut him down on the spot, because I just don’t care what you think when you come at me so aggressively. If you have constructive ideas, bring them up constructively. Win me over. Make me like you. Sell me on you. You have to earn the right to have my time, and this guy just didn’t have enough cache to keep my interest.

Why So Serious?

Don’t treat your every interaction as though it were life or death. Yes you need to be professional and this is a business event, but be a person not a robot. Come to foster relationships, meet new people, learn new things, grow your craft but get out of your own way too!  Quit taking it all so seriously. We’re making movies; we’re not curing cancer (unless you’re also an oncologist, in which case, keep up the good work). Be light, be open, be yourself. It is the commodity of you that is ultimately the most worthwhile prospect.

What a year it’s been! First Creative Screenwriting Magazine votes CoverMyScript.com “5 out of 5″ and “Cream of the Crop” in their Story Analysts review and now we’re going to be live, on-site at The Screenwriting Expo 2010, with last-minute, pitch-prep help for all your script needs.

Are you coming to the Screenwriting Expo 2010 this October 7th to 10th? It’s not too late to register. If you’re in the neighborhood, just pop on by to our vendor booth, and let us see how we can make your script ready for sale. We’ll can help you re-conceive your one-sheet on-the-spot, give your pitch some polish or your presentation one more set of eyes before the big day.

Then, after The Screenwriting Expo 2010, hang out for the CoverMyScript.com sponsored event, Screenwriter Karaoke.  It’s a fun, low-pressure evening, filled with good friends, good drinks, and surprisingly, even some good songs! Look for us and some of our #Scriptchat friends. So come out, make some friends, drink some booze and don’t be surprised if I’m standing in the corner uploading photos of you crooning Sinatra to Facebook.

See you all there Expo’ites!

CoverMyScript.com will have a vendor table at The Great American PitchFest in the great hall on Saturday. We will be providing on-the-spot consultations, one-sheet help, pitch prep and many other services. Stop on by and say hello!

Here’s a list of what we’re offering:

Can’t wait to see you there!

June is a very exciting month! It marks two very important occasions: The Great American Pitchfest and Screenwriter Karaoke’s 1st Anniversary!

CoverMyScript.com is so proud and honored to be participating in the 7th Annual Great American Pitchfest. For those of you unfamiliar with The Great American Pitchfest, it is a yearly event at the Burbank Marriott where hundreds of writers pitch en masse to hundreds of production companies. It’s an exciting, frenzied, energy-packed event and we at CoverMyScript.com are so proud to be a part of it in two ways.

Saturday, June 26th, CoverMyScript.com will be on site with a team of talented, speedy story analysts from 9am until 5 pm to help you meet your Sunday pitch time crunch. We will be offering a variety of on-the-spot services from one-sheet construction, query writing, as well as last-minute pitch prep consults to help you hone your skills. With prices starting at $20, there’s a service to fit any budget.  We will be accepting credit cards through paypal as well as cash for easy transactions.

There are many seminars to check out from 9 am until 5 pm with something for every writer. Then stick around for Screenwriter Karaoke! A fun networking event for screenwriters that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Have a couple of drinks and sing your heart out. We promise we won’t judge. We can’t sing either. ;-p

Not sure what to sing? Here’s the Screenwriter Karaoke Song List for PitchFest.

Saturday, June 26th @ 6 PM
Marriott Burbank Hotel & Convention Center
Room “Academy Two”
2500 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505

AND LATER COME OUT TO OUR REGULAR SPOT SARDO’S AFTER 10 PM. Just a short ride in town.
Sardo’s Grill and Lounge
259 N. PASS AVE.
BURBANK, CA 91505

What are the rules?
* NO COVER CHARGE.
* CASH Bar only.
* Hotel parking has been made available at a discounted rate of $14 to attendees.
* 21 and over only. Please bring ID and be prepared to show it.
* Have fun, drink , sing and connect!

Come out, make some new friends and meet #scriptchat peeps Jeanne Veillette Bowerman and Zac Sanford who will both be in attendance. It’s a very exciting time and CoverMyScript.com couldn’t be more honored to be apart of this. Hope to see you there!

I am never one to toot my own horn, but I am delighted to share this with all of you.

Every year, the Creative Screenwriting Magazine puts together a list of the best Story Analysts / Script Consultants in the business. This list is comprised of industry professionals nominated for their outstanding service and quality of work.

I am so proud to have been included, with the highest customer satisfaction score possible no less. Knowing that my clients not only nominated me but also said such amazing things is so humbling. This on the heels of the newly launched DOUBLE FEATURE service has proved a very exciting time for Cover My Script!

If you’ve found me today or in the coming months as a result of this directory listing, please let me know. Cover My Script will take care of you!

My first day of Screenwriting 101 at Tisch, my teacher stood before us, a motley collection of wannabes, wearing mostly black. He gave us his non-negotiable screenwriting rules:

1. Courier 12 point.
2. Always have an active protagonist.
3. No Deus Ex Machina. A Deus Ex Machina literally means “God from the Machine” or rather “a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object.” (Thanks Wikipedia!)
4. There are only two types of stories and they’ve already been written: “I’m going on a journey” and some version of “boy meets girl.” Every story falls into one of those two categories, metaphorically they can fall into both; it’s the details that will set your story apart.
5. Know your three-act structure, so you can most succinctly and satisfyingly tell a story.

And for whatever reason, those five tips resonated with me. To my credit, I’ve never pulled a Deus Ex Machina because I knew it was a cheap punch, lazy writing. When you use one, you’re, in essence, screwing your audience out of seeing the protagonist have to struggle; which is really the best part. You throw a life raft to help your character, and then he doesn’t have to try and swim. He’s succeeded simply because you, an unseen “hand of god,” helped him. It’s one of those cop outs that always makes me angry.

Rising from the footlights of the ancient Greek stage, Dues Ex Machnia was never acceptable or enjoyed even during its inception. It was so maligned, in fact, as a storytelling device, even on opening night in ancient Greece, literary critics complained about its use, saying that it ruined the story for them.

For example: your protagonist is about to drown, he’s in a small box that’s quickly filling with water. He is going to die. That is, until a tsunami comes from out of nowhere, breaking open the container and freeing our hero into a sun-shiny tomorrow. He didn’t have to try to get out of the box. The box opened on its own, due to circumstances outside of his control. To borrow a phrase from the Bluth family, “That’s a freebie.”

I mostly never think about Dues Ex Machina as a device because I refuse to acknowledge it as a screenwriting tool. That was until yesterday when I re-watched the 1981 “Clash of the Titans.” For some reason, I saw this beloved movie in a new light.

The perfectly cheesy Perseus, played by Harry Hamlin, is LITERALLY moved around throughout the story by ACTUAL GODS. In this instance, Deus Ex Machina wasn’t a lazy go-to, it was an integral and literal story point. So, it got me thinking, in a world where there are few absolutes, is a Deus Ex Machina device always a bad thing?

It turns out no, it’s not. In “Clash of the Titans” it is an integral part of the story that gods are toying with mortals’ lives. If Zeus, Hera, and Athena hadn’t been squabbling and decided to meddle with mortals, there would be no story. So, while Deus Ex Machina is employed as a device, and Perseus becomes the most in-active, active protagonist in history, the device works within the structure of this story.

Deus Ex Machina was also cleverly used in “Donnie Darko.” In fact, Donnie even utters “Deus Ex Machina” as the as the grandma / death paradox plays out. Without the inexplicable addition of the engine falling from the sky, his story would never get moving. Without the Deus Ex Machina, his story can never be concluded.

Also, Charlie Kauffman, like a slight-of-hand-magician, brilliantly used a Deus Ex Machina in “Adaptation.” Not only was Kauffman daring enough to employ this device, he told you he was doing it, while he was doing it. Rather sexy indeed.  In the movie, the character “Charlie Kauffman” desperate for screenwriting advice, goes to see the character “Robert McKee.” McKee guides him, demanding that he not use a Deus Ex Machina in his script. But the actual screenwriter Charlie Kauffman, and the character “Charlie Kauffman” both resort to them in their respective ways. It’s a masterful and clever nod, from a consummate writer.

So, you rebels out there are going, “I am smart enough to pull off a Deus Ex and get away with it.” But you’re not sure how? Build it into the structure of the script. By making the endlessly giving “gods” characters with their own stakes in the script, their interference no longer becomes lazy writing, but clever plotting.

This is not to encourage you to just hand your characters everything they need simply because they want or require it. As a parent you wouldn’t give your kids Oreos for breakfast because you know it’s a bad scene if you do. You need your protagonist to strive and struggle for what he wants, so it can be satisfying to the audience when he succeeds. Remember, for your characters just as it is for yourself, the things worth fighting for are the things worth having, Deus Ex Machina or no.