This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 356: With Filmmaker Tyler Taormina.
SYS Podcast Episode #356: Tyler Taormina
Ashley: Welcome to Episode #356 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Myers, screenwriter and blogger over at www.selling your screenplay.com. Today, I’m interviewing Tyler Taormina who wrote and directed a cool coming of age film called Ham on Rye. He talks through the process of writing the script and how he was able to get it produced, so stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by giving me a review in iTunes or leaving me a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking or sharing it on Facebook.
These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mention in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast, and then just look for Episode Number #356. If you want my free guide-How To Sell a Screenplay in Five Weeks, you can pick that up by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free, you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons.
I teach the whole process of how to sell a screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material. Really, it’s everything you need to know to sell your screenplay. Just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So now let’s get into the main segment, today I am interviewing writer, director Tyler Taormina. Here is the interview.
Ashley: Welcome Tyler to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming onto the show with me today.
Tyler: Thank you so much for having me.
Ashley: So to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up and how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Tyler: I grew up in Long Island, New York, and I was always drawn to it. I definitely identify with stealing the video camera from the family tradition to the point where I would make little sketches and vignettes and edit them in… what was it called, Movie maker? Windows Movie Maker, yeah?
Ashley: Yeah, Windows Movie Maker. Sure.
Tyler: Right, and I made like half hour episodes that actually were submitted to public access and they would air at 5.30 in the morning when I was like 12, 13.
Ashley: Nice.
Tyler: So it’s just always been something that I’ve been very, very drawn towards. Though I did have a little foray in music for many years, which overtook my attention and action then I segued back into a film.
Ashley: Do you have any insight, why were you attracted to filmmaking? Have you thought about that? Do you have any insight as to why it attracted you, why you were drawn to it?
Tyler: I think film… well, there’s two way stance for that, filmmaking as opposed to other mediums, right? Then just creativity in general, right?
Ashley: Yeah, exactly.
Tyler: So creativity in general, I think it’s just displaced energy. I think it’s got to go somewhere and thank God it’s something productive for me, a vice like any other. And filmmaking as opposed to other mediums., that’s a good question. I think that it suits my temperament. You know, I think film, it really captivates your attention, whereas let’s talk like poetry, right? Which film is obviously a very poetic medium by its potential, but poetry you need to be so cued into… It requires so much from the reader to really derive everything that a poem can contain. But I think film seizes you in a way. It seizes your attention, it arrests you in a way that I think has always spoken to me in my, just relationship with attention, things like this. That’s why I appreciate slow cinema because it forces you, it really forces this thing of you that is so hard to experience these days.
Ashley: Yeah. For sure. Okay, so you’re growing up in long Island, you’re creating these little shorts, getting them on public access. What did you do after high school? Did you go to a film school, did you move to Los Angeles? Maybe take us through those years.
Tyler: Right. Yeah, I studied at Emerson College. I studied Screenwriting and I had a big goal to write kids television. I wanted to make the next Pete, I wanted to make the next Hey Arnold! These shows I worshiped growing up and I still think they’re just so beautiful for a young person to leave an impression on their mind. As I was doing that as sort of like that’s my work for school, I was making albums and playing like three live shows a week in Boston and really finding a lot of meaning and purpose in music. Then once I graduated from college, I pretty much fell in love with cinema and through making kids show actually.
Ashley: Yeah, talk about that a little bit. Did you work on some kids shows?
Tyler: This will be probably good for the world of your podcast and your work, because I made a realization quickly that like, who’s going to want to read my script? No one knows who I am. Even though I would write the script, I’d be proud of them, the kid shows I wanted to pitch them. I heard about a story of someone delivering a pizza with a screenplay to a company and I wasn’t gonna do anything like that, I’m not that kind of a person. So I said, “I have to make it. I’ll make what I’m writing about.” It’s a show I had called Suburban Legends. I was gonna make it. By doing that I became a filmmaker, you know, I just fell in love with it. I started looking at all of these interviews about directors, what do they do, what do I have to do to do this? I just absolutely dove into the world of Cinema, kind of unknowingly. Yeah, that was my…
Ashley: Yeah. Okay, so let’s talk about that process a little bit. What stage of your life were you at? Had you moved to Los Angeles? Were you still in college? Did you get out of college? Then just take us through that process because I’d just be curious. I know there’re a lot of people listening to this and are exactly in that position. They’ve got an idea for a show or maybe a short or maybe even a feature. What are those first steps for someone that doesn’t have like a technical background in production? What were some of those first steps of actually getting this thing done?
Tyler: Yeah. Well, I have witnessed two minds of people in the post-graduate life and I started right after graduation. I didn’t skip a beat. I was just like I need to do something. I had a lot of nerve.
Ashley: Did you come out to LA or were you still in Boston?
Tyler: I was in LA. Emerson offers an LA program, so my last semester was in LA and then subsequently I moved there. But I noticed these two minds of people, one they’re waiting for their big break, two they’re doing things. You got to be doing things, you can’t wait. No one’s going to give anything to you. No one knows who you are, no one cares. You need to do things You absolutely… So I would say, become a filmmaker even if you’re just a writer if you have no other connections into the industry, because you need to show your works into fruition, right? So this is really… I’ll say it’s the only way even though I know people can get their screenplays made, but in how I felt and how I emotionally internalized that. I said, no, this is the only way. I think it’s something to live by, I really do think that.
Ashley: Yeah, for sure. So then let’s talk quiz briefly about… Okay, so take us through some of those steps. You don’t have any production background, what were some of those steps of getting this production off the ground? Did you know some people from college, you knew a camera guy? Did you just meet some people in LA? Take us through some of those logistical steps
Tyler: Right. I think one of the biggest ingredients for someone trying to make it in their field in the film world is friends. That’s what I had, that’s all I had, just friends. And they were not much more experienced than I, but I had them, and they knew a little bit. We were so naïve to the process. I had no idea what I was doing. My friend was a script supervisor, he confessed to me at the end of the shoot, “I had to Google what it was the morning of the shoot [laughs].” That’s what we were working with and when there’s a will, and you have somewhat of a… I mean, I guess we had a knack for it really, in some capacity. You could look at the Suburban Legends episode one and two and three on Vimeo or YouTube, you could see what we were working with and the degree of competence that we were able to work with.
But it didn’t matter because, where there wasn’t technical proficiency and High Def, there was a lot of creativity and heart and that’s the strength of the show. That’s what the show is. So don’t be afraid, you maybe won’t be able to articulate that with your technical shortcomings, but maybe you will. So…
Ashley: What did you do with the show? So you got the show done, what did you do? You entered into some festivals, did you submit it to some production companies?
Tyler: I didn’t submit it anywhere, but I did have this experience… Okay, so going back to the different types of people that you see in Hollywood. There’s the ones who say like, “I love David Fincher, I love Quentin Tarantino, I’m gonna do this. Great. Those are two great directors, love it. But there are ones that maybe have a little bit off the beat in path interest in, like I was saying, I wanna do kids TV. That’s like what? Everyone I met, like what? Then they’re like, “Then you should meet this person then, because they know someone who had that specific connection with.” Okay, I’ll meet that person… You say, “I want to be Quentin Tarantino,” okay, the conversation kind of ends there. But if you say, “I want to do kids TV, I love ‘90s Nickelodeon.” They’re gonna say, “Oh, you should meet this person.”
Then you meet that one, you meet… so I was meeting a lot of people through this sort of niche interest I had and one of the people I met who became an early mentor of mine, was Tom Lynch, who is a TV producer, film producer and he’s been working with Nickelodeon for a number of years. He made a lot of shows I watched growing up such as Secret World of Alex Mack, Journey of Allen Strange, Hunter Street, 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd, these shows that I loved. And Tommy we clicked so quickly and he guided me into the world of kids television, we ended up developing together for a few years and then by that point I’d fallen in love with art house cinema and I just kind of stepped away from TV.
Ashley: Got you. Okay, so let’s dig into your latest film- Ham on Rye. Maybe to just start out you can give us a quick pitch or a logline. What is this film all about?
Tyler: Oh God, I haven’t been asked to a log line in a long time and I got to admit, this is like the question that makes me look like an idiot, because I don’t know. I’ll give you basic objectives, facts about it. It’s a bunch of teenagers growing up in a suburban environment that is depicted in a somewhat picturesque way. They’re dressed up in their grand-parents best. They look like a bunch of fools in a way, because they’re dressed up in such dated clothing that doesn’t fit them. They end up going to a delicatessen where they partake in this ritual that is sort of a threshold to cross in terms of the real world, coming of age and all these things.
Ashley: Okay. Very nice. Where did this idea come from? What was the genesis of this idea?
Tyler: Right. The film was conceived in a hot tub of all places. A friend made a joke. It was just like, “Oh yeah, a place where you go to hookup like a sandwich shop.” Don’t know why, this is some weirdness of mine, but my eyes lit up and I said, “I’m gonna make a movie about that.” Wow, I fell in love very… love at first sight. The image I had in my head of these kids in the sandwich shop, buying the sandwiches, looking at each other nervous for seeking validation in one another. I just fell so in love with those images, they were with me all the time. I listened to… actually haven’t said this in an interview yet, but I listened to the song, Tiny Dancers I think it was…
Ashley: Sure, by Elton John.
Tyler: Yeah. I just listened to it and I pictured the kids and I was just like, “This is heaven. This is like…” I loved it. I felt so deeply for this idea and when you love an idea that much it tends to spread its tentacles and that’s what happened?
Ashley: So at what point did you… you said you made this transition from wanting to get into kids TV shows to art house cinema. When did you make this transition? You’re saying about this hot tub, was this fairly recently like after the kids TV or sort of mixed?
Tyler: There was a very specific pivot point and that was when I was waiting for my first contract. It was something… I don’t wanna get into the details of it, but this was the first contract. This was the big, “Whoa okay, I’ve been waiting for this for years. Here I am with the contract.” And we passed that contract back and forth for months. And I felt like I couldn’t make any more Kids TV because I was waiting for this. I didn’t feel right. As a result of all this waiting and bureaucracy, I had to get my energy out somehow.
I had so much, I needed an outlet and I made my first short film called Wild Flies, which was such a radical departure from kids television. It was so abstract and real cinema and that’s how I fell in love with that whole process. Maybe two years after that moment, where I literally remember saying to myself, “I’m gonna really dive into cinema because it’s giving me this purpose that I’m always searching for. That’s when the hot tub happened [inaudible 00:13:21].
Ashley: Okay, perfect. So let’s talk about your writing process a little bit. In this particular case, Eric Berger is a co-writer. Maybe you can talk about that collaboration a little bit. I have a lot of writers that collaborate. Just talk about your guys’ collaboration process. Are you guys in the same room, do you outline together, you do note cards together then divide up scenes? Does he take a pass at a scene then you rewrite his scene? Maybe just talk about that process of collaboration and how that worked with this particular script.
Tyler: Absolutely. So this was our first script together, now we have two more. This was the… so Eric Berger is one of my oldest friends from middle school, 12 years old, something like that. We were very close over the years and then college, we not drifted apart, but other things became prevalent in our lives. Then one fateful visit he came to Los Angeles and I told him, “I got to go see this movie, it’s only playing this weekend. Sorry but you have to come with me. I don’t know if you’re gonna like it.” It was a movie called Cemetery of Splendor by this director who I’ve worshiped called Apichatpong Weerasethakul. I’m watching it and I’m loving it and I’m like, “He’s gonna hate me for this. I hate doing this to people.” Then when it ends he stands up and he goes, “Oh my goodness!” He loved it, right?
And I said, “There’s a whole world of this art cinema thing, you should watch some movies with me.” Then I start sharing my ideas for Ham on Rye and his background is in philosophy and literature and it was just such a marriage. For this specific project, I had an outline and a short and he was really… it was very conversational. He would really help me find the foundations and the support and the details and the restraints. He was very big on restraint. We didn’t want to be too explicit because the film is somewhat of a high concept if you really think about it and I didn’t want that to be known. We wanted to really bury that. Now with this other film we’re working on called Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, we just did ground up together, and we divided all the scenes, all the index cards and we have such a similar brain that it just works out.
Ashley: Got you. So what does your process look like in terms of your own writing? Do you write in the morning, do you write in the middle of the night? Do you go to Starbucks, do you have a home office? How does just your actual writing process go typically?
Tyler: I’m definitely a binge writer, a lot of preparation, I love outlining, I love filling index cards or post notes on my wall. I love looking at them every day when I wake up. Going to sleep I see the scenes, I think I love that. Then when it’s time, when the index cards on the wall or the postcards feels right, then it’s… you know my favorite is writer’s retreats. You take an Airbnb, you just write for 72 hours straight. I love it, really beautiful.
Ashley: Yeah. How much time would you say, you spend in the outlining stage versus actually in final draft cranking out dialogue and character descriptions and scene descriptions?
Tyler: Yeah, I would say a long time in outlining. I really like to bring it to the point where it’s… we know it, it’s already… you know what the difference between outlining and the script for me is? So outlining, all the mechanics are all there, all the framework is there, all the little… the gags and this and that. But then when you’re in the script phase, the aura becomes apparent to you and the really fine tuning of the timing and the rhythms. Just like, it forces you to be in the room where you might find things you didn’t see, but it’s pretty much just like glazing over the cake you’ve already made, yeah.
Ashley: Yeah. So the way you’re describing it is, you spend a lot of time outlining, then you might do one of these writer retreats and bash out a first draft in 72 hours and then start to rewrite from there?
Tyler: Yeah, and there will be a bunch of rewriting probably actually for this case of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, there’s three or four writing retreats to really hammer away at all the notes that we were seeing and whatnot.
Ashley: Perfect. So speaking of notes, what does your development process look like? For example, we using this script Ham on Rye, you guys got a draft done. It sounds like that’s when Eric came in and you started working with him. But who else did you show the script to and how do you take those notes? If you get notes from someone that maybe you respect, but you don’t feel like the note is quite understanding what you’re trying to do. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that. What does your development process look like, and then how do you take notes that you don’t always necessarily agree with?
Tyler: Yeah. Okay. So kind of going back to what I was saying before about friends, I think it’s the biggest… Friendship and well, collaboration… friendship is a sort of collaboration, isn’t it. Finding the friends that I really vibe with, that we really respect one another and we really have a similar and very specific set of values and things that we look for in art and in life and think are funny and whatnot, I have that. I have a group of like six or seven people and we all produce each other’s films. We’ve done two features now, one of mine, one of my friend Jon Davies and more to come. We are very excited about the same things, so I have a great deal of trust when I take a draft to them. They get it.
But I have experience not… I mean, maybe not sometimes in the inner most circles, but just in general, because I’m a very social person, I really love to show all my friends my work and vice versa obviously. And when I get those notes, you learn. You can kind of tell like that person has this kind of mind to them and they probably will give a note like that, but that’s because that’s their strength and that’s how they view the craft. Then I have this person who’s views are totally different, and I kind of know. You know what you’re going to get yourself into when you send a draft, granted you understand that draft yourself. Yeah, I don’t know, sometimes it could be discouraging to be misunderstood, but if you have enough friends, you can really set up a wider net to really gauge that externally through others as to what something is, right?
Ashley: Yeah. I’m curious too about what were some of your influences with this movie? There’s obviously a long history of John Hughes’ teen movies and just art house teen movies. What were some of your influences and what were some of the tropes? I always just like… you’re looking at some of these movies, you have something in mind. What are some of the tropes that you kind of wanted to subvert and maybe what are some of the tropes that you wanted to lean into?
Tyler: That’s a good question. You know, it is a sort of John Hughes, Dazed and Confused subversion movie, but I don’t know if it’s a subversion of tropes as much as it’s a subversion of like a naivety or something like that or just like… So in the case of Dazed and Confused, that’s such a glory movie, right? That’s like they’re cool, I’m never that cool, I don’t know anyone that cool. And that was the idea. That’s one of my favorite movies, I think that movie is such a beautiful piece of art. But I was thinking like no this is a fantasy, no one lives like this. Maybe they do, but just not me.
Ashley: Yeah, exactly [laughs].
Tyler: Now, let’s see what the actualization of like be… you know, a lot of it is being like sort of medicated in a way, or drugged by these John Hughes and Dazed and Confused movies. You see them and you… Even like how John Hughes can get pretty grim and real with his films, there’s still like a sheen of romance and it kind of is a little bit sedating to watch his movies. I just feel like everything’s good, which is like there’s a riff in the movie that speaks to the subversion that they read a postcard. One of the characters, their older sister is grown up now, she’s in the real world and she sends him a postcard that says, “Gwen, I’m so good. Life is so good. Honestly, everything’s so good. Love you, your sister, Amy.”
This is the trope, I guess I’m subverting, is that sedating quality of this history of teen cinema that we’ve had and how it’s wonderful. We love it. I love it, but it also… I think really it’s as if it causes a pretty rude awakening when the real world hits I think.
Ashley: Yeah. So let’s talk about the next step. So once you had a draft that you were happy with, what were those next steps to actually getting it into production? Was it just a function of just leaning on your friends that you had made, this group of filmmaker friends and getting into production? Did you have to raise some money? Did you submit it to production companies, did you have some investors? Maybe just talk about that process, basically taking it from screenplay to produced film?
Tyler: Yeah, absolutely. First step, hardest step, I would say, and that is the sheer declaration, “I’m gonna make this movie.” That is the hardest part, it really is. You could say,” I’m gonna make it someday… no, we’re gonna make it and actually we’re gonna make it in summer of next year.” Then you tell enough people that, you don’t want to disappoint them, that’s your reputation. You’re gonna look like an idiot if you don’t make this movie. You got to do that first and then find out how you’re going to do it, it doesn’t matter, just find out how [laughter]. That’s was the first step and we made this movie on a very, very, very meager budget. I know that micro budget cinema is the thing, it’s pretty common, but I don’t think it’s common in the way that we made Ham on Rye, which is looking to cinematic formalism and aesthetic meticulous detail.
These are not Hallmarks of micro budget cinema, so this was our challenge essentially. But the beauty of the project is that we found ourselves in a time post-college about… Okay, so someone said to me one time, they said, “Okay, you’re gonna wanna make the films with your friends from college in the first two years after you graduate. Because after that, no one is gonna wanna do work for no money or no conditions anymore.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do that I’ll rush.” Okay. I got to that point, I was seeing that people are like, “No, I do this for money now.” Okay. They don’t tell you about the four-year mark. They’ll tell you about that mark. You get to the four-year mark and people say, “I hate what I do for a living, I didn’t think I would be doing this.”
Look, I’m doing these meaningless commercials, these meaningless projects all the time. What do you have going on, Ham on Rye? What is that? Then you share that passion and they go, passionate, then you get people to work with you.
Ashley: And they have some experience, some real practical, real world experience.
Tyler: Real experience. The people that worked on this film are very, very talented and they were very kind to work on this film. I’m not going to say they all experienced this kind of enchantment that I’m describing, I mean, many of them are doing things that excite them. But I think that we will see people who are graduating school, we’ll see this wave of disenchantment for sure. I mean that’s the nature of the industry.
Ashley: Yeah. For sure. I’m curious just to hear your thoughts, I’ve done most of my shooting here in Los Angeles. It sounds like Ham on Rye was shot in Los Angeles too. What are some of the advantages that you see about shooting in Los Angeles versus shooting outside of Los Angeles?
Tyler: Right. Well, I can only answer that from a micro budget standpoint, because once you start getting some budgets in there that might ring union bells, Los Angeles ain’t the place to shoot. It is obviously for so many reasons, but they don’t make it easy. It’s the reason why people go everywhere else in the country to shoot films and people have a radar of, oh, Cincinnati is good right now, Atlanta is good right now. No one’s saying Los Angeles is good right now. But for making films on a dime, it’s the best probably. It’s probably the best because you have a vast well of resources, including actors who will work for… I mean, no one made any money in this. This was a moneyless thing.
I don’t think anyone will. So you have people coming in to work just because they want to see the project born, and who are also incredibly talented, in terms of acting in terms of crew.
Then you have resources like camera equipment, lights, things like this… sound. I had an experience where before our most expensive day shooting. Most expensive day shooting, on the drive there, my sound guy gets into a motorcycle accident. He’s fine. He’s fine. Getting that call was very scary, but I had learned pretty quickly that he was fine. So, okay, now we got to get a sound guy. We got one, on the way. So, how did you do that in [inaudible 00:26:53] I don’t know. Well, maybe you could, but I think didn’t think they’re going to be like perfect sound. We AVR’d one word in the whole movie, you know that’s important.
Ashley: Yeah. For sure. Those are points well taken. What’s next for you? What are you working on now and what do you see in the near future?
Tyler: Yeah. So I mentioned this Christmas film am making. We are currently in sort of pre-production development packaging phase for that. Then I have another film I’m working on, on the screenplay, which I won’t be directing, but I’m very excited to be a part of, which does not have a name at this point. Yeah, that’s pretty… Oh, and I’m actually shooting a movie right now, tomorrow… It’s a COVID project. So it’s me and the DP and whatever resources. It’s kind of cool. We’re shooting every other weekend and in between those I’m getting, the actors and whoever I can get, whatever resources I can get in my hometown, Long Island. It’s fairly abstract and loose. It’s just to keep everything moving.
Ashley: Got you. Perfect. How can people see Ham on Rye? Do you know what the release schedule is gonna be like for it?
Tyler: I do. It’s playing in 20 cities, 20 theaters something like that right now, and we’re expecting to get at least 10 more. Obviously, due to COVID this playing in a theater only in one instance in New Orleans, doesn’t mean physical anymore. Well, not anymore, but for right now, all these theaters that are beloved by the community have taken to virtual platforms. So, it will be available on some legendary, amazing theaters in their virtual space such as, Anthology, Laemmle and so forth.
Ashley: Really nice.
Tyler: So you can find it there.
Ashley: Then at some point, will you do the video on demand?
Tyler: Yes, we don’t know when, because that’s depending on the theatrical run. And I don’t know if I’m able to say where it’s going to be playing yet but it’s coming.
Ashley: Perfect. What’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing or contact you, Twitter, Facebook, a blog, anything you’re comfortable sharing I’ll round up for the show notes.
Tyler: Yeah. I would say follow Ham on Rye film. That’s the best way to find out about the film’s journey. I don’t really have a social media presence myself, but maybe that’ll be a good place to go.
Ashley: Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. I’ll put that in the show notes. Tyler, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. Good luck with this film and good luck with all your future films as well.
Tyler: Yeah, okay. All will be well, nice talking to you Ashley.
Ashley: Nice talking to you too. Will talk to you later.
I just wanna talk quickly about SYS Select. It’s a service for screenwriters to help them sell their screenplays and get writing assignments. The first part of the service is the SYS Select screenplay database. Screenwriters upload their screenplays along with a logline, synopsis and other pertinent information like budget and genre, and then producers search for and hopefully find screenplays they wanna produce. Dozens of producers are in the system looking for screenplays right now. There have been a number of success stories come out of this service, you can find out about all the SYS Select successes by going to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/success. Also on SYS podcast Episode #222, I talk with Steve Deering who was the first official success story to come out of the SYS Select database.
When you join SYS Select you get access to the screenplay database along with all the other services that we’re providing to SYS Select members. These services include the newsletter, the monthly newsletter goes out to a list of over 400 producers who are actively seeking writers and screenplays. Each SYS Select member can pitch one screenplay in this monthly newsletter. We also provide screenwriting leads, we have partnered with one of the premiere paid screenwriting leads services, so I can syndicate their leads to SYS Select members. There are lots of great paid leads coming in each week from our partner, recently we’ve been getting five to 10 high quality paid leads per week. These leads run the gamut.
There’s producers looking for a specific type of spec script to producers looking to hire a screenwriter to write up one of their ideas or properties. They are looking for shorts, features, TV and web series, pilots all types of projects. If you sign up for SYS Select, you’ll get these leads emailed directly to you several times per week. Also, you get access to the SYS Select forum where we will help you with your logline and query letter and answer any screenwriting related questions that you might have. We also have a number of screenwriting classes that are recorded and available in the SYS Select forum. These are all the classes that I’ve done over the years, so you’ll have access to those whenever you want once you join.
The classes cover every part of writing your screenplay from concept to outlining, to the first act, second act, third act as well as other topics like writing short films and pitching your projects in person. Once again, if this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, please go to www.sellingyourscreenplayselect.com. On the next episode of the podcast I’m gonna be interviewing Irish writer-director David Freyne, who just did a film called Dating Amber, which is a queer coming-of-age comedy.
He talks through his journey as a filmmaker, which started with doing some super low budget, short films and eventually he was able to get some grant money to shoot some bigger and bigger short films, and now he has two feature films under his belt. We talk about his new film, but I also was curious to hear what he had to say about getting the grant money from the Irish government. That’s not something we have here in the US, so I don’t know a lot about it, but it was something I did ask him about. I know lot of countries have these sorts of programs and grants for the arts. Generally, as I said, speaking they’re tied to whatever your local government is.
So outside of the US again, this isn’t something we have. But if you’re living outside of the US, this is something you should definitely know about and keep an eye on. There are these sorts of grants that are out there, you know, potentially get money to do a short film and again, David is going to talk us through some of that next week. So keep an eye out for that episode. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.