Overwhelmed by all this First 10 Pages talk? Tell me about it. It’s a lot of pressure. Not to worry, though, as I have your perfect distraction. Amateur Offerings, baby! We’ve even got a special entry this week. Finally, E.C. gets his time to shine. HOWEVER, I am putting his script in here for one reason and one reason only. So that for the entirety of 2019, he is not allowed to complain that ANY script of his hasn’t been featured on Amateur Offerings. So E.C., enjoy this.
If you’ve never participated in Amateur Offerings, it’s a mini screenplay tournament where you read as much of each script as possible, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
A quick note. I’ll be reviewing M. Night’s “Glass” on Monday. So if you want to participate in the conversation, go out and see it!
Good luck everyone!
(note: E.C. included a lot of underlining, bolding, and different colored fonts for his pitch. I didn’t include that here as it would’ve taken me an extra half-hour to replicate. So you’ll just have to use your imagination)
Title: When the Motorcycle Calls
Genre: Heist
Logline: A motorcycle gang finds that their biggest obstacle in robbing a small town’s bank comes in the most unlikely of forms–a tobacco-chewing badass on a dirt bike!
Who am I: Longtime Scriptshadow regular, E.C. Henry. Past submission to Scriptshadow include: “A Heart Built on the Sand”, and “The Commune”. Carson has also given me notes on “The Chosen Redeemer of Thars”.
Why you should read this? “When the Motorcycle Calls” is a fun and entertaining read. It should high level discussion of how to write chase scenes. For those looking for a good laugh, hopefully I can pull that feat off too.
Story-wise there is more than just a heist going on. Lots of strong and varied characters. Plenty going on to keep things interesting. “When the Motorcycle Calls”has a “Dukes of Hazard” style vibe to it, and elements of a romantic comedy.
Also, I put some artist touches on this one that I’ve never done before, which were inspired by the script, “Meat”, which was one of Carson’s favorite scripts a while back.
Title: Eternal
Genre: Action Thriller
Logline: A bloody woman wakes up without memory and must uncover her shrouded past before she’s caught by shadowy pursuers because of her astounding ability — she can slow and stop time.
Why You Should Read: The benefit with girl-with-a-gun/female Bourne scripts is that every shop seems to want them. The problem is that every shop already seems to have one. Here’s my try at adding in a different spin on the genre, with a supernatural/sci-fi element I don’t think Hollywood has yet truly capitalized on. I can see why too — with a mega-powerful ability like time control, it’s very easy to get overpowered and boring. After a long while of mulling, though, I do believe I found just the right medium that utilizes the ability but still involves conflict and stakes. Interested to hear you guys’ thoughts on how to make this better!
Title: THE CAT, THE COUGAR, AND THE PUSSY
Genre: Black Comedy
Logline: Three stories about money, fame, and integrity weave together as the actions of disgruntled cops, struggling actors, a middle-aged housewife, a hitman, and a writer’s relationship with his agents, all lead to a bank heist gone wrong.
Why You Should Read: Setting aside my awesome title, I’ve attached the email from the most recent production company I submitted the script to. In it, their story editor/creative exec responded with the following: “Overall, I really loved the script, and you’ve got a fantastically unique voice and concept here. It really does come off as what would happen if Charlie Kaufmann were tasked with writing a film for Tarantino and ended up giving it the Adaptation treatment. It was fun, engaging, frenetic, and I never tired of being in this world or spending time with these characters.” If that’s not an endorsement to take a look, I don’t know what is. See the rest of the email below for your own convenience!
Title: IT DRINKS YOU
Genre: Horror
Logline: Trapped by a blizzard in a remote truck stop as it burns to the ground, a recovering addict and her young daughter must fight for survival against an alien horror.
Why You Should Read: I hope everyone has room for holiday leftovers as this is my version of a Christmas story. There are some holiday family film tropes, but with minor deviations. When some travelers get stranded at a mountain truck stop during a brutal blizzard, they don’t discover the real meaning of Christmas or the importance of family. There’s no time for any of that treacle when you’re cowering in pants-filling terror. Unfortunately, the nocturnal visitor isn’t Santa Claus. It’s a grotesque alien creature that interrupts the festivities in a grisly way. The young child isn’t slumbering with visions of dancing sugarplums in her head, the reality is that she’s doing something very disturbing in the storage room. There’s no Yuletide log burning, instead the whole damn place catches fire. A goodhearted mall Santa is present, but he dies a horrible death, poor bastard. Where eggnog is the disgusting holiday beverage that is typically consumed, in this story the monster liquifies the internal organs of its paralyzed prey and slurps the bloody puree like some ghastly smoothie. (which is nearly the same drink, in my opinion) I appreciate anyone who takes a peek at the script and am grateful for any comments/notes. Thanks.
Title: Roddenberry and Coon
Genre: Biopic
Logline: A story about the two men who created Star Trek and the one who took the credit.
Why You Should Read: Gene Roddenberry created the concepts that got Star Trek off the ground, his hands on involvement was very limited. Only the first two pilots and first ten regular episodes, often focusing on the supernatural being of the week. Creatively, the show REALLY took off with the involvement of Gene L. Coon! A lot of what Star Trek is today is because of him. He almost single handedly created The Klingons, had a hand in creating Khan for the episode ”Space Seed”. Any notion of Starfleet, The United Federation of Planets, and Warp Technology belongs to him. Last but not least, he also created the dynamic of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy as a trio, possibly franchise’s most classic element! Much of the premise centers around Roddenberry appearing at a Star Trek convention and waxing his usual claim that Star Trek was his so called ”vision of the future”and how much of it he ”created”. It happens on July 8, 1973 — why is this date important? It is the very same day Coon died! A man who takes his final breaths while under an oxygen tent while on his deathbed. There are also flashbacks depicting how much Coon was involved, how much of the ideas he drew from his time as a Marine in Korea, and his working relationship with Gene Roddenberry!
How do I know all of this? Apart from some creative license, I wrote and published Gene L. Coon: The Unsung Hero of Star Trek. Possibly the only book on him, while there are at least five books on Roddenberry. I dug into newspaper archives no one had looked at in DECADES for the smallest bits of info on Coon’s life and career. Within six months, I researched and wrote a book that chronicled his life from singing opera on an Omaha, Nebraska radio station at four years old to the printing of his Obituary of his death from throat and lung cancer in July 1973. Thanks to this book, my sales recovered from a two year dry spell. It became #5 seller within a month of release and is still going strong a year and a half later! The script was requested by a low budget filmmaker, feeling it is very solid and could be made on a modest budget. Also resulting from this has been an article writing opportunity and the book was even on display at an event honoring Coon in his hometown of Beatrice, Nebraska earlier this year. The book is available on Amazon Kindle and Audible.com with the audiobook narrated by former Star Trek stand in and guest star Jack Nolan! Here’s hoping you find the screenplay as enjoyable and as informative as many have found the books!
