Many of you know I spent 20 years in the film industry and have worked on projects like Stranger Things and the Oscar winning No Country for Old Men. But I never planned to do that. It wasn’t even on my radar even 1 year before I started.
ORIGIN STORY
Gates of Erin has its own origin story. In the late 1990s I was writing screen plays. I completed three full features and multiple TV shows. I started writing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine scripts, because Star Trek producers would accept scripts from outside their staff writers. I was invited to pitch five times to that production.
One of my scripts went to 150 producers. I know that sounds crazy, but it was a lot easier to do in those days. The publication, The Hollywood Directory, came out once a year with the contact information and credits for most of the working producers. They were much easier to contact before the internet. The internet changed everything.
The story was about a little girl growing up next door to an eccentric and mysterious old woman, Virginia. In one of my pitch sessions, the producer said, “I am more interested in this old woman. What is her backstory?”
NOTHING SOLD
Even though I was making the rounds, I never sold any of my scripts or ideas. Maybe that was for a reason. I needed to learn about film and storytelling first. I volunteered for a local film festival, then offered to work for free with some of the professionals at the festival. I had my first job one month later and, by-the-way, it was paid.
During the next 20-years on over 60 projects, I thought about that old woman and how she became so eccentric and why she had so many secrets. I wanted to know her backstory. I finally had to write Virginia’s origin story, so I left film to write to my heat’s content. Gates of Erin was born. Now her secrets are peaking out for the world to see, but she is still has her mysteries.