Screenwriting : Three Official Selections at Sunscreen Film Festival by Phillip E. Hardy, Prolifique

Congrats! Awesome! Are you going!? Will be there with my partner for meetings.

Philip: I'd love to meet you and I'm working on a couple of possible mini-series projects with a producer in LA, so there's a slight possibility I might be there.

Keep me posted. We are there for certain. Would be great to talk shop, tell tales, all the fun stuff.

Wow! "Congratulations" doesn't seem a good enough expletive. I'm sad there is no London Sundance this year.

Awesome and congrats Phillip, great reason to celebrate!

Congrats. Hope all three win in different categories.

Wow. Very big deal. May the best Phillip E. Hardy win.

Damn good news!

Great news, Phillip. Our offices are in the same building with Robert who runs SS LA. Great guy. Wishing you nothing but the best!

Fun nights in October in LA... that's what the tingly vibes tell me.

Yes sir...

Congrats!

Congrats, Phillip. Keep it up.

Wow, Phillip. Damn, you're the man! Not only is that fantastic news, that's frickin' strong writing, my friend.... Fist pump in the air - cheering you on from here! Keep us posted!

Shawn: Thanks my friend. I've been sticking to my own guns, embracing the writing strategy of Harriet Frank and Irving Ravetch. I write spec scripts to a point where I think they are solid and then move on quickly to something else. But unless I have an interested party, I would rather spend my time on something that someone wants to put their stamp on. Over the past 10 ten days, I've developed three complete story ideas with logline and synopsis. With ink hardly cold, one of them is being pitched to Tyler Perry studios this week. Our contact there has already read one of my scripts. I encounter many naysayers; but none of them are paying my bills.

Richard: Thanks for the kind words and I'm hoping you throw another rooftop bash again during the Austin Film Festival. Last year was great. And as you know, we have a lot of great rooftop hangouts here.

We are connected this year with the Sunscreen Film Festival West with our Contest Of Contest Winners. Do they have another contest still going there? Did you find it on Withoutabox? Just trying to find a connection. Here is ours https://www.facebook.com/contestofcontestwinners?fref=ts Howard Allen

Hello Howard: I entered via Film Freeway. This will be for the Sunscreen West festival in Hermosa Beach in October and the entry date expired on August 8th. They notified me yesterday. Blair Skinner is the Program Director for Sunscreen West.

We'll have even a bigger presence down there this year, Phil...if that's possible.

@Richard: Great news.

Can't wait to meet you both.

Same here, Howard!

Congrats Phillip - way to go!!!

Anthony: Thanks and let's catch up soon.

Many congratulations! :)

Nice Phillip!

@Michelle and Jean-Pierre: Many thanks.

Yoohoo! Party time!

Congratulations, Phillip. That's great news. And thanks for mentioning Harriet Frank and Irving Ravetch. HUD is one of my favorite screenplays, and NORMA RAE is not far behind. I think I need to become less attached to my individual precious "works of art" and gravitate toward opportunities to write what someone actually wants to produce. It's hard for me because I come from the world of fiction writing and playwriting. I'm also a freelance book editor, and I just worked on a book about Dalton Trumbo, who yearned apparently to be a novelist, a "real" writer, but was in fact a genius movie craftsman. And by that I mean that for economic reasons he wrote what would sell, what would be produced. But he did it brilliantly (if often under an assumed name).

RIchard: Thank you. I'm a big fan of the work that Frank and Ravetch did with Martin Ritt. I just watched "Hombre" on Netflix and think the script and acting was brilliant. A few years back, I had an opportunity to write a short bio about Trumbo: Courage can be demonstrated in many ways. During one of the darkest times in America’s political history, Dalton Trumbo stood up against oppression; and suffered the consequences of his actions. He was a man of humble beginnings, who attended college at USC with designs on being a writer; but upon the sudden death of his father, had to drop out to support the family. After dabbling in sketchy occupations including selling illegal booze and repossessing motorcycles, Trumbo took a job in a bakery. When he could not take the boredom of menial work, he landed a job with a major movie studio as a script reader and then as junior screenplay writer. As a writer, Trumbo worked his way up the studio ranks working on B-movies. This all changed in 1940, when he wrote Kitty Foyle, which won him an Oscar for his screenplay. Shortly thereafter, he enjoyed continuing success with A Guy Named Joe and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo; both popular films starring Spencer Tracy. His passion for writing was equaled by his love of leftwing politics. He joined the American Communist Party at the onset of World War II, which would come back to haunt him during a conflict of another kind called the “Cold War”. With the onset a nebulous war of ideologies against the Soviet Union, came a new era of political paranoia resulting in the formation of the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee). In addition to prosecuting a government official named Alger Hiss, The HUAC achieved its greatest notoriety for hearings investigating members of the Hollywood film industry, with emphasis on screenwriters. A group of writers called the “Hollywood Ten” garnered attention for refusing to answer the questions of this congressional committee. The most famous and successful member of the group was Dalton Trumbo. After serving nearly a year in prison for contempt of congress, Trumbo was blacklisted from the movie industry. Though many blacklisted writers and actors permanently lost their careers, Trumbo moved his family to Mexico where he wrote many notable scripts using front writers (writers in name only). In spite of not getting credit for his work, he was able to squeak out a living. For Trumbo, the blacklist officially ended when actor Kirk Douglas hired him to write a script for the epic film Spartacus. Douglas made his support public by walking the boycotted writer out to the set during the filming of the movie. Shortly thereafter, Otto Preminger hired Trumbo to adapt the screenplay for Exodus, based on the hugely successful novel by Leon Uris.

Great news Phillip

Awesome, Phillip! Congrats and good luck, sir!

Just so splendid, Philip! Good luck to you.

Congratulations Phillip!

Congrats and good luck, Phillip. May you find the success of Dalton Trumbo - but without spending a year in jail or being blacklisted. For those who are interested, the bio-pic about Mr. Trumbo opens in November. I smell Oscar nominations. Groundswell Productions has really put together a fine slate of films in the last few years. Bryan Cranston plays Mr. Trumbo. Here's the movie trailer on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0dZ_2ICpJE

Cranston is terrific. Thanks Bill. Those were definitely horrific times. xo

Let's all hope we can be as brave as Dalton Trumbo when Fear and Big Money get together to squash artists. Check out Woody Allen's 1976 movie "The Front" on how the situation played out. And the great 2007 doc "Trumbo" with these names reading from his great letters Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland.

Thank-you so much, Phillip. Trumbo has been referred to a few times in various threads. Without a doubt, this story has such a formulate impact on the film industry in the US, and the world. I want to learn more!

Thanks for the Trumbo bio, Phillip. The book I worked on is a reprint and slight updating of a biography by Bruce Cook that came out in the seventies. It's being reissued to go with the new movie.

@Richard & Sarah: You're welcome.

What a great thread this is... so much fantastic info. Phillip, I had to giggle... I hope ONE of the THREE of you win as well. xoxo

@Sylvia: Thanks@

My pleasure, sir. xo

Sing the shingle off the roof. Glowing. Anticipate a great outcome Phillip

Amazing! Great work...

@Fleurette & Mark: Thank you.

You know I'm a fan of your work, Phillip, keep up the good work, keep moving forward, cheers.

@Tony: Thanks! Chanel: Thank you very much. You are a really excellent writer. I really enjoyed your gritty writing in action script you shared with me. You added a lot of extra dimension to that project. It's also been great having you as a writing friend and confidant.

As always, you are too kind, Phillip, and I appreciate the pat on the head, pity producers didn't share your sentiment, lol, but having read your work, your success comes as no surprise, cheers.

GoodJob!