Success Stories: FEB'6 My success story… how stage 32 worked for me!

I would like to thank Richard Botto, founder and CEO at Stage 32 for the opportunity that Stage 32 provided me. By being a member of Stage 32, I was able to find a screenwriter who took a chance on my true story of international intrigue and danger. I offered a three-year option for one dollar on my memoir Running Scared. https://www.amazon.com/Running-Scared-Robert-William-Jackson/dp/1496035860 First, some background on my story. I wrote my memoir in 2006, while I was in the Veterans Administration hospital and recovering from surgery at the Veterans Administration that didn’t go well for me due to bungling medical care and a botched surgery that left me with the flesh-eating disease on my abdomen. I thought I was going to die, so I broke my silence, and wrote the biography of what I found but was gagged and threatened with death if I told while I was laying in the VA hospital. A death threat delivered by the National Security Agent in front of a witness in the summer of 1988. I taped the meeting and the death threat. Three weeks after the death threat my VW bug blew up in flames when I started it. I had been warned to always leave the door open and don’t put on the seatbelt until you have started the car. I rolled out of the flaming car as it exploded. The message the agent had delivered to me and the writer of my first book that we would be terminated with extreme prejudice had been underlined. It was not a question of whether we would suffer pain, it was a question about how long they would torture me until they allowed me to die. I took the death threat and the exploding car as a sign to keep my mouth shut from 1988 until 2014, when I finally published the memoir on Amazon. I found I have a heart condition in 2014, so the NSA death threat was moot. From 2014 until 2018, I went on Twitter and tweeted thirty times a day looking for a writer who would take my story on a one-dollar option for a three -year contract. Finally, I had a writer who said he couldn’t do it himself but recommended I go to Stage 32. I joined Stage 32 and posted my Running Scared advertisements and copy looking for a screenwriter for two weeks, until I met the screenwriter Gustavo Freitas. Gustavo Freitas is a Brazilian screenwriter with a background as an Intelligence Officer at the Brazilian Marine Corps, where he reached the rank of captain. After that, he became a lawyer and a federal attorney, working as a legal adviser in the presidential staff under two different Presidents. With this personal experience on intelligence and politics, Gustavo interviewed Robert Jackson for a period of eight months to research his participation in the Iran-Contra scandal and to adapt his memoir into a screenplay. Gustavo and I worked out a contract and a purchase price for the memoir rights, and I hired an entertainment attorney, signed the contract, and the film manufacturing began. PROJECT SYNOPSIS This story is a thriller/biopic based on the life of Robert W. Jackson, a Navy Petty Officer who uncovered and publicly denounced an illegal scheme to sell weapons to Iran to gain secret funds for the White House to funnel to the Contras, who had been cut off by Congress. It all started while he was serving on the USS Kitty Hawk, and noticed irregularities, and ended up with him embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair. Based on the book Running Scared, which tells Robert Jackson’s story; and on personal interviews conducted by the screenplay author, Gustavo Freitas, Jackson revealed additional events and details that were not in the book. He also provided Freitas with documentary and other evidence, including a recording of one of his interviews. Jackson then contributed to the revisions of the script and provided detailed technical notes that ensured further accuracy in the story. Although a lot of research was involved, and the film on the whole hews closely to true events, the script contains connective story tissue that helps fill documentary gaps. Jackson’s whistleblowing was covered contemporaneously by the LA Times in a series of pieces written by reporter Glenn Bunting. Jackson ended up testifying before Congress, but a legal maneuver prevented him from revealing the details of the scheme where the White House used the Kitty Hawk for transshipment and concealment. I took Gustavo’s script and put it on Stage 32 with my ads looking for a producer, production company, or studio trying to create a team of people who could help get this excellently written movie script written by Gustavo Freitas onto the silver screen. Four-hundred-forty views later and Gustavo contacted me, and NO REST FOR THE BRAVE www.norestforthebrave.com began the development process under the guidance provided by MPMG and Roth Stock Pictures. Moving Pictures Media Group, also known as MPMG, is a production company founded for motion picture, television, and internet content. MPMG provides a full suite of services to assist independent filmmakers, production companies and investors in the development, production, post-production, distribution, and marketing of their projects. www.movingpicturesmg.com In the film and television business, think of Roth Stock Pictures as the bridge between creative and business. We are story driven first and foremost. That is always our main priority. However, once a good story has been identified, our instincts quickly turn mercenary in order to get your project financed and into theaters, on broadcast and cable, streaming, in hotel and airline systems, and anywhere else we can get your content in front of an audience! Roth Stock Pictures: Engaging Audiences on All Platforms. Visit www.rothstock.com for more. I would like to thank MPMG, Roth Stock Pictures, and Gustavo Freitas for their help in the film manufacturing process. Currently the film project is in the development phase. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for Richard Botto and Stage 32’s platform connecting people in the film industry to help people succeed in Hollywood. And now… I am going back to penning HESTER AND HER ADVENTURES WITH MERLIN a Scottish action-adventure tale. Maybe, someday, this story will be adapted into a PG-13 action-adventure film. It has Puck, wizards, a house brownie, and vampires in this Young adult Scottish story.