First Line of Defense

This picture is irrelevant.

In my never ending quest to become the greatest writer/director on the planet, I have initiated what I like to call "Phase II." Free-Lancing is great, and I will always continue to lend my expert lancing abilities to any who may require my services (at this time that means Whistle Peak Productions AKA Andrew Tucciarone) but there comes a time in every Lancer's life when it is time to ride on.

Metaphors aside, I recently started in on a position with Creative World Awards, one of the top five screenplay contests in the nation (according to THIS SITE), as a script reader. What that means is I basically use my awesomeness and unrivaled knowledge of story structure to read people's work and judge it, thereby determining whether or not the work is good enough to pass to the next round of the competition. The great irony of the situation is that I personally submitted one of my scripts to the contest last year and didn't even make it past the prelims; prelims which I now am responsible for determining. To quote one of my own characters, "Funny old life, isn't it?"

I have been at the script reading for going on three weeks now, and its no cupcake dance. Many, many scripts exist out there (spec scripts, as in written by non-professionals) and the majority of them are about as useful as a poop flavored lollypop. I really have only found two thus far that even get above a passing grade in my book. Why is this an important position for me to be in right now? I am glad you asked. Firstly, I am sure you have at one time wondered, possibly aloud, "how do all these terrible movies get made?" Well, half of the time at least it begins with someone's script that somehow makes it up the ladder and into the hands of a person with enough money and power to see that script turned into a movie. It is a gradual progression, and if the first person who reads that script gives it a pass, it is less likely to be scrutinized on its way up because people are lazy and reading is time consuming. Therefore, if it was good enough for that first guy the second guy will likely just go with first guy's opinion and probably never even read the script itself. You can therefore see how critical it is first guy is someone with scruples and intelligence enough to discern a turd from chocotaco. I am first guy, and my net is tiny. For most, my tiny net is a death sentence.

Free-Lancer readers, take comfort knowing that I am the first line of defense, doing my part to keep as many crappy movies from getting made as I possibly can. The world only needs so many Maids in Manhattan, especially when we are still waiting on Forever Bout It.