My Filmmaking Experiences
I am a 26-year-old hot new Hollywood screenwriter. Yet after signing a six-figure "blind script" deal with a certain Major Motion Picture Studio* in December 2005, I have been writing and rewriting and rewriting rewrites of a script outline that needs to be approved before I can even type the words "Fade In." It all began back in February 2005. I was 24, in my final semester of Chicago film school and ready to tackle the screenwriting world.
One gutsy night, I cleverly crashed a university-sponsored "meet and greet" gathering meant exclusively for students in a TV sitcom class. I wasn't registered in the class, had no desire to write for TV, and had never written a TV sample script. Armed with a rough draft of my thesis screenplay and a surplus of log-lines on the tip of my sassy tongue, I finagled my way into the room. And that's when I met Lorianne Hall, agent extraordinaire.
Five months later I walked into Kinko's with the $ 300 my father (God bless him) had lent me and walked out with a hundred-pound box of 45 screenplays. Lorianne was speccing out my first feature script to the studios. "Almost," a dramatic comedy about the 1996 World Series, caught like wildfire. Calls from executives poured in. Brilliant but small, they all said (translation: not enough guns, guts and gore). Still, they all wanted to work with me. Buck Moneymaker, guardian angel producer at our major motion picture studio, phoned Lorianne from a plane bound for Europe: Let's get this girl a deal!
Lorianne called to tell me the good news. Immediately, I let out a scream heard in Katmandu. I quit my paltry-paying internship at the New Yorker. I phoned my parents, who phoned my grandmother, who phoned all her friends in the Revere, Mass., chapter of Hadassah. Faster than you can dial the operator, the entire Eastern seaboard knew about my deal. Overnight, I became a screenwriting sensation. Development gurus were touting me as Hollywood's latest prodigy. The next Cameron Crowe! I was the envy of all my friends, the shining star of my film school class. You're going to be the next Steven Spielberg! Everyone squealed. For a short while, I even felt like Steven Spielberg. Moneymaker and his assistants treated me like the grand duchess of development. You're sooooo talented, they all cooed. Sweeter still, Moneymaker's production offices were in the former digs of Pacific Pictures*, where I once was a studio slave (also known as an intern). I used to be the girl who brewed the coffee. Now I was the girl who drank the coffee. What a perk! And then, Lorianne called again. Turns out, somebody (cough, cough) hadn't checked with the head of the studio before promising me a deal. I contemplated suicide. Lorianne took up chain-smoking. There were days when I had to talk her down off a ledge. After a few sleepless nights (and dozens of frantic phone calls to my shrink), everything worked out fine. Mister Head of the Studio scribbled his signature on the dotted line. Signed, sealed, delivered, my deal was mine. Again. Swanky parties, fancy lunches and holiday gift baskets ensued. Visions of vacations to Paris, shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue and trendy dinners at Spago danced in my head. I could stop dodging my student loan officer! I could pay off my Visa bill! I could buy a couch for my unfurnished apartment! I was going to be rich!
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