Conventional wisdom says that to acquire the experience to write a really good screenplay, you’ve got to first write at least five mediocre ones that end up in a drawer.
Of course, budding screenwriters don’t want to believe this. Who wants to work for a year on a project – much less five of them – that ultimately goes nowhere?
Peter Mar, a Union City native who now lives in North Bergen, and Katherine Boutry, a Weehawken native, might defy the odds. Mar’s first feature-length screenplay has been named one of only nine finalists in a national contest that drew thousands of entries. Coincidentally, Boutry, who lives only a few miles away, is one of six finalists in a different category of the same contest.
Mar and Boutry submitted scripts to the Austin Film Festival in Texas last spring. Mar, 29, a graphic artist and aspiring actor, sent in his full-length comedy script, "Dolores." Boutry, 34, a former Harvard English professor, submitted a television script for an episode of "The Sopranos." The festival got a total of 3,500 entries in all categories. The winner in each category will be announced at an awards luncheon in Austin on Oct. 13.
As finalists, Mar and Boutry get reduced rates to attend the eight-day Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters’ Conference, held Oct. 11-18. Conference attendees will be able to attend seminars and meet industry professionals.
The winner in each category will get $5,000 and a bronze statuette of a typewriter. But more importantly, they will get noticed by producers and agents.
Hudson boy
Mar grew up in Union City and graduated from Memorial High School in 1991. He studied at New Jersey City University and at Florida’s Full Sail Film School before returning to the area.
After learning about film and computers in college, Mar began working on film shoots for music videos in Manhattan, but often wasn’t paid much. "You were working for the chance to meet somebody who might give you a job three months down the line," Mar said. He supplemented his income by waitering and doing odd jobs.
Currently, he works at Telemundo, Channel 47 in Teterboro, as a graphic artist. He also takes acting classes in New York.
Mar wrote some poetry in high school, but only began work on his first major writing project three years ago. It was a one-act play that he entered in a contest, with no luck.
"[The interest] really kind of started when I was a kid reading comic books, following the stories," Mar said. "I did some poetry in high school. I liked telling stories, and I thought I was good at it. So I just sat down with a piece of paper."
He had the idea for his current script, "Dolores," two years ago. He wrote it out by hand, then typed it up – and found out it was about half as long as a standard screenplay. Feature-length scripts are supposed to range from 95 to 115 pages.
So Mar did more writing.
What resulted was an offbeat 110-page comedy script about a hustler who’s obsessed with a stripper. Who, incidentally, is tied to the Russian mob. Who, by the way, is involved in a turf war with another Russian mobster. Mar claims that there’s also a snake and a gerbil involved somewhere.
He’s already thought of a tagline for the movie: "Sometimes, the thing you want most is the one thing that can get you killed." One can almost hear the announcer saying it in a baritone voice.
"I get the strangest ideas for no particular reason," Mar said. "It ignites something in me, and I just go for it."
Mar said he didn’t have to do much revising once he finally finished the script. He submitted it in the comedy category.
Giving up academia
Boutry took a more aggressive academic approach to her career, earning her BA and MA at Georgetown University before gaining admission to Harvard’s competitive doctoral English program. After earning her doctorate in 1997, she taught at the venerable university for four years. Getting accepted to a prestigious liberal arts doctoral program is difficult, but as Boutry put it, "It’s harder to sell a screenplay."
Being no stranger to competition, Boutry knew that she really wanted to write. When she was put in charge of hosting a writer on the "Sopranos" as a guest speaker at Harvard, she watched hours of the show and decided to write a script for it. She liked the style and remembered growing up in an Italian family in Florham Park, N.J.
This year, Boutry moved with her husband and two children to an apartment that her mother owns in Weehawken. She wanted to live in the New York area and devote more time to her writing.
"I closed the door on [academia], and my family thinks I’m crazy," she said last week. "I can’t teach full time, raise two kids, and work on screenplays. So I kept the essential things – the kids and screenplays."
Boutry wants to finish another television script – it’s good to have two samples to show agents – and she’s also working on a full-length feature film.
Why it matters
Even if Mar and Boutry don’t win a prize in the contest, finalist status can open doors. To get a screenplay read by a film production company, it usually has to be submitted by an agent. However, it’s hard even to get an agent to read a script. Usually, agents first want to see a one-page query letter describing it. If they want to read the entire work, they’ll ask for it. So contests are a way to buck the process. Agents will often read scripts by contest finalists.
To enter a screenwriting contest usually costs $20 to $50.
Mar and Boutry said they haven’t been turned off by the odds of selling a script.
"I think that if you just stick with it," Mar said, "eventually it works out."