This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 388: With Film Festival Creator Del Weston.
Ashley: Welcome to Episode #388 of the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger over at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing screenwriter Del Weston. Del is the founder of Action On Film, which is a film festival that takes place in Vegas. I actually took my film, The Pinch there a few years ago and will be taking my latest film, The Rideshare Killer there this year. But he’s also a screenwriter with a number of produce credits, so we’re gonna talk through how he got some of those projects produced. So stay tuned for that interview. SYS’s Six-Figure screenplay contest is open for submissions. Just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest.
The final deadline is July 31st. So if your script is ready, definitely submit now before the final deadline. We’re looking for low budget shorts and features. I’m defining low budget as less than six figures. In other words, less than $1,000,000. We’ve got lots of industry judges reading the scripts in the later rounds. We’re giving away thousands in cash and prizes. This year we have a short film script category, 30 pages or less. So if you have a low budget, short script, by all means submit that as well. For the short scripts, I’m saying the budget to produce it should be probably five, less than five figures. So, $10,000 or less. I’ve got a number of industry judges who are actually looking for short scripts.
So hopefully we can get one or two of these short scripts produced as well. Once again, if this sounds like something you’d be interested in learning more about, or perhaps even entering, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. 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 re-tweeting 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 #388. So now let’s get into the main segment. Today I am interviewing writer Del Weston. Here is the interview.
Ashley: Welcome Del to the Selling Your Screenplay podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Del: Thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
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?
Del: I’m originally from Milwaukee. At the age of six months, I moved to LA where I was raised and I always had a very strong background in the understanding of story. Story was my friend, literally. When I went to college, I started moving into animation because I loved animation, but I’m a horrible artist. But I was a pretty good storyteller, so I began teaching myself story and making short films, making short stories through college. And then at the end of college, I ended up at a company called [inaudible 00:02:58] Magic with a great man named David Fisk. He did aerial optical printing and motion graphics on the old motion bed computers before the advent of personal computers and desktops. And I was taught everything. They told me everything.
I could edit movies on flatbed, editing with the old cutting style. And we did the optical printing, which allowed me to really understand the technical side of filmmaking. And I was there for a while. He ended up making me the art director and I learned a lot, worked on a bunch of great movies. I was able to do storyboards for different films and for concepts. And there’s an old series of film called Return of the Killer Tomatoes. It’s the funniest thing, but I was able to work on the last one just by doing the titles, the animated titles. So it was kind of fun, a little bit of a history, just a great time. Then at the age of 24, I made the most horrible film in the world called Painless George, and I learned that I didn’t know anything.
So I had to go back to the drawing board and I started again and it took me 10 years to make my next film, and I was proud of it. It did very well. It’s called Split. And then I did a stage play of the very same thing. I continued to write which resulted in about, I don’t know, 110 screenplays and short stories. Then as I began to get a little more authority in the business, I got my first real writing job through a guy named Phil Mendez. People know him as a Disney artist, and he was one of the first black artists in the animation field. In fact, Disney hired him because they thought he was Hispanic. And Walt Disney loves South American artists, because his name was Phil Mendez, but when he arrived at the Disney studios, he had an Afro and they didn’t know it.
And they treated him very strange. So he went home the next day and cut his Afro into Mickey Mouse ears and went to work. And they put them literally in a bathroom to work. He was not at Disney very long.
Ashley: Huh, that’s too bad.
Del: But he worked with a company called the Sandy Frank Production company, and Sandy Frank did a lot of animation. And Phil got me a job writing a script called the Menehunes. That was a beautiful paycheck the first time, and before you knew it, I was hooked. And now we’re here.
Ashley: Yeah, yeah. So let’s dig into some of what you just said a little bit. It sounds like the first movie that you were really proud of was this movie, Split. Maybe you can talk about that a little bit. How did you raise funding? How did you put that project together?
Del: What are you talking about funding? What do you…? That’s crazy talk? What’s wrong with you? How dare you say that. Listen, I’ve always been self-funded. I’m a guy who likes to get stuff done, and I don’t like to fool around or wait. It’s only literally been in the last 10 years I’ve even really taken money in for films, because I always want… it’s like my festival Action On Film. We never took in big sponsors, we never had a big underwriter. I figured, hey, if it can’t succeed on its own, it probably shouldn’t be alive. And that’s the same as the movie. If a story is good, you’re gonna find a way to tell it. And the money, everyone gets stuck on the money. I never understood that.
I was just telling my wife how so many things in my life had been taken away creatively, but then I had to realize something. Nothing is taken away. You gave it away because it wasn’t important enough for you to keep, right? You couldn’t keep the flame alive. So when I hear someone talking about money, it tells me that they’re not creative enough to tell their story. And that’s the kind of mindset I’ve had for a very long time.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I completely agree with you. I had a conversation yesterday with a guy trying to talk me into some sort of finance scheme where I send him a bunch of money. It was like, “Listen, dude, I’m just going to make movies. You can worry about all this financing.” Because I wanna make movies, I don’t wanna spend my time trying to raise money.
Del: You know, I had a guy do that to me one time. I had a guy that… I mean, it’s happened a number of times, but this guy really got to me. So we’re in his office, he’s real slick. And he says, “Hey man, you’re gonna make so much money, but all you got to have upfront is a half a million.” I said, “Well, I got that, no problem.” And we’re going back and forth, and he says, “ You’re gonna have to find…” I said, “Hey, is your mother alive?” He’s like, “Yeah.” I go, can you get her on the phone?” He says, “Why?” “I just wanna say hi to her.” He says, “Okay.” So he calls and gets his mom on the phone. And I said, “Hi ma’am.” She said, “Hi.” “How did an idiot, this horrible come out of your vagina?” She said, “What?”
And I hung up the phone because this business… No, no, I hate to be vulgar. I’m not trying to be, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m telling you this is… We have gotten to a point now where everyone thinks it’s okay to take everything that belongs to everyone else. I’ll be honest with you, man. I’ve been in business for 40 years. I’ve had law suits, I’ve had bad deals, got everything, but I don’t have an investor, anyone who can’t call me and say, “Hey, Del, what’s going on?” any day of the week. Or I can’t call them and say, “Hey, what’s going on?” any day of the week. It’s those people who just really wanna grab and take, and a lot of time they get to come up it.
But I would just say to people out there, don’t let the money be the… or the equipment or the camera or the DP or some actor be the end of your film. Let them be the beginning of the team you’re building, but if you see a problem, correct the team. I mean, Bill Belichick wins for a reason. Now, he’s not always smart because he lost a really great quarterback in that guy having to take another [inaudible 00:08:06] championship in Super Bowl. But for the most part Belichick’s a winner and he does it in a specific manner. And if you follow winners, man, those are the ones who can take the punches, the kicks and the criticisms and keep going. That’s the key.
Ashley: Yeah, yeah. Sound advice for sure. So let’s talk a minute about Action On Film. What is Action On Film all about? Maybe you can kind of give us the pitch. What is this festival about?
Del: I went to a film festival called the California Independent with a film I made called Camden and we actually shot on film. A guy came to me and said, “I wanna make a movie.” I said, “You got any money?” He said, “No.” I said, “Great let’s get started.” And it ended up, by the time the script was done, he had raised like three, four hundred thousand dollars. I said, “You got money?” He said, “Yeah, I got money.” I’m like, “What the heck [inaudible 00:08:49] my family?” I go, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He goes, “You said we didn’t need any money.” I go, “No [laughs].” So we make the movie, we shoot it on film, 16 millimeter. We use short ends. We use everything we can to get it done.
We submit to this festival, we get up there and it was a jerk session, a complete and total jerk session. I mean, nothing redeeming about it. And I go to the festival director and I say, “I’m gonna build a festival that puts you out of business you scumbag.” And I walked away. Then I created AOF a couple of years later through the generosity of Frank Trejo, my mentor and martial arts trainer, who just was like my father. He was really like my father. So I started the festival. It was a small affair, then it grew and grew and grew. Three years later, Jet Lee made the film Fearless, Focus Pictures called and said, “Hey, we wanna sponsor the film in the festival.” They did, and that put us on the map, and we just kept growing.
Then a few years back, we decided to create AOF Megafest. Because a filmmaker goes to a film festival and they might spend two grand at one show easily. And if you have a good film and you wanna take it 10 places, by the time you’re done, you just spent 20, 30 grand. Right? So we said, why not build all these festivals in the Mecca of entertainment, Las Vegas. So now we’ve got 19 film festivals and 23 other unique events. So when a filmmaker comes to AOF, let’s say they get accepted to Action On Film. That is the base standard. They can now submit to every one of those festivals and they will be accepted because we’ve already qualified them through our festival.
So instead of spending 20,000, over 10 festivals, you come once and go to 20 shows in the same week. That’s Megafest. And we just signed a contract a week ago. We’re gonna be doing an author’s fair for screenwriters and novelists. It’s called Take Center Stage. And then today we signed the contract, we’re bringing a comic convention and signing event with all the Batman cars and special events and Jeff Lanzaga. It’s gonna be a really good thing, man. So we’re just growing it.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. So now a couple of questions to follow up on that. Why did you choose Vegas? Why not do it in Los Angeles? It sounds like you’re in Los Angeles.
Del: Well, we had it… Remember, we started in Long Beach at the convention center, and there’s a scumbag in my opinion, named Chris Chalco who used to work there. This scumbag, this nobody, this zero in life, you always know a middle manager, they call them petty tyrants. And this guy, we had paid them like 30 grand for our event. He called me and said, “Your cashier’s check was $32 short because I did the math wrong. You need to bring me $32 or I’m canceling your event.” That actually happened to me. I drove an hour and a half, took another $32, and he, it was this petty power thing. I said, I will never be under that again. So I moved it to Pasadena, to the Regency Theaters and to the ArcLight theaters and to the Lindley theaters, all at one time.
We were at multiple theaters and then the Krikorian and Monrovia opened up, and we were there for five years and then I had a little bug in my ear that said, go to Vegas? And we came to Vegas, thank God we did. He watched over us and made it amazing and it just kept growing. And this is gonna be our biggest year in our 17th year history.
Ashley: Fantastic. I’m curious too, to really dig into what you said, that you went to this other festival and it was just not a good festival. What are some of the things that festivals do wrong that you were looking to correct? Because I totally agree with you. I’ve been to festivals…
Del: Yeah, I’ll start with my own sins. I’ll be honest with you. I grew too fast and I brought people in to help us grow faster and they screwed us, there’s no question. We dealt with some groups that literally came in, literally came in, tried to befriend us, got our mailing lists and then took our contacts and tried to start a show in Canada called Movie Expo, to rip us off. Okay? And I say these names proudly, and I say them out loud. I don’t hedge when I say this, because I don’t want people getting the wrong impression about what AOF is. AOF cannot be stolen. AOF cannot be copied. It’s not a Chinese Apple computer store. You know what I mean? With all knockoff products, it’s the real deal and it’s hard to take.
So when we got to Vegas, we were at the Palms Hotel in the Brendan theaters, and what a mess. What greed here in… I mean, really. And it ended up not being what I liked, but we stayed there three years, even though I didn’t like what I was seeing, but my people liked it. And now we found a real partner in the Galaxy Theaters. What an amazing thing we’re gonna be able to do for people. So what festivals do wrong, is lack of communication, number one. Number two, over promise and under deliver. I mean, when a festival says it has celebrities in industry and all this stuff, you got to remember, AOF was founded with me with a guy named Alan Bailey, the longest running executive in Paramount history.
He was a comptroller of Paramount for almost 40 years. He’s helped me start this show. He’s the one that brought the first celebrities like David Carradine and all the rest to us. So we began with the industry as part of the show, and I see these shows, the industry experts, and they get a guy who walked on the set of a J.J. Starbuck in 1981. That’s not industry. So you’ve got to have real people. Like this year we have the great stunt man named Bob Yerkes. The number one guy in the world ever. In fact, he ran the Stuntmen’s Association for almost 30 years. He doesn’t go to shows, but he’s coming to our show this year, his only live appearance. That’s for all the stunt people across the planet, they’re gonna wanna come see him.
So what we try to do is create events for people who wanna see all kinds of people. You know, I can’t go talking about the show without mentioning Dr. Robert Goldman. He’s one of the top philanthropist billionaires in the world. He took us under his wing five years ago through our contact with Michael DiPasquale. And we created the Icon Awards and Legendary Stunts. And this guy shows up and he wants everyone to succeed. So I have to give him props. You’ve got to bring people who people wanna meet. I know he’s produced a bunch of films since he’s been coming to AOF. So he got on the other side of the queue, as opposed to just being a viewer, he’s an active participant. So festivals have to provide that kind of content and context.
You also have to have premiere theaters. We were at a great theater, but the projection didn’t work, or the monitors or the other speakers didn’t work. And we were paying prime dollar. So now we’re in the best theaters you can be in with the best screens, the best sound. They have bars and restaurants inside the theater. Make it a great experience. I think festivals go wrong in those places. And one more thing we did, which is vexing me, because I don’t wanna pick out someone else’s problems, I wanna say what I did wrong so I can correct them. In 2019, we got away from our tents, those metal tents we use for awards, and we had to go to individual created posters for awards. It’s the worst decision I ever made.
It took the longest time you could ever imagine to create them. And we began shipping them out six months after the festival and they began getting bounced back for wrong addresses. So now it’s those type of things that will kill a festival, but we’ve been very, very blessed and very, very lucky, and we just keep plugging issues with a brand new team, with big growth and we try to communicate with anyone who calls for anything they need, except for my second ex-wife.
Ashley: Got you. I’m curious, as a filmmaker myself, who I think I just submitted through Film Freeway with you guys, and I’ve always been a little frustrated with the Film Freeway interface and trying to vet the festivals. It seems to me there’s some metrics that that Film Freeway could give us. Like for instance, sometimes I’ve submitted to a film festival and then come to find out, they had 2000 submissions and they’re only screening four feature films, so…
Del: See, that’s the difference, man. See, now you’re talking about AOF. Now, this is very interesting. Because years ago we created a guaranteed filmmaker program. If you were ever accepted to AOF ever, you are guaranteed for life to be able to submit with confidence, we will not waste your fees and you will be a part of our show. You are AOF family now. And after about six years of that, a couple of people would go out and instead of making a film, they would tell someone else, “Put my name on your film, I can get you into AOF.” And we began to see some of the quality drop down to zero, right? And I called one of the filmmakers and I said, “Listen, your name’s not even on the film, I can’t accept this.”
She contacted the Better Business Bureau, the city… I mean, and I laughed so hard. I said, “Honey, listen, I was just in court over $2,000,000, 45 bucks don’t bother me.” Right? But she killed that program. She killed it. She destroyed it. So now we have to do it in a way where we still give deference to our previously accepted filmmakers. And in fact, those are the only people who we give waivers to, people who’ve been with us before. Those are the only people we give hotel rooms to, people who’ve been with us before. When you go to a gym and they have a special or a store they go, “Oh, for new customers only,” what happened to your old customers? What are they, dry cheese? Come on now.
So we try and do it a little bit differently and I think it’s paid off because we’ve been around for now 17 years, and there is no major sponsor. Nobody to tell us, you can say this or do that. Nobody to be woke. This nonsense. It’s this is about celebrating art, culture, film, music, dance, and entertainment. That’s what this is for.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Are there any telltale signs that maybe you could kind of tip your hat for our listeners. When they’re looking at Film Freeway, how can they tell the good festivals from the bad festivals? Are there any signs that you would say filmmakers should look for?
Del: Well, they have a rate… Listen, they have a rating that, I’m not gonna bitch about Film Freeway, because we have been at odds because someone from a festival told them horrible things about me and seeing they believed before, which I thought was funny. But quality always lasts. Right? And then the nonsense fades away. So I said, “I can cool with it.” So we had our little conversation, but I can’t attack Film Freeway because three things happened that no one pays attention to. Withoutabox was the precursor to Film Freeway. Okay? And Withoutabox was installed to Amazon, which is owned by Bezos who also owns CreateSpace. And what he was doing was creating a model by which all creatives would come through them, they would have their duplicates made, they would have fulfillment done for DVD.
All this nonsense because now streaming has taken that place and no one’s really selling DVDs per se. It’s streaming now and it’s what’s gonna continue. But when they got in the business, they realized they were the biggest company, Withoutabox, they couldn’t make enough money to sustain the profit margins that they wanted. So Film Freeway at the same time that Withoutabox was going down, decided, “We’re gonna move to [inaudible 00:19:31], we don’t wanna get sued.” That’s why when you go to Film Freeway you can’t see anybody’s names anywhere because they were under that threat, and they’ve done a great job. I mean, it’s a really cool interface, but the problem is, when Withoutabox went down, Film Freeway had to be, I mean, just blown away with all these crappy festivals and good festivals and amazing festivals coming in at the same time.
I mean, I know what growth is like, that had to kill them. Now, go 24 months later and you’ve got a pandemic and no one is submitting anything. Boy, you got a problem. And when you have growth with all that traffic coming in, I mean, it had to be a nightmare for these guys. So I applaud Film Freeway. We weren’t always great and I’m not… and I appreciate them very, very much and I like the service they provide, but because we had odds, I said, “You know what? I can’t, again, I can’t depend on anyone for anything.” So I got together with a group of people and we created www.noriskfeefess.com. No Risk Fee Fest. And what that means is, you don’t pay to submit your movie or your script or your story or your trailer. You don’t pay.
You submit it to us first. Then if we say we can screen it or help you with it, then you pay your $45 submission fee. And it’s always $45 only. And if you submit to No Risk Fee Fest, all you do is say, “Hey, my name is John Smith. Here’s a link to my film.” Within 48 hours, someone will review your film and say, “Yes, it will be accepted if you submit it.” And if you submit it and you’re accepted to No Risk, you can submit to the other festivals with confidence your money won’t be wasted. So in that, Film Freeway did me a favor. So now I have my own literally my own submission platform that is unique only to me and not copywritten by Withoutabox. So I don’t have to fear any law suits.
Ashley: What advice would you have for people, I’m just taking a segue now, as we wrap things up, what advice would you have for screenwriters that are looking to break in? Just some general advice? I know there’s a lot of writers that are early in their careers that are listening to this. And what advice would you have for those folks?
Del: Okay. Number one, stop diluting yourself. No one likes you. That’s number one. Okay? Just stop it. If you take away the thought that Joey is gonna help me and Billy is gonna help me and Susan’s gonna help me and Quinn’s gonna help me, all these thoughts that someone… No one’s gonna help. Okay? You have to get to a point where your work is so good that people are compelled to tell your story. I was on the phone this morning with a guy who just got a hundred million in funding for his production copy. And everyone knows his name, he’s a friend of mine. He called me first and said, “Del, I got a hundred million. What do you wanna produce?” Right? Now, he didn’t call me because Del’s a nice guy.
He called me because he seen my work and he knows I’m gonna do something quality or bring something quality to the table. Right? So even though we’re friends and I’ll buy him dinner and he’ll buy me 18 pounds of cocaine and a Chihuahua, that’s a nice gift. Right? So even if he’ll do that for me, the business comes first. So make it business. Have people read your screenplay, get feedback on the screenplay and then do the most important thing you can do. Because writers are cowards, and I’m a writer too so I know. The most important thing you can do is bite the bullet and make your first foray into film by shooting something you’ve written or having someone you know or someone you trust shoot something you’ve written. That’s it.
When you get that bug, it’s like the vaccine, right? You don’t need it, but it might be nice to have, right? So here’s the deal. If you have quality, then you don’t need the friends, but they might be nice to have. If you have quality, you don’t need the producer, but it might be nice to have, because the quality is gonna bring a producer, right? So if you do the work first and forget the connections and the… I mean, it’s nice to have friends, but buddy, if you’re in a pool with everyone who’s fighting for the same carnal food as you, you’ve got a lesser chance of surviving that if you create your own pool, and allow guests to come in to eat at your table. It’s just a change of perspective and mindset.
And to anybody who’s listening to this podcast, I’m here for you. I’m a sounding board. I don’t just produce film festivals, I got five movies coming out in the next six months. And I star in three of them, if you can believe that. So, I had a heavy, heavy martial arts background that allowed to do some action stuff which people like, and that’s how I got a role in the first Jet Lee American film masters, and then went right from there to Rocky IV with Stallone. Then I got a… but I was always playing the big guy who was getting knocked down, and I didn’t wanna play that part, because I got a soft ass.
Ashley: [laughs] Got you. So what are the dates for the Action On Film? I know it’s in Vegas. It’s I think the last week in July, but maybe you can tell us the dates and kind of tell us how people can potentially get tickets and go.
Del: Potentially not some people, it’s www.actiononfilmfest.com. July 26th through August 1st at the Galaxy Boulevard Theaters in Las Vegas. We are using The Rio, The Linq, Venetian and The Stratosphere as hotels. All the information on the festival, our seminars… Remember we’re doing 40 seminars this year for creative people. Come get into a seminar. And sometimes people say festivals are so expensive. Here’s your deal. I’ll let you on a secret. You wanna come to AOF for 50 bucks, submit a script or a poem or a short film, get your all access badge for 750 bucks, because if you submit, and even if you’re not accepted, we still give you the badge. There’s no reason not to come and be involved in an industry event that can change your life. Period.
I know people talk about these crappy events in Ohio and all these other, these horrible events, right? It’s not real. These guys from this, Script Summit and that’s other nonsense. It’s not real. It’s a joke. And I forgot their right… Coverfly. A joke. And I’m sorry, but these people have a scam running. And I’m saying that clearly.
Ashley: I would stick up for the folks at Coverfly. I actually have a good relationship with them and know them pretty well. I actually think Coverfly is pretty good service. Just to throw that in there.
Del: I love that you said it, because everyone’s not gonna have the same experience.
Ashley: Exactly. Exactly.
Del: So people hate AOF. I love them too, but AOF is not for everybody. Megafest is not for everybody, right? So when I get these letters from people who’ve been burned by different companies, I mean, not one or two, I’m talking about hundreds. Remember [inaudible 00:25:55], you remember?
Ashley: Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. They had their whole financial collapse.
Del: So Nick came to me one day and said, “We wanna be involved with your show.” I said, “Great, write a check as a sponsorship. I don’t do business with people who are not my partners. Plus you’re a scam.” He called me out, told people I was a horrible person, and guess what happened? They screwed hundreds of filmmakers out of all their money and then went bankrupt. So when I see that, dude, I got to pay attention. I got to be honest, but then again, I’m not the guy, right? I’m just gonna tell you my truth, what I know to be factual and true from my experience and I’m not gonna mince words, because I don’t have time for that. So good for you and Coverfly. God bless, I wish them great success.
But the letters I get from all other the kinds of companies, and I see them every day, “I just lost this.”“I just lost that.” “I just…” “Can you help me get my script back?” Someone did… I mean, it’s horrible. Horrible.
Ashley: Yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, Del, you definitely put on a great party. I was there, as I said a few years ago with my film, The Pinch, I had a great time, and I’m looking forward to bringing my film The Rideshare Killer, back this year. So hopefully we can meet up, maybe have a drink and I’m looking forward to screening my film. I think you guys will, if you’re not the premier, you’ll be real close to our world premiere for The Rideshare Killer.
Del: Listen, if anyone ever had a good time with AOF, tell everyone you know. And if you had a bad time at AOF, tell everyone you know. I’m building a specific audience and a specific group of people who are about making movies, selling their scripts, selling their artwork and not playing games. And that’s all we’re about. Nothing else.
Ashley: Yeah. And hopefully Selling Your Screenplay is about that too. So hopefully this will be a good combination of our audiences because I totally agree. Transparency, straightforwardness.
Del: Hey, if I offended anybody today, feel free to call me and straighten me out, and if I’m telling the truth, keep your mouth shut.
Ashley: Exactly. Del, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. Good luck with the festival. And as I said, I can’t wait to I’m screen my film there.
Del: Absolutely brother, God bless. And thank you very much.
Ashley: Thank you. Sounds good, we’ll talk to you later.
Del: Bye-bye.
Ashley: Bye.
SYS’s From Concept to Completion Screenwriting Course is now available. Just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/screenwritingcourse. It will take you through every part of writing a screenplay, coming up with a concept, outlining, writing the opening pages, the first act, second act, third act, and then rewriting. And then there’s even a module at the end on marketing your screenplay once it’s polished and ready to be sent out. We’re offering this course in two different versions. The first version you get the course, plus you get three analyses from an SYS reader. You’ll get one analysis on your outline and then you’ll get two analyses on your first draft of your screenplay. This is just our introductory price.
You’re getting three full analyses, which is actually the same price as our three-pack analysis bundle. So you’re essentially getting the course for free when you buy the three analyses that come with it. And to be clear, you’re getting our full analysis with this package. The other version doesn’t have the analysis. So you’ll have to find some friends or colleagues who will do the feedback portion of the course with you. I’m letting SYS Select members do this version of the course for free. So if you’re a member of SYS Select, you already have access to it. You also might consider that as an option. If you join SYS Select, you will get the course as part of that membership too. A big piece of this course is accountability. Once you start the course, you’ll get an email every Sunday with that week’s assignment.
And if you don’t complete it, we’ll follow up with another reminder the next week. It’s easy to pause the course if you need to take some time off, but as long as you’re enrolled, you’ll continue to get reminders for each section until it’s completed. The objective of the course is to get you through it in six months, so that you have a completed polished screenplay ready be sent out. So if you have an idea for a screenplay and you’re having a hard time getting it done, this course might be exactly what you need. If this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/screenwritingcourse. It’s all one word, all lower case.
I will, of course link to the course in the show notes, and I will put a link to the course on the homepage up in the right hand side bar. On the next episode of the podcast, I’m gonna be interviewing writer-director, Craig Moss. He started out his career doing spoofs, including a very famous short film called Saving Ryan’s Privates, which we actually talk briefly about next week. And then he did some feature film spoofs as well, and he’s slowly moved along in his career, and now he has done a bunch of thrillers. In fact, he’s done a new film called Let Us In, which he’s gonna come on and talk about next week. So keep an eye out for that episode. That’s the show, thank you for listening.