‘Flour Baby’ takes the cake in film competition

At the end of a film competition, a flour baby won out over saved parking spaces and first… At the end of a film competition, a flour baby won out over saved parking spaces and first kisses.

The Steeltown Film Factory Competition is a screenwriting contest in which filmmaking-hopefuls, while being taken through every aspect of the filmmaking process, are pared down until a winner is selected to receive $30,000 to produce his film. Participants must be from the Pittsburgh/Southwestern, Pa. area..

This year’s winner was Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne alumnus Christopher Dimond, who wrote “Flour Baby.” The script centers on a young woman who finds connections to her dark past and experience with pregnancy through a school project involving the care of a mock baby made of a flour bag. “Flour Baby” won out against two other scripts — “Savesies” by Pitt law school graduate Philip Beard and “First Kiss” by CMU student Yulin Kuang — in the “Final Pitch” event on April 30 at Carnegie Mellon, where the university’s drama students acted out all three screenplays prior to the final judgement by the expert panel.

“That’s why we started the Film Factory. No one grew up in Pittsburgh knowing the film industry,” said Steeltown Film Factory’s executive producer, Carl Kurlander. The Film Factory developed out of a Pitt program started by Kurlander called Pitt in Hollywood. The program became so popular that it eventually led to the creation of the nonprofit in 2003, according to Kurlander.

The “Final Pitch” panel was composed of experienced members of the film industry — Kim Moses, executive producer of “Ghost Whisperer;” Nancy Mosser, Pittsburgh casting for “The Perks of Being a Wallflower;” Ian Sander, executive producer of “Ghost Whisperer,” and Bob Kusbit, executive producer of MTV’s “Made.”

This year’s winner, Dimond, first heard about The Steeltown Film Factory while taking Kurlander’s screenwriting class at Pitt. It was in that class he discovered his love for screenwriting, and he soon went on to get a graduate degree in the subject from CMU. To Dimond, Pittsburgh seems to be a prime place for movie making.

“Pittsburgh is a literal and metaphorical confluence where you’ve got a lot of ideas and different backgrounds converging with one another, and often times that leads to interesting conflicts,” Dimond said.

A particular Pittsburgh “flavor” shines through in the sharp, dark jokes found in “Flour Baby.”

“I think it captures a humor — a kind of ironic, sardonic humor that you see in a lot of Pittsburghers. It’s a tough town, not terribly distant from its blue-collar roots,” Dimond said.

That darkness was what piqued the Steeltown group’s interest.

“It was a really great script. It was interesting to have such serious subject matter tackled with such grace and a bit of humor,” said Steeltown Entertainment Project producer Lisa Smith.

A former English teacher at the all-male high-school Central Catholic, Dimond said that his time as a student as well as a teacher in local Catholic schools impacted his work, including “Flour Baby.”

“This script was affected pretty intensely by my experience in Pittsburgh Catholic schools. I think religion is something that’s very important to a lot of Pittsburghers. Particularly in the suburbs where I grew up, that sort of influence is very strong, as is the importance of athletics,” the screenwriter said. “So I think that there are a lot of factors that came into play with this script on issues and themes that are prevalent in Pittsburgh.”

As a male instructor who taught males, Dimond did not come into direct contact with a story such as the one that unfolds in “Flour Baby.” But the tone and culture of the scenarios he depicts are drawn from his real-life experiences — like the “flour-baby” project he was assigned as a high school senior. He thinks the film has a broad appeal, especially in dealing with current social issue such as teen pregnancy.

“It taps into some issues and themes that are really prevalent in the world today and that a lot of people can relate to. They’re important, and they’re themes that need to be discussed, need to be examined. I think it’s a story that needs to be told, and perhaps hasn’t yet been told in the way in the script,” Dimond said.

Though Kurlander made similar observations, he feels that Dimond’s script has even more substance than just what is found in these ideas.

“What captured attention about ‘Flour Baby’ was that it was both funny and a really hard subject,” he said. “You know, like you’re not sure if the girl has had an abortion — it was like ‘Teen Mom,’ but more complex — more interesting. It really felt like a movie.”

As for the competition-closing event, Dimond was impressed with the drama students at Carnegie Mellon who acted out the script.

“I thought they did a fantastic job. I am always incredibly impressed by the level of talent in the students there. I was really, really fortunate to have the opportunity to work with them. They brought so much to the script — they really brought it to life,” Dimond said.

Dimond has a special connection to Carnegie Mellon as well as to Pitt. Kurlander was Dimond’s screenwriting teacher at Pitt and because of such relationships, Kurlander — who still holds his position at Pitt — did not participate in the judging.

Steeltown Film Factory has been a great support for its participants.

“It’s not oftentimes in this business that you find anyone who believes in your work, and to have people believing in it to a level of giving you the resources to bring that work to life — it’s a really special thing,” Dimond said.

Dimond plans to begin shooting his short film in August and has already begun pre-production such as casting. He is not a stranger to writing, — he has written for stage plays — but he believes this will be a stepping stone to future film productions.

“One of the reasons that I wanted to enter this contest was to start to explore that world more — to develop my skills in screenwriting and have a bit of an entryway to the field and industry. I have learned a lot from this process and improved as a screenwriter through this process,” Dimond said.

In addition to the prize money, “Flour Baby” will also receive the chance to play at the Three Rivers Film Festival this fall.

The next Steeltown Film Factory Competition begins in November 2011. Smith said the group doesn’t yet have a starting date, but it will be posted on steeltownfilmfactory.org along with updates throughout the summer. There, people can also find short films of previous winners and, eventually, “Flour Baby.”