| OCTOBER
2003
October
was premiere month for Gil, as the Uncle
Davver Really Scary Movie Show had its big Premiere
Party at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood. Aside
from Uncle Davver (Wally Wingert) himself, there
were plenty of people celebrating Halloween and cheesy
movies, including such celebrities as David Naughton (who
was featured in the pilot),Dustin Diamond, Wil Wheaton,
Phil Austin and plenty more (and Gil, of course). The
pilot was very funny and well-received, and representatives
from production companies, including Comedy Central and
National Lampoon, were on hand to enjoy the finished product.
Keep your fingers crossed! If all goes well, you may be
watching Uncle Davver (with Gil as Mr. Happy)
some cable channel in the near future.
Also premiering was Gil's
Disney World commercial. The spot appeared on several
network shows, and is still running. And Gil also filmed
a Dell Computer commercial
this month. Gil plays one of a handful of ordinary people
who sign up for what they thought would be a summer camp
for computer users, and turns into a tough boot camp,
complete with angry drill sergeant! This spot should start
running sometime in November for the Christmas rush.
And Death Takes A Vacation continues to rock the
screenplay contest world, as it not only won an Honorable
mention in the
Hollywood Symposium competition, but also made the
finals in the Chesterfield
Writers Project. And not being content with riding
on his laurels, Gil is hard at work on his new screenplay
Jenny Swerdlow, Restaurant
Detective.
SEPTEMBER
2003
September
started off with a bang, as Gil attended the Write Movies.com
reception
for the 2003 Screenplay contest Winners. Having come
in Third Place for his entry Death
Takes A Vacation, Gil and the other winners were treated
to lunch at the Warners Hollywood Studio Lot commissary.
Several producers (of such films as Shawshank Redemption
and The Truman Show) were also on hand to share their
knowledge and Industry experiences.
Death Takes A Vacation
continued on to place well in contests, as it made the
finals in the Hollywood
Symposium screenplay contest. And, best of all, Liz
Hanley, of the Bicoastal
Talent and Literary Agency, read the script and fell
in love with it. Liz signed Gil for exclusion representation
of both DTaV and Cut
Out of the Picture. Several good things are in the
works, which we hope to be able to report on soon.
And last, but certainly not least, DTaV
made the semi-finals of the very prestigious Chesterfield
Screen Writer's Project! Sponsored by Paramount Pictures,
the Chesterfield is one of the oldest and most respected
script contests in the country. Keep your fingers crossed!
AUGUST
2003
August
was a busy month for Gil, capping off a busy summer. Gil's
episode of "Reno 911" was shown, and
his episode of "The West Wing" was rerun
as well. The episodes of "3rd Rock from the Sun,"
"Sabrina the Teenage Witch," "Buffy,"
"Providence," "Chicago Hope" and
"Coach" are also still running in syndication,
and the film "Mystery Men" is showing
on both cable and network television.
Gil
and the crew filmed the Uncle Davver Pilot. It went very
well, and the movie comments were hilarious. Here's
some pictures of the shoot and the weird people that
showed up to help out (including special guest star David
Naughton!)
And,
continuing the successful run of competition showings,
Death Takes a Vacation came in fifth (out of almost 3,000
entries) in the Scriptapalooza
screenplay contest.
JULY
2003
Gil
and Wally and the rest of the cast and crew spent the
month working on the pilot for "Uncle Davver."
It looks like it will be a very funny pilot, and the
shoot should be a great time. The shoot will be held at
the world famous Silent
Movie Theatre in Hollywood, sometime in August.
Gil's
script Death Takes A Vacation
is still kicking major butt in the contest world.
It placed in the quarter-finals in the Hollywood's
Next Success contest (top 25% out of over 1,400 entries),
and in the top 20 finalists (out of over 900 entries)
in the Script
Pimp contest. ScriptPimp held a reception/party for
the finalists at the Improv comedy club in Hollywood,
one of Gil's old haunts, which he played many times as
a stand up.
But
the best news is that Death
Takes a Vacation came in THIRD PLACE (out of
over 1,000 entries) in the WriteMovies.com
contest. This should help his script get seen in production
company circles.
JUNE
2003
Gil
filmed a DisneyWorld commercial. Disney flew him to Orlando
to shoot the spot, and he stayed at Disney's Polynesian
Hotel. He was able to see a little of The Magic Kingdom,
where he got to ride the Buzz Lightyear Target Shoot,
a ride not found in Anaheim's Disneyland.
The
spot was directed by the famous commercial director Joe
Pytka, who previously directed Gil in the IBM computer
spot a couple of years previously. In this DisneyWorld
spot (called "Walkies"), Gil and three other
guys are husbands playing golf at the Disney Resort, but
tell their wives (via walkie talkies) that they are riding
the Tower of Terror. But the wives aren't fooled, they
know the men are golfing. The spot should start airing
nationally in the fall.
On
the screenplay front, Death
Takes A Vacation made the semi-finals in the Five
And Dime.com contest semi-finals, and made the Finals
in the WriteMovies.com
contest.
Gil
also began work on a pilot project called Uncle Davver's
Really Scary Movie Show. Gil's good friend, Wally
Wingert (a successful voice over artist) thought up
this premise for a late night TV show: Uncle Davver, a
horror movie TV host, holds movie parties for the rejects
and undead in Hollywood. At these parties, weird and goofy
things happen both on the screen and off, but mainly the
audience yells out sarcastic comments at the movie. Wally
describes it as "a cross between Mystery Science
Theatre and Rocky Horror, with a little of Laugh-In thrown
in." Gil is the Head Writer, and one of the recurring
cast of characters.
top==========================================================
MAY
2003
Gil
was fortunate enough to tape an episode of the new Comedy
Central Show, "Reno
911," which is produced by and starring Tom Lennon
and Kerri Kenny, two alumnae of the MTV comedy improv
show "The State." You may also remember Tom
and Kerri from the Comedy Central show "Viva Variety."
Gil plays a very swishy Justice of the Peace who performs
the marriage ceremony for a policewoman and her groom,
a lowlife drug dealer, whom she arrested earlier.
The
entire scene was improvised. Tom and Kerri and the cast
were very giving performers, and Gil was able to get a
few laughs. The whole scene was very funny and the entire
day of taping was great fun.
We
are pleased to report that Gil's screenplay, Death
Takes a Vacation, made the semi-finals at the Writemovies.com
contest.
MARCH
2003
Gil's episode
of "The Bernie Mac Show" aired on March 12.
And Gil began entering his screenplay DTaV
in several writing contests. He also took time to rewrite
his earlier screenplay, now retitled
Cut Out of the Picture.
FEBRUARY
2003
Gil's episode of "The West
Wing" aired on Feb 26, a few weeks after the original
date. Luckily, the folks at Warner Brothers called Gil
up and let him know that the date had changed! In the
meantime, Gil finished his final draft of his screenplay,
Death Takes A Vacation.
JANUARY
2003
Happy
New Year!
The
new year is starting out great for Gil, because the Disney
TV show, "That's So Raven," will begin airing on
the Disney Channel starting on January 17, so Gil's episode
where he plays the janitor, fooled by Raven Simone and
her buddies, should be playing soon! Our estimation is
that it will air on January 31; please check back for
updates on this.
Also,
be sure to watch Gil on The West Wing on February
5 on NBC television!
And, more political parody at the Democratic Underground:
here's
an article making fun of Bill Frist, the new leader of
the GOP, titled "New Majority Leader Stops to Help Family
by Side of Road, Kills Their Cat."
And here's
one about Iraq-al Qaeda connections: "Powell Offers
Proof of Saddam-Osama Link; Trail of Connections include
Actor Kevin Bacon and 5 Other People"
Gil
also filmed an episode of "The Bernie Mac Show"
in January. It's slated to run on April 2. Bernie Mac
was very nice to work with; he made sure he personally
greeted every new guest star on the show, and he was always
cracking jokes with the extras.
Gil
was very happy to get this job; he auditioned for the
producers by reading for two different parts (one line
each). But after hearing his reading, the producers decided
to merge the two parts into one, and added in a third
non-speaking part as well, and gave the job to Gil. So
Gil is in three different scenes in this episode: he shooshes
Bernie in a movie theater, he gets to go ahead of Bernie
at the Emergency Room, and he makes a smart aleck remark
as Bernie causes a scene on an airplane. It should be
a funny episode!
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