Q. Hello Juliano, it's great to have you here with us for this interview. Congratulations on your ‘Best Original Screenplay’ award at last June's edition of the “Rome International Movie Awards” (click HERE). First of all, why don't you introduce yourself to those of us who don't already know you?
A. Well first off thank you for having me and it was a great honor for me as well to win 'Best Original Screenplay' in the "Rome International Movie Awards". I’m still smiling about that. I’m just one of those people who fell in love with the Cinematic collage of artistic expression using words to impact emotions and never left.
Q. Now what got you into screenwriting in the first place and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
A. I’ve studied a multitude of bite size aspects of film making while living in New York The Bronx attending community college it was great I thought I was going to be a film director until I took a creative writing class and suddenly my brain went boom transforming itself into a psychedelic sponge stealing from the alphabet creating bits and pieces of stories lines adding words that were just lying around doing nothing and giving them a hint into their upcoming, an explanation into their existence. I remember in college we were writing these bullshit two column scripts which I hated, I needed to pushed words into a place of extra ordinary they needed to be gladiators, but I kept forgetting this is community college so if I wanted to stand out from the crowd, I need to train myself.
A. In it’s simplest form - When the child of the Devil who is binary meaning half boy/half girl turns six years old, the Devil feels it’s time the child learns the family business of manipulating for souls. So the Devil takes his gender-fluid child named Rooster-Fer to work with him on a series of deals to learn the ropes through different time periods so the child’s education is extensive, I know right, sounds so simplistic until you get into the stories and see how anyone desperately looking to massively improve their life could easily fall for his trickery, he’s cool as hell somebody you might want to hang with even smoke some trees with, until you sign that contract.
Q. Could you take us through the whole process of you writing a screenplay, from first idea to final draft?
A. It always happens to me the same way, while in the middle of writing a screenplay another story that has been brewing in the back of my head waiting for it’s rightful moment to expose it self to me, begins to reveal small visions of pic’s between the pauses in my thoughts that I use when rewriting a scene, it hacks my concentration seconds at time until I open my iPad>Notes and quickly write it down before I forget. I will almost always write outlines on my iPad just to feel if there’s a story somewhere in there and begin the painful process of writing a log line. At this point everything is written in outlines on the iPad I don’t write vomit drafts nor do I write on the page. Everything is planned out from Character development to story structure. I will keep up this pace until have so many notes that things start to become messy and that’s when I open the Screenwriting software on the laptop and type in those two very famous words Fade-IN and the first narrative description. I will usually write the ending of the screenplay soon after and then begin chronology journey of story telling.
Q. Over the years, how do you think you have evolved as a writer?
A. In my early years of writing screenplays, I was a scared writer, concentrating more on how I was going to fill a hundred and twenty pages instead of piecing together a sick ass storyline. Even now it’s hard for me to go back and read my early stuff because that was a different person. It took many years of writing for me to get to a place of savage comprehension and so I’ve evolved into a beast, the struggle is real, you have to, writing screenplays is a very difficult skill.
Q. What can you tell us about your work prior to “The Candy Notes”?
A. One of my favorite screenplays called "Four28 Girls", where four down and out lesbians friends from the Bronx find a kilo of cocaine and decide to become their own Cartel, is where I really pushed the Female character front and center, not taking any shit from anyone and this is what it’s like to be a boss bitch. That screenplay also got featured in a comic book called "Espresso Detective" out of Los Angeles. The screenplay was sent out to a few studios in the UK but I never got a response. One year later I see there’s a movie on HBO Max about four down and out girls who finds some drugs and go into business for themselves called "We are Kings" I sat there and watched a movie that was exactly like my screenplay, I talked to a few people in LA that said it was a similarity situation, I was pissed, I moved on. After that I wrote another Award Winning screenplay called "This is what Mars is like", a love story between a human and vampire on the planet Mars with a sprinkle of "Romeo and Juliet" incorporated into the theme and a racist Sheriff who plays the antagonist just trying to protect his small town from vampires. This was a massive project not only was the screenplay three hours long but I also recorded a sick ass Dubspet Music soundtrack to go along it which anyone can listen to on my Soundcloud page and on my Youtube page (click HERE). After the screenplay was edited down it was released on paperback and ereader on Amazon prime which a copy was sent to Elon Musk. So far I’m pretty pleased with the work I’ve done.
A. I watch a lot of movies and if I was moved in the sense that I could feel what the writer was trying to achieve, I always wait for the credits to roll and when I see the writers name, I yell it out loud giving that person the thumbs up, so a lot of them inspire me.
Q. Your favourite books? And of course, books you really deplore?
A. The "Brother Grimm" takes the top spot for me, their storytelling is unmatched especially their early work, it’s amazing. Once in awhile I like to glance through the works of pioneers like Dante Alighieri, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle just to see if I can feel what it was like being a writer back then.
Q. Where can people see your work?
A. Everyone is welcome to check out my "Instagram" page (HERE), my "Twitter" page (HERE) where I post all my competition wins and other fruits. My "IMDB" page (HERE) to see other projects I was involved in, and if anyone wants to listen to the soundtrack I’ve created for the screenplay "This is what Mars is like" it’s on my Soundcloud and Youtube page and on Amazon prime to pickup a copy of the screenplay. My "Facebook" page was hacked, I can’t log into it anymore so I stop posting there.
Q. Thank you for this very inspiring interview, Juliano. Here at the “Rome International Movie Awards” we look forward to seeing and appreciating your new film productions!
A. Again Samantha, tank you for having me it’s been wonderful spending time at the "Rome International Movie Awards". It’s been a blast, can’t wait to do this again. Ciao everyone - Juliano.
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