Introduce Yourself : Screenwriter by Matthew Swartz

Hey! I am a screenwriter from Kansas City, MO. I have written several shorts, 3 TV pilots, and am working on 3 feature length screenplays at the moment. I can do any genre (horror, drama, or comedy) and am trying to get an agent. Hopefully I can get something optioned so I can get work as a script doctor as well. Not an easy task when you live MO and not in Hollywood, where I really can't afford to move to, (nor do I really want to). I know no other writers or filmmakers, even in KC really, and the ones I have met here were too self-concerned to acknowledge me, and none of them were writers, camera equipment or not. I actually do have several friends who are in Hollywood and in the industry, though most are models (including my cousin, who's been the lead girl in several music videos), and who know very little about screenplays. In fact, I think I've had an easier time getting agents to read my scripts than friends & family. Sometimes I wish it was the 60's & 70's during the New Hollywood wave. Back then, all the future filmmakers, writers, producers knew each other and helped one another, (though, to be fair, they turned around and screwed each other later on). But they could recognize talent in each other. Without that, Francis Ford Coppola would never have given George Lucas the time of day and helped get his first film made. Now it's a whole new ballgame obviously. Unless I find a mentor myself, or some agent who believes in me, then I'm pretty much on my own, though I would love to meet other writers and filmmakers. I believe I have just as much to offer as whatever someone else could assist me with. I'm also very loyal as well. I've been writing since I was a kid, even telling people I would be famous one day, (which I still haven't given up on). The only question is WHEN. I did modeling for a minute. I was even a stripper for a few years at several different clubs, (just like in Magic Mike, with a full on routine and everything), but the idea of being in front of the camera and performing was too invasive for me. I'd rather be behind the camera. And hopefully one day I can be a filmmaker as well. A mix of David Fincher, Spike Jonze, and Martin Scorsese, (David Fincher's style by far my favorite). I love the visual of contemporary gothic, (and I don't mean gothic as in the cartoony, Tim Burton gothic), where, as in Fincher's case, a dorm room could be lit like a dungeon, or surrealistic realism (or vice versa), as in Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich." I try to write and edit my scripts, which are very visual on the page, with this sort of beauty in mind, be it the dangerous kind or romantic kind. I also believe in pushing the envelope and fucking with the audience's mind if you have to. Personally, I'd rather you hate my script or film than have absolutely no opinion on it whatsoever. Movies are art, and art has no purpose without a reaction, good or bad. (This is why I love "Fight Club", if not for it's style then for it's ability to rile up critics, feminists, and the like, however grating its message could sometime be). --Matthew