THE AD

The AD holds a special place in my heart because it was the script that got me into film school. I was, in hindsight, an awful candidate. I had no film experience, no director’s reel, no editing reel, no writing history to show for. All I had was this script. This was the only attachment to my application to prove I wanted to study screenwriting. And it got me in. 

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. I have learned so much about screenwriting, and writing in general, since I penned this. But the story is there. The concept is there. The characters feel real. 

The AD was an idea that my mother pitched to me at the dinner table one night. She said, “You know, I’ve been trying to think of some ideas you could turn into a story for your applications. Wait, I’ve got a list, I had to write it down so I didn’t forget.” And she pitched me a story about “Athletics, and like, the world of college sports, because that’s something you know really well, and it could follow the coach, or a player, or multiple players. You could go inside locker rooms, talk about balancing school and sports, you know.” 

And I did know. At nineteen years old, sports and school were my bread and butter. They were the two realms of life I could navigate with my eyes closed. So, I used my mother’s pitch, and I put a spin on it. I had been obsessively watching the West Wing at the time, trying to learn how to structure a TV show, how to write characters and dialogue. The contained office nature of the West Wing has a glaring influence on this script that follows a former basketball star fallen from grace and seeking a second chance as the athletic director at a competitive university. Of course, the main character is not coaching material, he’s a little bit of a mess, but his heart is in the right place. The ensemble cast of characters in the office were filled with the quirks I knew to exist in sports and in academics. 

I wrote a dozen drafts of this script, and it was heartbreaking when I got rejection after rejection. But all it takes is one yes, and The AD got me that. Without it, I most likely wouldn’t have gone to film school and wouldn’t have completed the other pilots in my script library.