Christina's Script Wins Award at NY Screenplay Contest

My TV Pilot Script for "The Randoms" has won the Empire Award in the Sitcom division of the 2013 New York Screenplay Contest!  

"The Randoms" Logline: Sally, a 37 year old single woman, with an intrusive family, soon realizes her life will never be the same after she becomes a House Mother to a group of international college girls. 

The series is a dramedy I came up with & wrote the pilot for back in December of 2010 for a TV Writing Class (which is also where I became friends with Kelsey & Ryan). I've revised the pilot a few times since & I've written a bible mapping out what the whole first season could be (and even where it could go after that). It's a series I originally wanted to try to get in the hands of Netflix execs when they were first talking original programming. With all celebrity-driven series now being picked up, that prospect seems less realistic. But it's still the ideal platform for the show. So I'll keep submitting the pilot script around and hope to get it in the right hands one day. It also made Official Selection at the 2013 Las Vegas Comedy Fest and made the Semi-Finals of the 2012 NEXTV Festival!

If you're interested in reading it & helping get it optioned, feel free to send us a message. 

 -Christina

Official Selection: Christina’s TV Pilot Script “The Randoms”

Just a quick fun update, my TV pilot script “The Randoms” has been accepted to the Las Vegas Comedy Festival and is eligible for the grand prize!

The winners wil be announced after the festival. Cross your fingers for me! I’ll keep you updated!

-Christina

P.S. Just throwing this out there, if you’re reading this and you happen to be or know an executive at a network or Netflix, PLEASE send me a message! I want to option this script ;)

Kelsey’s Script Makes the Semi-Finals!

Remember my blog post a while back about Kelsey’s feature screenplay, About a Donkey, winning Best Comedy at the NY Screenplay Festival last year? Well it just made it to the semi-finals of the L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival and is eligible for the $2,000 grand prize if it moves onto the finals!

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This is so exciting for us because we’ve been talking about producing this feature in about two years from now and, if the script continues to get recognition at festivals and “Kelsey” (the web series) gains a following, it’s very likely that we’ll be able to raise the funding to make the film when, where, and how we want! So fingers crossed that the script moves on to the finals. Congratulations to Kelsey!

-Christina

Post-Production & Beyond

Sorry for not updating since our Crash the Superbowl submission, our schedules got insanely hectic after that. We just wrapped production on Summit 3 weeks ago! It was the longest, coldest, and most stressful shoot we’ve ever had here at CongestedCat. But it was also the most rewarding. We learned and accomplished a lot during our 15 day shoot in Massachusetts, and I’m proud to say that our production was, in the end, a huge success! I’m positive that the final product will be impressive and entertaining! If you’d like to find out more about our Summit experience, check out our blog, facebook, and twitter!

Also, some stuff we didn’t get to update you on before leaving for Summit: “Come Here Often?” screened at the Best of 2012- Katra Series Finale on a big screen at the Poet’s Den Theater. It was a great night and I look forward to hopefully more screenings for the film! “House Near the End of the Street,” our Cabin in the Woods Horror Spoof Contest submission, made the top 10 finals! No prize money but still a huge honor! And our Crash the Superbowl submission has had a hugely positive response from viewers. Hopefully next year we make the finals! 

In other news, Kelsey and I have begun pre-production and casting for our comedic web series, “KELSEY.” We’re hoping to begin production in May. If you’d like to audition for a role or interview for a crew position, send us a message. Also, I’ve begun a new venture, not as content creator this time, but as someone who supplies an outlet for other creators to screen their work! I’m starting a monthly film series this summer in Woodside (of Queens County). I’ve brought on team members Kelsey, Lauren, and Ryan to help run the series and select films each month. We’re very excited about this new development and can’t wait to start networking with new filmmakers and screening their work! I’ll be posting updates in the following months about both the webseries and the film series. 

In other other news, “Bohemian Rhapsody: A Short-Sex Musical” and “S.K.A.” were both accepted to the Faux Film Festival in Portland, Oregon! They’re screening on March 30th and 31st respectively. I’m completely out of funds post-Summit. But I’m going to try to come up with the money to take the trip to the festival and do a Q&A for each film. I’ll let you know next month whether or not that’ll be possible. 

Be sure to check back over the next few weeks for updates about all our exciting new developments!

-Christina

Kelsey's Script Wins at NY Screenplay Contest

Kelsey Rauber is a really great friend I made in a TV writing class 2 years ago. She was a PA/helping pair of hands for “Come Here Often?” and will be for Summit as well. She officially became a CongestedCat team member when she and I decided to collaborate on a currently untitled comedic webseries that we will produce next year. 

She has also written a comedic feature film, About A Donkey, that is quirky, filled with heart, and lots of quippy fun. She submitted it to the New York Screenplay Contest and it was selected as Best Comedy Screenplay! We’re so excited for her and I personally can’t wait to get started on our webseries. And, I have to admit, I’m definitely keeping that feature of hers in the back of my mind; there’s a chance I might be ready to take on my next feature once Summit’s finished!

Once again, Congratulations to Kelsey!

-Christina