MERREL DAVIS

Apologies for the lack of updates the past two weeks. Things have been busy, but I finally broke free.

So! What’s going on?

Script Writing

I recently finished a four month intensive screenplay workshop at the New York Film Academy. The endeavor proved fruitful. In February, I finished my the first draft of my still unnamed feature script. In March, I worked on the first revision, and in the beginning of April I finished my second revision. The script is currently making rounds with some of my peers and mentors. I feel I need to work on some of my B stories and development of some secondary characters.

Overall the feedback on my feature script has been very promising. After another draft, I’ll explore entering it into a lab and possibly begin sending it out to production companies.

I’m in the preliminary writing stages of a trans-gendered romantic comedy. I’ve solicited the help of a writing partner who writes very “punchy” dialogue, which I like. I need to meet with him next week to push the project back in order.

I’ve also put down the foundation for a 1 hour drama TV spec with two other writing partners. It’s slow going as each of them are drafting up their own feature scripts currently.

On the short film front, I’ve written a 10 minute short called I Can’t Wake From Obsolete. It deals with concepts of planned obselescence taken to an extreme. My second revision and character backgrounds are in the hands of some producing students at NYFA. The short is the thesis for a directing student. I’m excited to see what he will do with it. The project is still currently in casting. More on this as it develops.

Other work:

I’ve been providing production assistance for Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary company. The past two months have been spent on a 2 hour project for National Geographic. The work is great, the people are great, the environment is electric. The program is set to air sometime in late June 2009. I’ll update when the official name and air-date are publically available.

I’m still working as a script reader for a managment company.  I’m reading lots of very bad scripts. And let me tell you, nothing is a better crash course in what not to do in screenwriting than reading some bad ones. Every once in a while I am treated to a good script, which makes it worthwhile as well.