Year two of The Tracking Board’s Launch Pad Features Competition yielded a Top 25, thus far resulting in the sale of a script to Paramount Pictures and a number of writers finding representation. Judges–who are A-List industry pros–recently voted on a Top 10, headlined by a winner and two runners up.
Winning the script competition was Frank Longo for Cooties, a family comedy. Storyline: When a meteor brings an outbreak of space bugs who infect their victims and make them behave like overgrown two-year olds, an unlikely group of kids must find a way to thwart them, save their small town, and stop the potential downfall of civilization.
The top two runners up were Darius Turbak for The Bluff and Adam Goldstein for Intro To Creation. The Bluff is a crime drama in which a confidential police informant must protect his family when he finds himself caught between a bloodthirsty crime boss, a friend gone too far, and the dirty cop who’s blackmailing him. The comedy Intro To Creation retells the Book of Genesis from the perspective that God is a 15-year-old misfit with no faith in himself and our world is his half-assed Introduction to Creation class project.
Goldstein is a familiar name in the commercialmaking arena in that he’s on the directorial roster of production house harvest films.
Goldstein provided some backstory on his script. “I had been playing around with the idea for Intro to Creation for a while, but didn’t really sit down to write it until around the middle of 2013,” he related. “It took about six months to my first draft, about another month of noodling to get to the draft I entered and sent out.
After I finished my draft, I sent it around to industry friends and acquaintances for notes, and a few writers I knew suggested I enter it into competition. At first I resisted the idea – but the Tracking Board is a very respected industry resource, and they’ve established this record where success in the competition actually translates into industry and box office results. And I was impressed that the panel of judges represented a real spectrum of the kind of films and companies I admire, so I figured if nothing else, it would get read by some smart and connected industry people.
I didn’t go into it with any particular expectations. I definitely never expected the kind of response it’s gotten – I was kind of stunned by the review on the Tracking Board. Gratified, but stunned.
A lot of people have reached out since the competition – I’ve had some great meetings and will be meeting a few other people in the new year both about my own representation and moving Intro to Creation forward. The competition generated some great that attention hopefully will create momentum and lead to my being able to produce and direct it and get it into theaters. Probably theaters that sell gourmet popcorn and naturally flavored artisinal sodas, but that would be perfectly fine with me.
