How do I find new material? Faith & Rewrites

I’ve been meeting with writer Kellen Berg periodically over the last 18 months+ to review and discuss drafts of his adventure script, “The Crown of Osiris.”  I first met Kellen during the annual IFP MN Producers Conference three years ago, where I was honored to be a panelist.  On the second day of the conference, I and two fellow panelists listened to and critiqued pitches from 19 screenwriters.  Yep, nineteen.  I could barely form cogent sentences anymore after that 3-hour session, but I remembered Kellen’s pitch because I thought it was very graspable, and I like adventure movies.  So, I told him, ‘Send me a draft when you’re ready.’ A year later, he did.

I met with him next to talk about us working together and asked him what his hopes and expectations were.  Ours would be a process of collaborating on faith and for the joy of it, really.  I don’t have development funds to pay him (or me) for this process.  But, if we liked working together and how we shaped the script together, I’d want to produce it as one of my projects.  He said he was game to take the leap.

Here we are nearly two years after that, and Kellen sent his most current draft to me a couple weeks ago (he’s been juggling school and work commitments).  I’m getting excited!  It’s not ready for prime time, yet; but, I feel it’s at a good maturation stage now to dive in and really pull it together.

So, I’m enthused about documenting this process here on the blog!  Kellen’s cool with the idea, too, so we’re going to give it a shot.  He’ll post entries here, too, occasionally as a guest blogger.

To wrap up for now, I’ll share with you what I remember about Kellen’s pitch:  “The Crown of Osiris” is about a college student who joins an archaeological dig and uncovers an Egyptian relic.  It confers super human abilities upon him, but with a high price – once you wear it, it wants to get you killed!

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Tagged as: IFP MN Producers Conference, Kellen Berg, Script Development