Tag Archive for Paige McKenzie

Welcome To The Producers Circle

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.…

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl: Or How A Northwest Trio Hooked The Weinsteins

“Nobody knows anything…” William Goldman’s famous quote about Hollywood, may very well apply to the publishing industry as well; especially during this time of digital expansion and the resulting democratization of creative expression. The tools of production and marketing are available to everyone now, not just studios and publishing houses. What the long term net…

Making a Web Series is Like Being on Survivor

Word to All the Content Creators A couple weeks ago, a few of us surrounding the FiLMLaB project this past year at the Willamette Writers Conference got together to talk shop about the ups and downs of FiLMLaB 2014. After a couple beers, we might have summoned up enough group juju to determine what came…

Happy Halloween From FiLMLaB!

Are your jack o’lanterns carved? Is your costume complete and ready to wear? Have you reassembled your lawn displays of tombstones, witches, skeletons and monsters that last week’s windstorm battered about? Then you are ready for National Novel Writing Month! Halloween is the last night to pretend you’re not a writer before the official start…

2014 FiLMLaB: Special Thanks

Are you recovered from the Willamette Writers Conference? Recovered is not the right word, at least not for attendees. Attendees usually finish the three day conference, tired, but elated, full of creative energy and invigorating possibility. If you are a conference organizer or volunteer, recovered is exactly the right word. This year was a particular…

The ‘Guests’ of FiLMLaB’s “Unwelcome Guests”

This is it. The final few days before the FiLMLaB premier of 2014’s winning short, Unwelcome Guests, at the Willamette Writers Conference. If you weren’t aware, the conference has moved this year, from our long time post at the Airport Sheraton, to the Lloyd Center Doubletree Hotel. WW President, Jenny Schrader gave me the grand…

The Benefits of Being A Ghost: A Writer On Set At FiLMLaB

Being the screenwriter on set is fun as long as you know what you’re in for. If this was a Mozart symphony production, the screenwriter would be the composer and the director would be the conductor. It’s up to the conductor to translate Mozart’s scribbles on paper into music for the ears, music created by…

Quiet on the Set!

I was on the set yesterday of FiLMLaB’s “Unwelcome Guests” by Jon Dragt. It was my first FiLMLaB film set—actually, my first film set ever, and it was amazing. Fantastic. Fun! Quite honestly? I loved it. Granted, I wasn’t hauling any equipment, dealing with the drastic changes in sunlight, the rain, stressing over prop malfunctions…