O.K. I have not been able to access the ASA website for days, are they done? Did they go belly-up? Anyone know…. anyone care?

-XC

Paul Haggis’ appearance Monday evening at the Mondavi Center no doubt will draw plenty of aspiring filmmakers from UC Davis.

After all, Haggis directed and co-wrote “Crash,” named best picture at the Academy Awards in 2006, and scripted “Million Dollar Baby,” honored as best picture the previous year. Winner of a screenplay Oscar for “Crash,” Haggis also was nominated for “Baby” and “Letters From Iwo Jima.”

All of this would seem to render him uniquely qualified to offer advice to young people.

“I think I am qualified to tell people what not to do,” Haggis, 56, said with a laugh. “They can look at my career and say, ‘We should be smarter than that.’ ”

He’s being modest, of course, but he did take a circuitous route to becoming one of the most sought-after screenwriters and directors in Hollywood. For much of his career, Haggis worked in television – on cartoons, sitcoms, dramas and however you choose to classify “Walker, Texas Ranger,” the long-running Chuck Norris series co-created by Haggis.

…Read More

PITCH YOUR SCRIPT TO HOLLYWOOD - The William Morris Agency!

Callers will be able to pitch their screenplay to Christopher Lockhart who is the story editor for legendary talent agent Ed Limato at the William Morris Agency. He is looking for potential projects for a small roster of “A” list clients including Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington and Steve Martin. He is also a creative consultant for COLLATERAL producer Julie Richardson and has set up several projects, including A RHINESTONE ALIBI (Paramount) and THE MIDNIGHT MAN (Dimension).

Each caller will be able to pitch their screenplay and at the end of the show, Chris will pick the best one for a read. If he likes, you’re in. This is a RARE opportunity for a one-to-one pitch with a real power player from Hollywood! Don’t miss this incredible opportunity!

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Third Acts are your race to the finish line. Everything has been setup and the final payoff(s) are coming in. Remember, your Third Act is buried in your First Act. You’ve raised a question about your Protagonist, placed an obstacle (the first of many) in his or her way, you’ve setup something that has to be resolved and usually has to be in such a way it is the final act by the Protagonist to signify their transformation.

Typically Third Acts are not more than 15 minutes long. (There are always exceptions to the rule). The event that sends the Second Act hurdling into the Third Act should be the emergence of the Protagonist overcoming his lowest point. The Final Action is taken by the Protagonist. Now it’s a race to the finish. The suspense, tension and drama are at the highest point here.

You often will expose the theme o f the story with this final act or redemption, resolution. How and why the Protagonist has acted tells us something about the character.
Your Third Act must do the following:

1) Resolve the central action line;
2) reveal the final image of the Protagonist: has he changed, into what? What is this new identity;
3) all that which is setup must be paid off.

Finally, the pace and tempo must be at its highest point here. The 3-Act structure is a building process of emotion and tension. Even with dramas and comedies, there is something going on. The Protagonist is heading towards this Third Act deliverance where the final decision is made and the action is resolved thereby allowing the theme of the story to be revealed.

Good luck and keep writing

Chris Wehner
www.4screenwriters.com

This is just too good to not be true. Fellow writers, you have to keep accurate records on who reads your screenplay.

By Gina Carbone
gcarbone@seacoastonline.com
February 05, 2009 6:00 AM
PORTSMOUTH — “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is currently the top grossing film of 2009. It’s about to break $100 million at the box office. And allegations have surfaced that a local man wrote the original script without receiving credit.

Alfred Thomas Catalfo, a Dover attorney and Seacoast writer/director known for his films, “The Norman Rockwell Code” and “The Stag Hunt,” is not prepared to make any accusations of his own right now. However, he did write a comedy script called “Mall Cop” in 2000. Between 2002 and 2005, it was a winner and/or finalist in 12 major screenwriting competitions, receiving the Best Screenplay Award at the 2004 New Hampshire Film Expo in Portsmouth.

“It was also submitted to various people in the film industry and it was submitted on at least two occasions to Happy Madison,” Catalfo said Wednesday.

Happy Madison Productions is a film company founded by actor and former New Hampshire resident Adam Sandler. Happy Madison produced “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” along with Columbia Pictures. Shooting began in February 2008 in Burlington, Mass., and the film was released on Jan. 16. The Writers Guild of America has given script credit to star/producer Kevin James and co-writer Nick Bakay. Catalfo wouldn’t comment on when he sent the script to Happy Madison. Questions are being raised now that an e-mail reportedly from a “Paul Blart” crew member to the film site indieWIRE has been made public.

The e-mail sent Monday to indieWIRE reads, in part:

“During production … the film’s title was mysteriously changed to ‘Untitled Kevin James Project’ before being changed back to ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop’ a couple of weeks later. The story going around the set at the time was that a writer from New Hampshire was claiming that Kevin James stole his script, which he apparently previously submitted to Happy Madison, and that he also registered the title with the Motion Picture Association, preventing Columbia-Sony from using it.

“One guy there who was definitely in a position to know said the studio was so shocked when they read the scripts side-by-side … that they immediately sent a Sony bigwig to New Hampshire with an apology and a check to ‘work it out’ in typical Hollywood fashion. I also remember hearing that the writer was a lawyer and was really giving the producers a hard time. Kevin James looked pretty sheepish for a few days, too.”

The writer went on to say he found and read Catalfo’s “Mall Cop” script on www.scriptghost.com. “… It’s the same script and the same story! Kevin James just changed Catalfo’s mall cop character ‘Art’ to ‘Blart’ and changed a jewelry store to a bank. It’s still about a mall robbery with hostages being rescued by a mall cop who can’t get into the police academy and lives at home with his mother. Both scripts even have robots and scenes set in the Rainforest Café!”

To read the Screenplay: MALL COP

Read more…

This week’s special guest is screenwriter and former Director of Motion Pictures for TV Mini-Series for NBC, Lew Hunter. Credits include “The Execution of Private Slovak,” “Born Innocent,” “The Law,” “The Red Badge of Courage” and “Centennial,” as well as his classic book “The Secrets of Screenwriting”. His book, Screenwriting 434 is consider to be one of the best books ever written about screenwriting. Please join us for the show:

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