"Flacks"

Tagline – “Believe Nothing, Question Everything”

“25 words or less” – The lengths a pair of Hollywood publicists will go to hide their unstable celebrity clients’ secrets and cover up their indiscretions is explored

Full Summary:

Jacob Peters and Katie Monroe are ambitious Hollywood publicists who would do anything to promote and maintain their clients’ pristine public images.  Two years ago they left their PR jobs to partner together in a new firm with a small, but strong, nucleus of celebrity clients.  They’re also in a long-term relationship with each other that occasionally causes stress at home which tends to boil over into the workplace.  At the center of their domestic dispute is Katie’s desire to get married and start a family, which Jacob has been avoiding while he concentrates on building their firm into an industry powerhouse with his business partner and girlfriend.   

When it comes to their valued clients, it’s up to Jacob and Katie and their PR firm, Monroe & Peters, to pick up the pieces from the messes they make, cover up their transgressions and tell tall tales that put them in a positive light among the unsuspecting, gullible public.  At this stage of their fledging boutique PR agency, their client roster includes five famous celebrities in the world of Hollywood and music who all have ties with Jacob and Katie through family connections or the neighborhood they grew up in: 

Brent Sheridan is a handsome movie star and closeted gay in his mid-thirties who tries to suppress his feelings through raging alcoholism.  To him, and his publicists, it doesn’t matter how big of a star he becomes or how much America evolves socially, there’s still a huge fear of turning off the heartland and affecting his box office sales by coming out.  However, his heavy drinking tends to put him in precarious situations that endangers him both physically and mentally.

In the first episode, Brent breaks his wrist while trashing his hotel penthouse suite after the male co-star of his current production rejects his sexual advances.  Fearing he’ll be fired from the movie if the truth comes out, it’s up to Jacob to fix the situation by planting a fake story in the press about Brent’s “made up” heroics to explain his recent injury.    

Then there’s Dylan Dame, a goody-two-shoes pop singer in her early-twenties who obsessively thinks non-stop about her painstakingly crafted public persona.  She goes through great lengths to never be, or say anything, controversial because she doesn’t want to damage her image with any of her fans.  However, tired of always singing “bubble gum” pop music, Dylan asks Katie in the first episode to set her up with a famous, or semi-famous, black guy so that she can gain “street cred” as she prepares to record a pop, R&B album with Timbaland.

There’s also the hot rap group Double Down featuring African-American twin brothers in their early twenties, Ja’Von and Da’Von Downs.  Although they’ve had tremendous success early in their careers, they hardly ever see eye-to-eye on most decisions and occasionally, and embarrassingly, fight publicly over their creative differences and girls.  It’s up to both Jacob and Katie to continually put a positive public spin on their tenuous relationship.

In this episode, it’s up to Katie to act as a mediator when Ja’Von tries to force a bizarre movie idea, and the accompanying action figures, on his younger brother (who’s only younger by four and a half minutes), Da’Von, both of which put him a very negative light while Ja’Von comes out looking like a superstar.

Finally there’s Courtney Ford, a young, flaky, coked up, promiscuous, up-and-coming Hollywood actress in her mid-twenties who’s known just as much for her promiscuity, especially among married actors, and drug use as she is for her acting.  In fact, she’s gaining such a reputation around town as a homewrecker that Courtney puts the onus on Jacob to fix it.

In this episode, Courtney freaks out after learning she lost her purse at a West Hollywood restaurant which had a large amount of cocaine in it.  She doesn’t care about anything else in the purse, except her coke, so she asks Jacob to find it.  Eventually, the mystery man that originally found her purse calls Jacob and offers to hand it back with all the contents intact in exchange for a sexual rendezvous with Courtney.

This leads to the unique “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style ending where Jacob asks for audience participation to help inform Courtney’s plotline moving into the next episode.  This is a style that will be employed at the end of each episode featuring a different character’s precarious situation for that week and multiple potential solutions for viewers to vote on.  In this episode, Jacob offers the viewing audience four options on how he should handle the mysterious caller which includes decisions like paying the guy off, or hiring a private investigator to find dirt so he can reverse blackmail him, or actually offering up Courtney to keep him quiet.  Viewers have until midnight three days after the original airing to vote.  The option that gets the highest vote total will be what’s incorporated as a continuation of the character’s storyline in the next episode.  So what will Jacob and Katie, or Courtney, have to do in order to protect the young starlet’s image?
Flacks Screenplay

"Missed You"

Tagline – “One Man’s Quest To Find What He's Missing”

“25 words or less” – A New York City man goes through elaborate means to find a woman he met on a subway platform after accidentally losing her phone number

Full Summary:

Ben Farmer is a New York City commercial real estate broker in his early-thirties who’s lucky in business but unlucky in love.  After a series of disastrous relationships, each worse than the previous one, Ben finds himself at his wit’s end with his personal life.  Worst of all, his frustrations have reached a tipping point where he’s totally soured on the opposite sex.  

This all changes on the night of a heavy snowstorm with a chance encounter on a Union Square station subway platform.  While snaking his way through the crowd of people waiting too long for the next subway to Brooklyn, Ben accidentally bumps into Stephanie, a pretty girl also in her early-thirties, who was too busy checking her email to notice she was walking right into someone.

After mutual apologies, the two quickly strike up a conversation as they wait for their respective trains to come.  Wanting to continue their talk, Stephanie decides to skip her train when it comes into the station opting instead to wait for Ben’s train which she can take as well.  When the train finally comes, their conversation extends all the way to Stephanie’s stop in Brooklyn.  After a few awkward moments, she offers Ben her cell phone number which he takes down just as the doors close.

Elated, Ben breaks into song once he gets out of the subway in his Bay Ridge neighborhood.  In an homage to Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain,” Ben sings and dances down the street during the heavy snowstorm.  As he sings, he also playfully throws snowballs, high-fives and hugs strangers, swings around a streetlight pole, helps an old lady cross the street, twirls an umbrella over his head, stomps through puddles of slush and makes a snow angel on the sidewalk; all while professing his love for his new love, Stephanie.  

But there’s one major problem that suddenly tempers his overwhelming excitement, Ben makes a shocking discovery as he checks his phone when he gets to his apartment building…he never saved Stephanie’s number.

Undeterred, Ben decides to use the power of internet search the next morning to find Stephanie based on the scant information he was able to pick up during their conversation. He combs through countless Facebook profiles and checks LinkedIn but comes up with nothing.  He even goes so far as to create a “missed connections” post on Craigslist but this doesn’t get him closer to finding Stephanie either.

He decides that more elaborate methods are in order so he enlists one of his best friends, and co-workers, to help him stakeout Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square where she works for the company as a buyer.  This also doesn’t create any tangible leads.

While Ben conducts his seemingly fruitless search both on- & offline, Stephanie laments to her younger sister, Kate, that Ben never called or even bothered to text her.  This leads to a wider conversation where she expresses her frustrations over finding that one true gentleman that she’s looking for within a city of millions.  After a long night at a club, she even goes so far as to break into song at a late night pizza joint about her desire to find “the one.”   

After nothing else works, Ben decides to make one last ditch effort to find Stephanie against the advice of his friends and co-workers who think it’s best for him to finally move on.  This time he goes to Williamsburg on a Sunday afternoon to explore the coffee shops, brunch hot spots and laundromats that line the busy streets in her neighborhood.  He admits it’s a “Hail Mary” attempt but in his mind he’s all out of options and he doesn’t want to give up on finding who he believes is his one true love.

Will Ben eventually find Stephanie?  If so, what will her reaction to him be?  Will they ever go on that elusive first date that both have wanted since the day they met each other?  These questions and more will be answered in this romantic comedy / musical hybrid which aims to tell an inspirational story of hope, desire, dream fulfillment and the power of persistence.
Missed You Screenplay

"Split"

Tagline – “A Romance Between A Man And His Blackjack Dealer”

“30 words or less” – A man gambles all the money in his joint bank account, and falls for his blackjack dealer, after finding his wife cheating on him during their honeymoon in Las Vegas

Full Summary:

Daniel Cooper, a non-descript, average-looking man in his mid-thirties walks through The Cosmopolitan casino floor in Las Vegas on a mission.  Armed with a fistful of cash on a sleepy Tuesday night, he takes a seat at a quiet blackjack table in the center of the room.

There he quickly strikes up a conversation with the attractive blackjack dealer, a woman in her early-thirties named Debbie McBride.  Not looking like a high-roller, Debbie initially questions Daniel about his intent once he asks for $50,000 in chips.  This rather harmless question launches them into a two hour conversation interspersed with many hands of blackjack as they talk about their lives, both past and present, what they like and what they dislike.

So why is Daniel, a seemingly “ordinary” man, gambling such a large sum of money?  Because only hours earlier, he discovered his drunken wife having sex with a random man in the men’s bathroom of a well-known nightclub.  And the kicker?  Daniel and his wife were on their honeymoon.  This blatant act of adultery and dishonesty instinctively leads Daniel to go to the nearest branch of his bank to empty their joint bank account.  Since they’re in Vegas, he decides to gamble away all their money at the casino which is what brings him to Debbie’s blackjack table.

Daniel finds a sympathetic ear in Debbie as she listens to his marital woes as she shares her own stories of past relationship problems.  What starts as ordinary conversation between a player passing time between hands and a cordial blackjack dealer quickly turns into innocent flirting which then evolves into overt seduction as the night goes on and the subject matter they discuss becomes more varied.

The story is focused on the conversation and how a casual relationship between strangers can quickly blossom into something more serious.  This focus is seen through the story presentation as virtually all of it takes place in one setting – a blackjack table – and between only two characters – Daniel, the player, and Debbie, the dealer.

The three main questions to be answered by the end of the night: Does Daniel win big or does he lose the $50,000?  Does his wife try to reconcile with him?  What happens between Daniel and Debbie after Daniel finally decides to leave the table?

Split Screenplay

"Out of Bounds"

“25 words or less” – The life and times of a hard-partying, chain-smoking, drug-abusing, first round-drafted hotshot rookie sensation, who happens to be a professional football kicker, is examined

Full Summary:

Bobby “Crazy Leg” Crenshaw is a hotshot rookie who was drafted in the first round by the Texas Bulls of the United Football League, he’s also a kicker…but not just any kicker, he’s a dual threat who can punt and placekick the ball.

A homegrown talent from Texas, Bobby is not your average athlete.  In lieu of intense weight training and practice that occupy his other teammates who play more physically demanding positions, he spends his time drinking heavily, chain smoking incessantly, flirting with any girl that gets within striking distance, smoking weed and popping molly.  He’s quite a character, but a character that everyone loves to be around on the football field; from the skinny, lily-white backup kicker to the 350 pound defensive lineman.

His goofy demeanor is egged on by his ever-present tight circle of friends which include two of his childhood buddies that he played high school football with – Ashton and Grant – and his older brother, Connor.

In the first episode, Bobby, who’s being interviewed for a feature article in ESPN the Magazine, talks liberally about his use of recreational drugs.  This enrages the commissioner’s office who orders that Crenshaw be randomly drug tested after their next game.

Luckily, the Texas Bulls management team has a mole in the commissioner’s office and finds out about the drug test beforehand.  Bobby assures the owner and general manager though that they don’t need to worry about anything since his comments in the magazine were taken out of context and he’s actually been clean for a while.  He chalks up his comments as the innocent bragging of an admittedly immature kid and said he’d pass the drug test with flying colors.

The owner and general manager are satisfied with Bobby’s answers and go about their business but there is a problem, a major one.  Bobby is lying since he’s still a regular and habitual user of all kinds of illegal narcotics and he has no plans of stopping either.

Panicked, Bobby stops by his older sister, Jenna’s, house for a seemingly impromptu visit after practice one day.  But it’s anything but an impromptu stop as he needs his four year old nephew’s urine in order to pass the drug test without suspicion.  Will his sister allow Bobby to use her son’s urine?  If so, can he pull off his caper successfully or will his fake sample be detected by league officials?  Will he be suspended or will he continue living his life with no regard to the rules or societal norms? 

Out of Bounds Screenplay

"Hell Week"

Tagline – “It’s going to be torture”

“25 words or less” – An awkward fraternity pledge comes back from the dead to seek revenge against the brothers who were responsible for his death during a hazing ritual

Full Summary:

It’s another Fall semester at Rockefeller University in Virginia which means a new pledge class of bright-eyed, impressionable freshmen being initiated into the popular Zeta Beta Alpha fraternity.  We open during hell week and the pledges are being forced to drink copious amounts of beer until they puke by the strict, overbearing pledge master, Chad, and his fellow fraternity brothers.

Every pledge class has that one awkward kid that doesn’t quite fit in and is the whipping boy for the upperclassmen and this year is no different.  That whipping boy this time is Jasper, a skinny, frail, boyish-looking freshmen who is pledging the fraternity because of his desire to be accepted by someone, anyone.  Jasper’s asked to stay behind by Chad after the rest of the class has been dismissed following the drinking competition.  That’s when the fraternity brothers force him to drink his own vomit.  This is just one more incidence of hazing in a semester filled with them.

The pledge class “hell week” culminates with Zeta’s legendary “Wooly Mammoth” party, named after their infamous jungle juice, but of course Jasper and his fellow pledge brothers have to be on duty while the upperclassmen have fun.  Jasper is specifically assigned the most menial tasks like cleaning the kitchen and mopping up the bathroom and is forced to watch while everyone else rages around him.  There’s a slight glimmer of hope when he starts chatting up a fellow freshman girl but it’s quickly dashed when Chad swoops in and steals her away from him.

Later in the night after the party has died down, several of the fraternity brothers decide to cure their boredom by hazing the pledges so they gather up the class and bring them to the lake on campus.  There, in the middle of the night, the brothers led by Chad and Zach, the fraternity president, demand that the pledges strip down to their underwear and swim to a fountain located in the middle of the lake.  Jasper protests claiming that he’s not a good swimmer and doesn’t want to do the task.

Instead of compassion, his protests are met with ridicule as the brothers strip him totally naked, to the laughter of the gathered crowd, and kick him into the lake.  The pledges - drunk, tired and disoriented - swim to the fountain and back, as the crowd continues to drink and mock them.  However one pledge never makes it back.  After a couple brothers jump into the lake to frantically look for this missing pledge they realize that Jasper has drowned.

The fraternity leadership is faced with a choice – either report Jasper’s drowning and risk an investigation that could see the fraternity kicked off of campus and the brothers arrested or they could bury the body and pretend like nothing happened.  After a short debate, the fraternity president decides to send a few brothers to bury Jasper’s body at a park miles away from campus.

Fast forward one year later and it’s another Fall semester at Rockefeller University with another new pledge class for Zeta Beta Alpha.  Jasper, still officially missing, is just a distant memory, if a memory at all, to most on campus.  While many have forgotten about Jasper, he is determined not to forget about the fraternity that killed him even in death as he comes back from beyond the grave to terrorize his former brothers during hell week.

At first Jasper’s ghost engages in harmless menacing of the fraternity brothers – staring them down in the library, chasing them throughout campus – but his actions quickly escalate to more harmful practices such as throwing knives which barely miss his targets.  Things culminate at the “Wooly Mammoth” party where Jasper thinks of new and inventive ways to torture people as payback to the fraternity brothers and their girlfriends who ridiculed him throughout his pledging.    

Hell Week Screenplay