I’ve been writing screenplays for almost 2 years now. First off, let me say that of several million people out there, I’m a very unlikely candidate to be considered as a screenwriter. I have a Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at UCLA and I’m currently pursuing my Master’s degree at USC (not to mention, I’m also a walking contradiction). Although I was an Honors English student during my last 3 years of high school, I’ve received no more than 2 A’s on timed writes and have always averaged out with B’s at the end of the school term. And…I also didn’t pass the AP English exam:)
Regardless of that and as trite as this sounds, I still believe that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. But if not anything, you can still make it rather far in this world. Do you really want to know how I first typed in that formulaic slugline, “INT./EXT. LOCATION – DAY/NIGHT”?
I watched X-Men: The Last Stand, written by Simon Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith). How “un-epic”, huh? Despite the skyrocketing numbers it reeled in at the box office, the film was very poorly written. Desiccated dialogue. Zero character development. And far too much storyline crammed into a meager 1 1/2 hour timespan. Therefore, what did I do? After perusing through several how-to books on screenwriting, teaching myself enough about the movie business, and scanning through the entire wiki-history of the X-Men, I opened up MS Word and began the long, painstaking writing process. After four drafts, I ended up with a 120-page follow-up screenplay simply titled “X-Men 4″, attempting to repair all the atrocities that director, Bret Ratner, and Kinberg had delivered upon the “X-Men” franchise. With hopes that Fox would even consider in the slightest amount any unsolicited material, I mailed copies of my screenplay to writers/producers Zak Penn, Lauren Shuler-Donner, and Ralph Winter. As expected, I received kind, and even respectable, rejection letters from each and every one of them, as they had appreciated my persistent efforts and earnest enthusiasm for the franchise. So I moved on…
And took an advanced class in screenwriting at UCLA with Professor Hal Ackerman. Although I had already read about a majority of the concepts and writing formulas, the course reinforced my knowledge of them and grounded me into establishing a solid direction as to the level and depth that I wanted my writing to attain. I also gathered one-on-one advice from my TA, who further helped me to improve upon my weaknesses. This is was where my 2nd screenplay (as some of you have heard me ramble on about), “Resurrection”, all began. At the end of the winter quarter, we were required to write the first 15 pages of a full movie screenplay for our final. I came up with a detective mystery-thriller titled “Resurrection”. For once, with a breath of fresh air, the male lead was a smart, witty, bad-ass Asian American whose valued status was clearly defined. Meet Chang – a revered, highly-reputable elite Inspector of the Chicago Police Department, best known for solving cases once deemed unsolvable. He has a mind like an encyclopedia and a cast-iron will. Only this time, he has embarked on an investigation that will challenge these once untainted qualities, sending him spiraling into a void of self-doubt and utter paranoia. I finished the first draft of “Resurrection” earlier this year and I’m currently halfway through a 2nd draft. I’m expecting it to be fully polished by the 3rd draft and finally ready to submit to an agent to market out to the mainstream – something I definitely look forward to.
My third screenplay, also in the works, is a coming-of-age drama that touches on brotherhood and the grey areas that exist between good and evil. I have the entire story laid out with hopes of having the first draft complete by the end of this coming summer.
Well, that’s my story and I’ll be glad to keep you updated on any further developments during my “trek to the fiery caverns of Mt. Hollywood.”
- The Angry Asian Batman
