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Fresh Voices is pleased to congratulate the winners of the

2016-17 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition!!

2010 Fresh Voices Drama Winner Louise Ransil has set up her winning script and her story of MARLOWE to Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and The CW Network for CBS Television Studios.

Marlowe is based on the true noir life of Samuel Marlowe, an African American PI in 1930’s Los Angeles who served as the real life inspiration for Raymond Chandler’s famous Philip Marlowe character. Samuel worked for many of the movie studios during the Golden Age of Cinema, protecting and investigating their starlets and working in collusion with the film bosses, mob bosses and the Los Angeles Police Department of the time. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story has been redeveloped as a TV procedural written by Devon Greggory (CSI, New York). Louise Ransil is Executive Producing alongside Aaron Kaplan. Congratulations Louise!!

With the ATX Television Festival opening in Austin, Texas this weekend, Fresh Voices competition chairman Joel Mendoza was interviewed for an article on what makes a perfect pitch.

“I think that a lot of writers tend not to spend enough time…putting together a coherent pitch. And when they do get in front of somebody, they tend to go off on tangents and not be as focused as one needs to be,” he says.

Mendoza recommends focusing on the three basic points of your story—what does the protagonist want, what stands in his or her way, and how do they overcome it?

“If you can think clearly in those blocks then you’ve got a good chance of gaining somebody’s interest,” he adds. “Beyond that, always enthusiasm, positivity, and being able to be a salesman. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.”

Read the full article for Get In Media here.... 

How do Bridezillas happen?  They happen when someone seeks absolute perfection where absolute perfection is impossible.  They happen when 99% isn’t enough.  They happen when you have someone who believes that everything must be in the right place or it should never be done at all.  Bridezillas should never be writers!

The best writing advice I ever heard was from a professor at my alma mater who told me that the greatest skill a writer can have is to know when his work is done enough.  I was, at the time, writing a paper on the gentrification of Washington D.C. during the 1990s, and I mistook the advice to mean that I could stop when I get to the bear minimum of pages required, not do a spell check, say “Eh, it’s good enough” and go to the local bar to have a 22 ounce glass of some frothy IPA I convinced myself was delicious, but really I hated and was just trying to convince that girl in my “Federalist and Anti-Federalist Writings of Pre-Colonialist North America” class that I was cultured and mature. - - Don’t judge me. We’ve all had that phase.

MPower Pictures Makes Deal on 2012 Competition Winner Megalopolis

Since winning last year's Grand Prize, Fresh Voices circulated Jack's winning screenplay Adventures in Babymaking to leading production companies and ultimately caught the eye of A-List Screenwriter Jeremy Garelick (The Break-Up, The Hangover). Since their first meeting, the two are collaborating on a project with an eye towards Jeremy directing. Jeremy was most recently hired by New Line to write the reboot of the Police Academy franchise.

Grand Prize Winner of the 2011 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition. Chosen from nearly 1,000 screenplays, ADVENTURES IN BABYMAKING is the story of a reluctant father and his persistent wife as they navigate the frustrating and often ridiculous world of trying to have a baby.

Please check out what Jack had to say about his approach to writing, and what has been happening since winning the competition.

LOS ANGELES, March 28, 2012- Jack Messitt claimed top honors in the 2011 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition with his drama ADVENTURES IN BABYMAKING. Messitt, a longtime cinematographer turned writer/director, was named the grand prize winner on Wednesday by competition chairman Joel Mendoza.

“Adventures in Babymaking touched me on so many levels” said Mendoza. “I laughed, I cried. It’s a story full of humor and heart and you can’t help but fall in love with the characters on their journey towards parenthood. It is that gem we were looking for. Jack’s unique voice resonates through every page.”

Chosen from close to 1000 scripts read and evaluated over the past 10 months, ADVENTURES IN BABYMAKING is the story of a reluctant father and his persistent wife as they navigate the frustrating and often ridiculous world of trying to have a baby.

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Shawn Ashmore (Iceman from the X:Men movies) and Harry Shum Jr. (Glee) star inAlready Gone by Bill Balas.

As a direct result of placing in the action category of the 2010 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition, producers Peter Katz and Don Le optioned the script for up and coming filmmaker Ross Ching to direct. Joel Mendoza of Fresh Voices and Attraction Entertainment is Executive Producer.