2014 Launch Pad Pilot Competition Winners Announced
OVERALL WINNER
PARADISE CITY
Sean Costello
THE SOPRANOS meets ENTOURAGE
Disparate perspectives on early 1980s sensationalism and the new War on Drugs are seen through a Sunset Strip coke dealer versus the Detective who controls him.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Winner
TOP DRAMA
BLOOD TIES
Tristan Thai
THE SHIELD meets THE DEPARTED
The story of two men, one the favored son of a Chicago Crime Family and the other a second generation Chicago police officer, whose lives get thrown into chaos when they discover they were intentionally switched at birth. As both men discover where their true blood ties lie, they must decide which side of the law their loyalties will lie.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Jon Kanak Management | Jon Kanak
Winner
TOP COMEDY
GARRET GOES TO WASHINGTON
Ted Sperling
THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR BUT IN REVERSE
When a rich, privileged teenager is kicked out of his eighth boarding school, he’s sent to live with his blue collar relatives in Tacoma, Washington.
Comedy Coming-of-Age
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Energy Entertainment | Angelina Chen
Winner
COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS
ANCIENT PROMISE
Corey Swim
LOST SET IN OUTER SPACE
A group of small-town acquaintances search for answers after finding themselves — along with the entire human potextation — removed from earth and isolated on mechanized planetoids orbiting the planet.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
ANOTHER/WORLD
Tony Lippera
MAD MEN meets NASHVILLE
Set in the cutthroat world of 1970s daytime TV, an aging superstar must battle against a network’s attempt to oust her from a popular television show she starred in for twenty years.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Chemical Imbalance | Matt Bass
Top 25
ATLANTIS
Ashley Avis
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW / DEEP IMPACT meets WATERWORLD
After the discovery of an apocalyptic solar flare, a small population of Earth’s civilization go 40,000 feet under the sea to a subaquatic city, aptly nicknamed “Atlantis.”
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
BLOOD TIES
Tristan Thai
THE SHIELD meets THE DEPARTED
The story of two men, one the favored son of a Chicago Crime Family and the other a second generation Chicago police officer, whose lives get thrown into chaos when they discover they were intentionally switched at birth. As both men discover where their true blood ties lie, they must decide which side of the law their loyalties will lie.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Jon Kanak Management | Jon Kanak
Winner
BUSCONE
Jeff Storms
RAY DONOVAN meets BANSHEE
A twist on cartel wars. Brings us into an original, unexplored world of “Buscones” or “street agents” that run like the mafia; but their “product/traffic” are young boys grooming them to be baseball major leaguers.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
COLLAPSE
Nti Aning
ALMOST HUMAN meets CHILDREN OF MEN
High-concept drama about the origin of a robot apocalypse. In a dystopian future, human-like androids are under attack from the humans they’ve been created to serve until they decide enough is enough and begin to fight back.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
COPPER CREEK
Andrew Hamer
MAD MEN meets JUSTIFIED, IN THE LATE 1940S
A prominent businessman struggles to protect his family and reputation from the surrounding political corruption in a small town in West Virginia, circa 1948.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
COSMO’S
Asmin Pathare
IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA meets THE BIG BANG THEORY
A robot, an alien, and a time traveler walk into a bar – and then start working there? A raunchy live-action geekfest about three extraordinary beings in one ordinary place.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Vision Arts Management | Scott Schwartz
Top 25
DELIBERATIONS
Amanda Parham
COMMUNITY AND THE OFFICE GET CALLED FOR JURY DUTY
Ryan Duffy, a down-on-his-luck former New York stock broker, rides out the recession by “volunteering” for sequestered jury service. With the help of Brody, a 35 year-old juror desperate to escape his parent’s basement, Ryan plots to drag the trial out as long as possible.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
DOUBLES
Kassia Miller
BROAD CITY meets 2 BROKE GIRLS
Story of two twin sisters who are complete opposites, trying to make it in the city without killing each other.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: New Wave Entertainment | Matt Ochacher
Top 10
EREBUS
Eliot John Hagen
LOST meets DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Centers on an exploration team sent to the South Pole for a routine research run, caught amidst a sudden volcanic explosion and an unidentified object below the ice. Now they must fight for their survival in the most desolate place on earth.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 10
EVER AFTER
Jonathan James
MODERN FAMILY meets ONCE UPON A TIME
Forced to move from their spacious castle to a small cottage, a fairy tale family whose fallen on hard times must learn to redefine the “happily” in their “ever-after.”
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
FREAK, THE
Bruce Kalish
JOAN OF ARCADIA meets MY SO CALLED LIFE
A teenage girl dies for a few seconds and returns with psychic and telekinetic powers.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
FULLTIME DAD
Scott C. Reynolds
TWO AND A HALF MEN meets ABOUT A BOY
Story of a recently-unemployed single dad in NYC who suddenly has to take care of his teenage son, who has now been kicked out of every school in the state of Florida. Two generations struggling to figure out what they want to do with their lives at the same time.
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
GARRET GOES TO WASHINGTON
Ted Sperling
THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR BUT IN REVERSE
When a rich, privileged teenager is kicked out of his eighth boarding school, he’s sent to live with his blue collar relatives in Tacoma, Washington.
Comedy Coming-of-Age
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Energy Entertainment | Angelina Chen
Winner
INHERITANCE
Katiedid Langrock
SOPRANOS meets HOUSE OF CARDS
The repercussions of a political visionary’s personal sins rip through the Cavanaugh family as they continually struggle to prevent the sins of the past generations from being inherited by the next.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Bellevue Productions | Jeff Portnoy
Top 25
JUMP
Andrew Bumstead
ALIAS meets LOOPER
Story of a time travel agency that recruits young people with nothing to lose to “jump” into the past and alter tragic events in their clients’ lives. However, these “jumpers” are just as lost and broken as the people they’re trying to help, and their dark pasts often lead to problems _ both on missions and within the team.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
KNIVES
Nick Moceri
HOUSE meets THE DEPARTED
After leaving his post as an Army medic to take over his parents’ struggling butcher shop in Boston’s North End, Alex ends up trapped in a lifestyle he tried to escape and is forced to become a doctor for the mob in order to keep the family business afloat.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
LADYBOY
Jason Romaine & Pantida ‘Caddy’ Vanasirikul
GIRLS meets THE L WORD
A recent post-op transgender from Thailand moves to Manhattan in hopes of starting fresh as a girl and finding the man of her dreams. She meets her fairy gay godfather and together they go on a quest to discover their own identity and their other halves.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
LEMONS
Gini Adhikari & Kay Marvin
MY NAME IS EARL meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
A sweet, innocent and neurotic nurse sets out to make even the worst situations in her small town better, starting with the scathing Yelp review one of the inmates wrote about her care in the local municipal prison.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: MXN | Michelle Knudsen
Top 25
LONG ISLAND
Robert Weinberger
ALMOST FAMOUS meets THE WONDER YEARS
A 1970s suburban coming-of-age tale akin to THE WONDER YEARS that follows the Sugarman family’s move from Brooklyn to Long Island from the perspective of a 14-year-old boy.
Drama
Agent: Preferred Artists | Roger Strull
Manager: Roger Strull
Top 25
MERCY RULE
Mina Baban
MODERN FAMILY meets THE BAD NEWS BEARS
An eclectic group of mothers and their tweenage daughters try to navigate the girls’ failing soccer season while wrestling with adolescence and suburban angst.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
NICK OF TIME
Sidney Showers
MACGYVER meets QUANTUM LEAP
A burned out physician finds himself time-traveling out of his control to random arenas where he rediscovers the joy of healing by applying his 21st Century knowledge to whatever he can use at hand while puzzling out a way to return to his fiancee and the son he regrets not knowing.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
PARADISE CITY
Sean Costello
THE SOPRANOS meets ENTOURAGE
Disparate perspectives on early 1980s sensationalism and the new War on Drugs are seen through a Sunset Strip coke dealer versus the Detective who controls him.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Winner
PARADOX
Dylan Brod
ALIAS meets QUANTUM LEAP
Unbeknownst to society at large, the FBI has been preventing large scale attacks on American interests through the use of a covert, time traveling “jumper” unit led by Agent Caden Hardwick. But, when sabotage puts Caden and his team at risk, his wife Sarah must use the technology to avert a disaster and find out how deep the “jumpers” have been infiltrated.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Energy Entertainment | Brooklyn Weaver
Top 10
PASS/FAIL
Caitlin McCarthy & Jim Forbes
BLACKBOARD JUNGLE meets NORMA RAE
A street-wise assistant principal must combat the neglect of an ailing school district while struggling to recover from her own tragic past.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
POLK PRIDE
Paul Mclalin
BRIDESMAIDS meets BAD TEACHER
A burnt-out school teacher tries to balance work, a new boss, and her love life, all while dealing with a classroom full of wild animals.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
PROSPECT
Max Perry
DEADWOOD meets REVOLUTION
After a massive mineral-rich asteroid crashes down in Africa and sparks a second gold rush, a fraying family movies to the African crash site in the hopes of starting a new life. But how long will they survive amidst the corporations, militaries and the daily battles for power in what has become the most valuable real estate on earth.
Drama
Agent: CAA
Manager: Madhouse Entertainment | Adam Kolbrenner, Chris Cook
Top 10
RED SQUARE
Colin Waite
THE AMERICANS, BUT 20 YEARS EARLIER, SET IN MOSCOW
Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, an Ex-Marine and widowed father of a young boy works as a businessman in Moscow during the 1960s. In reality, he’s a CIA spy sent to Russia on a top secret mission, but he also has his own secret agenda _ to exact revenge on all those responsible for his brutal imprisonment in a Soviet Gulag ten years earlier.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
REDLINE
Keith Hendrick
HOW TO MAKE IT IN AMERICA meets THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS
Childhood best friends enter the Las Vegas street racing scene in order to solve their financial problems and create a better future for themselves.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
RIPPLE EFFECT
Jim Simone & Sharon Cingle
SLEEPY HOLLOW meets FRINGE
A financially strapped detective stumbles into the world of the supernatural when he teams up with a genius waitress and an eccentric new-age scientist as they investigate the death of a young man who mysteriously appears on a Seattle bridge, frozen to death.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
SAND HILL
Ben Roy & David Mulholland
SKINS meets THE WIRE
A high school drug and alcohol counselor returns to his hometown to help students overcome the drugs and violence in the same neighborhood he grew up in. A recovered addict himself, he will do anything to help these kids, even if it means crossing boundaries he shouldn’t cross. But he harbors a dark secret that threatens to unravel all the good he is doing_he’s not a recovered addict. He’s an addict.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
SHANGHAI’D
Curtis Burdick
MACGYVER meets HELL ON WHEELS
Educated in the sciences at Harvard, Joshua Cabot travels to “gold rush” California from Boston in 1848 to establish an assaying office. After his wife and baby die tragically, he escapes into alcohol, and wakes up on a Pacific merchant ship as a shanghaied sailor.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
SHINING CITY
Douglas Stark
MINORITY REPORT meets PRISON BREAK
A devoted husband and father discovers that his job, his family, and his entire life are false memory implants and that he is, in fact, a former operative holding a dangerous secret living in a giant prison masquerading as a city.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Energy Entertainment | Brooklyn Weaver
Top 10
SIDE BY SIDE
Lily Blau
BOARDWALK EMPIRE meets MASTERS OF SEX
New York City, 1938. Conjoined twins Bette and Evie Grand abandon the sideshow they grew up in search of a bigger, better life for themselves. But their patchwork family proves difficult to leave behind, and their divergent dreams threaten to tear the sisters apart.
Drama
Agent: CAA | Olivia Blaustein
Manager: Washington Square Arts | Bruce Miller
Top 10
TIME MACHINE
EB Rhee
24 meets RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
After the U.S. government builds the world’s first time machine, a history professor is sent back in time to WWII to stop a corrupt time traveler from helping Hitler build and use the world’s first atomic bombs. Along the way, the professor recruits a beautiful British female spy to help him, and must use his singular knowledge of history to prevent an altered outcome to WWII.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
TRIBE, THE
G.D. Navarro
THE SOPRANOS meets SONS OF ANARCHY
Crime drama set on an Indian reservation where an exiled FBI agent struggles to solve a series of crimes amongst warring crime factions within the Lakota nation.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Top 25
UNFUCKABLES
April Shih
SEX AND THE CITY meets 2 BROKE GIRLS
Romantically challenged roommates June and Cacy unknowingly sabotage themselves as they attempt to find love in Los Angeles. June is determined to finally cross the friendship line with her best guy friend as Cacy tries to get over her self-absorbed ex-boyfriend by having meaningless sex with a stranger.
Comedy
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
UTOPIA, TX
Kevin Morales
THE HANDMAIDS TALE meets ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
In the future, Texas has become its own nation and one American citizen infiltrates the neighboring country by pretending to convert and immigrate.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Available for Managers
Honorable Mention
WINTER
Andy Heriaud & Kaitlin Kelly
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW meets THE WALKING DEAD
The de-evolution of society as we enter into a modern ice age. In the year 2015, an unknown event has started severe global cooling, leading the United States to range from fertile croplands to frozen wastelands. During these times, four people struggle to hold themselves, their families and the country together, before forces of nature rip the world apart.
Drama
Agent: Available for Agents
Manager: Lee Stobby Entertainment | Lee Stobby
Top 10
