My second time around at UCLA was for the Professional Program in Screenwriting Certificate Program in the Graduate School of Film, Television and Theater.
My five most recent feature length scripts:
The Art of Looking Busy: A nameless wise-cracking crime syndicate surveillance man untangles an internal heist and grows attached to his latest assigned identity. Inspired by my long vintage crime novel phase and love of classic Film Noir.
Badges: A satirical tribute to Hunter S. Thompson’s quixotic run for Pitkin County Sheriff in 1970 as a member of the Freak Power Party updated for our current political climate of deep division and mistrust. Could an irreverent comedy about an unemployed lawyer recently fired from the EPA who agrees to run for County Sheriff against two terrible candidates save our democracy? Yeah, probably not.
Sticking To It: A Hollywood spoof based loosely on my experiences helping an old film school friend develop the concept and animation for a children’s tv show about boogers. I tried to get him to change it to leprechauns but he said no. We got considerably further along with it than you would think.
Jump-Start: A classic muscle car binds the main characters together in a road comedy of love, loss, searching and triumphant reunification. With the car. What did you think I was talking about?
Brash Monkey: Junior park rangers step in when Northern California locals confuse the arrival of a larcenous Indian macaque with Bigfoot. Written to be an animated family comedy about a wildly unintended consequence of habitat loss and globalization. New genre?
My pilot teleplay for an animated series:
Slimy Green Trail: A comedic exploration of the lucrative illicit avocado trade of inland San Diego. Homicide hotshot Ted Youngblood is demoted to the Special Avocado Division and partnered with legend Jose Viernes (Joe Friday). The first season plot centers around the efforts of international avocado mafia family Los Verdes to orchestrate an avocado shortage just prior to the Super Bowl. Like Narcos Mexico meets Dragnet meets Police Squad.