Isadora deese

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Administrative Assistant to Drew Endy, the Endy lab, and the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.

And fledgling comic book writer, thanks to Drew: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Adventures

Where Am I?

Since my hours change frequently, and oddly, here's a little help for those who wonder where I am, or should be...

From Sept 5 - Dec 31

• Mondays 9:45-1:45
• Tuesdays 8:30-2:30
• Wednesdays 9:45-1:45
• Thursdays 9:45-4:15 (half-hour lunch 1:30-2:00)
• Fridays 8:30-1:30

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Endy Lab., MIT 68-580
77 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel. 617.253.5494
Fax 617.253.5865
Email: isadora@mit.edu

Anyone Want To Make A Movie?

Come on. It would be fun.

Sci Fi Family

THE SAMPLES

A troubled family stumbles into a hidden spacecraft and finds themselves the prize collection of an alien species. Only what makes them valuable isn’t their human qualities; it’s the microbes they carry with them.

After devoting most of his life trying to save the Brazilian rainforest, Adam Sample returns home to a family that barely knows him. His wife Lily is a successful dentist who masks her loneliness by overburdening herself at work and home. Vera, 16, perpetually embattled, and Simon, 11 going on 8, each reject their father’s idea that their typical suburban family has become “part of the problem.” It’s just possible, though, that in his travails to save the rainforest from human encroachment, he has grown to hate all humanity.

Little do any of them know that buried in the woods behind their house is an alien spaceship that has been collecting unsuspecting species of animals for millions of years, and it’s almost at capacity.

The night Adam finds Vera’s troubled boyfriend, Chris, secretly in her room, everything falls apart in the Sample home. After an all-out “whose fault is it” battle, Adam chases Chris into the woods, with Lily and Vera close behind. All four spring the surface traps of the spaceship and are instantly encapsulated into its collection, frozen in stasis for the long journey to wherever. Only Simon escapes this fate, as his capsule was cracked and malfunctions.

Raised on video games and Ho Hos, Simon is ill prepared for his months-long solitary survival test. He keeps busy by steering clear of the single-minded robots that tend the collection and the small but very hungry, Jurassic-period theropod that prematurely defrosted.

Their destination is the Archive, an impossibly immense station long abandoned by its creators, and kept running by the army of handy robots left behind. But Simon is greeted by a terrible breed of creatures—“a species worse than humans”—pirates most un-humanlike who raid the store of microorganisms at the Archive to generate biological weapons. They take a sample from this smallest Sample, and like what they find. The four others are brought out of stasis, along with a whole row of critters, among them a wolverine, an ancient form of crocodile, and a family of crazed raccoons.

The Samples must find a way to work together to outsmart the pirates and survive the veritable jungle of famished wildlife let loose on the space station. The only solution is to get home, but now even Earth is in danger of being “harvested.” Adam Sample finds himself in the position of saving a planet he thought was already doomed, and in the process rediscovering the love for his own family.

Writer's Aside: Based on a novella I wrote when a Sophomore high school student in Macon, GA. Gave it to my English teacher to read. She read it to the point where they go into space, marked the page, and told me it was blasphemous to write about man penetrating the heavens. It felt good to return to this idea, and to do it right. Placed in the quarterfinals of the Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition, 2006.

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Comedies, Twisted

FAUX YOU

LOGLINE: A simple love story between a brother and a sister. Okay, so it's not that simple.

Cooper and Smith have lost their parents in a mysterious explosion. But things are not as they seem. For one, their parents aren't really dead. And two, their parents weren't actually their parents. They were ruthless con artists who kidnapped Cooper and Smith as babies to use them as props, part of their perfect cover. They felt like retiring, so they faked their deaths and disappeared.

All this is revealed in rapid-fire succession, shortly after the "funeral." Cooper's a homicide detective with Boston P.D., hasn't been home in years. Smith's a troubled girl with a unique style of mourning. Now they're thrown together, no longer brother and sister, but with a bizarre shared family history. They can't face this alone.

They agree to meet their real families together. Smith's parents joined a survivalist camp after she was snatched, and think her reappearance is part of an ATF plot to infiltrate their group. Cooper and Smith barely get out of there. Cooper's reunion goes a little better. He fits right in... to his mother's gubernatorial campaign. Lots of free press. Does leave him feel a bit used, though.

After the catastrophic reunions, Cooper and Smith decide to track down their fake parents and get revenge, any way they can.

It's a wild ride, as Cooper and Smith's relationship transforms from one kind of love into quite another, with several bumps along the way.

Writer's Aside: No. I don't want to do my brother. I came up with this idea, and thought "wow, that would be a challenge to pull off." I think it's one of my best scripts.

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TEEN SPIRIT

School rivalry takes on a new meaning when a power-hungry principal and former pharmaceutical CEO turns his high school into a steroid-pumped, geek-bashing totalitarian state. Principal Kray doesn’t just use his corporate know-how to beef up his athletic squads; he turns speech and debate into a theater of cruelty, and his chess club gets lessons in kickboxing for a “real world” match of the minds. What’s he get out of it? Good PR for “giving something back to the community,” and his own private lab, full of unknowing subjects to test his cocktail for success.

A rival school, home to our heroine Janie, forfeits game after game to Kray’s army of achievers until even the loners and the druggies become demoralized. An unlikely underground resistance begins, led by Janie (a disaffected varsity cheerleader), her budding journalist boyfriend, and a gang of misfits who are strangers to that pep rally phenomenon known as school spirit. Faced now with a true evil empire, they are forced to team up to try to win against all odds.

Teen Spirit is an ensemble teen movie that runs the line between the absurd and the familiar. It has the excitement of an underdog sports movie with an enemy we love to hate. It surprises with twists on stereotypes that bring a sense of reality to the characters who are thrown into a very unreal situation.

Imagine WWII with a backdrop of high school drama, complete with betrayal and cruelty, courage and salvation—on the comic wavelength somewhere between Election and Zoolander.

Writer's Aside: I eventually want to write every kind of movie there is, so I had to surf the teen movie wave. Actually had a lot of fun with this, and I think that translates.

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DEVELOPING GEORGE

LOGLINE: In a city built on the real estate swindle of the century, an ambitious young developer is learning what it takes to become a legend. God help us.

George's father left him everything when he died -- everything, that is, but his name. That, he must make for himself. The problem is, George doesn't have the slightest idea how. He's a blank slate, a trust fund nobody.

Enter a cast of characters who begin to mold the impressionable George: Timmy Starbuck, the 1/8th Indian who needs a new casino for his tribe; Eddie Pitt, a depressed construction worker who is ashamed of the stucco "boxes" he builds; Lester Freeman, a millionaire rancher who wants to develop his Ventura County acres into an exurbian paradise; and Daphne Cross, an environmental consultant whose irresistible beauty and passion for blocking developments draws George into his first emotional conundrum.

George has many encounters that shape him into an actual human being: nearly murdered by a Hell's Angel, recently-elected Ventura Citycouncil member angered over the choice to develop land where he's hidden some incriminating evidence; meets some actual California wildlife while falling in love with the enemy (Daphne, not the Hell's Angel); and survives a landslide created by his crop-and-top development plan in an already unstable canyon.

Writer's Aside: I love the Coen brothers and Carl Hiaasen, and this script shows it. I wrote this after working a year (can't believe I made it that long) for one of the top real estate development companies in L.A. Writing this script helped, but I still feel unclean. It sucks to need a paycheck that much.

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Comedies, High Concept

NO SUCH LUCK

Most people would admit that they believe in some form of luck, and that we all have good and bad luck in our lives. But what if the rules of chance changed, and you were left with all good luck, or all bad? Would having good luck all the time be as great as you’d think? And how long could you actually survive if you had only bad luck at every turn?

Amelia Wright is the kind of person who pushes her luck to the absolute limit. Nick Taylor lives in fear that his will run out. They both have another thing coming.

In the same vein as Big, Groundhog Day and Liar Liar, No Such Luck brings two people together through an improbable twist of fate.

Writer's Aside: sound familiar? yeah, I thought so, too--oh well. at least mine was funny and not a piece of tween trash.

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HARRY'S WORLD

Harry lives for the movies, and in his private moments is a real Walter Mitty. But when a late night telemarketing call turns out to be a private conversation with God, Harry turns his desire into reality: His life is like a movie.

Of course, “be careful what you wish for” doesn’t quite cover it here. His best friend Tyrone complains of his new habit of disappearing whenever he’s not with Harry and his girl friend finds out she’s cute, but just not “leading star” material. And Harry can’t go two seconds without finding himself in the midst of a car chase, a hold-up, a swarm of killer bees, a supernatural experience… He finds it’s not so fun being the center of the universe, after all.

He’s only got twenty-four hours to turn things back to normal (after all, this is a movie), and the hijinxs that are thrown his way become increasingly dramatic and ridiculous. At one point, even Harry says “I’m finding it hard to suspend my disbelief here.” He can’t give up, though, because all existence depends on the continuation of his storyline; if he becomes a tragic hero, everything will fade to black forever.

Writer's Aside: Jack Black. 'nuff said.

L.A. Cop

RAMPART

LOGLINE: All he ever wanted to be was a cop. He's forgotten why.

Set in Koreatown, L.A., RAMPART follows Ben Schoop on patrol for the Rampart Division of the LAPD. He's got a new partner, Yang-Kyung Park, who has visions of being a hero to his community, which was decimated during the L.A. riots. And he's got a new love, Mira Powers, an undercover juvenile narc working the Valley. Straight out of the Academy, she's unsure of herself and of Schoop, who's bouncing back from a nasty divorce and dealing with frustrations of the daily routine. They're a danger to each other, and at times to the civilians they're supposed to protect, but with life so precarious, they'll cling to even a small amount of happiness.

A capricious disciplinary system has all of them on the defensive, and old-timer "Rodney King-had-it-coming" cops have them wondering if calling for backup is really a good idea. The LAPD is caught between two eras, and Ben Schoop struggles to survive the transition.

RAMPART is a funny, real-to-life story of Koreatown patrol officers and the unique community they serve.

Writer's Aside: Based on my experience working for the LAPD's union (located in the Rampart Division) during the breaking of the Rampart scandal. What scandal, or which one? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/ Wanted to write a cop movie about three good cops amid a sea of questionable ones: one who gets fired, one who quits, and one who stays on the job. Schoop's one of my all-time favorite characters. Anybody know Tom Everett Scott? His role on Saved made me think of Schoop a little (Schoop's definitely darker). Can't think of anyone who'd bring Schoop to life better.

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Historical Dramas

FREETOWN

In a nation founded on the principles of freedom, the institution of slavery grew like a cancer. There were many battles fought for freedom. This was the first.

Long before the Underground Railroad, slaves living in the Deep South ran not north, but further south, into the Spanish Territory of Florida. There they established free towns and co-existed peacefully with the Seminoles. These former slaves lived a life of unprecedented freedom; they bartered with both British and American trading companies, farmed small plots of land, and even raised cattle. Rumors of these free black towns spread throughout the South, and more and more slaves chose to brave the dangers of the Okefenokee Swamp in Southern Georgia, as well as the possibility of recapture and punishment, in order to reach these colonies.

The conflict between Southern slave hunters and the free black men and women they hunted was intensified by the unexpected intervention of the Seminoles, who worried the American campaign against their black neighbors might be a foreshadowing of their own removal. The guerilla warfare ultimately culminated in a spectacular American naval assault on the Fort at Prospect Bluff, an English stronghold bequeathed to free blacks and Seminoles after the War of 1812.

The lead is a black man, Abraham Elasey, who trades goods with the British on the sly, a man modeled on Rick in Casablanca. Elasey’s in it all for himself, has plans to escape to Haiti, even if he has to cheat the Oconee and Hitchiti peoples that he lives among with every trade he makes. He’s living a life on the edge, surrounded by friends who could easily become enemies, and sensing but not fully realizing the imminent danger posed by the Americans, who were pressing further into Florida each day. When a young woman catches his eye, and quickly his heart, it’s not just about him anymore, and his eyes are opened to the peril they are all in. He has a choice: to fight or run.

Freetown is not a history lesson. It is a spirited adventure in the vein of EMPIRE OF THE SUN and GLORY, with the harrowing action of BRAVEHEART and the emotional intensity of CASABLANCA.

Writer's Aside: My life would be complete if somebody had the guts to make this movie. I keep hearing: "people don't want to see a movie about slaves; it's too depressing." My first response to that is best heard out loud. My second: This movie is not about slaves. These people were free, and fought for their freedom against insurmountable odds. Learned of this history while a student at IU, been haunted by it ever since. Thank you, Professor Edmunds.

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TOBACCO FLOWER

LOGLINE: It takes courage to follow a dream. It takes more to save a family.

It’s 1935 in Kentucky. The tobacco fields are in bloom. The coal miners are on strike. And the whiskey is flowing over. Gracey will make a deal with the devil to run away from it all.

Gracey is an unsentimental girl. She does not dream of finding her mother, who abandoned them years ago. She does not dream of marrying rich. She does not even dream that one day her father will give up whiskey and his mean ways.

Gracey is a practical girl. So when a mysterious stranger shows up in town, she makes a partner of him. She’ll use him to gain her freedom. She does not know that he brings with him the key to her past.

Gracey is a dangerous girl. She doesn’t care about right or wrong any more. She’ll bust the coal miner’s strike by working a strip mine and make two times what’s normal. The stranger will be her protection, a hired killer of sorts.

A plan of escape leads her down a path of corruption and greed, of death and redemption.

Writer's Aside: Based in part on family stories about being raised dirt poor in Kentucky. Evidently it really sucked.

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Techno Thriller

COUNTERFEIT SKY

A new breed of terrorist has discovered a way to infiltrate the U.S. Air Traffic Control System, and now the very sky above us is held hostage. David Connor and Meg Leeman, NTSB Investigators and estranged lovers, must work together to uncover the identity of the ghost in the machine before disaster strikes again.

Counterfeit Sky is an action-packed thriller with a real emotional resonance, similar in style to Fugitive and The Abyss.

This is not a movie about the voyage of the doomed. This is about how NTSB Investigators put the pieces of a disaster back together and the toll that process takes on their personal lives.

Writer's Aside: Some guys at NASA helped me with the tech stuff on this. Still, it's out of date now (danger of having tech as a plot point in a movie, I know). Easy to update that if I had the right motivation. This script was getting a lot of attention, and then, BAM, Mike Crichton sold movie rights for Airframe for an ungodly amount. Hm, where's that movie?

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Animated, Family

CHARLIE AND PUSHINKA

LOGLINE: How two dogs worked behind the scenes to end the Cuban Missile Crisis. That’s right: dogs.

Charlie was the Kennedy’s Welsh Terrier, and Pushinka was a pup of one the first Russian space dogs, given to Caroline Kennedy as a gift from Kruschev after the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. CHARLIE AND PUSHINKA begins before the crisis, and creates a Romeo and Juliet romance between the two animals. When the crisis begins, they go to extremes to enable a behind-the-scenes communication between the Russian Ambassador and Robert Kennedy, a key dialogue which prevents all out nuclear war.

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Yes, all scripts are copywritten by me through the Library of Congress.

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About Me

Been writing since I could write, mainly because I wanted to write my own Star Wars stories.

Got a double major in English/Theatre from Indiana University, Bloomington. Is Mad Max still ranting and raving there, I wonder?

Got my MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. Studied playwriting there with Derek Walcott and novels with Saul Bellow. Met my future husband Sam, who was in the BU Pinsky Poetry program. Check out what he's up to: http://thefossilrecord.blogspot.com/ He's smarter than even he thinks he is, which is pretty damn smart. He's a Ph.D. candidate in History at BU now.

Moved to LA, did that for a while. Published a lit mag called The Wilshire Review for a few years.

Have two little ones: Nick, almost 6, and Charlie, almost 2.

Love working for the Endy Lab and at MIT. Inspiring to be around so many people doing what they love to do, and trying to make the world a better place. Let's all hope they succeed.