{"id":237314,"date":"2022-02-17T10:30:48","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T18:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/divi.ameravant.com\/garykott\/?p=237314"},"modified":"2022-05-22T07:54:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-22T14:54:18","slug":"more-about-zeke-blackstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/more-about-zeke-blackstone\/","title":{"rendered":"More About Zeke Blackstone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2022\/02\/shutterstock_1258385482.jpg” title_text=”%22fade,In%22,Text,On,White,Paper,Classic,Movie,Script,Opening” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.16.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]

More About Zeke Blackstone<\/span><\/p>\n

You are now entering New Creek, Ohio, the brownest, rockiest farm community in creation, inhabited by hard men, hard women, living hard lives in a town with but one soft spot, Zeke Blackstone, a backwoods truck mechanic cursed with the soul of a poet. Though he\u2019s never written an original poem of his own, Zeke certainly knows how to improve upon poetry that somehow, without his help, managed to achieve the status of literary masterpiece. Take for instance \u201cShe Walks in Beauty\u201d by Lord Byron; to Zeke it\u2019s an incredibly beautiful piece of work, save for words like \u201ccloudless climes\u201d which he rewrites to \u201cclear skies,\u201d and \u201co\u2019er her face\u201d that works better with a simple \u201cover.\u201d Some of the girls in New Creek seem to agree with Zeke, relishing their poetry-laden dalliances with their private bard, looking forward to next week\u2019s improvements on Keats and Wordsworth. It isn\u2019t until a fateful meeting with the driver of a car that veers off the beaten track to Columbus and breaks down in New Creek that Zeke Blackstone begins his evolution from bogus poet to real one. Thus is the premise of \u201cBack Door Man,\u201d a spec movie script (i.e. I wrote it for free) that was signed quickly by a screenwriting agent at ICM and blazed its way through the major Hollywood studios. My calendar read daily: 10 a.m. MGM Pictures, 2 p.m. Fox, 4 p.m. Paramount. Offers came my way as a result of that spec script, a movie deal at Universal, another at Warner Bros., a writing assignment on a remake of \u201cMaverick,\u201d an episode of \u201cRemington Steele,\u201d an episode of \u201cFame,\u201d episodes of Aaron Spelling\u2019s \u201cHotel\u201d and \u201cGlitter.\u201d Indeed, there are ways in Hollywood to make money off a property that has not yet been placed into production. My experience with Back Door Man was duplicated by several other spec scripts I wrote, leading to a steady flow of income on shows like \u201cThe White Shadow,\u201d \u201cAngie,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s Not Easy,\u201d \u201cGoodbye Charlie,\u201d and \u201cThe Cosby Show.\u201d So, too, my spec scripts lead to network pilot deals, \u201cOops Alley,\u201d \u201cThe National Complaint Department,\u201d \u201cMama Yama and the Fishman Children,\u201d and \u201cBugs Runyon.\u201d Ironically, if you could call my Hollywood experience a success, the secret rested in the fact that I knew nothing about television or movies. In a town filled with USC film graduates, I\u2019d never taken one course in screenwriting, and in a town where people could tell you the history of every television show ever made, I\u2019d seen a few episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and that was it. The result? When I wrote a spec script it was based on nothing I\u2019d seen before. There were no references to Mr. Ed, no homages to Citizen Kane. \u201cCompletely original,\u201d was a comment I normally heard in producers\u2019 offices, \u201cNever read characters like these.\u201d Same thing happened when I was called in to pitch story ideas on hit television shows I\u2019d never seen. I\u2019d habitually screw up names of characters but regularly walked out with a go on an idea they\u2019d never thought of themselves. The tricky part was mastering the technical intricacies necessary in the craft of screenwriting. Having never even read a screenplay, my challenge was not to get fired when I handed in my first draft of the one-hour TV drama that hired me. Hmm. How do I pull this off? On my way to the studio, I stopped by a bookstore and purchased a copy of a famous primer, Syd Field\u2019s \u201cScreenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.\u201d When the assistant producer showed me to my office, he asked if I\u2019d like my door left open or closed. Dodging, I uttered, \u201cClose it, please. It\u2019s quieter.\u201d The instant the door shut, I reached into my briefcase and removed my copy of Syd Field\u2019s book. I flipped straight to the sample page and copied the precise words that began every good movie script, \u201cFade In.\u201d Lo and behold, my scriptwriting career was off and running.<\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]

Please continue to: https:\/\/garykott.com\/more-about\/<\/a><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You are now entering New Creek, Ohio, the brownest, rockiest farm community in creation, inhabited by hard men, (click for more)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":237315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239182,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237314\/revisions\/239182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garykott.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}