Film Courage: So you drove out here from Texas to attend USC for theater Dramatic Arts but
now you focused a lot on writing? Writer, Actress and Voice Over Artist Kelli McNeil: Yeah, where did that shift come in? Kelli: I mean it's
hard to make it as an actor out here, it's really hard. And I knew that I
wanted to write I just didn't know how to tell the stories and I think that
this is something that's inherently different in men and women and I this
this could be just me but women when they don't know how to do something I
find that they tend to try to educate them serve themselves first before they
they take the leap and do it and that may be a good thing that may be a bad
thing I don't know but that's that's my particular process I find that a lot of
men are able to just fake it till you make it and just wing it I always get
what's called impostor syndrome so for me I had you know obviously for at that
point had failed with the children's book you know when I first started
writing the Baltimore school charm which is what launched my screenwriting career
I hadn't been published that that came literally six weeks after I'd started
the UCLA Extension writers program so I was in I was in class with this
professor I'm sorry adjunct professor Justin Trevor winters he's fantastic
really great guy we're we're still friends but he was he taught me my first
screenwriting class so you know was an actor I knew how to I know how to break
a script down I knew what the beats were but you know you never I never looked at
it from the writing standpoint and I decided this was something that I really
wanted to try my hand at I really had a bunch of stories that I had wanted to
tell and I didn't quite know how to tell them so I did what I always do I started
to educate myself on how to do that so when I got into Justin's class at UCLA
and again this is the Extension Program great movie oh it's fantastic I mean
again this is this is I can fully credit my education there and the experience
winning their screenwriting program - propelling me to where I am today
absolutely they're their instructors are top-notch but I was in Justin's class
and you know we're developing the scripts that we want to start working on
and I had - why - they're really I two stories that I'd really wanted to tell
one of them was the Baltimore school charm and the other one is a feature
called Daruma which we will be crowdfunding for in October we've got it
cast we've got you know the support of a bunch of organizations and we have Alex
Yellen the director attached but I ultimately decided to start telling the
story of the Baltimore school charm and what's interesting about this story is
that it happened I started to tell it before the me - movement really took off
it deals with you know domestic violence and you know it has a very strong female
lead it's set in the 50s it's inspired by my grandmother struggle but this is
this became a very personal story and when Justin was you know teaching me you
know and coaching me through you know what script to pick he told me you know
pick this script that you want to get in bed with for the longest cuz you're
gonna be wrestling with it for a long time so and I find that my first
screenplay was the Baltimore school charm and that was the hardest one
because I didn't quite know how all the pieces fit together so I worked on that
script for about three years before it finally got to its final state and the
one where it won the competition and that happened right around when the me -
movement was happening so it coincided very nicely with with the current
climate how long I'm sorry did it take you to write the script three years
three years and so was the first draft was how long um I think it was probably
110 pages its final state is probably I think 97 or 98 pages now so was it one
of these things where you were able to just get it all down in a messy form and
then work on it or did it take some time you know some time it took a lot of time
you know this is this is where you start working for me my process was figuring
out the beats and the characters and I you know I know a lot of people don't
put out of stock into the competitions but I
do think that as a new screenwriter or someone who's finding your way and
finding your process if you can afford to enter them it's invaluable because
what will happen is you will get reader feedback on some of them and you can
start tracking your progress so for me I did my first draft and I believe it was
a semi-finalists in the screen craft fellowship and then from there I was
like okay well this it's not terrible it's it's okay so I started to work on
it more and I tweaked it and I would enter it in different competitions and
it became you know a second round or at Austin Film Festival it became a top 15
percent Nichols finalist so all of these different iterations and I would take
the feedback and I would incorporate it into the script that's not to say that I
would change my vision or my storyline or the characters but the readers really
do take a lot of time to put in good valuable notes especially in those top
competitions like AFF Nichols and screen Graf too but I took the notes and I
would incorporate it and you know it's very easy to get discouraged and
disagree with somebody when they when they try to give you notes and that I
think stunts you as a writer you have to be open you have to know when to not
compromise your vision but you also have to know when to be open to taking
feedback so I allowed myself to do that process and you know fail for four three
years with this one story I was kind of you know mucking about with other ideas
too but eventually you know I got into an efficacious and that this was
Baltimore was one of the top three finalists for the UCLA screenwriting
competition in the fall of 2018 no I'm sorry the fall of 2017
I'm sorry fall of 2017 and I was absolutely stunned and then the
announcement went out that it won and from there I had been chatting with a
friend of mine about another project I was working on and my phone literally
started to blow up because I'm not kidding the news the news that I had won
the contest had been released by UCLA and they sent it out to production
companies they sent it out to agencies they send it out to development execs
and that news had gone out while I was chatting with my friend who happens to
now be my manager I didn't know he was managing clients at the time because he
was a he was a producer but I'm starting to get all of these emails from you know
William Morris and CAA and they're like congratulations we'd love to chat with
you and I'm like oh my god what do I do and he's like what is this what happened
and I told him and he goes we need to meet we need to talk so we did and I
signed with him and he helped me to organize those meetings and you know
make sure that I spoke with the right people and and that's that got me signed
with my reps today so you talked about something you called a general mmm what
it what is that so a general is a meeting that happens between you and a
development executive it's a very informal meeting and it's very easy to
get worked up about on your first one if you if you've never done it before
because you feel like you're being judged and you are to a certain extent
but you should take it as a very easy informal first date you're meeting with
a production company your meeting with the development exec they've read
something you know you're your reps or somehow they've gotten some material
that you've written that they like they're there they've read it they want
to meet with you so this is this is a vetting process for them to see you know
are you are you good in a room are you a little odd maybe they don't want to hire
you this is just it's just a way to make sure that you know if they go to bat for
you that they're not gonna end up losing their job so but you know it's it's a
it's a meeting between you and the executive you should always come in with
a couple of ideas you know they'll have read either respect you know feature
film or aspect pile and they liked it go in always take the
water because they'll offer you water like it's got to be to always take the
water because your mouth will get dry but yeah it's it's a very informal
meeting and you know it's it's easy to say don't put the pressure on yourself
if you've never done one I didn't bomb my first one but it's
certainly I got better as I progressed
you