RICHARD LEVINE
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RICHARD LEVINE

Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
Lady Lake, Florida (or wherever my sailboat is anchored.)

Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel?
Freedom Clan reveals a history not everyone wants us to know: when an alliance of Native Americans and African Americans fought Andrew Jackson's project to expel Native Americans and to recover escaped human "property." We see the story through the eyes of a young women born into slavery. She's fictional but shares the stage with real historical characters.
A screenplay because the story is sensation rich. We see and hear extinct and extant animals, like the Florida Wolf and Caribbean Monk Seal, ride a canoe on Atlantic swells, see Seminole warriors in colorful non-uniform uniforms, and hear the lash of a slaver's whip. I also want people to know this story, and movies are more popular than books. The few movies that have been made on the subject, although entertaining, have been wholly inaccurate. Of the four scripted films purporting to depict American's largest slave revolt only one shows a African American character, the slave of Gary Cooper’s love interest.

How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline...use index cards...white board...or just start with FADE IN?
I started with mind mapping software to imagine out and plan the story, and a spreadsheet to keep track of characters. I then wrote a rough draft in LibreOffice (with screenplay formatting macros), and transferred that to FADE IN. All of which took several months. I thought I was finished. Silly me. After considering feedback I spent another year re-writing ad infinitum. I also changed the title from "The Wolves are Quiet" to "Freedom Clan"

What is your ultimate ambition as a writer?
There is no ultimate ambition, it's ongoing. To keep learning.... how to free the writer within from internal distracting and sabotaging demons. But those demons are hidden gifts. Or are they? Still learning. My guiding star in everything I write is use entertainment to trick the audience to think. Thinking is not the same as rationalizing, and there's a not enough thinking in our world.

Was your entry at The Wiki Screenplay Contest a full script or “the first ten pages”? Why did you make that choice?
Full script. I submitted an earlier version and used the helpful feedback to revise. I think if there's a problem with the opening I'll hear about it with someone reading the whole script. Right?

What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show...and why?
The Razor's Edge, the 1984 version with Bill Murray. I see myself.

What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have?
Don't push the river. Let your work tell you when it's ready.

What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
A science fiction episodic with a social theme, and an alternative history feature. And most important to me--and most challenging, a semi-science fiction novel in the vein of Stranger in a Strange Land or The Story of B.

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