The common belief in Hollywood is that it's only slightly easier to sell a screenplay than it is to hit the lottery. Robert Peterson will tell you different.
"There's gonna be a real market for low-budget films," says Peterson, who will be teaching an all-day screenwriting seminar on Saturday at Auntie's Bookstore.
Maybe it's the popularity of such alternative product as "Sling Blade." Or the films of John Sayles. Or Mike Leigh. Or Quentin Tarantino.
Whatever, art films are leaving the art houses and going... well, if not mainstream, then at least to mainstream venues. And anyone interested in making movies should benefit.
"What's good about that is that people will be able to make specific, intimate movies about things that aren't mainstream, that aren't mass market because they don't have to make $50 million on the thing. They can make $7 million and make an absolute killing."
Peterson has yet to have a script produced. But his original screenplay "The Chimney Sweep" is in development for Woods Entertainment, the group that produced "Citizen Ruth," "Swingers" and the forthcoming remake of "Godzilla."
Peterson also is set to star in a production of his own stage play, "Bleeding in the Bathtub," scheduled for a New York run in November.
When it comes to movies, he has worked variously as a location scout, photographer and location manager on such movies as "Ghost" and "New York Stories." Since turning to writing six years ago, he has written two plays, three screenplays and a number of short stories.
Just so you know, the kind of film Peterson most admires is "Ulee's Gold," which is just the kind of small movie that a few years ago, he says, "there was no chance in hell that it was going to be made."
The kind he least admires is "Contact," the Robert Zemeckis adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel.
"I don't think it should have been made into a movie," Peterson says. Created as a study of the inner conflict about God within a character played by Jodie Foster, "Contact," he says, takes the easy way out of that difficult movie problem by creating a love interest for Foster to play off.
Peterson splits his seminar into two halves, the first concentrating on "story structure, character, progressive complication," the second on "finding your own voice."
"The first hurdle for a writer is to go from their head to their heart to paper," he says. "Then the real hard part is to go from head, heart, paper to somebody else's head and heart. That transfer to the outside world, creating a piece that resonates with another person, is the craft."
One final suggestion for those interested in taking the seminar: View "The Shawshank Redemption." "I talk about it a lot," Peterson says.
Peterson's seminar, which costs $55, runs from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. To register, call Mitch Finley at 838-0206.
From the governor
Mark Sept. 19 on your calendar. That's when the Washington State Library and the Washington Commission for the Humanities will honor the 1997 Governor's Writers Awards winners.
The writers awards will go to: Chara M. Curtis and Rebecca Hyland (Anacortes) for "No One Walks on My Father's Moon"; Demi (Carnation) for "Buddha"; Ivan Doig (Seattle) for "Bucking the Sun"; Alan Thein Durning (Seattle) for "This Place on Earth: Home and the Practice of Permanence"; Carolyn Kizer (formerly of Spokane), for "Harping On: Poems 1985-95"; Jon Krakauer (Seattle) for "Into the Wild"; Tim McNulty (Sequim) for "Olympic National Park: A Natural History Course"; Don Paulson (Vashon) and Roger Simpson (Seattle) for "An Evening at the Garden of Allah"; Jonathan Raban (Seattle) for "Bad Land: An American Romance"; and Andrew Ward (Bainbridge Island) for "Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and the Indian Mutiny of 1857."
David Wagoner, writing instructor at the University of Washington, was named winner of the Nancy Blankenship Pryor Award.
The reader board
Ursula Hegi, author of "Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America," will read her book at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Auntie's Bookstore.
