Hollywood pays a call to two Q-C 'directors'

By Rachelle Treiber / QUAD-CITY TIMES / April 30, 2004

Using action figures and their parents’ basements, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods of Bettendorf began making films in grade school.

In high school, they were still in the basements, shooting low-budget films and paying friends with pizza in return for being their actors.

Now both college freshmen, the Bettendorf High School grads have stepped it up a notch, and they’re seeing years of hard work recognized — by Hollywood.

“We got a call earlier this week and they said we placed in the Project Greenlight Top 50 Directors Competition,” Beck said.

“At this point, we represent three percent of the total competitors,” Beck said. “The top 50 was narrowed down from the top 250, which were chosen out of over 1,700 submissions.”

For the first round of the contest, Beck and Woods wrote, directed and shot a three-minute scene titled “Amber.” Then they created a three-minute biography video, which placed in the Top 50.

The winner gets a three-picture deal with the Miramax film studio, and the making of the first film is followed by Bravo broadcasting it to a potential audience of 75 million homes.

Beck and Woods are not the only Bettendorf High School graduates to gain Project Greenlight distinction. Joe Otting, a member of the BHS class of 1992, made it all the way to the top four in last year’s competition.

Otting’s film used a split-screen method, which had two aspects of his personality arguing at a conference table. Although he did not win, his work so impressed Damon that the actor offered him a chance to direct a film.

As for Beck, he said “Amber” was a piece that took a lot of thinking and “a lot of hard work.”

“It’s about a man who wakes up from a nightmare and he looks in the mirror and starts hearing voices,” he said. The man ends up struggling with a multiple-personality disorder.

Local actors Travis Shepherd from Bettendorf and Justin Marxen from Davenport were in the film’s cast.

“We didn’t even have to give them food this time,” Beck said with a laugh.

To date, he and Woods have written, directed and produced 11 short films and two feature-length films. Their three most recent productions, “Yearbook,” “Prism” and “Remembering November,” have won five awards at national film festivals as well as the Iowa Motion Picture Association.

Although Beck now attends the University of Iowa and Woods is going to Scott Community College, the two expect to spend one more year at their current schools before heading to Los Angeles to attend the UCLA film school together.

The duo, who have been friends since sixth grade, said they are thrilled to have gotten this far.

“It’s incredible. We definitely didn’t expect to this,” Beck said. “There are some much more experienced filmmakers in there.”

For now, they are juggling post-production on another film, getting ready for their college final exams and waiting for a May 12 telephone call listing Project Greenlight’s top 10.

“We had to fill out an 18-page background check, and then our scene submission ‘Amber,’ as well as our three-minute director’s biography video, will be reviewed again,” Woods said.

If they make it to the contest finals, they will be heading to Los Angeles for an interview with Damon and Affleck.

Beck and Woods said they shared their excitement with their parents, in whose basements they have spent so much time.

“My parents are excited. They were right there jumping up and down when they found out,” Beck said. “They have invested their own money on my equipment, at least a couple grand, and I’m so grateful to them for their support.”

One day, he hopes to repay them.

“My dad keeps saying he wants a Malibu beach house,” Beck said.