This interview is an exclusive Screenplay.com Interview.

2001 Scriptapalooza Winner—Rett Thompson

Screenwriter Rett Thompson is the 1st Place winner of the 2001 Scriptapalooza Screenwriting Competition. Rett beat out over 2,300 other entrants with his screenplay titled, "Ted, Inc." The screenplay is about how a business consultant's struggles to find love are complicated by the inept corporation that lives in his body.

How did you come up with your story idea?

It was really three separate ideas that kind of meshed together. The first was the corporate world that I have lived in for the last eight years. Working as an engineer in the manufacturing industry, the corporate culture has always fascinated me. And annoyed me. Between the multitude of "New Age" management strategies that get recycled through (under the guise of new names), conflicts between union and management, and general bureaucracy and red tape, there's just so much material there. It's a universal topic too.

Everyone makes fun of their job. It's what helps get you through the day. After all, you spend a third of your life there. Companies are like foreign countries. They have their own language and customs. When you come to work you slip into your corporate behavior. Lots of "interfacing with your peers" that sort of thing. You'd never say that outside of work. "Honey, I'm going down to the bar to interface with my peers." Who talks like that? Well, you do when you're at work. So I wanted to do a send-up of that. Secondly, I have always been curious about the human body. How does it really work? What is going on in my head? Why did I remember that? What made me sneeze? How did I manage to bite my tongue? That kind of thing.

I starting thinking about that and wondered, what if my body functioned like a corporation? What if I had people controlling my body and all it's functions? What if all the decisions I made were really made by a management team that existed in a conference room in my brain. How would that all work out? Last, I needed an outside world (my "voyage of the damned" social life) to hold it all together, and to provide both similarities and counterpoints to the internal workings of Ted.

How long did it take you to write it?

On and off about eight months.

Is this your first script that you have written?

It is the first feature length script I have written.

Have you entered other screenwriting competitions?

Austin Film Festival and Slamdance.

If so, have you been successful?

Don't know yet - both haven't been announced yet.

Why did you enter Scriptapalooza?

In my mind it was the biggest competition out there. The money was amazing, but for me the important thing was the chance to get my script in front of industry people and have it evaluated. When you live as far outside of LA as I do, it is a daunting task to figure out how to get your work out there. You write and write, but it just sits there because you don't have any connections or even any idea how to make them. I felt that the Scriptapalooza competition could offer me both. Plus I liked the name. I went to a couple of the Lollapalooza concerts back in the day.

Advice to other screenwriters?

Don't listen to advice from first time screenwriters.

Are you excited to use your new software from Screenplay Systems?

Definitely. My previous organizational system of random pieces of paper scattered throughout the floor of my bedroom was hindering both my writing and my social life. I hope that the new software will help me to better focus so I can hammer out some more screenplays.

How did you feel when you saw your name as one of the winners?

I was just checking the website before I went to bed when I saw that I had won. Complete shock. Then panic set in. Then calm. Then more panic. Then questions, lots of questions. What does this mean? Which of my family and friends do I call and wake up? Is this some kind of cruel joke being perpetrated on me by some twelve year old computer con artist who just puts up fake websites to raise and then crush the dreams of budding writers? Will the check be one of those oversized novelty checks, and if so, how will the mailman fit it through that tiny mail slot in my door?

What are you going to do with the cash prize?

If this now means that I am a real writer, it seems like my only choice is to spend half of it on alcohol and save the other half for rehab. Not sure yet.

Being a charitable guy, I've decide to give a good portion of it to my favorite uncle, Uncle Sam. Which somehow seems wrong since he's busy giving it all back right now. Seeing as I currently live in Rochester, NY, I'll certainly spend a bunch of it for postage to LA. See? Uncle Sam taking more of it. I'll also spend a good portion of it putting myself into situations that will be both painful and humiliating in an attempt to dredge up more quality writing material, because as we all know, one man's tragedy is another man's comedy.