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Armed With Ideas and Reps, Rob P. Heads West
When Project Greenlight made its debut over a year ago, the promise was that one lucky filmmaker would be chosen to put their own vision onto film with a small budget and crew. 12 months and 7,000 scripts later, we know how the contest ended. A 31 year-old Chicago native wrote a heart-warming drama about two childhood friends growing up in 1970s Chicago. And the rest, as they say...
But Pete Jones is not the only member of the Project Greenlight community whose career has taken a turn for the downright promising since the culmination of the script-writing competition. Another Top 10 finalist, Rob Pearlstein, has seen his life become a whirlwind of meetings, lunches, and relocating, and all since February. Pearlstein recently landed a manager and was signed by ICM, one of the "big four" talent and literary agencies in Los Angeles.
Pearlstein, 27, very quickly got the attention of Hollywood with his script, "Avenue A," a witty take on the trials and tribulations of twenty-somethings in search of love and meaning in New York City. "I wanted to touch on my own experiences," said Pearlstein. "I knew so many people in New York who were into their late twenties. Some were married, some weren't, and I thought the low concept could be interesting."
Admittedly, Pearlstein did derive inspiration from some of his own past relationships. "I just had to be careful not to offend or expose any of my friends or ex-girlfriends."
Rich fodder for his first script, perhaps, but the people in Rob's life cannot take credit for his writing talent or his passion for storytelling. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, Rob headed to the Big Apple to study at Tisch, NYU's film school. Pearlstein spent three years in New York, writing when he could and plugging away at freelance advertising gigs to pay the bills.
For Pearlstein, actually finding out he was chosen as a Top 10 finalist proved just as nerve-racking as entering the contest. "At every stage of the contest, I received an e-mail alerting me that my script was chosen for the next round. So the night before the Top 10 scripts were to be chosen, I was expecting an my e-mail to find out the results."
Instead, Pearlstein's phone rang. It was a man claiming to be Chris Moore, one of the founders of Project Greenlight. "I knew they would alert me over e-mail, so I was convinced that this person on the other end of the phone was just a friend, playing a mean joke.
He said, 'Hi Rob, this is Chris Moore from Project Greenlight.' "I figured I'd play along, so I said, 'Hey dude, what's up?' I was intentionally being arrogant and rude. After a few minutes, though, this person started telling me what I had to do next, and that I was being sent all this equipment to shoot a scene from my movie. I called my Mom immediately after I got off the phone, and told her that I had just received a very strange phone call."
Life has not been the same for Pearlstein since. An article that ran in the Hollywood Reporter immediately brought on a slew of unexpected exposure. "I started getting calls every day from people I didn't even know, telling me that they loved my script."
After three years in Manhattan, Pearlstein is back in Los Angeles, where he grew up and attended high school. Now Pearlstein spends his time juggling spec ideas, TV pilots, and potential rewrites. When he's not pitching ideas to development executives or being pitched ideas by other filmmakers, Rob continues to write ads for print, billboards, and television.
And his take on Hollywood? "It's been a lot of fun, and I have met some very cool people. It's amazing to sit down with people whose work I like and respect."
Any words of advice to fellow PGLers? "Always have people sign the release form."
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