Catching up with…the 2015 San Francisco and Los Angeles Labs
We’re checking in with our writers from San Francisco and Los Angeles!
SAN FRANCISCO
Sarah Archer Moulton
Since participating in the Black List Mini-Lab, I’ve written my first novel, HOW TO MAKE AND KILL THE PERFECT MAN, which is a romantic comedy with a sci-fi twist. It follows the exploits of a brilliant young robotics engineer who builds the perfect robotic man and passes him off as her boyfriend to get her mom off her back about being single — and then falls in love with him. The manuscript recently placed in the Tracking Board’s Launch Pad Competition, and I’m planning to send it out to publishers shortly. I’ve also had poetry published in Far Off Places and Concho River Review and joined the writing staff of the shortform humor website Croptop. My latest projects include FAMOUS FOR NOTHING, a one-hour dramedy about a Kris Jenner-like figure trying to hold together her crumbling celebrity empire, CHARITY CASES, a half-hour comedy about the inner workings of a Make a Wish-type foundation, and an unconventional superhero movie — think SUPERGIRL meets PRECIOUS.
Rachel Bublitz
I’ve been super busy since the Black List Lab. I graduated from San Francisco State University with a MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English, and moved from Berkeley to Salt Lake City, Utah with my family. With all my time being out of school and the extra space from moving out of California, I’ve been concentrating on writing for the stage. My full length play OF SERPENTS & SEA SPRAY was produced with Custom Made Theatre Company in San Francisco, and is in rehearsals now for its second production with This Is Water Theatre in Texas. Another of my full length plays, RIPPED, had readings with both San Francisco Playhouse and the Wyoming Theatre Festival last year, and early this year was read at Salt Lake Acting Company. I’ve also been teaching a weekly writer’s workshop at the Egyptian Youtheatre, which has also commissioned a full length play from me set to be produced in the Spring of 2018 called CHEERLEADERS VS. ALIENS.
Elizabeth Oyebode
Since the 2015 Black List Lab in San Francisco, my historical drama screenplay SEXTON received the 2015 Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) Feature Writer Access Project honor. In 2016, I was awarded a Nicholl Fellowship by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for my coming-of-age drama screenplay TWEEN THE ROPES. The script was among the top 5 out of about 7,000 entries. Also in 2016, I won the WGAW-DreamAgo feature pitch competition and will have the opportunity to draft my pitched script idea during a residency at a Swiss villa later this year. On the television side, my drama pilot script THE ROW landed in the Top 25 out of about 1,500 entries at the 2016 Austin Film Festival. Most recently, I have been selected to take part in the 2017 Fox Writers Lab.
Joe Rechtman
Shortly after attending the Black List Mini-Lab, my script, THE ENCAMPMENT, was honored to be named 1st Runner Up in the Cynosure Screenwriting Awards, a contest recognizing screenplays that feature compelling female protagonists and diverse casts. It also won 1st Place in the Science Fiction category of the Final Draft Big Break competition. Thanks to the Mini-Lab, my work also caught the attention of Adam Levine of Verve, and Andrew Coles of The Mission Entertainment, who are now my agent and manager respectively. Last fall I was lucky enough to find my name on the Tracking Board’s 2016 Young & Hungry List (“Hollywood’s top 100 new writers”) and this winter THE ENCAMPMENT was optioned with Sev Ohanian (FRUITVALE STATION, THE INTERVENTION) attached to produce. I’m currently developing a spec script with State Street Productions and am in post production on two short films, both of which I wrote, and one of which I also directed.
LOS ANGELES
Corey Bodoh-Creed
My screenplay, RECKLESS HEARTS, was accepted into the Black List Feature Writers Lab in November of 2015 and the experience provided a great bump for my career. The script was a semi-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship and a finalist in the Vail Film Festival’s screenwriting competition, too, all of which lead to several awesome meetings that were capped off by a visit to Screen Gems on the Sony lot, which was a real thrill. RECKLESS HEARTS is a socially-minded thriller that deals in guns, love, and rebellion from autocracy, so the ascension of Donald Trump seems to have made it even more relevant.
I am still speaking with a few companies about representation, but I have received great feedback on the projects that I currently have on the boil: the first is a feature script about the most successful art forger in history, whose life rights I am currently in discussions to acquire. The second is a pilot script about a Midwestern woman in hiding from her former life as a brutal assassin. Participating in the Black List lab was such an incredible experience and I am grateful for the mentorship and friendship of Eric Heisserer and our other advisors.
In addition to screenwriting, I am also an architecture and documentary-style photographer. I just returned from a shoot in Tokyo, and my work covering the restoration of a Richard Neutra building in Hollywood will appear in the Los Angeles Times soon.
Chloe Hung
Since participating in the mini-lab in 2015, I have graduated from my MFA program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in May of 2016 and have moved to sunny Los Angeles. The screenplay I worked on with The Black List and my theater background has helped garner me representation. I am working on my next screenplay as well as preparing for TV’s staffing season. I have continued my work in theater as a playwright as I have been selected for two playwrighting labs — one in Los Angeles with the Moving Arts Company’s MADlab, and one in Toronto, Canada (my hometown) with Tarragon Theatre Company’s Playwrights Unit. In January of 2016, I wrote, directed, and produced ALL OUT YESTERDAYS, about Nigeria’s missing school girls, at the Next Stage Theatre Festival in Toronto, which brought our award-winning 2015 Fringe Festival production to the renown curated festival. My play, ISSEI, HE SAY (or THE MYTH OF THE FIRST) enjoyed a week-long workshop at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. The Black List’s mini-lab served as an invaluable introduction to the industry in Los Angeles. I, not only learned so much as a writer in workshopping my screenplay with peers and with industry professionals, but I also got a taste of how the industry works and what is in store for me.
Sabrina Siebert
Since the labs last year I’ve written a much more polished and slightly more commercial version of my script LITTLE FLEA, based off of some great advice given by the mentors. A production company approached me about re-writing an Indonesian horror film on spec, but the circumstances were not quite right and unfortunately I had to turn it down. Other than that, not much has happened; I am still unrepresented and unproduced, however I’m continuing to write and am excited about my latest project, a thriller centered around modern-day big game hunting in Texas.
