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.

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2006 PAGE Award winner Davah Avena is now on the writing staff of the hit TV series “Medium.” Davah’s episode “How to Make a Killing in Big Business: Part 3” aired on NBC on Monday night.

Over the past five years, the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards contest has developed a reputation for discovering and promoting some of the most talented new screenwriters from across the country and around the world. Since receiving their prizes, many PAGE Award winners have gone on to land writing assignments, secure representation, and sign option agreements on their winning scripts, and several now have movies and television shows in various stages of production and release.

More news from past PAGE Award Winners:

The 2008 PAGE Silver Prize-winning short film A LOST AND FOUND BOX OF HUMAN SENSATION, by Martin Wallner, is being produced by Dancing Squirrel GbR and Lailaps Pictures at the Trixter production facilities in Munich, Germany. Joseph Fiennes is voicing the animated short.

The 2008 Gold Prize-winning sitcom pilot “Control Alt Delete,” by U.K. scribe Simeon Goulden, has been optioned by Company Pictures. Simeon is now represented by the Curtis Brown Agency in London.

2008 Silver Prize winners Michael and Jessica Brody have been signed by manager Margery Walshaw. Jessica’s debut novel “The Fidelity Files” was released last year by St. Martin’s Press and the book was recently optioned to Marina Grasic (executive producer of CRASH, ALPHA DOG, SMART PEOPLE).

2007 Silver Prize winner David Bishop recently completed his 40th issue of The Phantom comic book and celebrated the publication of his 19th novel. David’s “Doctor Who” audio drama “Enemy of the Daleks” is scheduled to be released later this month. He also recently wrote a successful trial script for the BBC medical drama series “Doctors,” and as a result was invited on to a BBC shadow scheme for emerging writers.

2006 Bronze Prize winner Zack Van Eyck has optioned his new screenplay ALLEY CATS to producer/director Patrick T. Brown of Bad Turtle Productions. Zack already has one completed movie under his belt, five features in development and pre-production, and six short scripts sold.

2008 Gold Prize winner Steve Warren has been hired by producer/director Mariusz Kotowski of Bright Shining City Productions to pen a new multi-episode TV series.

2007 Bronze Prize winner Ehud Lavski has been signed by Mike Goldberg and Josh Adler at Abstract Entertainment in L.A.

2005 Bronze Prize winner Dylan Costello has been signed by Gary Wild of Jill Foster, Ltd. in London.

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The Final Entry Deadline for the 2009 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards competition is Friday, May 15th. This year the PAGE judges will once again be presenting a total of 31 awards in ten different genre categories. The winning screenwriters will receive a total of over $50,000 in Cash and Prizes – including a huge new $25,000 Grand Prize – as well as extensive publicity and industry exposure for their winning scripts.

Most importantly, the PAGE Awards competition is judged entirely by working professionals in the film and television industry, so all contestants have the opportunity to get their work into the hands of Hollywood insiders currently in search of new talent.

For more information about this year’s PAGE Awards contest, please visit: www.pageawards.com

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!

Listen to this show: ScreenTalk Radio

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

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Frances Kavanaugh, who was raised around ranching, cowboys and riding horses, wrote more than 30 western scripts for numerous cowboy stars in the 1940s and ’50s.

Kavanaugh, who was called ‘the Cowgirl of the Typewriter,’ was one of the few women who wrote screenplays for B-westerns in the 1940s and early ’50s.
By Dennis McLellan
February 4, 2009

Frances Kavanaugh, one of the few women who wrote screenplays for B-westerns such as “Song of Old Wyoming” and “Wild West” in the 1940s and early ’50s, has died. She was 93.

Kavanaugh died Jan. 23 at her home in Encino after a long battle with lymphoma, said her husband, Robert L. Hecker.