Learn Stuff

NEW GIRL spec - first five pages

NEW GIRL is the number one new show for 18-34 year olds, and I absolutely adore it. The series has great heart, unconditionally loves its socially retarded characters, and has the lofty goal of gently teaching tolerance lessons as it demonstrates partnership between men and women. I'm thrilled to hear it has won the hearts of many teen girls who have adopted the Jess lead character as a role model.

I've watched all 21 episodes at least three times, and studied the crap out of Zooey, show creator Liz Merriwether, and their Paley panel. I think this spec is the funniest thing I've ever written.  So far I've received great feedback from working screenwriters I trust. I made the three storylines topics I really care about: woman on woman violence, the vintage fur debate, and the hilarious narcissism of fashion/lifestyle bloggers. As per my writing signature, this spec is funny, emotionally raw, informative, and has something to say.

I'm adding this NEW GIRL spec to my portfolio: feature action/thriller PISTOLERAS (Winner of Creative Screenwriting Magazine's Best Thriller Award); my filmmaking resume (Associate Producer of Indie Spirit Winner CONVENTIONEERS, writer/director/producer of THE COMMUNE, first ultra-low budget female filmmaker invited to The Masters of Horror dinners); and a new comedy pilot script based on my feature THE COMMUNE that will be ready to read by the end of May 2012. Fingers crossed this portfolio will do the trick for getting an agent and going out for staffing season. If you want to help, providing a referral to your agent/manager would save me mucho stress! 

You can see this version of the script performed live Sunday night at 8:30pm at the famous iO West in Hollywood. Here is the preview of my current first five pages which will be revised Monday after the reading. What do you think?


NEW GIRL
EP #21.5: "Female"
Written by Elisabeth Fies

ACT ONE

INT. LOFT. DAY.

NICK’S LATEST ONE NIGHT STAND sneaks out the door, running into WINSTON waving the morning mail.

WINSTON
I got my test results!

The girl grimaces and cuts him a wide birth.

WINSTON (CONT’D)
Not that kind of test--

REVEAL NICK AND JESS on the couch, eating cereal.

NICK
Cool. Now I don’t have to call her.

Winston stares at his test results envelope, frozen.

JESS
Standardized tests can’t measure the real you. It’s not about what’s here...
(pointing to her brain)
...but what’s in here.
Jess grabs her heart. SCHMIDT runs in like a human labrador.

SCHMIDT
(pointing to his crotch)
--Or what’s in here! Boom!

JESS
Besides, we really needs substitute teachers.

WINSTON
That’s what’s so horrible. If I’m not better than those people--

INT. GARFIELD ELEMENTARY. CLASSROOM. FLASHBACK.
Winston finishes and triumphantly slams his pencil down.

WINSTON
First!

REVEAL his competition: like Mos Eisley Cantina rejects. Winston reinforces his pencil marks on the Scantron form.

BACK TO PRESENT:

WINSTON (CONT’D)
That room smelled like fear. Sweat. And Maker’s Mark.

JESS
Fancy. In Oregon subs can only afford Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Winston tears open the envelope.

JESS (CONT’D)
Oh my god. Winston, you scored 99%!
Winston “Cruises” on the couch, the afghan flying. Nick mimics him with a surprisingly sexy lack of skill.

SCHMIDT
(joining in)
And 5, 6, 7, 8!
--And they start the routine from the New Girl music video.

SMASH TO MAIN TITLES.

INT. LOFT. CONTINUOUS.

CECE walks into the kitchen carrying a ritzy coat bag.

CECE
What’s going on?

JESS
Winston passed the C-Best.
(in Cagney voice)
Say, what do we have here, see?

Cece pulls out a vintage floor length mink coat.

JESS (CONT’D)
Yowza.

CECE
(touching the stitching)

It was Nanna’s. Her name’s sewn in.

JESS
I wonder how many animals died to make this fur coat.

CECE
I wonder how many animals she had to sleep with to get this fur coat.
(then)
I want to wear it.

JESS
(judgy)
Cece. You should hide it in your closet- Or get rid of it- before someone throws paint on you.

CECE
That’s crazy. Nobody throws paint in this century. Glitter bombs maybe, and I look fabulous in glitter.
(then)
Besides, the animal died fifty years ago. I don’t understand how hiding it in my closet or dumping it in the landfill honors its memory more than me proudly wearing it.
(petting the fur)
I remember being a little girl and hugging Nanna in it. Wearing it makes me feel close to her still.

JESS
Awww... put it on.
Cece dips her arms in. Nuzzles her nose and inhales.

CECE
Nanna.

JESS
You should do what makes you happy.

CECE
You’ll still be seen with me?

JESS
Always!

CECE
Cool. Be my Plus One for this red carpet charity event I’m working.

JESS
Proudly.
(then)
Can I wear my flannel?

Schmidt lopes up and throws a casual arm around Cece.

SCHMIDT
Sweet coat. Red mink, N’est ce pas?

CECE
You’re such a chick.

SCHMIDT
Give me a snap of it for “Cardi’s and Chutney”.

CECE
No, Schmidt. I told you I’m not going to be on your lifestyle blog.

SCHMIDT
Emily, Kimberley, and all the fashion blogging gang will love it! Having a real model will skyrocket my hits. I won’t tell anyone you’re my Pillow Pal- My Toe Tickler- My Indian Samosa of Sexy Time-

CECE
Jess, The limo will be here at 7.

Cece leaves. Schmidt thrusts a camera into Jess’ hands.

SCHMIDT
Snap today’s outfit. My new Espadrilles are right on trend.

Jess takes a few photos as Schmidt poses.

SCHMIDT (CONT’D)
Now a close up of the Espadrilles.

JESS
I have a thing about men’s feet...

SCHMIDT
Come on, Jess! Snap my ‘drilles!

JESS
(clicking without looking)
All set.

Winston shakes his head disapprovingly at Schmidt.

SCHMIDT
My blog is douche-jar exempt. It’s the anti-douche.

WINSTON
(gives Schmidt a “whatever look. Then:)
Jess, I’m not the type to wait for the school to call me in. I want to introduce myself to Tanya now.

JESS
Ohhh I think she remembers you.

INT. SCHMIDT’S PARTY BUS. NIGHT. FLASHBACK.

TANYA LAMONTAGNE, Jess party-hungry Vice Principal, slaps Winston’s ass and shoves dollar bills down his jeans.

WINSTON
Lady, the stripper is over there!

Points to MARTIN FULLER, the straight middle-aged man sadly dancing for other dudes. Tanya slaps Winston ass again.

TANYA
Nah. Shake it, black thunder!

BACK TO LOFT:
Winston grabs his briefcase. Clips on a tie.

WINSTON
That’s why I’m reintroducing myself as Business Winston.

JESS
I’m leaving if you want a ride.
(hands Schmidt his camera back as if it’s infected)
Uggh.

Winston and Jess leave. Schmidt reviews Jess' photos.

SCHMIDT
Amateur. Light is all wrong. You can’t see the texture of my V-neck.

NICK
Nobody cares what you’re wearing.

Schmidt flips open the laptop on the coffee table to pull up his blog.

SCHMIDT
Wrong! Cotton is the fabric of our lives.

Interview with Suzanne Lyons

Here I am with my mentor Suzanne Lyons discussing some details about financing indie films using THE COMMUNE as an example.  :)

Miracle Mile

I'm off to go have dinner with one of my best friends, a filmmaker hero of mine, and someone new I'm stoked to meet who made some of my favorite TV shows as a kid. And I'm late, as always. Sigh.

Afterwards we're going to one of my favorite theatres to celebrate the career of Steve DeJarnatt. Here's an old blog post on why I want you to rent Miracle Mile (and Cherry 2000...if the title appeals to you, you're the right audience for it):

Connections

Sometime soon I'll tell you one of the most humiliating things that's ever happened to me. It involves two of the people above, my feces, and a broken camera.

To blog or not to blog

I started this blog February 4th, 2005 when my awesome Mom started hers. She wrote poetically about her daily struggles recovering from cancer, and I wrote about blundering through caregiving, dating, film school, and my own recovery post head injury from a car accident with a drunk driver in 1995. 

You'll notice there are years of daily posts here. Then an attempt at being less confessional. Then a reincarnation as a lifestyle blog that points out impersonal trinkets. Followed by a sprawling capitalist mess shilling for you and the bizarro world of horror-lovers to view my poor misunderstood feature film that very few people grok. Outside of 70s-cinema lovin' Hollywood intellectual bohemians, the actual Masters of Horror, and some really nice fundamental Christians (When I go niche, I go DEEP NICHE baby. Oh wait, you're NOT supposed to go that niche? You're supposed to find 1000 True Fans, not 100 True Fans? Well fuck me with a chainsaw!).

No no, I swear I'm not doing one of those narcissistic posts where I say I'm never going to blog again as a Tinkerbell clap trap to make you all dance like monkeys to bring me back to life (Though *if* I were a Narcissist (which Dr. Olcese says I can't be since I'm capable of asking that question), you all know I came by it naturally through half my designer genes, n'est-ce pas?).

See??? THAT is why I need to start blogging again. The above paragraphs? CRAPTASTIC writing. I was the most productive and gooder at ze ol' clackety ckack when I was putting in my WGA-prescribed Stream of Consciousness Hour a Day right here at my stupid lil blog. And that discipline naturally overflowed into writing the (unproduced) feature screenplay PISTOLERAS that I still think could save thousands of kids from sex slavery. So that cause and effect alone is cause enough to pause and think deep thoughts with Jack Handey on a daily basis.

But the negatives are like whoa. Violent soul-ripping out of your body junk. Some of it from innocuous stuff that exposes your friends' neuroses. Some of it so deserved that I'll be coming back reincarnated as a snail next life (the first year of true confessional blogging has a steep learning curve that will cost you family members and lifetime friends).

Dealing with feeling the petty envy of watching blogging friends get book deals and paying jobs and Hollywood careers and big blog audiences that financially sustained them. Getting to a Taoist point of not caring about not having that and just focusing on the joy of creating. Wondering then if I'm talking to myself, why exactly am I bothering? The tree is still falling. For whom am I recording the fall? Alien ancestors? And why did I have so many pictures of myself up on my own blog? Ewwww. How desperate am I? You guys are right. I hate me, too.

Getting a readership and having that first high of validation and communication with peers. The fall when they turned. Followed by driving most of the readers away when the snarky wannabe screenwriters kept attacking the underdog, exhausted caregivers. Zeus I can't abide bullies.

Then there's the really evil stuff. My close friends would snort at me typing "I try to focus on the positive", but unfortunately guess what? When you open up a vein and publish your fucking diary on the web, your close friends aren't the ones who come daily to lap up the blood. Nope. It's the two stalkers with autoerotomania escalating towards violence. That cunt hiding behind the mask of feminism who actually has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and IS going to die alone and broke.

Meeting heroes in the film industry as colleagues and learning they really think women are only good for putting their dicks in. Not finding a place as a writer in the boys club of the comic world. Losing boyfriends by not writing or writing about them.

Or the biggest kick in the gut: discovering the pervasive Female on Female Violence that is the real reason women don't have equality in Hollywood, and by extension the world. My close friends REALLY want me to make a documentary about my interesting thoughts about mean girls and the Cavewoman inside us all and how we're the problem not the solution. To which I say, fuck you, YOU go make a documentary. I want to get PAID to do the Wild Thing. Grumble. I've got at least $250,000 I've invested in this hobby over the past 25 years. It would be nice to get ONE PAYCHECK. Just one. So my dead grandparents can stop thinking I'm an indulgent asshat.

Have I told you about how I stopped looking at the search words for how strangers found my blog because it made me want to throw up my spirit? Or how friends of mine have had their photos downloaded, then uploaded to the internet with cum on them? Or how my attempt to raise money for my lead actresses' prosthetic hand after a horrible accident turned into thousands of perverts coming HERE to jack off, then stealing her photos and posting them to a porn fetish website? I tried to buy her a hand and I broke her heart.

Like, what can I ever do to make up for any of that? Or forget it? And this is the nonpersonal stuff that's been going on in my life, not even getting into the "how'd I get so old and fat and yeah, I'm really really old and why am I still attracted to twenty-five year olds what's wrong with me" bullshit. No, this is the stuff I brought upon myself by trying to make a difference.

So yeah, I've been in a man-cave minus the man. There's definitely a feeling of "If I never TAKE a step, then I have a small carbon footprint...right??? It's not my childhood ambition of Avengers Assembling to save the world, but it also means I can't accidentally be on the VILLAINS' side, right??? I'm not fucking ULTRON'S pawn, at least. Right, universe? Hello? Universe, are you there...?

I didn't know what to do. So I threw down the gauntlet last week. I yelled at my mom. I'm not proud. The natural course of losing your way spiritually means I haven't been feeling her or talking to her. Ruminating on all the ways I could have been a better daughter. So last Friday I gave her the ol' "HEY. I know you're there. Why aren't you DOING anything? And what the fuck am I supposed to be doing, because I'm so far below the poverty line hitting it is my vision board GOAL for the year. And I don't know what the hell I'M supposed to be doing, and I think the universe is screaming give up and go live in the desert away from humans and stream Netflix movies all day. (Which is ALSO now evil and corporate; What The FUCK, Netflix??? Where's your indie street cred NOW, after you've singlehandedly brought down the film industry???).

So Barbara...Bitch TELL ME SOMETHING!" And she did. I got a Big Fishie. A big juicy undeniable one that involved my sister, my gradeschool best friend Jen, and some closeted activist Deep Throat old school Hollywood insiders. Barbara laid this Fishie in deep. There's personal nods going back twenty-seven years ago with Jen, twenty years ago with Brenda, and twelve years ago with Mom. A trio of ladies I couldn't love more, all of whom share a deep passion for the underdog. Each one of whom I shared memorable affinity moments with while watching the amazing film work by one person. A Hollywood figurehead who is the Fishie and may or may not have even been the fishmonger with the help of his awesome fishwife. Doesn't actually matter if I ever know how it went down or who delivered the fishie. I know there's someone out there trying to do good in this fucked up world who thinks I'm doing some good work and found me and my family because of this blog.

That is good enough for me. I got the message. "BLOG, BITCH." As you wish, mom.

Oh mom? I got your other message, too. The one that meant "Don't accept yesterday's high bid even though it could buy you groceries. You're keeping your last piece of Avengers art."

Vi veri universum vivus vici

Watching my favorite blogger Enty at Crazy Days and Nights and his Hollywood Justice League expose some horrible Hollywood pedophiles under the laws of celebrity gossip. It will be interesting to see how this chess match goes down. Soooo proud of those involved in bringing these crimes to light.

We are all V.

Bzzzline.com interviews Drew Daywalt and Marichelle Daywalt at BleedFest

Bzzzline.com comes through for BleedFest Film Festival Group filmmakers yet again with this wonderful article on BleedFest Award Winners Drew Daywalt (April 2011 Partnership Award)and Marichelle Daywalt (MOCKINGBIRD, THE MANY DOORS OF ALBERT WHALE).

Great interviews with the unstoppable husband/wife team on our red carpet, and it's all just in time to celebrate Drew's amazing directorial debut on MTV comedy-horror series sensation DEATH VALLEY!

Thanks so much Alisha Rayne and Bzzzline Team! We love you and all you do for our Bleeders! Congrats Daywalts!

Tivo Alert!

In case you didn't know, my sister Brenda Fies and I run a monthly Los Angeles film festival called BleedFest that proves that there are hundreds of women making cool, badass genre films that you don't want to miss!

BleedFest Film Festival Partnership alum Drew Daywalt's first episode of DEATH VALLEY airs tonight on MTV at 10:30pm (and an episode written by our friend David Weinstein is coming very soon.)

VIP guest and wonderful supporter Kevin Tenney's feature A FRIENDSHIP TO DIE FOR (retitled from the original TICK TOCK) airs on LMN (Lifetime Movie Network) Tuesday at 7pm and 11 pm, so no excuses! Check it out!

In six degrees of separation, it happens to star talented Megan Ward, the co-star of our March feature winner WAKING DREAMS by the wonderful Deepika Daggubati!

Scrutinize - a new Fies Sisters short covered by Chuck Norris Ate My Baby

With one of the most badass titles on the web, Matt at Chuck Norris Ate My Baby is a writer we have long admired for his terrific coverage and analysis of all things genre. Matt writes with eloquence and humor about the old and the new, the big and the indie, and is always entertaining. Check out this gem he unearthed: How VCRs Destroyed America's Youth

The Fies Sisters are honored to have our first YouTube release SCRUTINIZE covered by the man, the legend, the Chuck-tamer himself. Who wouldn't feel thrilled to hear this about their work:

"But what I think I dig the most about Scrutinize is the idea itself and how it's executed. It grabs your attention and keeps you wondering where it might go, only to have a genuinely smart and very fun reveal in the end."

Check out the awesome article here! Become a member of Matt's blog. The Fies Sisters highly recommend it because Chucktober is coming!