Catholic in Film School

So the birthday thread is spilling over into today, but whatever. Below is a synopsis of the Left to Tell book. This isn’t my adaptation, but rather a three act breakdown of the book that I had to do in order to arrive at my adaptation. I’ve already written about 20 pages of the [...]

All systems are a go on my adaptation of Left to Tell.
My professor threw out his back two weeks ago and we didn’t have class, so we’re severely behind schedule and I won’t even get to pitch my full adaption for a few more weeks. But that hasn’t stopped me from starting on it…at the [...]

…and my midterms are over too!
After calling what feels like a thousand companies for a number of different works, I finally got the rights to ONE book! I can’t help but be pretty proud of myself as it is hard to get someone on the phone when I call T-Mobile about my cell phone bill, [...]

I finally made my first post on Catholic Tech Tips for Teens. I won’t post it here because I want you to go visit the site, but it’s a how-to sort of a post of ten tips I use to help myself while I’m writing a screenplay, which is pretty much always. Check it out.
Pax [...]

It’s like naming a baby.
I’m trying to come up with names for both my teen comedy and my action screenplay….and boy is it difficult.
I don’t have any options for the comedy just yet, but currently in the running for the action script are “Because We Saw” and “Because We Were”. The only [...]

I now pause my regularly scheduled Pope Benedict coverage to talk about man junk.
If you don’t know what “man junk” is, you’re either not a man, an unmarried and/or virginal woman, or you’re too young to be reading my blog that is currently rated PG-19. If this is the case, please grab a parent or [...]

Other than “Here’s your check” or “We’d like to sign you for a three picture deal” the best thing a screenwriter can hear from a director is that they want to direct your script. It happened to me last night, and by golly did it feel good.
I pitched my African adoption script [...]

Crap-o-la.
So I had to write a comedy sequence that I workshopped today in my genre class. My professor counted laughs for each writer…guess how many I got?
8.
I suck at life! There were others who did worse than me (a couple of people didn’t get any laughs), but the high of the class was 18…18 laughs! [...]

It’s not officially official until the guild takes a vote, but the strike is over. A number of writers returned to work today with the rest to follow suit throughout the week.
I must say, the LA Times has had excellent coverage of the strike these past few months:
THERE’S no real way to gauge who [...]

The guild has reached a tentative deal. It looks like the strike is over, but we’ll see. More commentary coming soon…

Pax Christi, Rebecca.

I caught the flu at the beginning of the week, which sucked hard because I have asthma, but sucked even harder because I had to finish my action sequence before Thursday. (A “sequence” for those who don’t know, is a series of scenes centered around something like a place or an event, i.e. the opening [...]

So.
I’ve been slacking lately. I’m still trying to wrap my head around my new schedule—I have class both in the morning and at night and I’m working about 25 hours a week in addition to my various activities on campus. I got really sick last Thursday from a mixture of exhaustion and food poisoning [...]

Papa Ben just made an announcement the other day that the public should not get hysterical about so-called global warming. Now I’m telling you not to get hysterical about movies that portray Catholics.
There’s a new movie out entitled “Noelle”, a Christmas film by Protestant writer-director David Wall. The Catholic League has come out against [...]

This is the advice I have given myself.
Now that I’ve had time to come down from yesterday’s emotional high of finishing my first-ever feature-length screenplay , I can give myself an honest critique: pride has been my sin this semester.
When I first started filmmaking, everyone (including myself) was surprised at how good I [...]

If I could give just one piece of advice to a first-year college student it would be to make a space for yourself. Make a home for yourself. Don’t just fall into a crowd, actively create a venue for you and only you on campus.
My space, or rather my home away from home, is [...]

It is finished—my first draft of my first ever feature-length screenplay.
Be glad I finished it today because I was slowly descending into madness. (The blog would have suffered.)

I know it’s dorky, but I had to take a picture of it after I spent months staying up late, getting up early, crying, and praying about it. [...]

That’s the only way I can think of it.
So I still haven’t posted my resume (yet), but I currently work at a newspaper in San Diego. I have a weekly column and I do some editing, as well as personal assistant type work for the publisher who also owns some other companies. My writing has [...]

I’m on strike people! So help me God!
As I’m sure you already know, the Writers Guild is on strike here in Hollywood. I don’t want anyone thinking this is just some passing fad or just a bunch of rich writers whining about money, because nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s a summary of [...]

It’s late, but I’ve finally got some time to talk about my “Bella” movie-going experience.
The original plan was to go see the movie opening night on Friday, but as it turned out I was obligated to attend a social function (a.k.a. a party) so that didn’t work out. Saturday, I couldn’t go, but on Sunday, [...]

Me: I think I said this before, but I’m trying to appeal to the middle school crowd.
SCRW Classmate #1: Yeah I see that. This is one of those movies that parents actually want their kids to see.
SCRW Classmate #2: Yeah, you’re doing a good job.
Best critique ever? I think so. And right now I’m living [...]