Diana Kemp Jones was born in Toronto, Canada and lived in London for nine years. She has authored "Sisters of the Wind", "Scirotica, Dystopic Visions", "Subterranean Heartbeats", "Kiyama", which were essentially science fiction and paranormal.
She has told stories most of her life, in fact, Jones still has an old suitcase filled with stories she has written since seven years old. From author to screenwriter, ---tells Hollywood Scriptwriter about the transition.
Hollywood Scriptwriter:
How did you begin your career as an author?
Diana Kemp Jones:
I started submitting short stories once I got my very first primitive word processor. After a few stories were published in various small press magazines, I began to focus on books.
How did becoming an author lead to becoming a scriptwriter?
Mainly suggestions from others who thought my work was very visual and would translate well to screen. I read screenplays, studied the formats and decided to start with some of my favoriteshort stories. It wasn't long after entering my first short screenplay competitions that I began winning, thus the fires were well and truly stoked.
Why have you chosen scifi for your films?
I've been a lifelong science fiction fan and was so fascinated by the concept that my own ideas just kept flooding my mind. As a scifi junkie I couldn't get enough books and movies.
How do you choose the competitions you enter?
Right now I'm focusing on short scripts so I seek competitions that accept them.
How many times have you entered contests before winning?
Two scripts placed in the first competition I entered.
What keeps you entering?
A desire to perfect my skills and to bring my stories to life. It's also a wonderful challenge to convert short stories into screenplay format as switching from the internal to the external forces you to transform how you write.
What is the strategy for putting together a good clip for a competition win?
I just do the best I can to create a strong visual image.
What is your inspiration for your films?
A very over-active imagination.
Do you write an outline before writing the entire script?
I have always been a disciple of the chaos theory. Ideas pop into my mind and I write. My outlines are piles of post-it notes with a word, phrase or image. The hardest thing for me to actually do is sit still long enough to write a synopsis.
Your film Fusion is under production as a student project?
An Emerson College student looking for a script to use as a project found my logline on Inktip. She asked to read the script and liked it. It was eventually selected from other submissions as the project of choice.I'm very excited about how they will interpret what I see in my mind to film.
What makes a good film?
Making the audience remember, think or argue about what they've seen. Evoking a response, whether it's laughter, anger or tears - anything but sleep.
Why do you think your films have been winners?
Short and sweet, but packing a lot of story in a few pages.
What's unique about them than what you see in contests/film festivals?
My stories often tend to go beyond the here and now yet can still relate to the now. Certain issues are timeless.
by Richard Jones |
