Wanted: screenplays

By Tim Ryan
Star-Bulletin

Adam Kline of the Los Angeles-based Adam Kline Productions is looking for unknown screenwriters.

"It's how I make my living," says Kline who on Saturday is conducting a screenwriting workshop at the University of Hawaii. "I seek the unknown who has no produced credits or has never set up one project."

For Kline, it makes good economic sense. New writers are easier to deal with, he says, don't cost as much and often have better ideas than established writers.

"Name screenwriters can be more complicated to deal with because they have their own agents who also have an agenda," Kline says. "Instead of pursuing them and having to have lunches with agents or tracking the latest hot spec script from a big agent, why not go after the needle in the hay stack."

And Kline's haystack has lots of needles these days. On this particular morning he is looking over more than 100 new scripts and has six projects in development.

So he isn't just mouthing about being new-writer friendly. He wants script material and ideas faxed, electronic mailed or direct mailed to him, which means he see thousands of queries a year. Of those synapses, he requests full scripts less than 1 percent of the time.

"Look, the business is tough," Klein said. "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it."

Kline's looking for commercial mainstream original stories.

"Go for the things you see in the movies rather than the independent route."

The screenwriter for the movie Kline has just completed was a virtual unknown, a former nursing aide who ended up making six figures and who now works in Los Angeles as a full-time writer, Kline says.

New screenwriters earn at least a $50,000 bonus when Kline takes on their script. That figure climbs into six figure when he sells the story to a studio.

"I always tell the writer that we're partners of sorts. When I make money, they make money. But remember, in the beginning, the new writer needs the producer more than the producer needs him.

Workshop

What: Screenwriting workshop, presented by Adam Kline
When: Saturday 9:30 a.m to noon
Where: University of Hawaii Krauss Hall Yukiyoshi Room
Cost: $35
Call: 956-7221
Send scripts and email:

Adam Kline Productions
11925 Wilshire
Blvd,Third Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90025

FAX: 1-310-312-4816
Email: arkpic@aol.com