This Week’s Feature Showcase on CWA

Just an FYI, everybody. From our CWA partner:

Creative World Awards ongoing video showcase THE BUSINESS OF STORYTELLING is up and rolling. This week features Tomas Jegeus, Co-President of 20th Century Fox International. He jointly handles and overseas the international releases of all Fox’s titles. Following him in the upcoming weeks:
Anthony Mandler, one of the industry’s hottest up-coming feature directors. His background includes being one of the top music and commercial directors as well as a world renowned photographer.
Mark Gooder, CEO of Mel Gibson’s Icon Entertainment Group. He overseas the production, acquisitions and distribution of all of Icon’s films.

Don’t miss out on these valuable insights. A slue of prominent names will unveil through out the summer.

Deadline for regular entry is June 30th! www.creativeworldawards.com.

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.

Navigating Screenwriting on the Net

Hey all, I’ve been in contact with other entrepreneurs in the screenwriting/net world over the past several months and I just wanted to highlight a site I came upon called “Coverage Ink.” Be sure to check them out at http://www.coverageink.com. Here is a quote from Jim Cirile, the founder:

The most important thing to know is Coverage, Ink is by writers, for writers. We’re not owned by a big corporation. We’re owned by me–Jim Cirile–a writer. I founded CI as a reaction to the coverage services out there, which I found to be overpriced, and oftentimes the coverage was hostile or useless. Worse, some of those people have a carrot and stick approach — promising you ‘industry access’ if you get a consider or better, when more often than not this is vapor — as I learned from personal experience. Writers are generally hardworking and broke! Again, I know this firsthand. We just want someone to help us with gentle guidance. So when I pony up money for an opinion, I want it to be creatively constructive, as opposed to belittling or insulting. I want people to feel empowered and have a real idea how to better their script after they work with us. I use my own company to develop my own scripts all the time, submitting to my readers under pseudonyms and paying the full rate. So I know what we’re doing works, and the 99% positive feedback we get from our clients bears that out. I also hand-pick and test all our readers personally to make sure they know their stuff. That’s what CI is all about

Coverage Ink is running a screenwriting competition called “Writers on the Storm”, which runs through July. If you submit a script to CI, it is automatically entered into the contest. Grand prize is 10gs…. maybe I should figure out a way to get Zak to enter.

Now if only we were as innovative as some of these other companies out there… Ryan, maybe we need you to sell a kidney soon.

Thank You!

Thanks to Jason Arnopp for writing such a nice post about us in his blog: http://jasonarnopp.blogspot.com. We at Scripped are always happy to hear feedback like this. We are very self-deprecating and hard working, and we want to create the best product possible for our users. We are a long ways away from perfection, but we are working hard to get there.

Headed home today to Northern California, which is very exciting. I think that’s it for now…

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!

Screenwriting Class

This quarter, I decided to enroll in Dee Caruso’s screenwriting class at the school of Theather and Film at UCLA. One of the great things about going to business school at UCLA is that you’re allowed to take electives outside of Anderson. I took an intro to directing class a couple of quarters ago, and I’m planning on taking some foreign affairs classes before I graduate.

The screenplay I’m writing (using Scripped of course) is about two 40-something defense contractors who compete off the court in meaningless league tennis matches. I’ll tell you more about the plot later (hey, I don’t want to give away my great idea), but I am excited to be writing my first Scripped screenplay.

I’ve included a picture of the WGA event (previously unpulished) for your viewing pleasure…..

13 Days ‘Till Launch

This is not an advertisement for Apple (you can barely tell that I’m using an Apple from the grainy image), nor is it an advertisement for http://www.scripped.com (the world’s first web-based, free screenwriting software), but it’s just a random blog site from an overworked business school student trying to launch a website. I’m at Coffee Society in Cupertino, CA trying to think of everything that could potentially go wrong with our official launch on January 8th, 2008. I am not making crazy New Year’s plans, had a pretty quiet Christmas, and actually worked pretty hard during my vacation in Spain this past week (except for the 6am night at the discotheque – yeesh).

Zak Freer (a former college classmate, USC Film School graduate, and recent winner of the Hollywood DV Short Film Festival for “Best Horror Short), Ryan Buckley (Harvard/MIT MPP/MBA student, hippie, former consultant and generally good guy) and I started Scripped a little over a year ago and we finally have a beta site. I can’t tell you how much we’ve learned over the past year about entrepreneurship, each other, and how optimism needs to be tempered with a good dose of realism. We thought we would have a full site with all of the bells and whistles 8 months ago, we’ve changed the business model at least a dozen times, and we thought we would be way further along than we would be at this time. That being said, we’re happy with where we are, what we’ve learned, and we appreciate all of the support that our friends, family, and classmates have provided over the past year-and-change.

We were fortunate enough, thanks to a classmate of mine at UCLA, to make a connection with the Writer’s Guild. After a couple of successful meetings, we were able to come up with a pretty good barter: the WGA Foundation, the not-for-profit arm of the guild, will send two writers to UCLA on the 8th of January, and we will plan the event. In exchange for filling all of the seats in the audience, and taking care of the logistics, Scripped Inc. gets full sponsorship of the event. I think that’s a great deal. This is a huge opportunity for us to get some publicity and network with the guild (and take business plan number 15 to the guild in hopes of getting support and goodwill). If you’re interested in attending the event, email me at sunil@scripped.com. The two writers are superstars – one was nominated for the Academy Award for Field of Dreams (which he also directed), and the other was the former chair of the screenwriting department at USC.

Tuesday Jan 8th, 6:00pm-8:00pm, UCLA Anderson campus, Panel Discussion about the strike. Come with your questions!

More to come tomorrow – I am too busy burning a hole in my stomach with all of the caffeine I’ve had here… Thanks for keeping up – I’ll post every night ’till the event (and the night of the event, though admittedly, I have a bottle of Absinthe which I brought from Spain and I plan on opening after the 8th is over).