In association with management/production company BENDERSPINK (A History of Violence, The Butterfly Effect, Just Friends) Cowrite (www.cowritescript.com) has launched a truly innovative screenwriting competition. The contest provides a unique opportunity to those who have always thought they could write a screenplay to play an essential role in a potential Hollywood blockbuster.
A fun movie premise has been posted on the Cowrite website and writers now have the opportunity to contribute to the developing story. The script is being written in ten page increments by aspiring writers throughout the world and is currently on page 85.
Every other week, the best ten-page script submission will be added to the developing story until the script is finished and ready to be sold. For their ten-page contribution, each winning entrant will receive money and prizes totaling $3000, a pitch meeting with Benderspink and a chance to win the grand prize of a paid rewrite of the script. Winners will also share in any potential script sale proceeds.
Another exciting aspect of the Cowrite website is the “Pro’s Take” section where professional screenwriters and industry professionals are offering comments and suggestions on the developing story. Guest mentors have already included screenwriters Andrea Berloff (World Trade Center), Jesse Wigutow (Irreparable Harm) and Josh Schaer (TV’s Jericho).
Cowrite is believed to be the first screenwriting competition where the end goal is to try to sell a collaborative screenplay. In true Web 2.0 fashion, Cowrite utilizes social networking and the “wisdom of the crowd” to create a community-sourced product. Cowrite believes this method of art creation will become a widely accepted, and, in fact, sought out way of finding new talent while producing blueprints for major motion pictures. After all, what better market research tool for studios trying to figure out what audiences want to see at the theaters than letting the audiences provide the content?
Cowrite has already been featured in The NY Daily News and Script Magazine’s newsletter.
In case you can’t make it (I don’t know why not - I’m flying out from Boston, so what’s your excuse?) here’s the ustream link so you can watch our huge Hollywood 2.0 event at UCLA from the comfort of your couch.
Tune in at 7:30pm PST on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 to see Keith Richman, Alex Albrecht, Chris Jacquemin and Richard Walter take on some tough questions about where Hollywood is headed. Should be awesome! The future of Scripped depends on it.
We hope you are having a terrific 2009! I wanted to extend a special invitation your way. We have the distinct honor of hosting a “Hollywood 2.0″ panel at the UCLA Anderson School of Management on April 15th at 7:30pm. We have three very, very impressive speakers lined up: Keith Richman (CEO of Break.com - the Internet’s first profitable web video site), Alex Albrecht (Co-host of the most popular video Podcast on the net, Diggination) and Chris Jacquemin (Head of Digital Media for Endeavor). The panelists will be asked questions related to the future of the Hollywood studio system in light of the rise of digital media. Audience questions will be welcomed/encouraged. Below are the event details - we hope you can make it!
Sincerely,
Sunil
Where: UCLA Anderson School of Management
What: “Hollywood 2.0 Panel” The distinguished panelistswill talk about the future of the Hollywood studio system in light of sites like Youtube, Hulu and Break gaining ground in the mass-market. When: Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 7:30pm - 8:30pm. Korn Hall, UCLA Anderson School of Management Who: The event will be co-sponsored by Scripped.com and the UCLA Anderson School of Management Entrepreneurs Association. The panelists are Keith Richman, Alex Albrecht and Chris Jacquemin. The panel will be moderated by Sunil Rajaraman, President and CEO of Scripped Inc. Students from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and UCLA Film School will be present. Other LA-Area media entrepreneurs will also be invited to the event.
Keith Richman, a recognized industry leader and successful entrepreneur, is chief executive officer of Break Media. Keith is responsible for providing the company’s overall strategic direction and leading the company in the areas of business development and marketing.
Break Media is the Internet’s premier entertainment community for men. Its nine wholly owned branded properties and the 100-site Break Media Network reach over 60 million unique visitors each month. Founded in 2004, Break Media offers advertisers unrivaled opportunities to market directly to a young, male demographic.
Prior to co-founding Break Media, Keith was the Co-Founder and Vice-President of OnePage (Acquired by Sybase 2002) and Co-Founder and Director of Business Development for Billpoint Inc. Keith was integral in developing the business plan and raising venture funding, which ultimately led to the company’s successful acquisition by eBay in 1999.
Previous posts also include Business Development Manager at Excite and Classifieds2000, as well as director of Corporate Planning at the Walt Disney Company, where he focused on consumer products, cable and emerging media.
A sought-after panelist at top industry conferences, Keith is considered an leading expert in marketing to the coveted young male demographic; he was recently included in The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen 2007 New Media list of the most talented executives in film, television, representation, legal and new media, all age 35 and under, recognized in the prestigious annual “40 Under 40″ by Multichannel News and was named one of the “10 to Watch” by Television Week in 2006.
Keith holds an MA and a BA from Stanford in International Policy Studies and resides in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Alex Albrecht
Alex Albrecht is an Internet content and site creator based in Los Angeles. He created and hosts one of the most popular weekly webshows Diggnation produced by Revision3. Alex is also a founding member of the production company Team Awesome, LLC that produces and owns the Totally Rad Show, which Alex also co-hosts. In mid 2008 Alex founded the popular World of Warcraft website Project Lore.com and currently hosts its daily web show. Yes that’s right Alex is hosting three different webshows right now! He was also recently a guess on NBC’s new late night show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Chris Jacquemin
Chris Jacquemin is the head of Endeavor’s Digital Media and Video Game practice. Jacquemin joined Endeavor in 2000, and created the agency’s media research division - the first of its kind at any talent agency. Among Jacquemin’s innovations within the agency was the creation of a series of research oriented newsletters that provide the clients of the agency with detailed metrics and analyses which aided clients make decisions about development opportunities. In 2006, Jacquemin worked to establish an internal team of agents from each division of the company which now serves as the Endeavor Digital group. This new division, comprised of twelve members, is responsible for working with the agency’s clients as they innovate in new media. The group is additionally working with and advising platform based and service oriented technology companies. New media series have been set up for a number of clients including Seth MacFarlane, Rob Corddry, Ali LeRoi & Orlando Jones, Lisa Kudrow, Aardman Animations and others.
Just prior to joining Endeavor, Jacquemin was overseeing the primary research group within the entertainment and marketing divisions of the ABC Television Network. He worked with the network as it launched Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. Previously, he oversaw a ten person research team at CBS Enterprises and was responsible for numerous first run and off-network distribution and marketing research presentations for the launches of series that include Everybody Loves Raymond, Martha Stewart Living and the Howard Stern Radio Show for broadcast television stations and basic cable networks. The team also maintained oversight of the development, launch and maintenance of the web sites for all of their television series. He began his career in the television distribution research group for the Walt Disney Company before moving to Rysher Entertainment, where he built an international research unit focused on television and motion picture distribution and marketing research.
Sunil Rajaraman
Sunil Rajaraman is the President and CEO of Scripped Inc. As President and CEO of Scripped Inc., Sunil oversaw the growth of the site to 15,000 users in one year. He is currently working on releasing a “producer services” component to Scripped, which will be unveiled in calendar year 2009. Actor/writer/producer Edward Burns joined Scripped’s Board of Advisors, to help Scripped define its producer services offering. Scripped has sold two screenplays “on spec” since January 2009.
Sunil is a 2008 graduate of the UCLA Anderson School of Management where he was the 2008 winner of the Young President’s Organization Scholarship. Sunil graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 2001 with a degree in Economics and Accounting, where he was Class President and Captain of the NCAA 11th ranked Division III tennis team. He was born in Northern California, but has lived in Cleveland,Atlanta, Seattle and Los Angeles.
Hey everyone - every once in a while, a competition comes along that we just have to promote. The Monterey Teen Film Festival is one such competiton. To all you young filmmakers out there, you absolutely need to enter this contest. You can enter here, and it should only take a few minutes of your time. To our young Script Frenzy entrants, this is a terrific opportunity for you! Please check it out when you get a chance - special thanks to Rebecca and Enid for passing this along!
All - we at Scripped have a special offer for you: Aaron Lubin, producer of Purple Violets and four other feature length films , has offered to read a limited number of Scripped users’ scripts! Aaron will provide notes/coverage service for a fee for between 1-3 people during the month of April. Aaron is Ed Burn’s production partner, and was the first producer to release a feature length film straight to iTunes. Aaron has a terrific reputation in the industry, and is an all-in-all nice guy. Since demand for this service will be high, we will provide this service on a first-come, first-served basis. Aaron will interview you individually, and determine whether it makes sense to move forward in the process. We hope you take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!
Email us at contact@scripped.com with subject - “Aaron Lubin Coverage” to participate in this offer.
Guys, the last of the Jason Calacanis videos are up, and they look terrific. Be sure to check them out here. Jason is a terrific speaker, and his words are very inspiring (especially given the state of the economy). Check out the last couple of vids - should we change as Jason suggests?
Now you can hear the inner thoughts of the Scripped guys on a frequent basis - follow us on Twitter! Add Sunil by clicking the following link: http://twitter.com/subes01.
One of the best classes I’m taking this semester (or should I say took? 1 class left!) is taught by Maralee Schwartz, former political editor of the Washington Post. In this class, titled “How Politicians Connect,” we study the connecting strategies of Obama and McCain.
Of course it entails a good amount of reading and writing. Hmm… connecting, writing/reading… Seem to go together, no? A good book, or in Scripped-land, a good screenplay, connects the writer to the reader. It is done not just by writing well and looking good (Mitt Romney) but by being straightforward (McCain, at least in his better days) and always genuine (Obama, frustratingly consistent). Finding your true voice and being honest with yourself is what readers respond to in good writing. It’s probably why writing under pressure often produces your best stuff.
Like today. I got an email from Sunil asking me to put another one of my awesome blog posts together. I thought to myself, I have nothing to write about. Then I self-corrected - there is always something to say if I let my true self out. The best way to do that? Give yourself a time limit. I have contact@scripped emails to respond to before my lunch date with said Prof. Schwartz! Plus my own personal overflowing inbox! Plus economic problem sets to grade!
We all have our obligations, but taking the time to write, if that’s what you like to do, is critical. I leave with one last anecdote. Yesterday I had the good fortune to lunch with Jeff Taylor, the former “Chief Monster” at Monster.com (wildly popular job/resume website) and current head of Eons.com. He asked the other students at the table what we do for fun. Odd question from a bad ass CEO, right? Well, he told us he’s a DJ and spends his Sunday mornings sourcing music from all over the world and does his mixing on Thursday nights. Then his mix goes off to Sirius and XM where they broadcast his creation.
He told us that as you get older, it becomes increasingly important to do what you love. It helps you connect, stay straightforward, and be genuine and sincere with yourself. So thank you, Sunil, for making me write.
This is certainly a difficult question to answer because of the sheer number of choices and the vagueness of the criteria. Everyone who you ask will give you different answers, and I thought long and hard before narrowing my list down to these five (actually six) individuals.
Any great screenwriter list must start with Woody Allen, who remains prolific to this very date. His work in the seventies remains seminal with films like Annie Hall and Manhattan deftly blending comedy and drama into one tight package. His work since then has been more hit-and-miss, but has always included strong movies like Deconstructing Harry, Match Point, this year’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and the crown jewel of his screenplays: 1985’s Hannah and Her Sisters. It may be hard to remember now, but Allen’s work was and still is revolutionary.
One of the founding fathers of Allen’s best work was the great Billy Wilder, who will go down as one of the great directors of all-time, but should not be ignored for his writing capabilities. He had a hand in penning almost all of his classic oeuvre: Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, The Apartment – do I need to continue?
It may be cliché, but I would add Quentin Tarantino to the list as well, if only for his rat-a-tat-tat dialogue and use of non-linear structure in his writing. His script for the upcoming Inglorious Bastards is some of his best work, and maybe the misstep of Death Proof is truly behind him. The Coen Brothers – Joel and Ethan – have proven to be masters of finding comedy is the darkest of places and with last year’s No Country For Old Men, finally proved that they could also make a deadly serious film.
Finally, no list of great screenwriters is complete with William Goldman, probably the only individual who almost everyone can agree should be included here. His adaptation of All the President’s Men is legendary, but it’s the feel-good buddy story Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the timeless charms of The Princess Bride that will be his legacy. He is simply the best.
They are too green to be included, but I wouldn’t be surprised if two individuals who are doing their best work right now find a way to be mentioned in this space a decade down the line: Peter Morgan and Christopher Nolan.
I also would like to make special mention of two television writing duos, who revolutionized the medium in their own times. Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld helped turn “nothing” into entertainment, and Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant who’s work on The Office inspired countless copycats – both on the big screen as well as the small.
Hey everyone, check out this article on VentureBeat.
For those of us on MySpace, it’s a terrific example of how social networks are influencing the way multimedia is consumed. Why leave the computer to watch the Simpsons? Well, that’s old news, actually. Better yet, why close your MySpace page to watch that episode when you can get it on the same screen? And through viral effects, your friends will quickly see what you like to watch.
Want to see what we watch? The Scripped MySpace page is at http://www.myspace.com/scripped. Come on, be our friend. Can you think of any cool applications for screenplays on Scripped?
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