The Book is Out!

I am proud to announce that my book, 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers, is available now exclusively from the website www.26screenplays.com. The book is a collection of Creative Commons screenplays that filmmakers can use to make their own films. Each screenplay is tied to a type of film project. For example, there is a project called "The Meet Cute Scene" and it consists of two characters meeting in a really cute way. Other projects include "The Car Chase," "Pseudo-Documentary Style," and "The Horror Short." The idea is that an independent filmmaker can use these scripts to develop a portfolio showing his or her versatility.


I know everyone who reads this blog wants to support the book in whatever way possible, so here is a list of things you can do to show your support.

1. Buy the book. I know it is stating the obvious, but the more people who buy the book the more money I make. And I like having money. www.26screenplays.com

2. Tell people about the book. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a book like this out there. There are a lot of "how to make your film" books and "so you want to be an independent filmmaker" books, but there aren't any other "screenplay cookbooks" out there. And feel free to mention the website. www.26screenplays.com

3. There are snarky T-Shirts on the website, too. Thanks to the power of Cafe Press, they cost more than the book. But, hey, T-shirts are cool and cool is priceless.

4. Make a short film using one of the screenplays and send it along. Every film made from one of the scripts gets featured on the www.26screenplays.com website.

I know some people are not made of money and don't feel comfortable sending hard earned cash to an exciting and vibrant website. Not a problem, because there are things people can do to support the book for free.

1. Follow the blog at blog.26screenplays.com. I will use this as a bully pulpit to talk about films, screenplays, and intellectual property law.

2. Follow the Twitter stream at www.twitter.com/26screenplays. This will be like the blog, but more fine tuned for those of us with ADD.

3. Follow the 26 Screenplays YouTube channel www.youtube.com/26screenplays. Everyone who submits a short film from one of the screenplays will be featured here.

So there you go. This is why I haven't been writing on this blog as much as I wanted to and why I probably owe you an email. Thanks for your interest and I hope you become as excited about this new book as I am.

Coming Fall 2008

Ok, everyone. I've been working on a book entitled 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers.

Here is what the cover looks like:



The purpose of the book is to provide a set of tools for independent filmmakers to use to stretch their abilities. Each screenplay focuses on a different area of production, whether it be a car chase scene, a meet cute scene, or even a simple conversation over breakfast.

Each of the short film screenplays is designed to be filmed quickly and on a budget. If you have the cast, and you have the crew, all you need is a script to produce. That is what the book 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers provides. And with the screenplays available under the Creative Commons license, any profits you make off of the screenplays in the book are yours to keep.

There is a web site, a blog, and a T-Shirt shop right now (the T-shirts all read, "Of course I'm wearing black. I'm an independent filmmaker.").

The actual book will be available sometime fall 2008 (I'm hoping late September/early October).

Um... Ta-Daaaaaaa!

That Book Meme Thing

This will be short and sweet.

Blogger.com does not really allow you to create blog posts as drafts and then rearrange them when they are ready to be published. So when you pre-draft your next week's worth of blog entries, inevitably something comes up and you have to delete them, add the new blog entry in the right spot, and recreate them later. Ach, Blogger, thank goodness you are free, otherwise I might complain.

So I got tagged with this book meme thing. Here are the instructions:


1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you. Sorry. I don't tag other people. There is an established precedent.

There are two non-technical books by my computer at home. Because Oscar Wilde was featured in a previous entry, I'm using the other book.

"I've often dreamt about falling off a tower and never reaching the ground, and when I've woken up I've felt as weak and exhausted as if I really had fallen off it."

"That's the funny thing about it, lady," said Sancho Panza. "I wasn't dreaming at all, I was wider awake than I am now, yet I'm almost as badly bruised as my master Don Quixote."

From Don Quixote by Cervantes

Websites I Like: Daily Lit

Pretty simple, nifty idea.

Daily Lit takes classic pieces of literature in the public domain, divides them into daily portions, and emails them to you on a daily basis. Impress your friends by telling them how you're reading (or re-reading) books like Common Sense, The Republic, or Leaves of Grass.

Maybe now, your circle of friends will think it is cool that you want to continue educating yourself and will not try to beat you up for being such a nerd.