A tiny update

So it has been a few days and I promised so here I am with an update. There is nothing new to report. We are still waiting for feedback on our Saber Rider script and The second batch of Skyscraper query letters is going out soon. We haven’t had any good news on that so far. I was turned down by a few agencies (the we are not looking right now) but Orlindo didn’t get any response from the production companies. Maybe they are still reading but I doubt it.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all this. On the hand hand I’m glad that we didn’t get a message telling us how bad our script is but it on the other hand it would be nice to get at least something. I know there are a lot of people trying to to what we do but I really believe that pur work is good enough to compete on a professional level. Maybe we really have to refocus on the short film and try to get attention.

One thing we’ll definitely do is enter the Blacklist again. We got some good feedback there and I think that Saber Rider will find an audience there. At some point we’ll have to contact WEP but I doubt that they are interested in in pursuing it right now (with us).

So that’s it for the moment. I have to get back to tweak a few lines of dialogue but let me share with you another contender on our list….

Sorry, I did it again…

Sorry, I did it again…I’ve neglected the blog but trust me, I was very busy.
As you all know, christmas time is not exactly the most productive time in the year but I managed to do some work. I completed the third draft of Saber Rider.
Orlindo gave me some great notes focusing on characters and dialogue and after a little back and forth we completed the new draft and we are quite happy with it. I know I should say stuff like that but it a great read. Somehow we just got the tone right, most of the jokes are funny and the pacing worked out great.

We are currently waiting for some feedback and the next step will probably be the online Blacklist. We know that a Saber Rider movie is a long shot even among long shots but we know we have a great writing sample and who knows what will come of it. if you want to read the current draft head over to whiteworms.com. We included a link in the project page. for Saber Rider.

You can even use the new subdomain: saberrider.whiteworms.com. You gotta love the internet. 🙂

So stay tuned and I hope 2014 started good for you.

How not to get an agent

Yes, we are trying to get an agent but so far no luck yet. Not exactly a big surprise but who knows, maybe we get lucky. Taking a cue from all the other screenwriting blogs, this seems to be quite a popular topic so I thought I’ll give to a go. 

So, what did we do?

Basically we’re working on two things. Orlindo is contacting various producers and production companies while I’m looking into agents. I bought a reference book for British writers with a whole bunch of addresses for agencies in it. I browsed through the lists and compiled a list for interesting agencies that fit our criteria (basically: we accept submissions). We decided to start with Britisch agencies. We think that the competition is a bit smaller and we hope that it is easier to get a foot in and frankly, we’d both be perfectly happy to work in Britain. 

But as I said, so far no luck. I contacted 8 agencies so far and received 2 answers so far. Obviously both of them negative. That leaves 6. We haven’t heard anything back from any of the producers or production companies yet. 

We know that an animation screenplay is a hard sell but we really believe in the story and we’re convinced that it is a good writing sample. Once “Saber Rider” is complete we’ll try the same routine with that screenplay and then again with the one after that. There0s just the tiny issue of coming up with another idea again but since we fancy ourselves writers, that should be the least of our problems and judging from the vastly improved timeframe we had with “Saber Rider”, chances are that we have a new screenplay ready to go in about a year.

Stay tuned. 🙂

Writing Saber Rider

I promised, I’m really trying this time.

I’m still in the process of rewriting the “Saber Rider” script and I thought I could share some insights into that project.

It startet in July 2012 in San Diego during the Comic Con. We sat at the bar in Hilton Bayfront after a long day of nerdgasm….what could possibly go wrong?

The answer is nothing. Sitting there, thinking about the great day we just had and discussing the sci-fi movie we decided to write. We wanted to write a cool sci-fi movie. Nothing too fancy, no big mythology, just a cool story and some cool space fights. We had some interesting ideas and we tried to figure at the story when we caught ourselves referencing the same old TV show over and over again. 

A few drinks later we were ready to admit what we both knew what really wanted to do. So we scraped our generic sci-fi idea and started work on “Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs”. 

We loved that show when we were kids and even though we know that it is a long shoot we tried to write the best possible movie version we could think of. We decided to take the story of the pilot episode and expanded the story and filled the plot holes. We got rid of some of the dated stuff in the story and toned down the western elements a little bit (you know, Lone Ranger and so…). We looked at some of the classics of the sci-fi space adventure genre and we decided that a “chase movie” is probably the best structure for it. We knew we had to change a few things but this structure allowed us to incorporate what we really loved about the show in a way that doesn’t feel outdated.

The first draft turned out quite well and I’m currently in the process of rewriting it. There are a few things I need to clear up and I have to work on something I like to call “information flow” – when does which character know what and why? It’s really important that this makes sense in the movie and I think it enriches the the story and the characters when a writer pays attention to this. I don’t want to go too much into details (spoilers and so) but by limiting the flow of information we managed to achieve some great reveals in the story and changed some of the character dynamics in an interesting ways.

I hope to complete my rewrite until the end of december.

It’s alive!

It’s one of those posts again….so skip reading if your sick if m ”This time it will work mantra.”

It’s alive!

Still here?….Ok, here we go.

As you can see, I redesigned the blog again. I found a neat theme that I really liked and didn’t require too much fiddling. Some of you may notice that I used the same theme on the newly redesigned www.whiteworms.com, this is no coincidence. I think of this site as a companion site. Whiteworms is were I try to sell screenplays and gregorvogt.com is where I blog about writing them.

I just feel I need to write more and sometimes I just don’t want to write screenplays and this here seems like a nice little distraction. I rely hope that I can post one real entry every week and maybe one or two little ones in between.

I will primarily write about writing and movies or tv shows or other things that I like or find interesting. I won’t write reviews, there are better places for that but I might tell you what you need to read/watch/listen to/eat/… . Maybe I’ll include a “Greg Recommends” feature at some point but who knows, don’t count on it.

So, let’s start with some news.

In october we mainly worked  on the new homepage. I redesigned the site (the old one was from 2007) and we relaunched it as a place to showcase our screenplays. We really want to make the site the best Whiteworms homepage ever.

I  also put some hours into rewriting “Saber Rider” and “The Passion of the Geek”.   We had some generous people who read our first draft of “Saber Rider” and they gave us some good notes and feedback. We are currently trying to solve some minor potholes and address some of their concerns. “The Passion” is coming together nicely. The plot still works (even though it doesn’t make sense) and I’m surprised that some of my jokes are still funny.

You’re probably asking why I didn’t tweak “Skyscraper”. Well, we are currently in the process of sending the script to various production companies and producers around Europe. We know that it is a long shoot but you never know.

We are also working hard on a few ideas for animated short movies. We are not completely there yet but we hope that we can present one in the near future. We are toying around with a few ideas but we want to make sure that we settle on the right one. We don’t want to repeat our past mistakes.

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for the next entry. I promise there will be one.

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