Citizen Wausau

Update From a Baltimore Screenwriter

by Erik Cieslewicz on October 20th, 2008

Hey CWers!

I’ve been following the awesome new Citizen Wausau Twitter feed run by Cheryl and its been awesome to get little updates from the home town sprinkled throughout my day.

So a lot has happened since I last stopped by with that Powers for Assembly Ad. The biggest news of all is that I’m employed! Blue Claw Entertainment, a brand new production company, picked me up to write their first feature length screenplay! As I said in my personal blog:

I didn’t give myself very good odds are getting a screenwriting gig as a guy fresh off the boat (just a little over two weeks out here now) I was preparing myself for a life of shooting corporate video while meeting people. Of perhaps getting a grip job on some random feature film if I was lucky. To be plugged right in to one of my passions, writing, right off the back is just another chapter in my uncanny ability to be damned lucky.

Part of my contract was a confidentiality agreement, but I’ll tell you the name of the film is currently Partystater and it follows a lovable loser that’s in his mid-30’s, living with his folks and whatnot. But his life is about to turn around in a very unexpected way. In January the Producers are taking the script to L.A. to start shopping it around. I can’t say to say to whom or which production houses, but they’ve done blockbusters, huge blockbusters. My first professional screenplay is going to be read by some of the big boys of the business.

The other big things was Margaret and I went on our first vacations. We decided to hit the wilderness of old America in West Virgina to a little town called Harper’s Ferry. You can see some pictures from the event right here. It was amazingly good times, and Margaret is pretty much the most amazing woman ever.

We decided to use our travel budget on the trip after we found out that it would be too expensive to come back to Chicago for the Emmys. As you may remember, the series Mikel Lauber and I worked in, Secrets in Shawano, got an Emmy nomination for Best Investigative Series. However, just to get through the door was a couple hundred bucks. Mikel was able to attend this last weekend, and sadly he didn’t come home with a gold statue. But, again from my personal blog, I pointed out:

Mikel and I both had just a year of professional experience at this point. We were working in market number #135, one of the smallest television markets in the United States, resulting in us being underfunded, undermanned and less experienced than the big boys like Chicago and the Twin Cities. And yet, up against competition from Chicago and South Bend, Mikel and I managed to create something that went to the top. An Emmy is arguably the most prestigious award in all television. The two us with less combined experience than most likely any one member of the teams that put together our competition on equipment at least twice as old if not more.

So it’s still a huge victory for the both of us.

The other big news, and truly Wausau related, is that Microcosm should be on DVD sooner than later. I’ve sent a copy of the DVD into Amazon.com, our distributor, along with the box art and DVD top I designed, and before you know it you should be able to buy a Microcosm DVD! I know $10 is a little pricey for a short, so that’s why we piled on the special features like behind the scenes docs, commentary, bloopers and deleted scenes. The money is going in to helping us put it into more film festivals and show off Wausau to the world.

Trying to do all of you guys back in Wausau proud. And trying even harder to have a homecoming that involves a paid crew and professional gear shooting again on the streets of downtown.