A Limey in LA LA Land - One Writers Gurney

by Michael Donald

INT. AIRPORT - DAY

As I stood in the slow moving queue inching towards the fast check in desk, I pondered on the chain of events that started me on my journey across the Atlantic to the enchanted Kingdom of Hollywood.

FLASHBACK - INT. CAR - TRAVELLING - DAY

Travelling back from a job with a Camera Operator friend of mine, the conversation soon turned to the perennial problem of actually getting a script into the right hands. Ah she said, my husband's cousin is an executive producer at Aardman, the biggest Animation company in the UK. Which is when I realised I didn't have an animation script. But pretty soon and idea popped into my caffeine fuelled brain and Rose's War AKA "The St Valentine's Day Flower Massacre" was born. Within a day the script was done, the idea had been very clear and passion did the rest - the story of a rose fighting against her human persecutors on St Valentine's Day was a sure fire hit! Or so I thought.

TWO YEARS LATER

Having nagged and wheedled my friend into to actually making contact with her Aardmen connection, I was rewarded by the great man replying that he couldn't open the attachment for legal reasons. It was then that I realised that even though you may only be one contact removed from a connection - you are at the end of the day, still removed.

In a moment of blind optimism, and with nothing to lose I entered Rose's War into a film festival based in Long Beach. To my surprise it was a winner - even more surprising cash was involved, and free accommodation over the three-day festival. Could this be the excuse I needed to combine it with a trip to L.A and try and whip up some enthusiasm for my many other projects.

While I was weighing up the decision, my Script LOUISIANA BLOOD placed in a screenplay contest run by Carson Reeves on his SCRIPTSHADOW website. Carson is known in the business for spotting up and coming writing talent. The contest started with a logline, and progressed to a sample ten pages and then onto a full script. So out of a thousand entries Louisiana Blood had done well to survive. I knew that the premise of the script was solid, as the logline had attracted nearly six hundred viewings on the Moviebytes site within months. What I didn't expect was the huge amount of interest that was to follow.

Within a few hours of the announcement requests to read Louisiana Blood were pouring in - and they weren't just from Hollywood, but from France, Singapore, Australia and beyond. After replying to their queries, faxing release forms and attaching scripts I was exhausted - was it a sign that I should go to L.A?

THE INCITING INCIDENT

Over the St Valentine's weekend Rose's War and my action thriller Shadow Trade, both won their genres in the 7th I.P Screenplay competition. Three awards, an offer to produce Rose's War and an option from a Hollywood Producer on Shadow Trade ... my mind was made up, I was off to La La Land!

INT. AIRCRAFT - TRAVELLING - SLEEPLESS NIGHT

I had pondered long and hard about whether I should gear up to use my MAC on board, and after exhaustive research into plugs, power supplies and elbow room I had decided to risk the withdrawal symptoms and opt for a Macless journey. What a great decision, I didn't even have room to open a paperback! I was reduced to watching five films back to back on the expansive 5 inch screen with the special sound through a sock option that British Airways provide at no extra cost.

As the plane droned on and the films failed to impress I promised myself I'd book a window seat on the way back, at least that way I'd skip the pleasure of getting up and down for two unrelated bladders. Further entertainment was provided by the three passengers in front who looked as if they were casting for a group part in Gangbangers III "The wasted years". If the leader of the gang, wearing either the very latest in shabby chic, or a pair of hand me down tracksuit bottoms and a forty-year-old unwashed T-Shirt, had pushed his seat back any further, we'd have been dating. When he stood up his arms bulged with veins like tramlines and I was sure he had a Masters degree in gym-work. The effect was somewhat diluted when they all put on their pink velour neck pillows and fancy headphones, but I was in no position to mock, the bones in my neck and spine had fused together somewhere over the Atlantic.

INT. LAX AIRPORT - SECURITY

As expected, there did seem to be an air of nervousness in the land of the free. After an hour of restless progression towards the line over which you stepped at your peril, I finally got to display my passport. Having taken advantage of the high quality passport booth in my local post office I sported an over lit picture which added an extra twenty years onto my age by giving me white hair. The official looked at me and grunted something incomprehensible. I'd been warned not to try humour, and to make absolutely sure to stress that I was in L.A for pleasure and not business. There seemed to be more paranoia about me working in the US than any security issues. I smiled benignly; he barked something else at me, clearly getting annoyed.

His name was an acronym, his nationality an enigma and I'd been awake 20 hours. My head ached with an overdose of in flight entertainment, a smorgasbord of "He's just not that into your world of lying surrogates in 27 dresses warring with the brides law abiding citizen." So I'd failed to realise he wanted me to put my hand on the scanner. I looked around and saw other people placing their hands on the small screens at the desk. I tried to put my five fingers onto the screen and discovered what I perceived as a design fault; there was only room for four fingers - what to do with the thumb? Had I inadvertently blundered into the Yakuza line? This would certainly explain his impenetrable accent. Eventually, just before we reached a point where I thought they would shoot me to save themselves any more trouble, I placed my thumb onto the screen, squinted into the biometric eye scanner and I was through. My trip to L.A had already proved bumpy, but it soon turned out that I was really going to have to fasten my seatbelt once I got into the rental depot!

Updated: 04/08/2010