The Short List- West
Cheryl DeWolfe (Victoria, BC)
MOVIE PITCH
OK, imagine Titanic, but in outer space and instead of an iceberg, it's an asteroid. But it isn't like Armageddon with Bruce Willis and all that, it's more like BAM! The asteroid hits the spaceship and it starts spinning out of control, right? So there's lots of chaos and destruction -- all CG work of course -- and a group of people -- an A-list guy and his love interest plus a comedian and some expendables make their way to the cockpit or bridge or whatever and of course the captain has been horribly injured. Right away you know the A-list guy is going to save everyone, right? Except that instead they crash into some planet and all of a sudden it's like Lost right? So we throw in some more passengers in peril, some kids or a dog, maybe someone with some paranoia issues. Then there are the aliens -- something threatening but still recognizable, something almost human but clearly not. The ending's gonna be a tear-jerker; the A-lister manages to get a few people on a shuttle but he stays behind. The girl gets out, of course but -- SURPRISE! -- she's pregnant with A-lister's baby. Two words: instant sequel.
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How It Works
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Write In!
Out of hundreds and hundreds of entries, just twenty Canadians made it to the Short List and won themselves an audition with Canada Writes. Then eight semi-finalists were picked to play in the Eastern semi-finals and Western/Northern semi-finals.
Read their winning songs, blogs, ads, rants and movie pitches!
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On March 14th and April 4th, tune in to GO! on CBC Radio One at 10 am (10:30 am NT) for the Eastern and Western/Northern semi-final games in Halifax and Vancouver. The finals will be held in Toronto on April 18th. Or join us at any of the three shows to root for the contestants in person. Go to cbc.ca/go for tickets.
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The Canada Writes 09 Online Challenge is now over. Thanks for playing!
Updates
(Toronto, April 25, 2009)
It was a very tight race in the end. Our four finalists fought it out by blog, song, ad and a three-line story. First, they each drew a blog topic, from “the best hundred dollars I ever spent” to “one fact I would like to ‘un-know’”. Challenge number 2 was to re-write a song by Queen, with Valerie Stanois from the musical We Will Rock You bringing power vocals to their surprising new words. Then judges Geri Hall, Terry O’Reilly and Darrell Dennis sent Kaveh Mohebbi through the infamous Trap Door. Challenge number 3 was the radio ad. Clever ads for Cornhobbler’s Crematorium and Juice Bar (obviously not a real business) and Christmas greetings from the makers of Flank Chainsaws won Katie Sanders and Laurie Schwartz a last chance at writing glory, but it was Margaret Beach’s turn to go through the Trap Door. Finally, Laurie and Katie had to come up with the first two lines of a three-line story… on yellow writing pads on their laps…and in 90 seconds….
After weeks of effort and tension and achievement -- from the writing contest in January, through the auditions, the short list, the semi-finals and the finals – it was all over in a couple of minutes. Katie pulled ahead by a crucial point -- and became the winner of Canada Writes 09! Listen to the show! Read the blogs!
For more photos, go to http://www.cbc.ca/go/photogallery.html.
Winner of the Online Challenge! Ontario's Heather Smith is the winner of this year's People's Choice Award. Her winning entry was a re-write of the ABBA song 'Waterloo.' Take a look!
Western semi-finalist 09
