 “It feels pretty amazing,” Russell admits. “I still think I’m kind of in shock, because I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.” The Florida native recently graduated from the UCLA screenwriting program, where she was “discovered” by manager Brooklyn Weaver of Energy Entertainment, after her screenplay Erin Go Bragh won a screenwriting award. | | | Ali Russell | It just goes to show how quickly things can change. A few weeks before the contest, Russell gave her screenplay to a friend who works at a literary agency, so she could have it covered. The result was not what she expected. “They ripped me apart,” Russell recalls. “They said I had no talent. They said the script was awful. They hated everything about it.
"And two weeks later, I entered the contest,” she explains. “[That’s how] Brooklyn heard about me … and now he sends [Erin Go Bragh] out as my sample.”
In September, Kelsey Grammer’s Grammnet Productions (at Paramount) bought Russell’s pitch for Isis, an action-adventure based upon a Darren Davis comic book. Russell and Weaver developed the idea, making the main character younger to make the most of the Hillary Duff-Lindsay Lohan craze.
“My first producer meeting, I was so nervous to pitch,” she admits. “But fortunately for me when I get nervous, I talk a lot. It went over pretty well.
“They’re giving me seven weeks,” she explains. “After that, I bring the script to them and they have a week to make changes, give me notes on it and then I‘ll spend another two weeks revising it.
"The last script I wrote took me like four months, and now I have seven weeks.” Russell seems nervous, though excited. What she may lack in years in the business, she makes up for in enthusiasm and heart.
In keeping with her mythology theme, Russell launched her own production company, Elysium Entertainment.
“Elysium is the Greek word for a place of ideal happiness,” she explains. Russell is kicking-off her company with two more comic book projects: The 10th Muse, also based upon a Darren Davis comic, and an untitled Rob Liefeld project. (The Liefeld project is already in treatment-form, and she hopes to start pitching to studios soon.)
According to Russell, The 10th Muse is about the muse the world forgot: “The muse of justice,” she says.
"We’re talking about making it into a TV series,” she continues. “A [combination] between Alias and La Femme Nikita ... grounding it a little bit, but still having that mythological aspect.”
In addition to being a self-proclaimed mythology enthusiast, Russell is a serious history buff.
“The screenplay that won the contest was an Irish war epic, so I had to research Irish history,” Russell explains. “I’m Irish—so, [this screenplay] is like my baby. Once I started researching it, I became even more proud to be Irish. My hope is that I can produce it.
"When I read Erin Go Bragh, I can see it,” she explains. “I want to be able to sit in a theater, seeing my movie.”
Although she is thrilled with her chosen career, Russell started college in Boston on a different track: as a psychology major.
"I was fascinated with how people work,” she says. “I started getting into it—and taking classes—and realized I didn’t want to be a psychologist. I was like, ‘I love movies, I love writing. Let me explore that element.’"
She took her first screenwriting class in the second semester of her freshman year, and realized that this was what she had to do. She changed her major to film with a focus in screenwriting
“When I was younger, I would see a movie … and want to write a sequel,” Russell remembers. “I would start writing on the computer and try to do a sequel to something like Speed."
Russell is mostly interested in action-adventure and epic movies. Her favorites include Gladiator, Godfather and The English Patient.
“I enjoy watching [romantic comedies], but I’m pushing away from [writing] them, just because I don’t want people to think girls can only write romantic comedies. I want to be like, ‘No, we can do epics and action-adventures and guy movies,’" she says.
“I dig action movies,” Russell continues. “[They’re] totally an escape. “I like to go whenever I’m sad or something and just cry with them or laugh with them. I want to be able to do that for other people. [I want] them to go in and have a blast and forget whatever they were worried about earlier.”
As she approached college graduation—she graduated in three years—Russell was trying to decide whether to move out to Los Angeles.
“I had never been to L.A.,” Russell admits. “I knew they have palm trees and … a cool beach. Each time I saw a movie that moved me in a certain way, I was just like, ‘That’s it. I’m going. It’s done.’”
Russell discovered that L.A. is “very scene-oriented. It gives you energy. I feel like Jacksonville’s a little more laid back. They’re both home,” she says.
Russell ultimately made her decision to follow her dream. Good call.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deb Eckerling is a freelance writer currently writing for Venice Magazine and Latin Style. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
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