Past Winners & Finalists

2nd ANNUAL SCREENPLAY SHOOTOUT! COMPETITION WINNERS

1st Place – FELIX THE FLYER by Christopher Canole
2nd Place – CHICK MAGNET by Matthew Roy
3rd Place – VIRGIN HIGHWAY by Garey Riester

2nd SCREENPLAY SHOOTOUT! - 1st PLACE
Interview with Christopher Canole

Congratulations on taking First Place in the 2nd Annual Screenplay Shootout! Tell us about how you felt when you saw the news.

Winning the Hangman Productions competition confirmed my screenplay Felix the Flyer has matured beyond being a multiple contest winner into a becoming viable movie property.

What motivated you to write this particular story?

The director Armand Mastroianni approached me to write a sport bio-pic for ESPN. I remembered when I was a teen the story of the Cuban mailman, Felix Carvajal, who ran 1200 miles up the Mississippi to compete in the 1904 Olympic Marathon which was the most torturous race in Olympic history filled with cheating, racism and drug abuse. I researched and wrote the screenplay in two months. ESPN loved the screenplay but the lead time to the Olympic was too short for production. So rather than give up, I rewrote the story and entered it in several contests in 2005, the last of which was the Screenplay Shootout on New Year's Eve.

How long have you been a writer? How many scripts have you written?

I started writing screenplays in 2001, and am now writing my eleventh screenplay, Her Swastika Sword, about Helene Mayer German  a Jewish fencer attending the University of Southern California who drew her sword to fence in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  I am writing in the style of a Western lone gunfighter forced to stand tall against multiple antagonists including Hitler and the US Olympic Committee.

Tell us about your writing habits. Any advice or lessons you’d like to share with other aspiring writers?

Researching a month in advanced of writing a screenplay has become an unexpected passion that acts like a rehearsal amongst actors and a director. I fill my studio walls with images of the theme of my screenplay like a set designer and cinematographer. The pre-writing momentum builds as more and more people get wind of my latest story. People from all over the world have supplied me with invaluable artifacts I never knew existed.

The most important lesson I've learned this year is the absolute power of the REWRITE. Each time I win, or place high, in a contest I rewrite Felix the Flyer. I wrote a new version for a particular types of contest like the San Diego Film Festival and Screenplay Shootout, and suggestions from reading Scr(i)pt magazine.  I've rewritten this script imagining  John Leguizamo in the lead to bring out Felix's aggressive comedic nature, and then a rewrite with Diego Luna as Felix to accentuate the vulnerable innocent hero. Since submitting Felix to the Shootout I've written a version for a Cuban producer like Andy Garcia who can bring out more nuances to the story .  And now I am writing Her Swastika Sword for a powerful actress like Charlize Theron.

What are some of your influences? Favorite films? Writers/Directors?

Working as a still photographer for Stu Segall Productions honed my awareness of writing a conservative budget film using Balboa Park in San Diego, and replica of the 1904 World's Fair and Olympic site.  I am a fan of epic biographies, my favorite being Lawrence of Arabia. My research for a new script includes viewing at least thirty films of the genre (Westerns right now) and reading several screenplays, like Shane and Unforgiven to see how both the classic and modern screenplay writers handle the genre.

What are your immediate and long-term writing goals?

Like any un-produced writer I want to see my first screenplay come to life so I can see where I need to strengthen my skills. I've written two adaptations in preparation for being hired to bring a great human story or book into a wider public awareness.  Having worked on many movies  and TV series I look forward writing stories fellow crew members and actors will be proud of.

Any final thoughts?

When I first won the ScreenplayShootout! I had no idea what a major win could do to my career and confidence. I immediately re-wrote Felix the Flyer based on emails and comments from James and Shane, the hosts of the ScreenplayShootout!.  Since the Shootout, Felix has won the Queens International Film Festival, Creative Screenwriting magazine's AAA contest, the International Family Film Festival and was chosen as the first screenplay to be featured in a six page story in Script magazine's Jan/Feb 2008 issue where famed writers Peter Iliff and Mike Rich polished one of my scenes.  Having added the Screenplay Shootout grand prize to my IMDB web page attracted interest from many producers, directors and actors.  I have used the prize money to send out mailers, enter more film festivals, and paid my way to events like Expo and the Scriptwriters Showcase.  The thing to keep in mind is  a win like this is not the final answer, but rather the big first step in any writer's career.

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2nd SCREENPLAY SHOOTOUT! – 3rd Place
Interview with Garey Riester

What was your reaction when you saw the news?

Obviously it was nice to hear... Everyone in this business knows how difficult it is just to get something read.  To have a piece of work read and applauded is a real plus…

What was the inspiration for your story?

I have spent a considerable amount of time in Asia— having lived in both Indonesia and China.  Virgin Highway has gone through 10 re-writes and been set in 3 different locations.  The original storyline takes place in India.  While traveling all around India, I read a short article (back pages of the Delhi Times) about a few 12 and 13-year old girls who were sold or traded by their village for a satellite dish.  When asked about this transaction, one of the village leaders stated that “now the village would be able to view ‘Bay Watch’ every week.”  A few weeks later, I read another article in Newsweek about a worldwide black market network known as the ‘skin trade.’  I had heard stories but knew very little about the illegal trafficking of women and children.

The more I read, the more I knew that I wanted to write a story, a screenplay concerning this cultural atrocity.  The numbers are staggering… during the past decade over 70,000 million women and young girls have been traded for, kidnapped and sold via these various covert human trafficking channels. This black market highway maps its way transversely through most countries of the world.  The majority of these girls are under 17 years old.  After all this information and data had been gathered, the challenging part was to create an engaging scenario and protagonist that/who would transmute into a dramatic piece of fiction, also without having a documentary sensibility.

How long have you been writing?

I have been writing on and off most of my life…  As a painter and writer, my creative energies have fluctuated between the two.  Over the past 10 years, the writing has become the real passion.  Instead of painting with pigment, I strive to create visual and narrative images with words.  During this timeframe, I have worked on 18 to 20 screenplays, started 2 novels, a number of short stories, 3 treatments and 2 pilot episodes for television.  I am currently working on at least 6 different projects.  I have 7 completed scripts that I feel good enough about to send out.  I like working on a number of diverse projects simultaneously.  As with working on numerous paintings for an interval of time, I also find it useful for facilitating the writing process as well as to stay focused when there are many projects on the table to give my attention to at any chosen moment.  If I am at a standstill or difficult place with one project, there is always something else to work on to keep me writing....

What are you plans and goals for the future?

My aim is to venture towards uncharted territories — to write innovative material, interesting and provocative storylines — subjects and characters that are challenging and uniquely perplexing, along with a visual and verbal connection that transforms the storyline into a dynamic, feature-length script.

What advice would you give to other aspiring screenwriters?

Like many other creative people, I also have a day job.  Luckily I have been able to write pretty much at will and in almost any circumstance or surroundings.  I don’t need the week off or a hidden hideaway.  I write at work, at night, weekends— whenever I have free time…  Laptops make this much easier.  I am not distracted easily.  Being a father of 3 children, I have been able to work this way both as a painter and writer.  I am always taking mental and written notes, keeping files, putting together innovative storylines, making a genuine effort to come up with yet another way of seeing a specific situation, setting or moment to further develop.

Favorite Films:  Chinatown, The Godfather, Touch of Evil, Manchurian Candidate, The Year of Living Dangerously, Casablanca, Crash, Adaptation, the list goes on and on….

Directors:  Ridley Scott, Taylor Hackford, Peter Weir, Steven Speilberg…

Writers:  the Kaufmans, David Mamet, Akiva Goldsman, Christopher Nolan, William Goldman

Fiction:  Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Julian Barnes, Barbara Ehrenreich…

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