Golidilocks and the Three Screenplays

Goldilocks (no relation to the brat with the bears) had to read screenplays for a festival.   She opened the first one.  "FADE IN: First the earth cooled."  True, the earth needed to cool for the oceans to form and single-celled life to appear, and for the vertebrates, amphibians, mammals and apes to show up before man could have the meet-cute at the Burger King.  Goldi slogged through the history lesson and was most happy when, on page 18, the characters suddenly came to life in the thick of some hair-brained scheme.  The story slowed down a few times again because the writer decided Goldi et al. couldn't enjoy the whole evolution of the plot without understanding just where Darwin sailed on the Beagle or what kind of beans Mendel used.  Goldi just wanted to get back to the story. Maybe the writer needed all that background, but the reader certainly did not.  "Too soft!" she said, and tossed it aside.

She opened the next script and got a pierced eardrum from writing that screamed Character!, Action!, and Gotcha! at her non-stop.  Lots of things happened as the plot careened and the characters acted with absolute conviction, but Goldi was not convinced.  There was something flat, as if the excitement was caused by popping balloons and if you stepped back, you saw the flaccid, stretched-out rubbery remains littering the party. And once she had stepped back, Goldi didn't want to step back in.  There was nobody she cared about in the story, nothing she hoped would happen to anybody.   Every character was a 'type' with a 'flaw' that you were hit with repeatedly.  Plotwise, the writer popped every balloon as soon as she could and Goldi wanted to take that pin and stick it...but Goldi was a pro and she soldiered on to the end.  Halfway through, the story started making sense, a few of the characters genuinely surprised her, and some of it was belly-laugh funny, but overall it asked too much of stock characters in unlikely situations.  "Too hard," she said and reached for the next one.

Goldi opened the next script.  A perfectly ordinary person did something most ordinary people wouldn't do.  "Odd," Goldi thought.  "I wonder why...?" but the author didn't give her time to wonder once she'd planted the question.  Instead,  the character's life started unraveling, and Goldi had to figure out what the heck was going on at the same time as the character did - the author refrained from telling her - all the while trying to understand exactly what kind of person acted like that - again the author did not tell though she clearly knew.  Goldi cared about the main character, recognized the world and the others in it, and had her own hopes for an outcome.  There was room for her mind and heart in the unfolding story - the author was either generous or disciplined enough to share the story-making pleasure with her audience and not keep it all for herself.  Suddenly there was a turn in the story, and Goldi laughed with delight, "I never saw THAT coming! But yes, it makes perfect sense."  When she reached the end, she sighed, "That was just right." And it was.

Janice Kennedy One-Act Play NIght

Janice Kennedy, whose Legacy Screening, "Man, Woman, Blackbird," closed the '09 Broad Humor Festival, is seen here out on the town with fellow Broad, Annmarie Hehir, at the Lex Theater in Hollywood.  The evening consisted of 3 one-act plays penned by Kennedy, including the stage play, "The Dark," upon which the film was based.  One feature of Janice's writing is her use of multiple actors to portray multiple aspects of women's personality or the "ghost" of their experience that hovers around the lives of the characters.  Kudos to Janice and to the producer/director Jennifer Bushnell for getting more women's writing up where the world can see it.

More info at www.lafpi.com - click on "Women at Work Onstage."

Great Screenwriting Advice

Screenwriting is such a tough combination of writing from your heart and taking care of business.  Playwrights have the luxury of messing around with structure any old way they please so long as it works.  Movies, falling as they do on the business side of the art/craft divide, demand scripts that toe the structure line much more closely. 

In that vein, I would like to suggest that all you writers out there check out the tips on Julie Gray's Silver Screenwriting site here.  Julie writes the fabulous screenwriting blog, Just Effing Entertain Me and runs The Script Department script consulting service. She's also giving a workshop at Broad Humor, so you'll get a chance to hear her and meet her there.

Bag Ladies?

Here are the first bags hot off the sewing machine. These are not for sale and cannot be had for love nor money.  Got to get a film or script in the festival if you want one.

Festival Bags

Many of the broads from Year 1 have told me how much they liked their one-of-a-kind festival bags that they got in our inaugural event.  As Sarah Schenck ('06, winner for Best Feature '07) said, "I loved it so much I used it till it fell apart!"

Well, for year 5, I'm doing it again.  I've gathered bits of fabric samples and am re-cycling them by making bags for all the participants this year.  So if you want another bag, you have to send us a film or script! And remember, if you make a short for our Legacy program, you pay no fee and are guaranteed a showing.  And a bag!

What Is in the Public Domain:

I was trying to figure out if some of the very old 78 records I have can be used legally in soundtracks, and my friend Laura, a great broad, sent me to the Cornell Law School website where there's a great chart explaining how and when copyright works pass into the public domain here.  Figured I'd share it.

The Godmother comes to Santa Monica!

Well, actually, she also lives there! Georja Umano, one of our favorite Broads! In the past few years, Georja has been part of the Broad Humor Film Festival, as a filmmaker and screenwriter. Wonderful work she has showcased at the festival!

Georja now stars in The Godmother, a short comedy action film by Lior Chefetz.

The hilarious romantic film is on a very successful roller coaster. It won Best Short Film at the Soho International Film Festival in New York City and also won Best Short Film at the Festivus Festival in Denver.

Now The Godmother is coming to Santa Monica !!!

It will be screened at the Edgemar Film Festival at the beautiful Edgemar Center on Main Street in Santa Monica, on Saturday March 27. It will be with three other short films, in "Block 3" (from 1 pm to 2pm).

If you can't make it to the Edgemar, there are a few more Los Angeles screenings coming up. On Sunday evening, March 28, there is a screening at the Method Fest in Calabases.

There will also be three more screenings in Hollywood in April and May.

Congratulations, Georja!

Stay tuned on The Godmother’s adventures via its website: http://thegodmothermovie.com/support.html

More details on the screenings and ticket information here.

http://www.edgemarcenter.org/events/filmfestival

The admission ticket is $10.

http://www.methodfest.com/10pages/films.htm