patricia burroughs
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TURNING NICHOLL INTO GOLD: A Year In the Life of the Winners of the 2001 Academy of Motions Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Competition, by Paul Watson
PART TWO : FIRST, ACT
*originally published
in ScreenTalk
[ march |
april issue 2002 ]
Our journey continues
with four of the five winners of the 2001 Nicholl Award a few months after
they receive their fellowship. SCREENTALK: What has happened to, or for
you since last we spoke?
PATRICIA: My upcoming trip to LA is shaping up quite nicely. I've gotten amazing responses from people who read REDEMPTION, people I'll be seeing when I'm there. Plus, it would be great to time the trip to sync with one of the monthly Nicholl Fellow lunches. I'd love to see everybody again.
CAMERON: Possible re-write job through Artisan.
ROBERT: I acquired an agent, Scott Greenberg of CAA, and have been talking to producers, production companies, and studios about writing assignments, as well as setting up my Nicholl script for me to direct. My wife Ferne Pearlstein and I are also in the mist of post-production on our feature documentary "Sumo East and West," about Westerners in the ancient Japanese sport of sumo, which recently received funding by ITVS. As for Sundance, I had a documentary short there, an interview which I filmed in 1998 with Rick Rescorla, head of corporate security for the investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, who was subsequently killed in the Sept 11 attack on the World Trade Center. Rick was a retired army colonel and veteran of three wars who all but predicted the attack and the current war on terrorism during this interview. Morgan Stanley had 3700 employees in two buildings; thanks to Rick's bravery in evacuating his co-workers, only six were killed, him among them. The short is called "The Voice of the Prophet." (As a side note, Rick was a key player in the battle of the Ia Drang in Vietnam 1965, and in fact is pictured on the cover of the book "We Were Soldiers Once..and Young," by General Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway, which has been made into a feature film starring Mel Gibson, written and directed by Randall Wallace, to be released by Paramount this spring.)
ALBERT: My script, The Northern Lights, although shockingly BRILLIANT and moving was not considered to be an EASY SELL by many and was in fact called SMALL AND DARK by many more. So, it was difficult for me to find an agent. This was complicated by the fact that my other writing samples were stage plays (really, I'm trained as a play write). But! Finally, I did get someone to represent me. Which is fantastic. A very new development. Happened just last week.
SCREENTALK: Are you still on a high from winning the Nicholl?
PATRICIA: It's hard to stay "high" but there are still moments. For one thing, we received our photos from the Nicholl dinner. Talk about a flashback! Suddenly, all the excitement came back in a rush. I've framed the group picture and it's now where I can see it, as a constant reminder of what is happening, and of the great guys with whom I share the honor.
CAMERON: I'm now realizing what a big deal it really is. And how much respect the program has in the industry.
SCREENTALK: Personally, can you say the winning of the Nicholl has changed your perspective at all?
PATRICIA: I think the main pressure I feel is making the right "next" choice; there are a lot of opportunities presenting themselves and I have a very wide range of tastes, so that's always fun. Plus, I'm planning that trip to L.A. on agents' advice that I pitch my next script, since it's a big concept action/thriller type of story.
CAMERON: I had my first monthly luncheon with the other Nicholl fellows (Past and present), and it was interesting to meet people like Ehren Kruger. As we ate and talked, I realized that winning the Nicholl is big, but you still have to work hard and be persistent to make it happen.
ROBERT: I suppose there is a certain expectation now, and a certain amount of pressure that goes with that, but that's the nature of the game. Without the Nicholl, these opportunities would not be open to me in the first place.
ALBERT: Winning the Nicholl has changed my perspective somewhat. It has inspired me to really roll up my sleeves, step up to the plate, and try to write some great stuff. Not that I wasn't trying to do that before, but before winning the Nicholl I just wasted a lot of time working on projects that were never going to be any good, or that would never sell. Or I'd give up on things after the first draft. A screenplay isn't like a stage play. A stage play, you finish it, cast it, workshop it, re-write it, and produce it. A screen play, you write it, query it out to a bunch of small-time agents who mostly don't want to read it, or they ask you to send it, never read it and never get back to you. It's very frustrating. Right now, I'm just trying to pick my projects more wisely, with more attention to what I perceive to be the "film market". Not that I want to write a bunch of dumb movies about..."so and so, who gets hit on the head and wakes up in another world", you see so much of that stuff because that's what is selling now...But I want to write scripts that are...solid, intelligent, interesting, and challenging for and an audience. I write what I write. And I can't change that. And if I did, I'd be doing a disservice to my talent. I saw Robert De Niro on The Actor's Studio once and he said something that really inspired me. He said: "Some people can't write commercial stuff. And my advice to them would be to write whatever it is that you can write and write it as only you can! And better than anyone else can." That's a paraphrase, but what he was saying is something I took very seriously. Try to find your VOICE. Whatever it is, and make it as loud and clear as possible. And you will get noticed. And be careful who you are showing your writing to. People out there are dumb, most of them, and they don't want you to do good. I'm talking about your friends and teachers. You'll show them something and they'll tell you how bad it is and they'll TRY to hurt your feelings. Don't let them. Aimless people resent people with ambition. So just keep writing, entering your scripts into contests, and reading book like Linda Segar's Making a Good Script Great, Aristotle's Poetics, and Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434.
SCREENTALK: Over the holidays did you made any affirmative action plans for the early year?
PATRICIA: I hope you're not talking about resolutions! For me, making a resolution is the fastest way NOT to accomplish something. My "action plan" was firmed up before the holidays, and if anything, the holidays merely slowed the process. You win the fellowship, everything starts happening, then the business shuts down.
CAMERON: I had to decide which story to make my Nicholl year script. That means to keep getting nice infusions of money I have to tell them what my idea is for the script I'm gonna write in '02. And that's kind of hard because I have a whole bunch of ideas floating around in my head.
ROBERT: As noted above, my objective for the immediate future is to make my own film, and to write for other producers.
ALBERT: I am trying to get rid of this belly. I'm getting to the gym a lot, but I just can't stop eating. I don' t know what the deal is?
SCREENTALK: No names needed, but has the past few months taken you into any new territory?
ALBERT: One thing that did happen to me...I got this "manager" to "manage" my career, but he wound up wasting a bunch of my time. It was a very strange relationship, one that I can't really go into detail on, but this "Person" was trying to make me re-write my brilliant, moving, fellowship winning script, trying to dumb it down and make it "attractive for a bankable young actor", blah, blah, blah. Well...I understand what he was trying to say, but I said: "Hey, this is my fuckin' winning script, asshole. Quit trying to hi-jack it and turn it to crap." Meanwhile, there is this other guy, a "producer". He's not really like a Powerhouse or anything, but he just got his first project green-lighted with a cool company who makes good, indie films for around 10 million and under. Well, this "producer" has loved my script from the beginning, even while everyone else was calling it "too small and dark" including this "manager" of mine. So, since the guy was the only person who wanted to do anything with the script, and also since he just got his first green-light, and ALSO, because I think he's a really cool, honest, good guy, I am agreeing to allow him to "take the script out" to a select group of companies that we think would be interested in the next American Beauty, which is my script: The Northern Lights. Brilliant. Powerful. Small. Dark.
CAMERON: Somebody I didn't know sent my script to a very big production company claiming he was my agent. Actually, I got a call from the prodco and I referred them to my agent who explained what happened. The prodco liked the writing in the script, and they had actually gotten a hold of the original script that won the Nicholls, but not the 2nd draft, which my agents had sent out. So now that prodco is going to read the 2nd draft, which is better. So we'll see.
SCREENTALK: How did the meeting with the prodco go?
CAMERON: Nice meeting. Got there late, we talked until like 9 o'clock. Most meetings go like this. They offer you a soft drink or water. You make small talk. They praise your script. You make grateful noises. They then as casually as they can inquire as to what else you may be working on. Then you might talk about what you'll be writing as your Nicholl year script. Or maybe pitch them something. The thing to do is to get them to talk about what they're looking for, and see if you have anything that might fit. Sometimes you really click with someone. Sometimes they look at their watch. Always wrap it up before they make some lame excuse about time.
ROBERT: Have met a lot of smart, creative people but also had a few absurd encounters that fulfill -- and occasionally go beyond -- the surreal stereotypes of Hollywood. If you put some of this stuff in a script, no one would believe it. Accordingly, I'll save the details just in case I need the material.
Next issue we catch up with our Nicholl winners to see how they have progressed since their awards.
Useful links:
http://www.successfulscreenplays.com
# # #
Paul Watson is a columnist for Screentalk and the founder of Make A Scene 2001.
This interview was originally published by Screentalk. For more interviews and screenplay articles, subscribe online at: http://www.screentalk.org
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