Although his screenplays have been contest finalists, Colin Costello won his first screenwriting prize last week in the comedy category from the 2008 Annual FilmMakers International Screenplay Awards, Los Angeles.
His comedy spec script, “Bridezilla vs. Deer,” won a $500 cash prize and consideration for representation by a top management company, selected from 1,300-plus entries worldwide.
“Bridezilla vs. Deer” is “an off-the-wall comedy about advertising executive Jane Weinstein, who encounters more than your run-of-the-mill problems at her perfectly planned wedding,” as Costello describes it.
“Jane is someone who’s been planning her wedding since she saw Princess Di get hitched on TV,” he says. “To her, the actual ceremony is much more important than the reasons why we should really be getting married.
Right when it looks like she’s about to pull off the wedding of the century, a white tail buck crashes the ceremony, knocks out the groom ? whom we all know is wrong for Jane ? and causes her $50,000 wedding band to lodge on its antler. And that’s pretty much where the story takes off.”
Last year was “Bridezilla’s” year for Costello. Starting with a best comedy nod in the 2007 Screenwriter’s Expo, it finished as a finalist in Canada’s 2008 Wildsound Contest and The Beverly Hills Film Festival.
It was also a semifinalist in the 2008 American Screenwriters Association Contest and took an Honorable Mention in the 2007 Writers Place Contest.
“Bridezilla vs. Deer” will be represented by the Muraviov Company of L.A.
Costello says feels some “slight vindication” of his project by winning the contest’s top prize. A few years ago, Newsweek ran a sidebar article about a manager, a really evil guy who’s dead now, who created a blog for the sole purpose of bashing loglines that were submitted to him by aspiring writers.
“Newsweek ran the sidebar under the headline, ?Movies We Hope We Never See.’ Right at the top was ?BvsD’ but under its original name ?Deerly Beloved.’ I was really hurt. This manager hadn’t even read the script. It was all based on loglines.
But it made me even more determined to prove him wrong. So, after I’d finish a project, I’d always come back to Bridezilla and rewrite it.”
A Philadelphia native, who worked in advertising in New York, Costello came to Chicago to work as a creative director at DDB, where he helped set up Spike TV, FCB and Burrell. He began full-time screenwriting in 2002.
Currently, Costello is developing an animated series “Angy Black Baby,” with Animax Entertainment, L.A., an untitled reality series ? a “Project Greenlight” for teenagers – Dreaming Tree Films to be produced by The Wolper Organization which will produce it.
He just wrapped production on a music video for a branded contest for the Lincoln MKS on web site Filmaka.
He has also written for kids’ sitcom, “Kids Unlimited,” which aired on G4 cable network; wrote the comedy “A Miami Tail,” and co-wrote “First Kiss,” a short film directed by spot director Lloyd Stein of Nola Films.
Colin Costello’s phone is 312/209-1565. See
