This is a transcript of SYS 485 – Writing A Screenplay In Two Days With Franklin Ritch .
Welcome to Episode 485 of Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today I’m interviewing writer, director and actor Franklin Rich, who just did a cool low-budget sci-fi film called The Artifice Girl. It’s about an AI bot that is created to find online sexual predators, but ends up going terribly wrong. There’s so much news these days about AI, it’s very timely to have a film about AI. We dig into the story and how this project came together for him. So, stay tuned for this interview.
SYS’s a six-figure screenplay contest is open for submissions just go to www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. Our regular deadline is May 31. Your script is ready, definitely submit now to save some money. We’re looking for low budget shorts and features. I’m defining low budget as less than six figures. In other words, less than 1 million US dollars. We’ve got lots of industry judges reading the scripts in later rounds, we’re giving away 1000s in cash and prizes. I had the winner from 2020 Richard Pearce on the podcast and episode 378. Definitely check out that episode, if you haven’t already listened to it. He won the contest and was introduced to one of our industry judges, Ted Campbell, who took the script to MarVista Entertainment and got the film produced. We have a number of judges that are also looking for short film. So hopefully we can find a quality home for some of these short scripts as well. Defining short script is less than 30 pages. Again, these are low budgets. So, I would say the six figures is for the features probably five figures or less for the short films. If you want to submit or learn more about the contest, you can just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. And I have all the judges listed there so you can kind of get a feel for that. And I lay out all of the specifics, dates and everything else that you could possibly want to know about the contest. So again, that’s sellingyourscreenplay.com/contest. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out to give me a review in iTunes or leaving a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter, or liking or sharing it on Facebook. The social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mentioned in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast. And then just look for episode number 485. If you want my free guide How to Sell a screenplay in five weeks, you can pick that up by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free. Just put in your email address. And I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks, along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter, and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material, really is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay, just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide.
So just a couple of quick words about what I’ve been working on over the last week or two. Obviously, the film festival and contest are in full swing at the moment. So that is definitely taking up quite a bit of my time these days, trying to just get out there, market, the festival market the contest. And then there’s obviously a lot of just day to day, just processing the scripts and getting the movies indexed and into our database and that sort of stuff. But I am working on developing my little romcom screenplay. I think I’ve mentioned that before on the podcast, Greg Lyon, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago, he’s agreed to come on the project as an executive producer, which at least to start means he’s going to help me develop the script a little bit more. So that’s what we’ve been doing. We’re meeting via zoom once a week, we’re trying to just get a handle on the script and really polish it up. And yeah, he’s just really trying to push me to make it as good as possible. So, we’re going to be doing that probably for the next couple of months. And then hopefully, we’ll have a script that we all really like, and we can get it into production shortly after that. I’m still out there promoting The Rideshare Killer and doing these interviews on some crypto podcast. So that’s also taking up some time. One of the things I’ve been doing on these crypto podcasts is I offer their listeners a free frame NFT from The Rideshare Killer. So, if you’re into crypto at all and want a free frame, just drop me an email [email protected] give you know, let’s say the first 25 People who email me, I’m happy to give a free frame or two or three, if you email me, which actually might take a while because I don’t think a lot of the listeners of this podcast are really into crypto. I’ve gotten really very little feedback from folks. So, I know it’s not something that’s top of mind for most of the people listen to this. But for sure if you’re into crypto, definitely drop me an email. The one caveat is you have to have a polygon address. And if you don’t know what that is, you know, I can’t say I blame you because I really didn’t know what it was before I started this whole project but you do need to have that polygon address, we meant it on the polygon blockchain. So essentially that’s where it’s all recorded. Did so if you have a polygon address, then I can just simply push that NFT frame into your polygon, your blockchain on your polygon address. And you can check out all of this as well just go to theridesharekiller.com/nfts, and that’s plural NFTs. And then you can kind of see all the frames and just pick a frame out, look for some frames that you like, and just email me and I’m happy to push them into your polygon wallet. But that’s the one thing is you do have to have a polygon wallet. And it’s not that simple unless you sort of understand crypto and are kind of ready to go with it. It’s not always that simple to get set up. Anyways, now let’s get into the main segment. Today, I am interviewing writer, director and also actor Franklin Ritch, here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome Franklin to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
Franklin Ritch
Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Ashley
So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background. Where do you grow up? And how did you get interested in the entertainment business?
Franklin Ritch
Sure. I grew up here in Jacksonville, Florida, where I still live today. And yeah, I had always kind of known for as a little kid that I always wanted to make films, it always seems like impossible when you’re when you’re young. It’s like wanting to be an astronaut. But I remember watching a waltzing grommet short film as a kid and realizing like, oh, I can do that. That’s just plasticine. And you know, like you build a little set and you take that photo, move it a little bit. So that kind of got me into filmmaking at a young age with stop motion. And then in high school, made some short films, worked at a production company out of college, and then have just kind of been taking on odd jobs well, making short films with my team, and you know, Artifice Girl was sort of our first big feature project. And we’re really excited that it’s resonating with people. I think it’s really cool. Feeling like we’ve had something cool and important to say and having people reciprocate that is great.
Ashley
Perfect. So, as you were getting in, you’re in high school going into college. What was your sort of ultimate intent? Artifice Girl you wrote it, directed it and also acted in it. Did you originally want to be an actor and sort of got into the writing? Did you want to be a writer and decided to act later? Just how did that all go? What was sort of your main passion in all of this?
Franklin Ritch
Acting was fun, but I really kind of just knew that I wanted to be a writer, director, editor, I really liked all parts of that process, from start to finish from the conceptualization of an idea to you know, editing and sort of structuring a story in the editing room. And everything in between was just so fun to me to just take an idea and turn it into something that people could watch. So that was always my passion. And what I’ve always wanted to sort of, and still to this day want to continue doing. But acting is fun. For this film, it was kind of out of necessity because of the limited resources and having a limited amount of people on set. But no, my real passion has been filmmaking.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. So, let’s dig into this latest film the Artifice Girl, maybe to start out, you can just give us a quick pitch or a logline. What is this film all about?
Franklin Ritch
Sure, this film is about a group of special agents who develop a computer program that hunts down online predators. And the program evolves over time, and the developers are faced with technical and ethical challenges as the program begins to spiral out of control.
Ashley
So, I asked this question very typically. But there’s sort of an additional question, I always ask the guests, you know, where did this idea come from? Obviously, AI is the hottest thing since sliced breads far as the news goes, clearly, you made this movie before AI became the hottest thing since sliced bread. So, you know, how did you hit that collective conscious so perfectly? Is that something you’re just genuinely interested in? So, you’re always sort of following these sorts of ideas? Or just maybe you can speak to that a little bit, where did this idea come from? And how did you so perfectly time it with this sort of AI in the news?
Franklin Ritch
Sure. I’d like to say that was all part of a master plan. But no, this was a complete fluke. You know, I guess not entirely unexpected. But no, I never really was all that interested in AI or even science fiction to begin with. But I just remember reading articles about people using technology and AI to combat online traffickers and predators. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, like using technology for good in that way. I just was like, what kind of conversations were the developers having behind closed doors, I thought that’d be a really fun story to explore. But I wasn’t ever really interested in writing anything until there was like this moment, this eureka moment of seeing a parallel between the budding adolescence of AI and childhood trauma. And then suddenly, like That moment was like, okay, this is a story I got to tell. And that’s where the idea was conceived for the Artifice Girl.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. So, let’s dig into your writing process a little bit. Where do you typically write? And when do you typically write? Are you that guy that needs that Starbucks, that ambient noise, do you have a home office? You write first thing in the morning, you write in the middle of the night. Just take us through sort of your writing routine a little bit.
Franklin Ritch
I wish I had a consistent answer. I feel like it always constantly changing. You know, I usually like to write outside of my room, I usually like to go places to write, that often helps. I like coming up with ideas when I go on runs or bike rides, and then come back and like, sort of brain dump. But for Artifice Girl, it was different for Artifice Girl. I wrote the first draft, I think, in a matter of 48 hours, I didn’t leave my bed, I just stayed in my pajamas with my laptop and the bed total darkness. It was pandemic times. So, thank you Door-Dash. But it was just after about two weeks of just solid research, and looking into machine learning and calling and talking to people who were doing this as a profession. And I finally felt like ready to write. And I just woke up one morning and started writing and didn’t stop until, like midnight like two days later. It was like, and that was the first draft. It just felt almost like it was writing itself in a weird way, which I know is a little creepy. It’s like the omniscient AI in the future. This like slowly puppeteering things to go according to its plan, or whatever. I don’t know that anyone else out there is familiar with Roku’s Basilisk. But regardless, it was, for me it was it was great, because I just felt like a really good writer for 48 hours, just sort of putting this on paper.
Ashley
So just as I’m hearing you correctly, it sounds like you did about two weeks’ worth of sort of prep work was that you’re outlining index cards, or however you do it. And then once you spend about these two weeks, you kind of had the story in your mind. So, then you just started writing it was there a lot of decisions to make in those 48 hours of actually churning out pages,
Franklin Ritch
there was actually I feel like I kind of knew that the three-act structure was going to happen very early on. And then I think I maybe like had written a page or two and then realized, okay, I need to be familiar, I need to speak this language. before I really get into writing this. And that’s when I took the time to take an online course to talk to people to do the research. And once I felt ready, it just kind of was like a moment of; Alright, time to go. And then through that process, I felt like the majority of the story beats, the character arcs, all of that kind of came out fairly organically. And then there were moments to where I would be writing act three, and hit a pay-off moment that I’m like, I know, the perfect way to set this up, you know, so there wasn’t a whole lot of going back and forth. It was a pretty linear writing process. But again, that’s not also like super typical for me either. Like I’ve been writing scripts recently that I’m bouncing all over the place. And, you know, some are taking months to complete, you know, like it’s never consistent for me, but artifice girl, I think was special, because it just felt like the idea was there. And then in the blink of an eye, it’s like the story happened. The story was just apparent.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, gotcha. So, let’s talk about the development process. So, you whipped out this first draft in 48 hours. What is that development of the script look like? Do you have a bunch of producer actor friends, writer friends, you send the script to you get notes. And again, I’m always curious to just hear about people’s process. How do you actually take those notes? There must have been some notes you didn’t agree with, how do you deal with those notes? There must have been some notes you did, just talking about your development process. Who are these people? And how did you take those notes?
Franklin Ritch
Sure, I definitely have like a core group of people that I love to get feedback from whenever I write something, people that I trust, and I know won’t lie to me and say it’s good, it’s good when like there’s something that needs to be addressed. And so that was really great getting to get their feedback on that initial first draft. I had done kind of like a virtual staged reading with that script with some friends of mine who were actors. We can make this happen. Then the idea was just like how do we how do we, you know, finance it? For us, we realized that we could shoot the entire first act for practically nothing. So that’s what we did. We got our core cast together, ran a bunch of rehearsals, did meticulous planning, pre-production planning, shot listing all of that, and then when we started production, it was just five days we shot all the Act One, cut it together, sound mixed it, colored it, made it look like it was the first half of a movie basically, and then use that as our ‘proof of concept.’ I sent that to a friend of mine who is a phenomenal producer and curator at multiple film festivals. His name is Peter Kaplansky, who I’d met at Fantastic Fest several years ago. And he is our executive producer on the film because he saw it and was like, I will make sure that you guys get what you need. He got us in touch with Paper Street pictures. And we partner with them to finish the film.
Ashley
So, I noticed your producers Aaron Koontz and Ashley Sneed. Aaron Koontz was actually on the podcast a few years ago, after he did his movie Camera Obscura. I think he wrote and directed that or at least directed it. And so, I guess he’s gotten into producing, but how did you meet them? How did they get on your radar? And then what stage in this project, I think you’ve worked with Ashley before on some projects. So maybe you can just talk about that, how did you get these producers on board? And when did you meet them? And how did that all go?
Franklin Ritch
Like I said, I had never heard of Paper Street pictures, or had met either of them. I had sent the proof of concept, first act to Peter Klasky. And he said I’ll find the right people for this. So, he got me in touch with Aaron and Ashley at Paper Street Pictures. And we had a phone call. And we very kind of immediately knew like, yeah, this was the right team. They understood what made the story is special, what was relevant and important about it. there’s always a tendency with producers to say like; Hey, we want to change this or do that or like we think it should be more in this direction. And there was none of that with Paper Street. They were very in tune with our vision. So, that was really great. And that’s how we got it.
Ashley
Now my recollection, as it has been at least a few years, if not more, Aaron was, is he in Texas, I can’t remember where he is. But he’s not in Hollywood, correct me if I’m wrong, and you’re not in Hollywood. And so, I wonder that sort of the next question is, you know, why not move to Hollywood? Do you think it would make your life easier? And what do you recommend for people, like why stay in Florida? And if you do stay in Florida, what do you potentially recommend for people as filmmakers, and those outside of Hollywood areas?
Franklin Ritch
Sure, from what I understand Aaron’s been nomadic, for the past several years, he is sort of been traveling all over the place, I know that he spends a lot of time in Austin, I think he might be moving to, like settling down in Chicago, actually. But he’s usually all over the place. Just making films, which is incredible. But I was born and raised in Jacksonville here in Florida. And I honestly don’t have any intention of leaving anytime soon. I don’t really know if there’s anything for me in LA at the moment, you know, I feel like, I’m able to do everything that I want to do here, I feel like you can make independent films pretty much anywhere now. And I don’t have a long drive to Atlanta, if I need to use some sort of large set or need to shoot at some specific location. Like there’s lot of access to that kind of stuff around me. What’s most important to me is that the people, the team that I work with, my director of photography, cast, obviously, those people are here. And so, unless we all move together, I’ve got no real reason to move. But yeah, I would recommend to anybody, listen, I don’t think you know, I’m sure that there are benefits to being in places like Hollywood and being in places like Atlanta. But at the same time, films are no longer exclusively made in those places, films are being made everywhere. And because you can make your film anywhere and get it on a streaming service. You know, if very easily. I think we’re going to see more films in more locations, more cities, more places around the country and around the world.
Ashley
Gotcha, gotcha. And that is an excellent answer. And I hope people really listened to that is, there always is this sort of feeling like, oh, I just need to get to Hollywood and everything will be great. But I think you’re right, if you have a good team in your local area, you can do a lot in this day and age without moving to Hollywood. So, just sort of a philosophical question. You know, I’ve gotten into crypto obviously, I’m following AI just really through the news and stuff. But one of the things that definitely comes, you know, you’re now a thought leader in this space of AI and making this movie and stuff, but after doing this and sort of studying it and getting familiar with it, these all seem like steps for humanity to get one step closer to the matrix. And maybe you can just speak to that a little bit. You were slowly ushering in, you’re giving computers more and more power over our lives and more and more decision making power over our lives. And just where do you see this going? How do you see this turning out for us?
Franklin Ritch
Gosh, I wish I had an answer for you, I have no idea where this is going. I think it would be impossible to speculate, I know that my film has like a nice sort of jump into the future, and speculation but again, this is one singular instance following like one particular AI program with a very specific sort of intention. As far as in our world where AI is going to go what the future is going to look like? And if it’s going to be like the matrix? I have no clue. Probably. I just think what’s important, and I hope this film insights discussion about it. But I think, to me what’s important right now, as we sort of look at because right now with AI, and it’s gotten crazy, just in the past two months, like you said, there seems to be two camps. There’s, like, extreme excitement, and absolute terror. And I think both are valid, honestly. I don’t know, necessary, I haven’t fully made up my mind about the trajectory of AI. I do think, however, and I think the film does sort of articulate this a little bit is that AI will be a reflection of whoever develops it. So, if it’s built for nefarious purposes, yeah, it’s going to cause a lot of harm. If it’s built for capitalistic purposes, it’s going to make people a lot of money, built for altruism, then it’s going to reflect that, but at the same time, it’s going to reflect the best and worst parts of us. So, we have to be careful and mindful about how we develop it, how we interact with it. And again, I love the way that someone phrased it’s like; well, is it should we be polite, and say thank you, and please, to Siri and Alexa. And it’s like, not necessarily for the benefit of your phone or your computer or your technology. But so that you begin to like when day will come when Alexa or Siri will have feelings and emotions and stuff. And it’s better to start practicing those habits now. And I think that that’s approach it with sincerity and compassion and thoughtfulness. That’s my take on it.
Ashley
I think that’s an excellent answer. I think you have more thoughts on it than you’re giving yourself credit for. So how can people see the Artifice Girl? Do you know what the release schedule is going to be like?
Franklin Ritch
Absolutely. April 27th. You can see it at any Alamo Drafthouse, I believe in major cities. Go see it in theaters. If it’s not playing in a theater near you. You can find it on digital and VOD, April 27th. And when you when you watch it, hey, reach out to me. I’ve been wanting to talk to talk about this film for three years and haven’t been able to because he’s the only one watching it. So, I’m really excited to hear what people think about it and what people are going to say about it. So, reach out to me, let me know what you thought.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, what’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blog, anything you’re comfortable sharing. I’ll put in the show notes.
Franklin Ritch
Yeah, I’m on the Twitter and Instagram. I’m really bad at using both of them. But you can also find me, the best way to see the content that I’m making is on my YouTube channel, which is a Last Resort Ideas on YouTube. So, you can find some stuff there. If you’d liked Artifice Girl, you might like some of the other stuff that we’ve made over the years, and will continue to make so find us on there. Subscribe to us on YouTube.
Ashley
Perfect, perfect, Franklin congratulations getting this film done. Thank you very much for coming on and chatting with me today.
Franklin Ritch
Thank you so much, Ashley, really appreciate it.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later.
I just want to talk quickly about SYS Select. It’s a service for screenwriters to help them sell their screenplays and get writing assignments. The first part of the service is the SYS select screenplay database. Screenwriters upload their screenplays, along with a logline, synopsis and other pertinent information like budget and genre, and then producers search for and hopefully find screenplays they want to produce. Dozens of producers are in the system looking for screenplays right now. There have been a number of success stories come out of the service. You can find out about all the SYS select successes by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/success. Also, on SYS podcast episode 222, I talked with Steve Dearing, who was the first official success story to come out of the SYS select database. When you join SYS select you get access to the screenplay database along with all the other services that we’re providing to SYS select members. These services include the newsletter, this monthly newsletter goes out to a list of over 400 producers who are actively seeking writers and screenplays. Each SYS select member can pitch one screenplay in this monthly newsletter. We also provide screenwriting leads, we have partnered with one of the premier paid screenwriting leads services so I can syndicate their leads to SYS select members, there are lots of great paid leads coming in each week from our partner. Recently, we’ve been getting 5 to 10 high quality paid leads per week. These leads run the gamut. There are producers looking for a specific type of spec script to producers looking to hire a screenwriter to write up one of their ideas or properties. They’re looking for shorts, features, TV, and web series pilots, all types of projects. If you sign up for SYS select you’ll get these leads emailed directly to you several times per week. Also, you get access to the SYS select forum, where we will help you with your logline and query letter and answer any screenwriting related questions that you might have. We also have a number of screenwriting classes that are recorded and available in the SYS select forum. These are all the classes that I’ve done over the years, so you’ll have access to those whenever you want, once you join. The classes cover every part of writing your screenplay, from concept to outlining to the first act, second act, third act, as well as other topics like writing short films, and pitching your projects in person. Once again, if this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, please go to sellingyourscreenplayselect.com. Again, that is sellingyourscreenplayselect.com.
On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing Jamison Lacosia and Adam Ambrosia who have been on the podcast twice before. They are East Coast filmmakers who are always putting together interesting projects. They come back on next week to talk about their recent feature, which is another horror anthology where they’ve taken a bunch of short films, put them together into a feature film called Seven by Seven. We talked through this and how they were able to all get this going, how they’re able to do these short films and ultimately, get them put them together into this feature and find distribution for it. So, keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.
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