One Month!

It sounds cliche, but it really does just seem like yesterday I was starting film school. And now, there's one month until I graduate. It's insane!

So, I haven't updated in a long time, but last post, I was excited and looking forward to something cool. Well, that something cool happened. All of us writers got to go to LA in May to do pitch meetings and meet with alums and industry people. It was so great to learn from these amazing people and meet so many new friends. We even met with the screenwriter of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake, Eric Hesserier, and Alan Ball, FSU alum, and Oscar winning screenwriter of "American Beauty," and creator of "True Blood" and great advice-giver extrordinaire. We also got to meet one of the execs at Bad Hat Harry and a writer from LOST, Melinda Hsu Taylor. I freaked out. Only a bit.

And by a bit, I mean A TON! I thought I was gonna pee my pants.

Anyway, it was wonderful, and it just made me really excited to get out to LA and work. All of my closest friends from film school are moving out there, and so is Mike, and it's just going to be a great time with incredible opportunities.

Today, I workshopped my last piece of writing for film school! And it's all just clicking that it's pretty much over! Now, the only work I have yet to do is reading other material and giving my classmates notes.

It's all insane and incredibly sad and crazy, because I feel like I've been in film school forever, but it also feels great. I've learned so much about screenwriting, and I really feel prepared and excited to go off on my own into Hollywood! But then again, I know I'll never be alone in the industry with all my friends.

Awww. Cheesy, I know. But true.

So, in one month, I'll be off on my new journey. I'm looking for internships and applying for part-time jobs and internships right now. So, wish me luck!

To be continued...

Just a Thought...

I'm working on the second draft of my fourth Film School script, and when I think back to a year ago, and everything I didn't know about screenwriting that I do now, I feel so lucky and humbled for everything I've learned from all my amazing professors and classmates. I truly, truly love it, and I truly, truly wouldn't be anywhere without them.

If anyone ever asked me if they should go to Film School, I wouldn't hesitate a second. And if they ever asked me where they should go, I'd tell them here. Because there's so much more to Film School than learning how to write a script. I've gotten a second family, full of writers and filmmakers, and I know that we'll work together (and do crazy, weird things together) forever.

So, if anyone reading this knows anyone who wants to go to Film School, or wants to go themselves, that's my pitch. I've never made a better decision.

More features, more pitching!

We're in the second week of our second intensive for the semester. Last week, we did more mock pitches, and we have another tomorrow, where we're pitching all new stuff-- new ideas we haven't written yet.

I've finished the first draft of my 10th feature, and I feel really happy with it. It's a comedy, and there isn't much that I have to change in it. It made people laugh, which makes me really happy. I'm really excited about how my friends felt about it, and I can't wait to finish it so when I move to LA, I can pitch it for real.

This semester is almost over, and it's absolutely insane! I'm almost done with Film School, and I feel like I just got here!

Hopefully I'll have some really exciting news about the summer semester coming soon. I can't wait to spend this summer making connections with all of the alums out in LA.

Anyway, I'm super busy with intensives and teaching, but it's all going wonderfully.

Pitching and Features!

This semester, I have a Professional Development class, which is preparing me for Hollywood. We do a lot of brainstorming and developing ideas that we can pitch in the future. Right now, we're doing practice pitches. They're really nervewracking, because we're in a room alone with a person, but we're being video recorded, and the rest of our class and our professor is watching a live stream in the Writer's Room downstairs.

I've gone yesterday and today, and although I've been super nervous beforehand, once I've gotten in the room, I didn't feel nervous anymore. Pitching is actually kind of fun, believe it or not.

What we do is go in and talk a bit about ourselves and ask what the person wants to hear and then we go into some of our movie ideas. Some of the pitches last ten minutes and some just a few minutes. We have 30 minutes total in the room, so we do whatever we need to do to fill up that time. The person will ask questions sometimes, and we have to work to just move it along and tell them as much as we can about our projects we're pitching.

So, we'll do these mock pitches for about a week or two, and then we'll be pitching to some industry professionals, just for practice. I'm excited.

We also have a feature class, and we have our intensive class next week for that, so I'll be writing a lot of pages. I have about 25 pages so far on my new script. I'm excited to keep working on it.

This weekend, we get to help with interviews for incoming students. I'm really excited, because I was on the other side of this twice, and I'm just happy to meet these people and see what it's like to be on this side of the room.

This semester is going by super fast, and it's crazy, because that means there's only one to go after this until graduation! Eek!