RANDY TAYLOR
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 PictureRANDY TAYLOR
Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
Bradenton, Florida, USA with frequent trips to New York City.

How did you discover The Palm Springs International Screenplay Awards and how did you decide to enter this contest among all the others?
I recently found PSISA at FilmFreeway, and PSISA. My parents lived in Palm Springs, and I covered the 1992 Palm Springs Film Festival as a photojournalist for major publications. That fond remembrance prompted me to submit.

Your script or media entry stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your project ?
Arctic Fix is inspired by a lifetime of experience that percolated, evolved, and solidified over decades. I wanted to plant some seeds for global solutions to climate change, hunger, and racism in a thrilling story that is founded on love and hard science.

How long did it take you to write your script or produce your pitch deck/sizzle reel/trailer...and what was your development process?
I first wrote a novel, then suffered the learning curve to condense, simplify, and reshape it for the screen. As a photographer, some of the story is merely retelling what I’ve seen with my own eyes. After dozens of revisions and tweaks, learning from evaluations and tutorials, it’s taken about three years to reach this stage.

What is your ultimate ambition as a writer or filmmaker?
From dozens of accumulated story ideas, Arctic Fix rose to the surface. If readers and viewers embrace Jacques and Emani, a great many adventures lie ahead for them in books and screenplays.

Which film directors or screenwriters inspire you? Why?
That’s a no brainer … Steven Spielberg. I was taping together edits of my Super 8 movies when he was sneaking around the Universal backlot.

What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show?
My experiences shape my favorites, and that changes over time. Right now, I’m super impressed by “V For Vendetta”, perhaps because my “Arctic Fix” is also set in the near future. How satisfied I would be if my fictionalized predictions turn out as  accurately as theirs. I like big films, sweeping epics. Early on, I was fascinated by “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I loved “Lawrence Of Arabia”. The entire “Godfather” series blew me away when I saw the chronological edit. “Meet Joe Black” is the most powerful movie I’ve seen in a long time. As was “The English Patient”. And one can’t mention movies without including “It’s A Wonderful Life”.

How do you approach competition entries, and what have you learned from participating in these contests?
As an industry outsider, entering screenplay competitions and getting quality feedback, which is far more rare than many festivals offer, has been critically important to develop my craft. In hopes of exposing “Arctic Fix” to the right gatekeepers, I enter smaller and more frequent contests for the awards and important, annual ones in hopes of winning. And I enter fellowships, hoping to meet people and learn.

What advice do you have for others hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have?
Edit, edit, edit, and edit some more. With every version, I thought I’d written something amazing at the peak of my abilities. A few critical evaluations and video tutorials later, I see the flaws, and I dig in again. Persistent evaluation and evolution is the life blood of a good screenplay.

What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
My “also ran” projects might include a young children’s book of poetic stories and a series of short “DIY how to” books, illustrated with my photos of me rebuilding a foreclosure into a home over the last decade.

Where can the world find you? (Website, IMDB, etc.)
It’s embarrassingly old, untouched “forever”, but my permanent contact is my website at www.RandyTaylor.com. Once upon a time, I had the notion that, maybe, at some point in my life, I might want my name as a domain. One can always find me there.