A Brief Wrap-Up
It’s official. Guided By Wire has left the harbor and is now cuttin’ waves on the open sea. Welcome.
So, I had that old blog which some may have read. It didn’t circulate far. Wasn’t meant to. It was all about school and school’s winding down. In fact it’s pretty much over. I’m just laying low, living on the dole, and formulating my exit strategy. The goal? Never go back to bartending!
That means I’ve been working my various writing projects, building that bridge out into the rough and tumble entertainment business. So let me run down a few bullet points about hwere we stand on the eve of departure.
- Came to UCLA a feature writer. Turned down the chance to study television.
-Am leaving UCLA a television writer. Am writing feature scripts mostly for fun, when there’s time.
-Have a really good friend who’s my sometime writing partner. We just finished a TV drama Pilot.
-Said pilot gave me chills when I read it. We might just blow your mind with it one day.
-Won some awards. Not little awards either. A Sloan Fellowship and A Showcase Award.
-Worked at the world famous UCLA Film & Television Archive
-Worked for writer-director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and producer Irwin Winkler (Rocky)
-Have one year solid – 4 quarters – of University teaching experience.
-Been in a writer’s group that can rock when it’s on for the past three years.
-Was taught Texas Hold’em by some wiley playwrights.
-wrote a one act and am now writing a full length play.
-Co – Executive Produce the end of the year UCLA Screenwriters Industry Showcase awards night.
-Wrote a one hour drama pilot about Chicago. Everyone freaked out.
-That pilot got me a manager and a lawyer who in turn got a hero of mine attached to direct and executive produce it in the near future (hopefully)
-Wrote some television commercials for Specialized Bikes.
-Walked the picket line in the great writer’s strike of ’08
-Made some amazing friends. Really amazing friends – in school and out.
So that’s mostly what the old blog covered in a nutshell and a few new things. Not a bad run, looking back.
I’ll talk about projects when I can. Some, I may not be able to at first. Because this is more public and there’s more at stake. So, bear with me on that front. Suffice to say that there are some potentially amazing things going on.
Right now: I have three television drama pilots out in the industry in some very advantageous places. I have an idea for a fourth drama series idea that I believe an Producer is interested in. I’m waiting for that meeting to be set. Meanwhile, I’m in the midst of writing a feature for a directing student. We’ve been developing the story for about four months now and are just reaching the outline phase. He hopes to shoot it this summer. And, am about to start the same road with a director for whom I wrote some commercials – develop a low to no budget feature idea, write it, and he’ll shoot it. For that one, I’ll get paid a little bit. There’s two other feature projects that are in the early discussion phase now and a ton of graphic novel stuff that’s waiting. Plus, the aforementioned full length play. That’s my ongoing docket. Consider yourself up to speed.
And a picture of me and my buddy, JJ at a Laurel Canyon film party a week ago tonight. Jason was in the bathroom or talking to some Producer. It was at Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot’s writing house. They wrote Shrek, Alaadin, Zorro, all three Pirates of the Carribean, and some other stuff. You get to have a writing house in Laurel Canyon when you write those kinds of movies.
