I have no status. And neither do my lead female characters of my four screenplays. My female lead characters all had status ripped from them. Despite taking years to complete each one of these scripts for feature film, I hadn't noticed this common theme between them until now, the first day of 2017, when I have been contemplating the status of my own life.
The Widow's Walk, the first screenplay I wrote, was based on the true story of Mary Ann Patten who, in 1856, 19 years old and 4 months pregnant, successfully commanded a Clipper ship of 35 men around Cape Horn while nursing her dying husband. In my story, Mary steps onto her first voyage full of arrogance, and quickly learns the vast ocean could care less about the status she had at port. It was the first thing she had to let go of before taking command.
We Are Stardust is about a female astronaut who stops aging after a mind altering experience in space. She loses her career when her experience is made out to be all in her mind, and subsequently sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment. Cocoanut Grove is based on the true story of the Boston nightclub fire of 1942, and involves a beautiful up and coming young singer, about to go on the road with the Dorsey Brothers until fire and fate strips her of her dream the weekend before her journey begins. And finally, in Climate, a geologist and soccer Mom, ends up in jail for refusing to send her daughter back to a toxic environment during a horrific custody battle.
They are on the Hero's Journey after all, where one's ordinary world is flipped upside down, so they can go on an adventure to find themselves. Or retrieve themselves, as the case may be. In each case, they begin their heroine's journey by losing face, literally in one case. Over the past year, I've worked on getting these projects turned into film. 2016 began with contacting as many people my producing partner Joe and I could conjure up
The Widow's Walk, the first screenplay I wrote, was based on the true story of Mary Ann Patten who, in 1856, 19 years old and 4 months pregnant, successfully commanded a Clipper ship of 35 men around Cape Horn while nursing her dying husband. In my story, Mary steps onto her first voyage full of arrogance, and quickly learns the vast ocean could care less about the status she had at port. It was the first thing she had to let go of before taking command.
We Are Stardust is about a female astronaut who stops aging after a mind altering experience in space. She loses her career when her experience is made out to be all in her mind, and subsequently sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment. Cocoanut Grove is based on the true story of the Boston nightclub fire of 1942, and involves a beautiful up and coming young singer, about to go on the road with the Dorsey Brothers until fire and fate strips her of her dream the weekend before her journey begins. And finally, in Climate, a geologist and soccer Mom, ends up in jail for refusing to send her daughter back to a toxic environment during a horrific custody battle.
They are on the Hero's Journey after all, where one's ordinary world is flipped upside down, so they can go on an adventure to find themselves. Or retrieve themselves, as the case may be. In each case, they begin their heroine's journey by losing face, literally in one case. Over the past year, I've worked on getting these projects turned into film. 2016 began with contacting as many people my producing partner Joe and I could conjure up