Time for more BBQ.

I’m thrilled to report the latest great news: The good people at the Austin Film Festival’s screenwriting competition just informed me that not one, but TWO of my spec sitcom pilot scripts advanced in their annual competition… so it looks like I will be visiting that sweet, weird city again this October.

Regular PlanetOC readers will recall that I attended the 2011 festival because one of my scripts (also a spec sitcom pilot) called  “Mass MoCA” made it into the top 5%-10% of submissions last year. I had a great time at the festival, met some interesting and creative people and learned an awful lot, so I’m really looking forward to attending the festival again.

For anyone who isn’t a regular reader and doesn’t know what a big deal this is (to me, anyway,) let me explain. The screenwriting contest that the AFF puts on every year is considered the second biggest & most influential writing contest of its kind (it is generally agreed that the Nicholl Writer’s Fellowship competition is #1.) This year’s Austin contest drew nearly 7,000 entries, so having both of the scripts I entered land in the top 5-10% (again) is a pretty solid accomplishment… and when you couple that with last year’s strong showing, it demonstrates a certain level of consistent quality in my comedy writing – especially when it comes to sitcom pilots. As I said, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Here are the quick loglines for both of the scripts. I might post them on this site for downloading at a later date, but for now I’m keeping control of the material and only sending it out to specific industry folks etc.

OGRE STONE

“‘Arrested Development meets ‘Game of Thrones’ in a sitcom of Epic proportions.”

I <3 YOU, LULU

“In the tradition of ‘I Love Lucy,’ a successful young musician and his totally loose-cannon of a wife, both madly in love with each other, take on the world.”

…now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue my preparations for this Thursday’s big “Don’t Tell My Mother” show… and I have to book my flight to Austin.