As executive story editor for the huge talent agency ICM, Christopher Lockhart reads 1,000 scripts a year for a stable of stars like Mel Gibson and Denzel Washington. The agency's senior story analyst, Jack d'Annibale, combs through material for A-listers who include Cameron Diaz and Jodie Foster.
But the duo has been spending Saturdays this fall with a bunch of nobodies at the Beverly Hills Public Library, performing what they describe as their own version of "community service," a phrase not commonly uttered in the same sentence as the words "Hollywood executive."
The earnest scriptwriters come to the second-floor room of the library from as far away as the Bay Area. They range in age from 25 to 80, and they show up wearing high heels or bare feet or Hawaiian shirts.
On a recent Saturday, the last in a series of sessions before the workshops resume in the spring, participants had two minutes each to pitch their script to a panel of four movie executives. (Lockhart and D'Annibale admit they roped in the industry-weary panel by promising a rare, unfiltered view of the world outside Tinseltown's bubble.)
Soon the concepts were flying high.
"It's 'Stand by Me' meets 'Deliverance' in a Mexican whorehouse," offered Johnny Will Young.
"Picture 'A League of Their Own' meets 'Yentl,' " said Steve Mazzucchi.
" 'The Omen' meets 'Frequency,' " proposed Raymond Boncato.
" 'The Odd Couple' in a 'Fargo' setting," pitched Fay Hall.
" 'Schindler's List' and 'Cider House Rules,' set in China in 1980," said Jin Young.
"It's 'Working Girl' meets 'Big,' but in reverse," suggested Carol Schlanger.
"This is 'Indiana Jones' for nerds," said Brian Diamond.
Theoretically, there is a chance that these workshops will enable Lockhart, 39, and D'Annibale, 30, to discover fresh talent in a region teeming with an estimated 100,000 published and aspiring screenwriters (many of them veterans of Hollywood's thriving seminar scene).
But Lockhart and D'Annibale insist their Saturday outreach is not a cover for extracurricular recruiting; their boss, ICM head Jeff Berg, didn't even know they had launched the workshop.
And in fact, on this Saturday in November the gathering felt more like an extension class than a hothouse for Hollywood's Next Big Thing.
The room was bare except for chairs, one table with two packages of store-bought cookies and a digital camera on a tripod that Lockhart's wife was using to shoot the pitches so he and D'Annibale could review them before e-mailing each participant a critique.
