Best Scene Reading of the comedy feature screenplay. The entire screenplay will be performed at the festival in April 2016.

Watch Best Scene of MISPRINTS by Adam Preston:

CAST LIST:

NARRATOR – Amanda Pereira
DR. ZAHN – Neil Kulin
RICHARD – Mark Sparks
OLLIE – Gabriel Darku
LYNDA – Elizabeth Rose Morriss
MATRON – Susan Wilson

Get to know writer Adam Preston:

What is your screenplay about?

‘Misprints’ is about that time in your life – and I think all the best people go through this – when you are just a disaster. You’re in the wrong job or you’re failing to get over a broken heart and you still haven’t learned the important lessons that are going to enable you to get your shit together and start being a proper person. For me this happened when I was in my mid to late twenties and I realized, thinking back, that for a while I was living like an old man – like someone who was sort of washed up and finished. So I had the idea that it would be fun to have a young man who is living like an old man be changed by an old man who is living like a young man. That is where the character of Dr. Zahn comes from – he’s never grown up and still wants to live the fantasy life of a twenty year old.  So he and the young guy sort of swap places in the film and order is restored.

Why should this screenplay be made into a movie? 

People absolutely love the kind of comedies where they see flawed people struggling and failing. Films like ‘Sideways’ and ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and Withnail and I’ where you see people flailing about and really screwing up and then achieving a believable bit of glory. The story has to be told with immense wit and of course that’s hard to achieve – that’s why I’m always improving, always seeking feedback and listening to comments. If we can get this right this has the potential to be a film that audiences really take to heart – because when you see movies like that you realize that somebody out there understands that we are all failing – making goddawful messes of our lives and somehow muddling through and getting to the next chapter. If you can get that across while making people laugh I think it’s very cheering and it is potentially a more honest sort of ‘lift’ to the spirits than more obviously upbeat movies, so it endures longer.

This story has a lot going for it. How would you describe this script in two words?  

Slacker farce

What movie have you seen the most times in your life?

Some Like It Hot   In fact I’ve just written a blog post about it  http://wordsontoast.weebly.com/blog

This is  a very tight, emotionally engaging and fun screenplay. How long have you been working on this screenplay?

From first spark to this draft about three years

How many stories have you written?

I have five finished screenplays, one feature film credit (Hangar 10), one novel, one half hour sitcom script, five short films (which I wrote and directed) and many many treatments.

What motivated you to write this screenplay? 

I love great comedy and my dream is to make one – then another and another..

What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay? 

The biggest obstacle for me is carving out writing time for myself.

Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

I love directing and have just finished a short film called ‘The Last Post’ which has been shown at festivals all over the world and has been picked up by Shorts TV. They will be showing it on their channel and representing it for global sales (it’s at Clermont-Ferrand in France, the world’s premier short film festival and market, this week).

What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?

I am looking for ways to improve the screenplay and get it noticed so this festival ticked both boxes. A table read is a great way to scare up weaknesses in a script – you can quickly tell where the energy is flagging. I have a lot of belief that this is an entertaining and original piece so I’m hoping it might also attract some people from the movie industry to the project.

The feedback I have received from the festival has been exceptionally useful; always straight to the point, clear, detailed (but not long winded), highly practical and attainable. I was particularly impressed that as well as advice on improving the writing there was also stuff on formatting issues. A lot of rubbish had built up in the slug lines. The feedback enabled me to clean all that up.

Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?

Nurture relationships with people who are prepared to read your stuff and give detailed feedback. Whatever you write you need to have bright honest people look at it before you send it out into the world.

 

Adam Preston

February 2016

 

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Director/Producer: Matthew Toffolo
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editor: John Johnson