MovieBytes Interview:
Screenwriter George Sanders

An interview with screenwriter George Sanders regarding the ReelHeART Writing Competition.

A: My writing partner, Shawn Curran, and I actually entered TWO scripts into the ReelHeART feature-length screenplay competition. One is a family/adventure comedy called "Bird Brained," and the other one is a horror script called "Chomp!". Three winners were selected, and BOTH our scripts won. We are blown away. The genres couldn't be more disparate. But then, structure is structure. Maybe we lucked out with that. That, and the fact that Shawn and I love to laugh. Even the horror genre is funny to us.

A: We entered a short film, "Sneaky Snake: Lost in the Holy Land," into The ReelHeART International Film Festival in 2008. We attended the festival and won "Best Short Film" in the New Media/Animation category. Shannonn Kelly, the festival's director, showered all the winners with giftslike scanners, digital cameras; you name it. Not to mention all the great restaurants all filmmakers are treated to. It became one of our favorite festivals. So we decided to enter their screenwriting competition as well.

Have we entered any other contests with these scripts? Yes. I like the competitions that give coverage, even if it's just a sentence or two. Those little compliments keep us encouraged. "Chomp!" was a top-100 in Project Greenlight (out of nearly 4,000 entries), and "Bird Brained" has been a finalist beforeit also always receives great coverage.

A: Yes! We're very excited that professional actors will be "performing" all three winning scripts at the ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto in June. The third winner is "Overwhelming Darkness" by Steven Hart, who hails from the UK.

A: Shawn and I come up with an idea, discuss it for a while (for weeks) and then we just bang it out. The first draft is always speedylike ten, full days and nights. It writes itself. And it's usually over-written. We can't seem to disconnect from every moment in our main character's lives and describing everything we see, every moment of his life. It's like Proust.

SO THENit's re-writes, re-writes, re-writes; chop, chop, chop.

I think it's important to note that we update and revise the scripts to keep them fresh. We also sift through any suggestions that come with coverage or feedbacktaking the good suggestions and ignoring the bad suggestions. There's always room for improvement. These two scripts are probably drafts three or four in the progression of sending them out to competitions. But that doesn't include all the drafts that we didn't send out.

A: MovieMagic Screenwriter.

A: Heavens no! Unless you include Facebook posts as writing. I have a job as a singing comedian in a famous New York piano bar. It's exhausting. Plus, Shawn and I make short films, and post-production takes forever. And then there's laundry. There's always laundry.

A: No. Never. Except right now.

A: I have a BFA from NYU in Acting/Filmmaking. I've been really lucky to get to travel the world as an award-winning entertainer/singer. Shawn's and my short films (which we write on location, usually abroad) have won dozens of awards. We can't believe Sneaky Snake, our sock puppet, is so popular. We've also written sit-com specs, reality TV specs, a children's book manuscript, live variety shows and a musical. But we still can't get an agent to read anything. Show business sucks.

A: I love Los Angeles and would relocate in a heartbeat. I've lived in New York City for three decades. Time for a change.

A: Shawn and I are actually working on making our snake puppet, "Sneaky Snake," famous in China. "Sneaky Snake" stars in our short films and we want him to do music videos. We think he could be quite popular over there in China. We're also working on a Broadway musical, and we're also turning our children's book into an animated script. And our website is currently under construction, so that needs addressing. But the laundry comes first. In fact, I'm doing laundry now, and I must go. My alarm just went off. I can't stand when people just leave their stuff in the machines, so I make sure I'm always there when my stuff finishes.

Posted Wednesday, January 12, 2011