Update: “Go Into The Story: The Quest”
If you are interested in learning the identities of the 21 writers [actually 22 including one writing team] who made the first round cut for the “Go Into The Story: The Quest” project, hit continue.
Here are the 21 writers whose loglines made the first cut:
Naomi Beaty — Los Angeles, California
Dave Bekerman — Los Angeles, California
Glen Brackenridge & Curtis Brien — Los Angeles, California
Michael Brennan — Halethorpe, Maryland
Drew Bryan — Hoersholm, Denmark
Brandon Cohen — New York, New York
Richard Cordiner — San Francisco, California
Stuart Creque — Moraga, California
Jordan Earls — Portland, Oregon
Renee Fabian — Washington, D.C.
Agnes Fernandes — Porvorim, India / London, England
Jason Headley — San Francisco, California
Elliot Lear — Evanston, Illinois
Donald Mazzoni — Milton, Washington
Emma Millions — East Sussex, England
Benjamin Odgren — Rockport, Maine
Rob Pilkington — Boston, Massachusetts
Scott Reynolds — Brooklyn, New York
Samantha Tucker-Boyer — Brooklyn, New York
Melissa Vizor — Surrey, England
Lynelle White — O’Fallon, Illinois
A few comments.
First with the exception of one individual, all of these were blind submissions. That is either I did not know the person directly or the submission came in with a pseudonym.
In many cases I did not know the gender of the writer. For all of them, I did not know where they lived.
I made the choices based on the quality of the logline, my sense of the commercial viability of a script based on each story concept, as well as some other considerations including trying to get a balance of genres, avoiding similarities in general subject areas, and so on.
The rest of the schedule as previously announced:
Thursday, June 28: Information due from first round writers.
Saturday, June 30: Emails to writers who make the second round to set up phone calls with me.
Sunday, July 1-Monday, July 2: Phone calls.
Friday, July 6: Contact the Questers.
Monday, July 9: Announce the Questers.
Monday, July 16: The Quest begins!
So congratulations to this group of writers. We shall see how things progress in the next few weeks.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate each and every one of you who submitted a logline for “The Quest.” Iknow there is some disappointment floating around today, I can feel it in the air [and in my emailbox].
My advice? Acknowledge and feel it. Because if and when you break into The Biz as a screenwriter or in any other capacity, there is one lock cinch truth about it: You will face disappointment in Hollywood. You will make mistakes. You will get fired. You won’t get the gig. Worse, you thought you got the gig, then it goes away. Movies will get greenlit, then stall and die. Life in the entertainment business is about highs and lows, and each of us has to figure out how to handle them. So perhaps consider this disappointment as a small object lesson in your education as a screenwriter.
Then there’s this: I’m not done with that list of 3628 loglines. As I mentioned previously, I plan to go through all of them again. This time around, even making sure to review each submission individually, I was in triage mode. [There’s another object lesson: That’s pretty much how Hollywood operates anyhow. So what I zeroed in on were really high concept loglines with what I perceived to be a strong hook.] After things settle down, I will have time to be a bit more reflective in going through the loglines again. Who knows? I may be contacting you in a month or so.
Also there were a bunch of writers who submitted two or more loglines, a handful of them who gave me the impression they had a commercial sensibility, even if one of the loglines didn’t quite make the cut. I very well may contact them to see if I can help them focus on finding just the right story concept, a really great one to write.
Because the fact is, I may take on some writers and mentor them individually through “The Quest.” That includes some of the 21 writers who don’t make the final four. That may also include writers who didn’t make the first cut.
As I said yesterday, this is a fluid situation. I’m going at it with my head… and my gut.
Finally, and I’m going to keep repeating this point, each of you has a great opportunity. On Monday, July 16, four writers will officially start “The Quest.” But you can use the same schedule to Go On Your Own Quest [which you can read about at the end of this post here]. If you think you have a great story idea that you are sure is a movie, challenge yourself! Write the damn script! When you write a screenplay, you get better as a screenwriter. Plus it only takes one script landing on the desk [or more likely on their computer desktop] of the right person to become your break.
And finally finally, I am inclined to do this initiative again. If so, then I will be soliciting loglines probably in November. Therefore start generating story concepts now. Remember: The best way to come up with a great idea is to come up with a lot of ideas.
And finally finally finally, in the next week or so, I will have more news about the free Core and Craft courses to which everyone who entered “The Quest” is entitled. Trust me, each of you will have the opportunity to claim that prize.
Now go write something great!
First for those of you who may not know what “The Quest” is, click here.
UPDATE: Okay, a first. I’m updating a post before it’s even posted! This is in response to several inquiries via Twitter asking that I post the loglines of the 21 writers. I have already addressed this in comments on the blog and even posted about it as well, but let me explain why I am not going to make these loglines or any of the ones submitted public.
First that was part of the original arrangement for “The Quest”: All loglines would remain confidential, reviewed only by me. I am a man of my word, therefore that pretty much nips the issue in the bud. But to be fair, I will give you my reasoning.
One reason I stipulated that position to begin with is that I wanted writers to feel completely comfortable with the idea of making a submission. I have worked for 4 years on GITS developing a level of trust with readers, and I wanted to do everything I could to encourage even those among you who might be nervous pushing your creativity out into the world. The fact it would be an entirely closed loop, I thought, would help. And in point of fact, I received a bunch of emails thanking me for making all the loglines confidential as it did elevate their comfort level with the process.
But re this group of loglines I selected after this first round of submissions, if you just stop and think about it, you will see that it makes zero sense to publicize them now. This blog gets a lot of traffic. There are many people in Hollywood who follow it. And there are tons of writers who visit the site. Who’s to say if I made public those loglines, someone wouldn’t grab one of the ideas, knock out a script and get it to market before the writer who originated it?
Is it likely someone would do that? No. Is it possible. Yes. What if that idea turned out to be worth millions of dollars and the original writer who came up with it got stiffed? As Max Millimeter might say, “That would suck balls.”
Now as I have indicated elsewhere, I do think I can provide some thoughts and analysis in a general way about the loglines in aggregate, as there were some intriguing trends in terms of genres and subject areas, and some aspects of logline-writing we can explore to improve everyone’s skills there. I will do that at some point after the dust settles.
But I am not going to make public any of the loglines that were submitted for “The Quest” for the reasons I noted above.
Hopefully you will be able to read about them in the trades when they sell as a spec script early in 2013!
If you have any questions, head to comments, and I’ll address them there.
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