Okay.
So I'm taking a screenwriting class this semester and it's incredibly awesome. I mean, we talk about movies for three hours, so how can there possibly be a downside?
We just had a pitch assignment where we had to write down three pitches for future movie scripts, and I was excited because I have a few cool ideas that I'm starting to work on.
I get to writing them and realize that one of them is terrible/unoriginal/whoops.
It goes a little like this:
A guy realizes that he has a lot of regret, so he goes back in time to fix his mistakes, only to realize that his mistakes make him who he is and decides to leave them in place.
If it sounds familiar, it's because it's kind of a combo of Back to the Future and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both great films, but I would prefer to do something that doesn't have someone go, "This is exactly like such and such."
So I scrapped that idea and was trying to think of something new, when this awesome idea popped into my head. I honestly don't know what got me thinking about it, but I was so stoked about it, so I wrote my pitch for it and anxiously waited for class to start so I could talk to someone about it.
I'm not going to say what it is though. Not that producers scour the internet searching for blogs to get script ideas so they can steal them from helpless college students, but it could happen.
Maybe.
Probably not, but I really like this idea and would prefer it if someone didn't go all Social Network on it.
So after sitting through about an hour of class, it was time for us to read our favorite pitch, so I read mine. I'm not sure if I've ever been more confident about anything in my entire life than I was about this idea, so I read it, trying to sound all intense and into it so everyone would be amazed by it. Thirty seconds later I look up at my professor and he goes:
"Have you read ___ _____ ____ _____? It sounds just like it."
BURN.
I think my face exploded at that point just out of sheer embarrassment/anger/death.
It's like someone never seeing/hearing/knowing about Star Wars (God help them) and writing a treatment for a space saga about a Jedi and his evil father. Then someone tells them that George Lucas already made billions off that idea, so eff off.
So yeah.
That was my Tuesday night.
Thanks Screenwriting.
