The Clock is ticking........

I am just wondering how long until this story turns up on L&W SVU? It's a given isn't it?

cheers

Dave.

AA rapist gets jail term after confession
By Tom Baldwin
March 17, 2007 03:30am
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A RAPIST who wrote a confession letter to his victim as part of the 12-step Alcoholic Anonymous recovery program was yesterday sentenced to 18 months' jail for the sexual assault he inflicted 23 years ago.
William Beebe received a 10-year sentence, suspended for all but 18 months, for attacking Liz Seccuro, a fellow student at the University of Virginia. The case was reopened in 2005 after Beebe sent her an apology on vanilla-scented paper.
"Dear Elizabeth," it began, "in 1984 I harmed you."
He wanted to tell her how, after dropping out of college, his life had been a misery - an "emotional black hole" - jumping on and off the wagon until he arrived at AA.
From the moment he read the 12-step program, which encouraged alcoholics to list those they have hurt and try to make amends, Beebe had wanted to contact his victim.
"I have always secretly felt, consciously and unconsciously, as though I didn't deserve true unity with another woman after what I did to you," he wrote.
"I did not know how I was going to set about repairing wrongs I believed I could never fully right most especially in the situation with you." He offered her compensation, including paying for therapy sessions.
Ms Seccuro read the letter and following emails with growing unease.
In 1984, she attended a fraternity party and was handed a drink of pale green liquid that left her feeling strange. She remembered Beebe, a student she did not know, dragging her to his room. When she tried to break free and plead for help, another man threw her back into the room, where Beebe tore off her clothes and raped her.
Beebe's account was different. "We started to make out in my room," he wrote. "There was no fight and it was all over in short order."
She remembered resisting before waking up naked, wrapped in a bloody sheet, and then walking to the emergency room. She also dimly recalled other men being involved in a "gang rape" or a "spectator sport".
After receiving the apology and subsequent emails from Beebe, Ms Seccuro contacted the police.
Beebe was arrested in Las Vegas and brought back to Virginia where, facing a life sentence, he denied charges of rape. She began to receive hate mail and suffered a miscarriage.
When Beebe pleaded guilty last year it was to lesser charges of aggravated sexual battery, the result of a plea bargain for his co-operation in the continuing investigation of what police believed was a gang rape.
The Times, Washington, in The Australian

Thinking outside the sqaure for marketing

I love this one........at present it is the main story on www.news.com.au the signs might be physically outside their market but it is working. Read here for more info on this story.
I expect to read more about this as the weeks progress.

Great show, not dissimilar to Jon Stewart's show but they like to actually turn up and create mayhem. Recently on Dick Cheney's visit here to go hunting with John Howard our PM(JH politely declined that generous offer I believe) the Chaser crew were seen listed on the Secret Service's list of no-gooders :)

cheers
Dave

What's the Protocol?

When a manager from another department has dropped you in the shit with the clients you are visiting and is complaining to you, whilst you are in front of said clients about said clients and all you want to do is ask a few questions, it's all right to tell him to shutup isn't it? Bit hazy on that myself, but it did work.

Had my performance review last week, I received high marks for playing well with others. I'm already aiming low for next year :)

Little short is going well, holding a 4.5 average at present, when it hits six I'm selling!!!!!!! No, you are not allowed to point out average is being held by all the other film-makers coming and reviewing it, leaving a high score in the hope people associated with that one will reciprocate. My head is happily in the sand on that score......LALALALLALALALALLALALALA

cheers
Dave.

News on screenwriting……..

Okay so I lied, it’s not necessarily about screenwriting, but a film, a short film, one I may have mentioned before.

IT’S BEEN MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


It gets more interesting as the director Shane Kester has entered it into On the Lot, the new Mark Burnett / Steven Spielberg reality show as his audition piece. http://films.thelot.com/

Gets more interesting….it’s on the web! I only found out late the night before last with an email from Shane.

So, if you want to watch HOUSEWIFE WANTS HIT-MAN(Must have own Gun) go here.

Been watched over a thousand times already, had a great response so far, holding 5 out of 5 stars at present. Lots of nice comments about the writing, story and plot which I am chuffed about(and Shane should be as well).

Shane had other scripts to play with and he had chosen mine to shoot and enter into film festivals, then he gets an email from his father in law telling him about On the Lot and he has 14 days to enter. Easy, when you are based in France(yeah, that France was in all the papers in the 40’s) and he had my 14 page script and his audition piece had to be under 5 minutes. 14 generally doesn't go into 5 too well.

I don’t think Shane will mind me quoting from an email of his:

I'm so pleased that you're pleased. The night I found out about the contest I was pretty weighed down not knowing what to do. I woke up at 4:00 am the next day with an epiphany. Could I cut down HIT-MAN? So I opened it up and cut all non-essential scenes and got it down to 6 pages with it still telling a cohesive story.

As I sat there while the sun was coming up I then had to think of actors and it dawned on me, make the couple older (that's even funnier Dave: I agree!) and use the older English lady that I saw in a play reading, but she was in Australia. My friend Ian recommended Penny and it all fell together so fast and so perfectly. Then after their shoot they gave me Dave, Phil and Dave's info and that fell into place. It was a world-wind production but I can't tell you how amazing it is that it all fell into place.

I'm just glad you're happy. I was fearful that you'd not like what I had to do to it. Script-Doctoring can be painful for the screenwriter, but I must say it was so easy to work your writing into what I needed because it was so solid from the start. I didn't have to mess with plot or story at all because it was already there and that's the hard part.

Shane had to trim over 50% of it, however he did manage to retain my story and a heap of my dialogue. From what I can tell the only change to dialogue was to allow for change to structure(very slight), to allow for shorter exposition and the ages of the actors changing from mid thirties to say late 50’s(early thirties in Penny’s case obviously) and where he did have to change it(and he did I have no argument about that at all), he kept it in the spirit of my intentions anyway. Loved her part, she was great!

What did he cut out? Heaps of stuff that I had a ton of fun writing but to get it under 5 mins was necessary to lose. Lots of banter between the cops and more detail in the questions from the Hitman. If anyone wants to see for themsleves, drop me a comment, email or send Jessica Alba around nekkid with a request and I’ll shoot off a copy of the original script so you can compare. I know some of you in the scribosphere have already read it a few months ago. Good fun for newbies like myself to see how it was done. Bear in mind I had written the script with American actors in mind, never thinking it would be done with English actors in France! :)

How lucky am I? I get a lead on a guy in France. We know nothing about each other, but he has been able to retain my story whilst dropping over half the pages to get it within the boundaries of the audition. Plus he did it all in 14 days. Editing, the whole bit. He slept for ages afterwards, I can believe it. I thought he did a great job.

I am happy with it, ecstatic in fact(not unrealistic about what it means to me though) and I will try to not go all Sally Field on you. I have a produced short, where the director selected my writing over others, which in my mind is different to making the short yourself. In some small insignificant way, my writing has stood out, which gives me that small boost of confidence we all need from time to time.

Shane has asked me if I have anymore shorts as well, so that is also promising. I’ll respond to him shortly on that one.

I had heard so many horror stories about being rewritten etc but I am happy about how Shane has conducted himself, he has been nothing but easy to get on with and totally giving in crediting my work. He was kind enough to give me sole screenplay credit where many would have given joint after the rewrite. Also, he added to the script by adding one character, I had kept it at only 4) and I am totally jealous of his bushy eyebrow joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big favour to ask here everyone, and as you know I am more into beers than self-promotion, but this is for Shane, not me, so I can live with that. If you like it, after you watch it, please pop a review and a vote as that will help him in trying out for the TV show. I’d work with him again in a drop of a hat. You do have to register to review/vote etc, but it is totally worth it, I have I ever steered you wrong before? Sorry about that whole Enron thing by the way.

Bigger favour, if you like the short and feel so inclined, would love if you could blog about the TV show and ask people to visit Shane’s film (my script, but his film :) ) and vote and review their heart out. They can then proceed onto others, but I have viewed the other 1,789,729 scripts on there to save you the time, and really well, you have better things to do :)

So, I’m no longer a virgin……..I think I need a cigarette. :)

Til next time.
Cheers
Dave.