ScriptFaze was started in 2008, soon after completing a script I wrote called “Mean Fort Green.” An urban thriller set in Brooklyn in 1983, I’d pulled out all the stops with this one & dug deep into my own childhood and local Brooklyn lore to get it done... The script caught the attention of a producer’s assistant at a company called Raygun Films (now rebranded as Newmarket Entertainment) and entered into a long and grueling development process, during which I rewrote the script five times, all for free, as is the custom with non-WGA writers just starting out. Then--the company moved to a foreign presales financing model--and the script was dumped from their slate. Ouch!
It was a low moment, but a few great things came from it. I met my first manager, Ryan Lewis, after someone at Raygun passed ‘Mean’ on to him. Ryan repped me & my gaggle of projects over the next five years, and through him my fledgling career was born. In the wake of ‘Mean,’ I also felt an incredible urge to write down all that I had been through and document it so that I’d have it as a guide for the future. When I wrote the first draft of ‘Mean,’ I was still a total newbie, just finishing up an MFA at UCLA and with zero real world writing or development experience. The screenplay might have faltered, but I had learned a ton after three years of development--and this initial ‘journaling’ of my experiences bore the foundations of ScriptFaze.
In the past years, I’ve been amazed at how many people have discovered ScriptFaze & found it useful. There were periods of time where I neglected the site, caught up in my own life and projects. But every week, the view count grew, ScriptFaze articles reached the top of numerous Google searches, and I’d hear screenwriters reference the site without knowing I’d created it. What a trip. Truly, though--I’m thrilled the site has been helpful to folks, and I promise to work even harder to respond to questions, post new articles, and make sure that the site stays informative and up to date with the needs of screenwriters. Thank you so much for reading, and most importantly--HAPPY WRITING!
--Nathan Marshall