Students get chance at screenwriting

Sour Entertainment, a film company seniors Max Riesberg and Dmitrii Gabrielov launched in December 2007, is currently accepting submissions for a screenwriting competition. The winning script will be produced into an eight to 12 minute film that Sour Entertainment will then market to film festivals across the nation, providing the writer and everyone who works on the film with exposure to the film community.\nBecause of the recent success of environment-oriented films, such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The 11th Hour,” Sour Entertainment decided its first screenwriting competition would have a green theme. Students who are interested in submitting scripts should do so by Feb. 28. Entry material is available at www.sourentertainment.com.\n“I feel that film can really affect how people think about the environment,” Gabrielov said. “You can really make a change by making a film.”\nRiesberg and Gabrielov are trying to bring change to Bloomington, and not just through environmental films. \nCurrently, students working with film in Bloomington have no major outlets for their work, Riesberg said. Sour Entertainment is working to fix that by providing an avenue for students and community members to pursue their passions.\n“There is so much talent in this town that is not being recognized and tapped, and we want to bring that into the limelight,” Riesberg said.\nThe film community is expanding exponentially in Bloomington, which is why Sour Entertainment needs to provide a student outlet, Riesberg said. \nSenior Gary Sheynkman worked with Riesberg on his feature film, “The Busdriver,” and is looking into the film contest as well.\n“This is the first effort that I’ve seen coming from the student population that has the potential to succeed and gain serious media attention,” Sheynkman said.\nBoth Riesberg and Gabrielov have been interested in film since they were young, and have expanded their passion while studying film and interning in Hollywood with Agency 7 and Bona Fide Productions. Now, they are bringing their experience and connections to the Bloomington community as they take their film studies past the classroom setting and work to produce and market films through Sour Entertainment. \nAt this point, school is the last priority, and real-life experience and extracurricular activities are their focus, Gabrielov said. Because of the entrepreneurial nature of film, certain things can only be learned through experience, he said.\n“It’s not to say that school and classes aren’t important,” Riesberg said. “What they do teach us is the ability to be coachable and to learn.”\nWhile IU is providing students with the class setting, Sour Entertainment hopes to provide the crucial real-life experience through events such as its screenwriting competition. \nSour Entertainment is looking solely to the Bloomington community to find the cast and crew for producing the film. Using local talent not only helps build a center for those in Bloomington interested in film, but it also helps cut down on production costs, Riesberg said.\n“Any money we put into this will literally be seen on the screen,” Riesberg said.\nThough films produced for this competition must have an environmental theme, Sour Entertainment does not plan to market only environmental films in the future. This theme is a starting point.\n“We want to pursue all sorts of scripts,” Gabrielov said. “We want to constantly have something in development.”