KUDOS TO NEW SCRIBES

It was nice to see all the new blood being recognized in this year's race for the screenwriting Oscars.

This brief appeared in today's Variety:


Oscar race pits honored writers against upstart newcomers
Tyros tackle vets

It's not entirely a clash of the titans.

Sure, Oscar familiars Bill Condon, Pedro Almodovar, Paul Haggis, Anthony Minghella and Patrick Marber are back as writing contenders. But they're facing a raft of freshmen making their debuts on the award-season stage.

Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") and Jason Reitman ("Thank You for Smoking") face competish from Condon ("Dreamgirls") Marber ("Notes on a Sancal) and Haggis ("Flags of Our Fathers") in the adapted screenplay race.

Meanwhile Zach Helm ("Stranger Than Fiction"), Michael Arndt ("Little Miss Sunshine") and Andrea Berloff ("World Trade Center") vie, with Minghella and Almodovar in originals.

Two more newcomers penned foreign-language films that will vie for writing honors as
well: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for "The Lives of Others" and Iris
Yamashita for "Letters From Iwo Jima."

So don't be surprised if there are some new faces at the Kodak.

It gives all us aspiring big screen writers a good dose of new hope going into 2007.

Happy New Year!

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SET A PROJECT APART?

A LOT! Usually, I have a story that nobody else has. It may be the same genre, say a WWII piece, but it will be that something nobody has done before. But now I am working on a piece that has several competitors already on the market. What to do?

I think the angle we have is totally different from the others, but it's been a long, hard slog to get development execs to see the difference. Are they reading the short proposal entirely, or are they looking at the general subject matter and not seeing the details?

After several attempts, a colleague who happens to be a producer rep had us revamp the one-sheet by bringing some of the stronger points to the top and building from there. It reads much better now even though it says basically the same thing. Funny how that works.

Crossing my fingers to see if the third time is the charm.