Not only have two Chicago filmmakers advanced to the Top Ten in the heated Project Greenlight competition, but a local screenwriting team has been named to the Top 100 round of PGL’s screenplay competition. (Think of the possibilities! – a winning Chicago director of a winning Chicago screenplay, what are the odds of that?)
The screenwriting partners are John Zoppi of Riverside and Brian Pinkerton of Wilmette. Their thriller, “Perfect Order,” was selected out of 4,212 entries. They will be notified June 1 by phone if they were selected to compete among the Top Five. If so, they will be asked to rewrite some scenes by June 29. The Top Five will be winnowed down to the Top Three and undergo intense phone interviews. Three finalists will be announced at a major event and the winner cited July 14.
“Perfect Order” is the true story of a Naval enlistee who inadvertently stumbles into a web of murders masked as suicides, exposing greed and corruption at the highest levels of command aboard a US Aircraft carrier. Fearing for his life and not knowing who to trust, he turns to his father, a tough former Naval Officer for help. The conflict moves to a much more personal level, testing the limits of trust between father and son.
Zoppi, a one-time agency producer, is managing partner with Method Engine, a Chicago interactive agency and Pinkerton is a business communications writer with Allstate and also a novelist. They met when both worked at Peoples Energy more than 12 years ago. Pinkerton’s suspense novel “Abducted” was released in March by Dorchester Publishing /Leisure Books.
“Perfect Order” was among the top 100 in the prestigious Nichols Fellowship competition and made it to the top 10 in the Chicago/Illinois screenwriting contest a few years back. The script will be entered in the San Diego Film Festival where, by virtue of its Project Greenlight status, will automatically advance to the final round.
John Zoppi’s phone is 773-230-3131; Brian Pinkerton is at 847-256-5176.
