Interview:

Phil Ferriere was born and educated in France. In 1992, he left his beloved country for a career as a software engineer in the United States, toiling at a large software corporation in the Northwest. Ten years later, he moved to California and honed his writing skills by enrolling in UCLA’s Advanced Professional Program in Screenwriting. Since then, he has completed eleven scripts. In 2009, Phil became a Nicholl Fellowship quarter-finalist. Several of his screenplays have won and placed in well-regarded screenwriting competitions. For a complete list, please visit his website: http://philferriere.com.

Is “ATOM SMASHERS” your first script? If not, what else have you completed?

I've written a dozen scripts. Eleven of them are feature length screenplays, one is a short sci-fi script. My favorite genres are sci-fi, action/adventure and horror/thriller. I've also written dramas, but that was a long time ago. Of the eleven scripts I wrote, only five I still feel passionate about and advertize on my website. At this point, I try not to stray from my favorite genres. These days, it's become a lot more important to me to build a strong portfolio of sample scripts in genres that I love and can do my best work in.

Why did you write "ATOM SMASHERS? And how long did it take you to write it?

I'm a sci-fi junkie and love reading about science and technology. "Atom Smashers" is about a team of physicists trying to stop a growing micro black hole of their creation from destroying the Earth. It’s a self-contained action piece inspired by the research taking place at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. The LHC is a particle accelerator. Last year, a lawsuit was filed in the US District Court of Hawaii to stop the LHC from operating because there is a theoretical risk that a small black hole could be created at the LHC and annihilate the Earth. Obviously, a Hawaiian court has no jurisdiction over research taking place in Europe. The lawsuit was dismissed. But, it kept me thinking...

Describe your process; do you have a set routine, method for writing?

I’m an alum of UCLA’s Advanced Professional Program in Screenwriting. This great program helped me develop a writing technique with clear milestones, starting from a logline, identifying key plot points, developing an outline, and writing a first draft. It takes me about eight weeks to go through a cycle. Of those eight weeks, only four are spent writing the script. Yes, after 8 weeks, it’s only a "puke" draft, but a complete draft nonetheless.

What inspires you to write?

Current events. Until recently, as writers, we’d been blessed with a White House administration that never failed to come up with a new evil scheme every other week. Again, as a writer, systemic collusion with powerful business interests, cronyism, cover-ups, anti-science extremism, etc. gave me plenty of material to work with. As a regular citizen, it was a major downer, but as a writer, these flawed muses been a gold mine. Now, I'm back to making things up... but it's still too easy to find evildoers doing bad things to good people in this world. As soon as I can identify a villain, an antagonist who truly enrages me, it's fairly easy to come up with a strong protagonist (my alter ego?) and give him an obstacle-laden plot to plow through.

Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

Not necessarily in this order: video games, movies, comic books, novels, theatre, and my witty wife... add Belgian beer, fine cigars... oh, and my wife’s French cooking, of course. And, no, she’s not looking over my shoulder as I write this.

What influenced you to enter the Movie Script Contest?

The excellent report card and laudatory user comments the contest garnered on MovieBytes.com. Very few screenwriting competitions have this good a rating.

Do you feel that screenwriting contests are worthwhile for writers and why?

Winning or placing in a screenwriting contest validates your work. You can say all you want about having complete confidence in your own writing skills, there’s nothing like placing in a respected competition to let you know you may have done something right. A long list of wins and placements also makes for good padding in a resume or a query letter.

Who is your favorite screenwriter or writer and why?

I've become a big fan of Ehren Kruger (ARLINGTON ROAD, IMPOSTOR, THE RING). He writes in several genres, but it’s his work on horror/thriller scripts that I find the most exciting. I’ve read many produced horror or thriller screenplays and few are actually frightening. Kruger is one of those rare writers whose writing is frightening ON THE PAGE. You don’t have to wait for the director’s personal vision to be genuinely scared. A very impressive skill, if you ask me...

Any advice or tips you’d like to pass on to other writers?

Don’t be boring. Not exactly transcendental advice, I know... but, I’ve found it the single most important attribute of good screenplays. It gives you a lot of leeway when it comes to structure. What I mean by that is that you don’t have to systematically stick to a formulaic and predictable structure, if you’re not boring. The reader will keep on turning the pages anyway. ‘Don’t be boring’ implies strong momentum and great characters.

What’s next for you?

Finding a sensible manager would be nice... Meanwhile, I have completed a short sci-fi script that I want to produce myself. And, I do mean produce, not direct, so if you're a young hotshot director reading this and know your way around green screens and a VFX shoot, please get in touch. I'm also working on four new spec scripts. The first one is a sci-fi adaptation of a classic American novel in the public domain. The second is a self-contained horror/thriller in the vein of DISTURBIA and WHAT LIES BENEATH. The other two I'll discuss after winning 1st place at the 2010 Golden Brad Awards ;)