I've written two screen plays and am working on a third. Here are descriptions of the completed stories. If you'd like to read them, send me an email. Please note: all manuscripts are registered with the Writer's Guild of America West, which is like a copyright.
Zenobia
Logline:
A beautiful young Syrian queen believes she has been betrayed by the Roman emperor. In revenge, she conquers the entire eastern Roman Empire — within five years. But can she hold on to what she has gained?
Length: 143 pages (in Final Draft v8)
Synopsis:
In the year 270 AD, Odaenathus, the highly popular Roman consul of the Syrian province of Palmyra, has led the Palmyrene army to meet the latest Persian threat. While he’s away his second wife, the young and beautiful Zenobia, said to be a descendant of Cleopatra, welcomes and entertains the new emperor of the eastern Roman Empire, Aurelian. The two are mutually attracted and begin a torrid love affair. Shortly after Odaenathus’ triumphant return, he and his oldest son are assassinated. At that moment, a messenger comes from Rome from Gallienus, co-emperor of the western and northern Roman Empire, and the man who helped Aurelian gain his title. The barbarians have invaded from the north, and Gallienus commands Aurelian to lead his legions to defend Rome’s borders while he battles other threats to the empire.
A sword of the Imperial Guard is found at the scene of the murder. Zenobia believes Aurelian had Odaenathus murdered because of the growing threat to his fledgling power, then fled back to Rome because her army greatly outnumbered his. Outraged, she swears revenge. Over the next five years, as Aurelian is battling invaders from the north and then from Brittania, Zenobia raises an army that conquers the entire eastern Roman Empire, including Egypt.
Aurelian finally returns to Syria and learns he has a conspirator on his staff. He convinces Zenobia he had nothing to do with the murder, and offers to make her his consort. Zenobia must decide between her continued love for him or her desire to retain the power and independence she has gained as the Empress of the Palmyrene Empire, which she wishes to leave to her own son. Risking it all, Zenobia leads her army onto the plains of Syria to meet the Roman legions in a battle that will decide the fate of the eastern empire.
WGAW Registration Number : 1396532
Uplifting Thoughts
Logline:
A very ordinary aerospace engineer dreamed of levitating as a child, and one day learns how to do it. But how quickly a dream can become a nightmare!
Length: 97 pages (in Final Draft v8)
Synopsis:
Roy White is a perfectly normal African-American male with a fiancé, friends, and a great job as an aerospace engineer. Oddly, his hobby is reading books on Zen meditation and paranormal phenomena – such as levitation, his boyhood dream. After years of practice, Roy actually learns how to levitate.
Excited, he tells his fiancé, and then his best friends. Predictably, they scoff at the announcement, so he proves his ability. Suddenly, Roy finds himself sought after by the media, especially the highly popular prime-time show “Fantastic Phenomena”. Coerced into appearing on the show, Roy discovers that friendly scoffing is nothing like the suspicion, accusations of blasphemy, and misguided hero worship that comes with his new fame.
Many people in the black community hail him as proof that blacks are at least the equal of whites. The religious community questions his claim to a divine ability. A cult who believes in the return of highly advanced space aliens worships him as the messenger of the return of the aliens. The FAA brands him a hazard and wants him to file flight plans. His firm, scalded by the notoriety of an aerospace professional claiming he can fly without mechanical assistance, wants to fire him. His fiancé, appalled by the loss of privacy and his sudden strange ability, wants to dump him. Finally, a group of scientists who fear the threat of mutants taking over the world want to investigate him—piece by piece.
After being saved by the FBI—who were only tailing him because they thought he might be a radical—Roy retires to a quiet life of obscurity as a school janitor. Late at night, in secret, he continues to explore his strange, life-changing gift.
WGAW Registration Number: 1399793