apollak

Last night the NYC Screenwriters Meetup group reviewed the first draft of my first feature-length screenplay, BodySwappers Inc., the scifi story of a lonely loser that swaps bodies with people for a living and essentially "makes a deal with the devil" to get the glamorous life he always imagined. I came up with the idea for BodySwappers in 2004 and completed a novella version in 2007. Several people who read it said that they thought it would make a great movie and this was one of the factors which led me to start my screenwriting education. So now, five years after first imagining this story I have a whole new set of ideas to contemplate.

I have been attending the NYC Screenwriters meetup for about seven months or so and I continually contend that it is one of the great, lesser-known resources for creative screenwriters in NYC. The organizer, David Negrin serves a s a skilled, patient and wise sherpa, guiding the group through a script every other week and making sure the author and the reviewers all get something out of the process. I get a tremendous amount out of the meetings and really enjoy reading and thinking about the other writers' works.

Last night's session was the first time the group reviewed one of my pieces and in the days leading up to it I was both excited and nervous. Once we got into the room and people started talking about the work, reading through their notes and discussing the merits and missteps of the manuscript, I lost all butterflies and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I got pages and pages of written notes from the group and have some very core aspects of the story and my main characters to consider. I'm looking forward to all of this feedback to settle in and am really looking forward to digging in to my second draft.

Thanks so much to David for keeping the group going and providing such a service, thanks to the group at large for the rich and valuable discussion; to Marc, Phil, Hector, Mario, Nancy, Lewis, Jesse, and Zoe for your written notes; to Kris, Galit and Swati for the notes before the review; and to Randy, George, Reese and all those who read the drafts of the BodySwapers, Inc. novella in its various incarnations. I hope to continue work on the script shortly and end up with something that you can all be proud to say you helped create.