Howard & Jason Wen's "Cherie" - Celtx Project of the Week

This week our Team is really excited to bestow the Celtx POW upon the very accomplished and creative team of brothers, Howard and Jason Wen. Together they created the award-winning, "Cherie", a short film about "...a struggling painter who's life takes an unusual turn when she accepts 'Oliver', a talking frog, as her muse."

Clearly the writer in the family, Howard works as a technology reporter for high profile publications by day, like Wired, salon.com, Make and O'Reilly, and on the side, cleverly adapts his skills to the screen, as he did with Cherie's feature film screenplay version of the film short, which was directed by Jason.

Apart from directing, Jason Wen is also a pro computer animator with an impressive list of credits to his name including, lead visual effects animator on "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit", effects animator on "Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban" and the upcoming "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix."

In a recent email Howard Wen graciously took the time to provide us with some random and insighful facts about "Cherie" (both the screenplay and film short upon which it is based), which I share with you below.

And as for winning the Celtx POW, Howard says,

"... This is very much an honor, for me especially since Celtx is the only screenwriting app I use and have ever liked."

Well now!.. how do ya like that? On behalf of the Celtx Team, I'd like to say it's exciting to have pros like the Wen Bros on board.

Cheers to Howard and Jason, and congratulations on getting POW'd! - Sheila

Howard Wen's Random Facts About "Cherie":
* -- It was written with the intent for Jason to direct (possibly), and thus reflects/implies his visual style as seen throughout his independent film short work and professional film work.

* -- Despite the screenplay having placed as a finalist/semifinalist in three competitions in Los Angeles, it's been tough going in pitching the feature film to production companies. One bluntly said it was "too weird." :-)

* -- To that end, it seems people either really like the screenplay -- or absolutely despise it. There has been no middle ground. (The same tends to be true for the film short.)

* -- We've described to production companies that the audience for Cherie would probably be those who enjoyed Donnie Darko, Pan's Labyrinth, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, or The Fountain. Consequently, these kinds of movies are hard sells, not mainstream blockbusters, so that turns off most production companies and studios. :-)

* -- Besides the above films, the inspiration for Cherie is varied: Alice in Wonderland, Polyanna, Amelie, Anne of Green Gables, various Japanese animation (anime) shows and movies, the works of Philip K. Dick and HP Lovecraft, and "red carpet" movie productions like Moulin Rouge.

* -- Cherie (the screenplay) was originally written with OpenOffice (as "raw text" that was not formatted in screenplay format) and then formatted on Celtx. All following drafts and revisions have been done on Celtx.

* -- People can download for free the entire film short from CherieMovie.com (or in various formats from Celtx Project Central.)