Thanks to Leon for the heads up on the lastest over on Daily Script – Monkeybone. This is a February 3, 1999 seventh draft by Sam Hamm (based on the comic book ‘Dark Town’ by Kaja Blackley and Vanessa Chong). Sam Hamm has written, in my opinion, some of the best unproduced scripts out there. A quick search of Sam Hamm in the Script Search shows he’s written unproduced sequel to Batman, as well as Planet of the Apes and Watchmen. Monkeybone, which came out in 2001, is about a cartoonist who finds himself trapped within his own underground creation and must find a way to get back, while racing against his popular but treacherous character, Monkeybone. The film starred Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda. Check it out over on the Movie Scripts page.

Thanks to “Tierney Cat” for his insightful posting on the discussion board on a breakdown of what a WGA writer might typically earn. I think this sums it up pretty well, I’m on strike for the future of my union, for my health insurance and my pension. Right now, it’s sadly not about the writing which I love but about the business of writing which always plays like black comedy. Check out the rest of his post here.

I’ve just finished listening to Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity and thought I’d share. You can listen to the book over at Podiobooks.com. You don’t gotta have an MP3 player to hear the story. You can listen to it right on your computer.

On June 30, 1908, there was a massive explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. It was called the Tunguska Event. The explosion felled an estimated 80 million trees over 830 square miles. Yes, it was a big boom. Against this back drop, Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity weaves a present day tale of an astrophysicist, a rookie agent and an analyst who unearth a scheme to capture the submicroscopic black hole that caused the Tunguska Event and use its awesome power to transform the world. If you enjoy Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton you will dig this taut, fast-paced thriller. It is well read by the author – voices and all with plausible near future science and technology.

WGA – Day 6 – Strike news and insight over at Diaretical Throw-Up by David Press

…what does the internet have to do with you watching so many damned re-runs.

With all that is floating about the internets about the writer’s strike, I thought that this succinctly addressed the writer’s perspective on why they are striking.

You are probably wondering why Simply Scripts, a screenwriting site, doesn’t have a ton of strike news. Simply answer is password snafu on Sunday left me unable to access my own site. However, since I try to have updates scheduled a couple days in advance, the site, of its own accord, continued to spew out updates without human intervention. I am now back in control.

First, shoutouts to Jack (putting up the announcement you sent me now won’t work, tho if you have other words of encouragement, please send ’em over and I’ll get them up). And a shoutout to Sandy. Hope you can keep busy during this down time. I will have that most excellent update on the site shortly.

There is some excellent news and blogs from the front lines from folks like John August. Also, there is a page of multiple reports from the lines over at Deadline Hollywood Daily. The best information about the status of the strike (albeit one view of the status) can be found on the WGA (west) site. A lot of the big name writers are showing up in the papers and in the blogs talking about the strike. If any of the “Not so big” names want to send a report in, I’d be delighted to carry it on the site.

Lastly, while no one really knows how long this will last, one bit of ‘food for thought’ came to me from a couple of writers with regard to thinking that this is an opportunity to break into the biz. According to the WGA Strike Rules, “The Guild does not have the authority to discipline non members for strike breaking and/or scab writing. However, the Guild can and will bar that writer from future Guild membership.” (emphasis added) So, basically if you try to be opportunistic, you may very well screw yourself in the future. – Don

Update: This just in from Jack, “…I just talked to a few good people a WGA WEST and they say that any FILM STUDENT which means a person like myself who’s in college or some type of film school can participate. THE COLOR IS RED.”

LA Strike Locations and New York Strike Locations

Please join us to welcome into the world the latest Shelton production – Baby Shelton Patrick Michael Shelton. – 9lb 6 oz, 21 1/2 inches.

Joy to you with all our heart.

According to Mike, “Mom and baby are both doing well.”

Please join us in giving joy to Mrs. Shelton (with some minor assistance by Mike) in her most recent production here. – Don

Over on the Unproduced Scripts page we have 35 new or revised original scripts up for your reading pleasure.

With 30 or so new scripts going up a week, it is very difficult to give each and every script their day in the sun beyond having them featured as an Unproduced Script of the Day. Periodically I try to call out a couple of scripts here on the index page, but that is few and far between. Starting tomorrow (or the next day) I will be featuring one audio script a week here. You can also subscribe to the iTunes feed, if you are an iPod user. If you are not an iPod user, you can still listen to the audio file just as you did for Bull Creek. – Don

It is a flood of radio scripts! Silent Universe has release the pre-production draft of Episode 7: Hello World. Now is the time to get your input into the story before it goes to production. The teaser is Some thought that the dawn of the Second Space Age would unite humanity in a common cause. Dreams of grand utopias, fevered the minds of visionaries and futurists, who proclaimed that the stars would save us from ourselves… They couldn’t have been more wrong.. The production values on Silent Universe are fantastic. The scripts are not read, they are performed by voice actors that do this for a living. I highly recommend you sci-fi fans check it out.

On another note, more back to earth, James Whyle has release the script to his radio play A Man called Rejoice which has been broadcast numerous times by the BBC Radio 3. I haven’t found an audio copy of the play online, but you can buy it for a buck at The Home of MiDor. Personally, I’d love to see the audio play released under a Creative Commons license. James’ work has been published as Rejoice Burning by Aurora Metro Press in New South African Plays.

Thanks so much to Marie for the heads up on these, too many to list here, scripts and transcripts from the Golden Age of Radio. There is the ‘manly espionage thriller’ David Harding, Counterspy, a handful of Sci Fi dramas like The Planet Man and Tales of Tomorrow as well as more recognizable series like Little Orphan Annie, Mark Trail and Escape. It is folks like Generic Radio Workshop and Early Radio that makes this stuff available to you, the reader.

So, skip on over to the Radio Scripts and transcripts page and do some reading. – Don

Resident Evil: Extinction is coming soon to theaters. Up until a couple of years ago, I wasn’t a big fan of the Zombie/Horror genre. I came across George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead on Archive.org and the rest is history. I’ve burned through about all movies of the zombie genre that I can get my hands on. Check out this great public service film What to do in a Zombie Attack. While waiting for the latest Resident Evil movie, play the Resident Evil game.

The world as we know it, no longer exists. The Earth now belongs to the Undead. The key to survival in this new world is to keep moving…

A small resistance survives by scavenging abandoned towns for whatever fuel is still left. With all of the surrounding cities sucked dry of fuel, your only chance of reaching Alaska (and finding other survivors) is to scour Las Vegas for any remaining fuel.

Choose your convoy vehicles and make your way through Las Vegas in search of survivors and fuel. In each level you will be given a mission that describes where you must drive your convoy. Once you?ve reached the mission point, use the weapons you?ve collected to defend your convoy against blood thirsty zombies. Check out the game here.

Over on the Unproduced Scripts page we have eleven new or revised scripts up. I have a few more to get up before I start to unleash the scripts for the One Week Challenge. – Don

Thanks to Ron and the two anonymous individuals for their kind and generous donation to SimplyScripts.

Shout out to John and Renee, two scriptarians who attended the Harry Potter party at the Whistlestop Bookshop friday night.

For those hunting around for the lost Lost scripts (not transcripts) those can now be found here.

Updated the TV Scripts and Transcripts database where in you will find, among other things the first episode of season three of Dr. Who – Smith and Jones. This comes from BBC’s Writer’s Room which also has teleplays of episodes of Life on Mars, Casualty and Hustle. Find also on the TV Scripts page, thanks to Weekly Script, episode 2 of Deadwood and, thanks to TimMinear[dot]net, you can read the last to episodes of Drive. (You can also watch the last two episodes of Drive on the Fox Myspace page.

Lastly, I’ve cleared out the backlog of Unproduced scripts which you can find on the unproduced scripts page. – Don

Folks, our own Phil went to a script pitch last night. Here is the report. There is some valuable information here that I thought I’d share. You can also add your own insights on the Discussion Board.

Phil writes:

I attended the pich meeting last night and pitched both The Burnout and A Druid’s Guide to the Northeast. I found it worth the time, effort and money I put into it.

I first pitched The Burnout and bombed out terribly. Larry and associates actually stopped me in mid pitch to tell me I was going about it the wrong way. I brought a fifteen page story synopsis and told them them the story with way too much detail. Looking back, I can see where I went over the top with the details, going as so far as to use different voices when the characters talked. I won’t even bring up the platinum-haired finger puppets.

Larry said that a proper pitch is telling them the name of the script, presenting the logline and a very brief synopsis. A pitch should be a dialogue where you want the producers to ask you questions in the short time you have with them. They were pretty cool about the whole matter.

About an hour later, I pitched [A Druid’s Guide to the Northeast]. I didn’t refer to my fifteen page synopsis and instead kept the synopsis extremely short. Maybe five lines. Right after I gave it, they started asking questions. What’s a druid? Are they real? What’s a water elemental? How ‘magical’ is the movie?

When all was said and done, they asked for a copy of Druid.

Phil