Tribeca Film Festival Begins Today!

That's right! One of New York's best and most widely known film festivals - the Tribeca Film Festival - opened today. you can check out information on all screenings, filmmakers, venues, and anything else festival related here.


I personally really enjoy the Tribeca Festival. i was first really introduced to it about four years ago when I was an intern at a studio here in NYC. I think I saw something like 13 movies in eight days for work over the course of the festival. While the festival has, in recent years, expanded to include screenings virtually all over Manhattan, my favorite part of the week plus long festival is trekking down to sunny Tribeca. It's a part of the City that I don't often get down to, but I always find it beautiful and refreshing when I'm down there. If you're in NYC and love film, I really recommend trying to make it out to a few screenings (especially if they're down in grassy Tribeca).


Anyway, we're gearing up here to try and catch a handful of the films. Enough about us, though, what are you seeing and, more importantly, what do you think of what you watched? Email us at info@screenwritersleague.com to let us know, and we'll convey your thoughts.

Find a Home for Your Film

Several filmmakers I've talked to said that the most stressful thing was not making the film, but getting someone to distribute it. I work at a movie distribution company that specializes in indie, documentaries, and foreign films. Among all my jobs, one of them is preliminary acquisition. I'm the chick you have to impress before your film can reach a higher up.

While doing my job, many obvious "don'ts" the filmmakers or producers make while trying to submit their film surprise me. But then it occurs to me that I'm looking at things from a very different point of view, so here's a look into the mind of a gatekeeper. I hope this post will help anyone who's trying to find distribution for their film.

Call in: Like most movie distribution companies, we have information on our website about submission via email. Call in anyway. There're about 200 emails in my junk email box per day. There's a good chance that your ACQ email never even reached me. However, I do scan through my junk emails before I delete them, skimming for keywords. If you had called in and said you're sending in your film, named FILL-IN-BLANK, I would have a better chance of catching the email. Also, on the phone if the film sounds immediately interesting, I would give my personal email address (verses the standard acquisition email address), ensuring that I actually get it.

Don't leave a voice mail: I'm sorry, but the only reason why my job is very secure is because I'm super busy. I don't have time to call you back to hear about your film. Reaching me is your job. Call until you reach a real person.

Sound like someone you want to talk to! This is really important. When I have 2 dozen other things that needs to be done, I don't want to talk to anyone. But if you sound pleasant, you just upped your chance of my not cutting you off. I get a lot of callers who sound like they've already decided to pick a fight with me before dialing the number. And I completely understand their frustration and apprehension. Calling in to sell your film is scary, it's annoying, it's highly upsetting getting turned down or no replies. I know all this and I'll still give you all the information, but you're not helping your chances by sounding like you're already defeated! And honestly, don't be pushy or condescending. People think they can get what they want this way, but honestly, I deal with these calls everyday, so no, the scare tactic doesn't work anymore, and it doesn't make me want to help you get a contract so I can deal with you for years to come. Go for the sympathetic angle. It's worked. I've pushed DVDs forward to the VP's desk and asked especially for it to be viewed asap, because the director made me want to help (also because the film sounded good). I completely understand how stressful it is placing the call, but before you do it, just stop for a second and think about your tone and voice. Sound enthusiastic about your film! Tell me why your baby is kickass. Make me want to see it too. Down a shot of espresso or vodka before you pick up the phone if you have to.

Don't get too fancy: If you really hate the phones, just sending in an email is fine, but like resumes, don't make it super fancy looking with colorful background and weird fonts. You'll make your email look like a junk email, and my delete key finger moves faster than my mind.

Have a website: I don't like to waste the higher-ups time so I check out every ACQ that comes through the door internet-stalker style for 5 mins. Most people provide me with their website, even myspace pages. But some simply has nothing online. That makes my decision to send you up much harder when I can't see one movie still and have to make a judgement base off of your synopsis (which sometimes are so sparse I can't even tell if it's fiction or a documentary).

Really invest time in the trailer: More than anything, a trailer helps me decide on the film. I can see the quality, if the director/editor can tell a story, if the actors can act. This is the biggest sell point for your film! Really make sure it's good all the way through, and not just the first minute.

Got Reviews? Like any movie out there, the only reason why people will see it even if the trailer looks just eh, is if it's got good reviews. Awards? Festival runs? Newspapers reviews? Internet news? Anything to back up the fact that someone else out there likes your film gives you a step up. I don't know why people don't mention this up front to me, but a lot (and I mean a lot) of them don't say a word about how they got an audience award.

Finally, don't send in a screener unless you're invited to. First, you didn't get a contact name to follow up on. For all you know the screener might have never reached the company (this has happened, more than once or twice). Second, it's wasteful, if I don't think it's something we're interested it, the screener goes straight to trash. You could have saved a copy. Third, because it's uninvited, it gets stacked onto the "when I have time" pile, and I rarely have time. (And this applies to smart-ass emails that starts with "just letting you know I'm sending you a screener" before even telling me what your film is even about.)

In the end, no matter what, the quality of your film is the ultimate determiner whether a distribution company will pick it up. But no one will know how good your film is if you don't get through the first door! If you are rejected, don't get discouraged. There're so many factors that you simply can't control, many of them ridiculous and mundane and has nothing to do with whether your film is good or not (the most common one is "we're not looking for something like that right now.") Stay strong, don't forget why you made the film and why you love it, and keep submitting.

Sugar: Another American Dream

Going to see Sugar was kind of a last minute decision. I didn't have time to read any reviews, no trailers, only the first 2 lines of the synopsis. So when the lights dimmed, I only knew it's a movie about a Dominican kid who comes to the states to play baseball and fight for the American dream. Even though I knew it was an indie film, I kind of hoping for a Hollywood ending. Anything else would just be terribly depressing. I was pleasantly surprised.

Rather than a sports movie, Sugar is more of a come-of-age movie. Miguel "Sugar" Santos left the Dominican Republic with no English, the best curve ball in his academy, and a head full of dreams. He stands at the brink of manhood-- 19 years old not old enough to drink, on one hand promising his girlfriend a Cadillac and Christmas at Yankee Stadium, on the other hand making tables and chairs by hand for his family and diligently sending money home. He never considered failing or an alternative future until he arrived at the rolling corn fields of Iowa to play in the minor leagues. There, not understanding the language or culture, he is isolated from his host family, coach, teammates, and even fans, with only 2, 3 other Latin American players who understands what he's saying. Miguel also witnesses the cut-throat baseball business, where people are removed often overnight when they don't look if they'll make it. When loneliness weigh down on him and his performance falter, Miguel begins to examine his life and goals. I found the ending much more realistic than the direction a Hollywood movie would have taken. It was kind of a downer-uplifting end, and after a day of thinking about it, it was very satisfying.

What I find most impressive is the portrayal of isolation in a foreign land. Often funny but heart felt, the struggle Miguel goes though is painfully realistic. Despite friendly welcomes from most Americans Miguel meets, it is still distressing when one can't answer a simple greeting or question. Writers/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (also responsible for Half Nelson) show that struggle on the most universal social level: ordering food, trying to talk to a girl, understanding one's coach, responding to a friendly greeting from a teammate. It doesn't matter if you're smart or funny when you can't find the vocabulary to express it. I feel the most poignant moment was after months of suffocating silence from Miguel with only a few words of response, the host family's granddaughter asks him how he received a cut on his head. Miguel tries his best to answer, but after 2 lines of broken English, gives up and says he doesn't know how to say it. She tells him it's ok, he can tell her in Spanish, and he does. There is no subtitle, and no sign that she understands him, but he is finally able speak normally, tell a simple story, and it feels like such a relief.

Sugar is not your typical feel-good movie, but when I left the theater, I was glad that it wasn't. It was more realistic, and because of that, it makes the peace Miguel finds in the end feel that much more genuine and hopeful.

The Writing Week (Vol. 2) part 68 – The Power of Research

All movies require research. Think about some of your favorite sci-fi or historical movies. Think about the best war movie you can recall, or the great Wall Street, courtroom, or medical drama that just came out. No matter the subject, setting, or time period, extensive work goes into getting the most accurate depiction of the world possible – often before a film even goes into production. I recently found this out firsthand.

My post-Apocalyptic script, which I’ve been working on for about a yeah and five months now, is, like any script in that genre, set in a devastated Earth where many things have gone terribly, terribly wrong. And, like most post-Apocalyptic scripts, the way in which things have gone terribly wrong was the jumping off point for not only the story, but for my writing process. Before I really began writing, I did (what I thought was) extensive research into the “what-ifs” and “what would happen” behind all situations imaginable for the world I was creating. I thought I did a pretty good job hammering out the points and was pleased to be able to answer any questions that came my way.

Then, about a month ago, a friend of mine who works in the development office at a production company with a first look deal at Warner Bros. got in touch with me. She wanted to make a push for the script, but could I answer some questions about the world first? I sent off my answers, and things quieted down for a bit. Well, about two weeks ago, I heard back from her. She was still working on the script, but all the creative/development people she showed it to kept getting hung up on the logistics of the world. Could I send another few paragraphs explaining how certain things would happen if the Earth “died” the way I wrote it? A page and a half email later, I felt confident that I had done my best to answer everything as coherently and completely as possible. At Onyx’s suggestion, I even emailed some physicists about specific questions pertaining to my script, and sent those off to my development contact.

Though I’m still waiting to hear back from my friend about my script, I’ll say that I was surprised by how much and how many times I was asked to give detailed answers about my writing. I know, I know. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I guess what caught me off guard was how hard a time my friend and her coworkers were having getting on board with some of the key elements of the spec. How many times do we go to the movies knowing that we’re supposed to completely cast logic aside? Or we see fire in space (cough *Armageddon* cough) and don’t bother asking how or why? How many times do you, the viewer, ask yourself how any studio was able to get behind something that was so clearly not researched at all?

One of the best weapons a writer has is his/her ability to research. My spec would have been dead in the water long ago if I couldn’t answer basic questions from the rest of the League and my friends, let alone from development staff at production companies. Make sure you know your world. Research as much as you can. Know what it’s supposed to look, sound, smell, feel, and taste like. Because, I can almost guarantee you, someone will ask, and you’d better be able to answer.

10 Ways to Save NBC's Kings

Last week, a new show was cut short before its time. Kings, the bombastic NBC hour-long drama starring Ian McShane and a host of mid-level character actors was exiled from its prime Sunday night 8pm timeslot to that barren wilderness that is Saturday night TV. While the ultimate fate of this show may be to compete against House reruns on USA it irks me knowing that it didn’t have to be this way. So here, I’ve compiled a list of 10 things that creator Michael Green could have done to keep his baby alive


1. A Killer Opening Sequence

Kings was touted as an epic – a modern retelling of the biblical story of King David. Complete with court intrigue, war, and the classic archetype of the young man who goes to the big corrupt city. The formula was sound. But if there’s one thing that the HBO and Showtime shows do well, it's giving you the impression of physically transporting you to another realm, and that starts with an opening sequence that grabs your viewer and takes them there. From Weeds to Six Feet Under, this is something that people have come to expect from the TV shows they take seriously in the way Kings so wanted itself to be. Premium cable shows usually farm out their opening sequences, so for small trailer and commercial houses these highly stylized and intricate sequences become the jewel of their reels. The Kings opening sequence is some stock footage of butterflies put with some digital butterflies on a background of butterflies and some kind of annoyingly serious music with a digital star filter and an age preset. Meh. Network shows on that level keep their opening sequences short and sweet for a reason.


2. Put It On A Premium Channel

Kings could have really flourished on a premium network – from the creative control the creators would have retained to the more selective viewing audience they would have reached, there would have been a chance for this show to flourish and grow, without worrying about why people aren’t switching channels from America’s Next Biggest Celebutard’s Got Talent. This show is just aching to be on a real network, you can feel it when you watch it. All Kings wants is to tell its story without Billy Mays interrupting it every 4 minutes to sell epoxy.


3. A Little Less Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Posturing

Oy, we get it already. Oh, look at you, Kings writer/producer/whoever thought that “clever” device up, someone went to college, yes they did! Someone learned about those cutesy-wootsy story devices in their craft class. What you say? There are two guys who are in every episode whom only one person in the world even acknowledges and have dry commentary on the goings on of the noble people they serve? My my, I’ve never heard of that before, so it’s compelling and makes me connect more emotionally with the story. You’re lucky no one else thought of this first, because then your ham-fisted attempt at copying a tired, overused device would only make me roll my eyes and fast forward on the Hulu.

-What are those guys doing over there?
-Who Cares?
-Good point.

4. A Little More Immersion in the World

Gilboa: This is a country that was recently torn apart by war and has now been stitched together by Ian McShane into an empire, (hell, I’d live there). Although all the talk in the show is the country this and the kingdom that, very little time in the series has even been spent outside the walls of the palace. There’s no sense of the space, or the place that these people appear to care so fervently for. The city is like set dressing, it’s not a character in the show, and in a plot where the fate of the country is so often put in peril and touted as the motivation for many of the characters’ actions, it’d be nice to give a damn one way or the other.


5. Focus More on the Ensemble Instead of The "Stars"

The two driving forces of Kings, acting-wise, were laughably lopsided. On one hand, you have Ian McShane as King Silas, a classically trained actor with a resume a mile long and the ability to straight up kill people with a derisive stare. On the other, you’ve got a Christopher Egan as David, a pure-faced blonde-haired blue-eyed twenty-something whose last big movie was “Resident Evil: Extinction”. As the main character, not much is required from him except to stand there and make moral decisions while the other characters scheme against him, like most major network shows, but still there are times where he just seems laughably out of his depth. Now, to be fair to Egan, I don’t know if the writing is at fault or his acting is- the writing is admittedly quite poor on the fundamentals, and I’ve yet to get around to making it all the way through the Resident Evil films, but it doesn’t look good, either way.

Then, you have this ensemble cast, which is dotted with “hey isn’t that the guy from…” moments. Not all of them are spectacular actors, but by the third episode I was a bit tired of focusing 70% of the plot on David and was ready to start cozying up to the other characters, like how about that wacky gay crown prince that has such a ginormous chip on his shoulder? I mean, he can’t be going all swishy Richard III all the time, I’ve devoted six hours to this show already and I’ve yet to see any reason why he wasn’t smothered as a child for just being so darn evil.

The evil gay crown prince. Never seen that before, nope. Someone would have to have a pretty BRAVE HEART to copy a character like that, tell ya what.

There are a host of remarkable characters, competently acted and sometimes even interestingly written that only get a line or two when they get on screen. I keep on getting the feeling that this is like a miniseries that got cut to a feature length, a bit of the “Mulholland Drive’s” if you will, but it’s a network drama, which should give it more than enough time to develop their ensemble cast competently and completely. It just feels rushed and that’s the last thing you want for a show focusing on intrigue. For one to pull off a show focusing on intrigue, you have to first convince your audience that they should care about whether or not character A gets stabbed in the back by character B. And honestly, as much as I yearn for this show to get a chance to say its piece in full, I’m sick of focusing on one quite uncompelling main character. Needless to say though, as always Ian McShane is fantastic.


6. A Better Advertising Campaign

Right now the studios are kind of at a loss to how to grab the 18-24’s, having been raised on advertising to the point that we don’t even notice half of it anymore, full page ads in newspapers (what were those again?) or even your average TV commercials (thank you TiVO) can’t hold our MTV and text message honed attention spans. I for one remember seeing ads in the subways with the Kings signature butterfly on it, and was quite intrigued, but there was no way for me to know what it was supposed to be – A cell phone add? Some new medication? And that was pretty much all the info I got, until the lukewarm reviews started showing up on blogs. For someone who spends over half their day plugged into their computer, I saw practically nothing until after the premiere. I’m seeing this more and more with big show premieres. If I want to watch something, I have to actively put in an effort to find out when it is and where, I guess because network TV expects their viewers to be watching commercials, but that’s something I know most of my friends and I actively avoid. For a show that’s trying to be an HBO drama for the primetime crowd, they could have taken a bit more out of the HBO playbook for this one. These kinds of shows live and die by their word of mouth, which leads me to…


7. Having Faith in the Show

Shows normally under-perform in their first season. Especially ones meant for people with more neural activity than your average According to Jim fan. I think that even given all its flaws, it would have found a core audience that would have carried it through. The first season would be a loss leader until around the finale, but once the DVD’s got out and more people got to watch it, the second season would have come in with a bang. The story of King David has a lot of really cool stuff in it, which I’m going to be sorry to miss, since they decided to spend their first five episodes harping on about health care reform and letting their children do script revisions… with crayons. I mean hell, Heroes found a core audience and that’s an abysmally written ensemble show whose characters, for the most part, are actively disliked by pretty much everyone who watches it. But they’re still watching it!


8. Another Draft or Three the Script

A couple of passes on the show bible could have really helped here. But by one person, not a committee. This show suffers from the same lack of authorship that your average sitcom does. Any the teeth that the show might have had have been ripped out completely by majority rule – so the crown prince becomes a stereotypical sulking evil gay, the princess becomes a chattering harebrained harpy who can’t shut the hell up about how much she wants to help people, but oh goodness her nether regions want David, and Macaulay Culkin shows up out of the blue for what appears to be no good reason. So far the only thing I know his character does is steal black pumps, and I don’t even care. Make me care, please, o writers of Kings. Let him be an evil transvestite or have some voodoo that destroys souls through their shoes because for the life of me I doubt that he got banished from the land for being an unimaginative kleptomaniac.


9. Alan Ball, David Milch, or David Simon



Oh man, between these three guys, what they could have done with a concept like Kings just boggles the mind… I’ll be in my bunk.

10. Ian McShane in Every Role.

My god, what have I done...

Nuff Said!



Kings has been exiled to Saturdays at 8pm, and the rest of the first season is available on the Hulu. This was not actually a DVD Junkie column, but Kosmic just had to get it off her chest anyway. DVD Junkie is a weekly review of TV Series on DVD. It'll be back on a regular basis soon, but in the meantime you can follow her on Twitter @kosmicblues

Best Moviegoing Experiences

Movies are made to be seen at the theater. They can be watched and appreciated on anything from a flat screen to an iPod, but you will rarely find a venue with as tangible (the sound, the size) and intangible (the collective laughter in a comedy) assets as a movie theater. As such, there are certain movies that MUST be seen at a movie theater for its full potential to be realized. 

Some may scoff at the fact that Rocky beat out Network and Taxi Driver for Best Picture in 1977. (Hell, I prefer the latter two.) But hearing my parents say how the entire audience chanted, "Rocky!" during the film's climactic fight makes me really feel it was an experience of a lifetime. I kick myself to this day for missing out on Saving Private Ryan (I compensated by seeing Enemy at the Gates opening night...). Something About Mary? American Beauty? Missed 'em. There are plenty that I chose to "...wait until it came out on [video/DVD]", only to have similar regrets.

Strangely, when scanning my facebook page,  among my favorite movies, I only consider one as a top moviegoing experience. Here are my top five:

(NOTE: this only includes movies in their original theatrical runs, not retrospective screenings - i.e. It's a Wonderful Life at IFC.)

5. The Matrix. I saw this movie pre-buzz. There was a solid audience, but it was far from full. The lights went down and, wow...

If anything could beat the originality of the premise, it was the original action POVs. It was completely revolutionary, enhancing an already mind-blowing story. The action built and built until the climax totally dwarfed the beginning. (And the best part: no one in the audience knew it would be ruined with a second and a third!)

I went with my dad and my friend. We sat in our seats a few minutes of credits, a rarity. My dad looked over at us and asked, "Are you real?" Totally awesome.

4. The Dark Knight. I preferred Slumdog Millionaire. The story, I feel, is more original, the storytelling is clean, it's beautifully shot, it's got heart ... it's my favorite movie of 2008.

But that gets to the heart of what makes a moviegoing experience. The Dark Knight action scenes were incredible, and Heath Ledger's Joker scenes provided icing on the cake. The score mirrors the strength of the characters. The camera always seems to be moving, as if in a state of panic. It's special for a two and a half hour movie to begin with a bang and end with an even bigger bang. 

Afterwards, I could deconstruct some of the movie's logistics, and certain criticisms from blogs and film buffs rang true. But that didn't keep me from going back and experiencing it again.

3. Home Alone. For a six-year-old, watching an eight-year-old command his world was the coolest thing. First of all, he's home alone, meaning he has access to parents awesome TV, he 

can eat as much ice cream as he wants, he can order his own pizza, and he can watch violent movies. Secondly, this kid is cool. He can outsmart the check-out lady with witty remarks, scare away an inept pizza clerk, and talk to grown-ups on their own level. And when two accomplished burglars attempt to step on his turf, he outsmarts them and kicks their ass (yes, he even gets to say "ass"!).

Children are at the mercy of their parents. But for me and my friends, Home Alone allowed us to vicariously spread our wings.

2. Kingpin. What parent would let a ten-year-old watch this movie? An awesome one. This was 

quite possibly the funniest movie I've ever seen in theaters. What's not to love? There's a constant stream of jokes both subtle ("We present 'The Jeffersons on Ice!'") and over-the-top ("Roy, can you get sick from drinking piss? ... Even if it's your own?"); an ex-bowler protagonist with a hook for a hand who steals a baby's breast milk to supplant coffee creamer; a 40-year-old amish Randy Quaid introduced to the decadency of America; and a creepy/hysterical performance by Bill Murray. The great thing about seeing a comedy at the theater is that you're watching it with many senses of humor. And as a result, everything was funny.

I still watch this once a year. It has something most comedies lack: a heart. It's a story about redemption, and the ability to rebuild one's self-esteem. It's not only one of my favorite movie-going experiences, but one of my all time favorite movies.

1. Jurassic Park. The magic of seeing real live dinosaurs was simply captivating. I revisited the theater three times to watch this movie, got into countless debates with other eight-year-olds

about whether such a theme park could actually be built (one was not only convinced that it could be done but that it had been done, and his rich parents took him there!), and spent countless hours watching dinosaur TV specials and reading dinosaur books. Sadly, I was not one of the cool kids as I lacked the Jurassic Park lunchbox...

I was less enthused when I got the video for my tenth birthday; I was bored when I watched it when I was twenty-one. But there's no denying or forgetting that initial excitement. That was sixteen years ago. No doubt, it was my favorite movie-going experience.

What are your top 5?

(Note, here's a movie that nearly made my list: Titanic. In retrospect, the story is pretty lame, the lines are beyond cheesy, Billy Zane is a cartoonish villain, and you kind of want to punch DiCaprio in the face. It's hard to take it seriously nowadays. But I didn't know what to expect when I first saw it. I was really involved with an unexpected love story, and the ending was effective on a superficial and emotional level. And I know I'm not the only one.)

Trailer Trash XLIII: Trog (Joan Crawford, 1970)

"From a million years back... Horror explodes into today!"

(You know a movie is going to be poorly written when even the poster's tagline barely makes sense...)

This week's movie is most notable for starring Academy Award-winner Joan Crawford in her final movie role. Oh, how the mighty can fall... (Ben Kingsley, I'm looking at you.)

The other big highlight of this movie is that it features one of the dumbest-looking b-movie monsters to ever appear on the silver screen. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Trog:


I mean, seriously! Trog looks like a guy who forgot to put on the bottom of his Chewbacca costume. I understand Joan Crawford probably didn't come cheap. But, damn. Did they not have enough money left in the budget to buy their monster a pair of pants?



At 0:08 - Do you think this is the kind of stuff Syd Barret would see whenever he closed his eyes?
At 0:44 - Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!
At 0:56 - Jurassic Park has nothin' on this.
At 1:09 - How many times are they going to superimpose that face?
At 1:18 - Now? GAH!
At 1:20 - Does anyone know if underwear is considered proper spelunking gear?
At 1:28 - Chewbacca, no!
At 2:12 - "You may want to forget what you see..." - Does he mean the cavediver in his underwear?
At 2:25 - Aaaaaand back to Syd Barret-vision.

Wow. I mean, just wow, right? After the bizarre cave-exploring interlude at the beginning of the trailer, it's all just a man in half a gorilla costume chasing people around. Though, I suppose I'd run from that, too...


"...with the strength of 20 demons!"

Trailer Trash is a weekly tribute to oddball, cheesy and often just plain terrible movie trailers. Writers: Even Rob Schneider can get a movie made... so can you! You can read through our archive by clicking here.