Being five is going to be so awesome! We should have a party. With cake. I suggest Tuesday, January 5th. Our regular hangout, The Old Church, is closed for remodeling, so we’ve booked the Copeland Commons room at TaborSpace instead. We’ll still open the doors at 6:30 and get things going at 7:00, which means I will…
2015 Winning Script – “The Robbery” (renamed “The Return of Bug-Eyed Bill”) by J. Mark Scarbrough
Just over three weeks ago, THE RETURN OF BUG EYED BILL (our 2015 FiLMLaB winner) debuted at the 46th Annual Willamette Writers Conference to a packed house and an enthusiastic, inquisitive audience eager to see the winning short script and what we and director Mike Parisien had done with it. But if you missed it in…
As Willamette Writers heads into the last two weeks of organizing their annual conference, finalizing details for workshops, classes, pitches and celebrations; FiLMLaB, likewise, is putting the final editorial and post-production touches on winner Mark Scarbrough’s short film, The Robbery. Yes, it is a film now, his short script transformed by director Michael Parisien of…
The cast of 2015 FiLMLaB assembled on Sunday, June 28, to breath life into Mark Scarbrough’s winning script, The Robbery. After months of work planning, promoting and executing the Willamette Writers annual FiLMLaB Contest, I got to sit on my ass and watch other people work as they combined their many talents to bring Mark’s…
Every year as the FiLMLaB Contest wraps up in May we have to pivot quickly and get busy with preproduction; or more accurately, find a director and production team to do it for us. As a nonprofit, Willamette Writers is not in the business of making films, but we can, through FiLMLaB, help aspiring screenwriters…
As the 2014 Film Coordinator for the Willamette Writers Conference, I was also in charge of overseeing the FiLMLaB competition. Round after round of judging took place until five scripts elevated to the coveted “finalists” stage. Those five finalist scripts were sent to Hollywood for our celebrity judge’s review. Susan Fleming’s SIX MONTHS OF WONDER…
After seven weeks, four rounds of judging and one rewrite, our 2015 experiment in writing has come to a conclusion: FiLMLaB has a winner! It was not an easy task for the Producers Circle who met last week to consider and debate the pros and cons of each finalist’s script. One script, however, to rose…
Getting notes on your screenplay is never fun. Thirty years of writing scripts for studios, producers, and directors has taught me that. The reason is simple: They only address what’s wrong with your work. Rarely do they applaud what you’ve done right. In fact, they can be so devoid of praise that by the time…
If you caught our blog last Thursday, then you know we gave our five finalists one last task: to rewrite their short script. With notes they received from the Celebrity Judges, and with FiLMLaB mentor Randall Jahnson to guide them, they were given five days to improve their scripts, with a deadline of midnight tonight.…
