Whirlwind

Well, the past few weeks have been pretty insanely busy for me. Last Friday, I graduated from UCLA’s MBA program and my whole family was in town. It was great to have my sister here from Barcelona, and a few other friends from college. I was also happy that my girlfriend took a short video of me receiving my diploma (just in case I need to use it to verify that I actually graduated – just kidding of course).

The weekend before, I was in Las Vegas with my classmates celebrating our last weekend as students. We stayed at The Palms, and the entire time I was looking for the Carl’s Junior, but I couldn’t find it (there’s an advertisement with the Maloof Brothers about a “6,000 dollar burger.”). Not that I would have spent the $$$, but I had to check out the Carl’s just to see what it looked like. I guess the simple pleasures in life keep me happy.

I was in Maryland the weekend before for a wedding of a good buddy of mine from college. Chelsea Clinton was there (see picture above), and I had the chance to run Scripped by her , which was pretty cool. The wedding itself was in St. Charles (which is where The Wedding Crashers was filmed), and it was an extremely beautiful location…. I’ve just been all over the place lately.

The big news is that Zak, Ryan and I are all grinding away at Scripped and we’re going to be making more exciting announcements over the next month or so. We really want to help every single member of the site have a shot at making their Hollywood dreams come true! If you’ve written your screenplay, the hard part is already over…. In any event, free screenwriting software is cool, but we want to give you guys more than that!

Email us and tell us how your screenplay is going.

Edward Burns Joins Scripped Board of Advisors!

I just watched Purple Violets on iTunes. I needed something to occupy the 4-hour bus ride between Boston and New York this weekend, and I figured I should catch up on some movies.

I also learned that Purple Violets was the first major motion picture to be released on iTunes. I figured I owed it to Edward Burns to have a look.

It’s a movie about the complex romance between two authors and their friends. I always find it a bit odd when writers write about writing. Being at MIT and enjoying math theory a bit too much, I think of it as a fractal. You know, one of those things like a letter A which, when you zoom in, you see is composed of other little A’s. And when you zoom in on them, even more tiny A’s.

But that’s not really what I was thinking about as I watched Eddie’s movie. I was actually thinking how lucky we are to have him involved with Scripped.

In the coming months you’ll hear more from Eddie and Aaron Lubin, his partner in production. With their input and guidance we will build Scripped into the superb online screenwriting community we know it can be. It is our summer goal to make this the most happenin’ place to write, protect, and even distribute your scripted content. You can also expect to hear from Eddie and Aaron directly through a few new features we’re building right now.

If you have any ideas, please don’t be shy. Tell us by commenting here or writing to us at contact@scripped.com. We love to hear from you. Even Sunil and Zak will spend their weekends checking the Scripped email inbox.

I know because I check it too.

Below is a copy of the press release that we issued today!

Los Angeles, CA – On Monday, May 19th, Producers Edward Burns and Aaron Lubin reached an agreement to join Scripped Inc.’s Board of Advisors. Scripped Inc. is a digital media startup that launched “Scripped Writer,” a web-based screenwriting software platform.

Burns and Lubin will help the web-based startup’s short and long term business strategy. Scripped launched the beta version of its web-based screenwriting software in January of 2008 and has since built a user-base of over 5,500 writers from all 50 states, as well as from 50 different countries. Scripped is currently being used by students from UCLA, USC, Santa Clara University and Grand Rapids Michigan Middle School amongst a host of other educational institutions.

“We are thrilled to add Ed and Aaron to the advisory board,” said Sunil Rajaraman, president and CEO of Scripped, Inc. “Their industry knowledge will help us guide our short and long-term thinking. We want to provide the best possible services to our user-base and Ed and Aaron are the right guys to help us reach that goal.”

“Ed and I are excited to be joining Scripped’s Board of Advisors,” said Aaron Lubin. “We think the site will provide cost-effective access to screenwriting software and resources for aspiring young writers to succeed. We are looking forward to collaborating with Sunil, Ryan and Zak to help make this site a success.”

About Scripped, Inc.
Scripped Inc. developed Scripped Writer, the first completely free web-based screenwriting software for writers. Scripped Writer is an innovative software that functions like a standard word processor but automatically formats and catalogs each screenplay element according to industry standards. Scripped was co-founded by Sunil Rajaraman, Zak Freer and Ryan Buckley; Rajaraman is a former senior strategy consultant, and UCLA Anderson MBA student, Freer is a producer/director and graduate of the Peter Stark Producer’s Program at USC and Buckley is a dual degree student Harvard and MIT. To learn more, visit http://www.scripped.com.

About the Producers
Edward Burns has written, directed, starred in and produced eight feature films, including the award winning Brothers McMullen, She’s the One, Sidewalks of New York, The Groomsmen, and most recently Purple Violets. Burns’ gained worldwide critical acclaim for his performance as Private Richard Reiben in Saving Private Ryan. In addition, Burns has starred in several feature films, including James Foley’s Confidence opposite Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz, 15 Minutes opposite Robert De Niro, and most recently the 20th Century Fox hit romantic comedy 27 Dresses opposite Katherine Heigl. To learn more, visit http://www.edwardburns.net.

Aaron Lubin has produced several feature length films including Looking for Kitty, The Groomsmen, Ash Wednesday and Sidewalks of New York. Lubin produced Purple Violets with Burns, which was the first feature length film to debut on iTunes. The move to release Purple Violets on iTunes was considered a pioneering move in the film industry, and the movie has since received positive critical acclaim. Purple Violets won “best feature film” at the Savannah Film Festival. Additionally, Lubin worked on the NBC television show The Fighting Fitzgeralds starring Brian Dennehy, as well as several Saturn commercials, in producing capacities.

Miami

It seems like I only write when I’m on vacation, but I swear, I actually do work from time to time. I was in Miami this past week for Spring Break and my girlfriend and I had an awesome time. We attended the Miami Masters Series tennis tourney, spent a lot of time on the beach, and just generally had a nice time. We were lucky enough to sit in the IMG Luxury box thanks to my sister and brother-in-law and we watched Novak Djokovic lose and Rafael Nadal win (which is great because I am a huge Nadal fan and I dislike Djokovic). My sister interviewed Nadal after the match, and was nice enough to mention her in his blog. He’s a great guy…. The picture above is a bit weird – my iPhone somehow skewed the way the court looks….

On the Scripped front, we have a huge week ahead of us. We’re gearing up for Script Frenzy and we have a few big meetings ahead. We’re really excited about the way things are going, and really appreciate all of your positive feedback. Please let us know what feature you’d like to see next!

Home Sweet Home

I’m in the bay for the weekend taking a much needed break from Los Angeles. My dad and I are going to check out Pete Sampras’ supposed “comeback” at the HP Pavillion tomorrow. He plays former world #2 Tommy Haas – he was originally supposed to play Marat Safin, but Marat Safin is probably drunk on a beach somewhere. Talk about a waste of talent – Marat Safin is a lazy drunk who should have at least 5 grand slams by now, but for his lack of discipline.

Ok, enough about tennis, let’s talk about Scripped. We grew by ANOTHER 25 users today and Ryan, Zak and I are thrilled. Thankfully, all three of us are incredibly self-deprecating so I doubt we’ll ever “rest on our laurels.” We are already thinking of the next services we want to release (some of which are almost fully developed) to our community. Free screenwriting software, if you have not already figured out, is not our end game. The three of us are idealists, but we think we can further the art of screenwriting by doing more than just providing free software.

Ryan is working the MIT circuit, while Zak continues to be the man behind the grand vision. I have to hand it to Zak – out of everyone I’ve met in life, he has the absolute BEST work-life balance. He just has a good head on his shoulders (but he has terrible taste in television).

Oh, right, what am I doing? Well right now I’m watching LA Confidential for like the fiftieth time and I just ate too much at a restaurant called Palo Alto Sol. HIGHLY recommend it if you haven’t tried it. Did you know there is a Counter in Palo Alto these days? Crazy.