Gina Lalonde
Cover Letter for Salvation
Gina B. Lalonde
I am the type of writer that gets hit by stories head-on. Stories fly at me from all directions mercilessly and they get stuck in my heart like arrows. Raised in the downtown area of Seattle Washington, I tried to battle all the drama and chaos of growing up with a bipolar dad who exaggerates, and an anxious mom who worries—a couple who wouldn’t get divorced because it was “too expensive,” and besides, “your father would kill himself.” I guess that’s the kind of love story I grew up with. However tumultuous my family life was, my future looked bright until my family’s Italian coffee shop went out of business and we went bankrupt. By this time I was rearing to leave home at the ripe age of seventeen. And I did. I left for New York City to follow my dreams with a scholarship to film school. I had no money, just a heart full of stories. My plan was to write a comedic memoir called My Two Dead Uncles, both of whom had recently died in unfortunate ways. But first, I needed a place to live.
I was enrolled as an honor student in one of the top film schools in the country, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and I was homeless. This is how the intricate world of the Salvation Army entered my life. With nowhere to turn, and sick of carrying my stuff in garbage bags, I moved one last time via taxi cab into a building that would change my life forever. The Markle, an evangelical residence for poor women, was operated and owned by the Salvation Army Church. I was placed in a quad room with two sets of bunk-beds and three other roommates ranging in age from fifteen to eighty-nine. This is the place where I met the characters of my screenplay. I met the Major, who had a stern exterior and a kind heart. I met the Major’s boss, the Colonel, a tough man who constantly bragged about how much he’d overcome. Gradually I became close to the other women there, who were spinsters and runaways, victims and loners of all ages. I remember my first night in the dining hall I saw several women shoveling day-old donated desserts into their purses, licking their lips and fighting over crumbs. It was clear to me that this was a place of almost comedic desperation. Over my two and a half years spent at the “Salv”, as we called it, the eighty-nine year old died, and I was there beside her in the hospital when she did. The fifteen year old went back to Nebraska and I helped her apply for her high school diploma. And I moved on, physically. Yet the longer I spent away from the Salv, the more I found I was unable to move on emotionally. I knew there was a story stuck in my heart about all my memories there. Having graduated from film school, I grew to think visually. It just made sense for me to write a screenplay about this place. The topic, however, was still shaky.
I had been living there two years before the evictions started to take place. Left and right, women were asked to leave. There was word the building was to be sold and the tenants displaced. Real estate developers toured the building and men pounded on doors with video cameras, taping the fact that we had officially received our eviction notice. This threat, however dismal, seemed to bring the women together. They finally could share in each other’s anger, instead of bickering over whose problems were worse. The women organized themselves. They petitioned, the called lawyers, The New York Times did a story about the women trying to repeal the foreclosure (please see the attached document). This is when I knew I had my topic. Only I thought it would be fantastic if the Major himself found a way to save The Markle, if he himself had a stake in it all. And this is how Major Marlowe Griffin became my protagonist.
I am submitting this script to the Massify Lionsgate competition because I want to take this screenplay to the next level. I had trouble finishing the script, so I took it to a workshop at a Seattle community college. In collaboration with the screenwriting instructor there named Matt Terry, I was able to write a full first draft, and then a second draft. Matt was one of the only people who believed in my story and told me to keep writing, even when I was broke, couch surfing and working at a grocery store. This is a story that I need to tell, and this is a story that needs to be heard. I want to realize the beauty of these people I met, and have their portraits painted on screen. This is a compelling and real story that is very dear to my heart. I believe, and have been told by a diverse range of readers, that others find it to be not only interesting and told with a darkly humorous voice, but also meaningful. My ultimate vision for Salvation, would be that it is able to come to life on screen, each woman’s voice, each decision the Major makes, be remembered and portrayed by a director and actors that can capture the humor and humanity of a world of women coming together, led by a young man just learning to believe in himself.
Gina B. Lalonde
I am the type of writer that gets hit by stories head-on. Stories fly at me from all directions mercilessly and they get stuck in my heart like arrows. Raised in the downtown area of Seattle Washington, I tried to battle all the drama and chaos of growing up with a bipolar dad who exaggerates, and an anxious mom who worries—a couple who wouldn’t get divorced because it was “too expensive,” and besides, “your father would kill himself.” I guess that’s the kind of love story I grew up with. However tumultuous my family life was, my future looked bright until my family’s Italian coffee shop went out of business and we went bankrupt. By this time I was rearing to leave home at the ripe age of seventeen. And I did. I left for New York City to follow my dreams with a scholarship to film school. I had no money, just a heart full of stories. My plan was to write a comedic memoir called My Two Dead Uncles, both of whom had recently died in unfortunate ways. But first, I needed a place to live.
I was enrolled as an honor student in one of the top film schools in the country, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and I was homeless. This is how the intricate world of the Salvation Army entered my life. With nowhere to turn, and sick of carrying my stuff in garbage bags, I moved one last time via taxi cab into a building that would change my life forever. The Markle, an evangelical residence for poor women, was operated and owned by the Salvation Army Church. I was placed in a quad room with two sets of bunk-beds and three other roommates ranging in age from fifteen to eighty-nine. This is the place where I met the characters of my screenplay. I met the Major, who had a stern exterior and a kind heart. I met the Major’s boss, the Colonel, a tough man who constantly bragged about how much he’d overcome. Gradually I became close to the other women there, who were spinsters and runaways, victims and loners of all ages. I remember my first night in the dining hall I saw several women shoveling day-old donated desserts into their purses, licking their lips and fighting over crumbs. It was clear to me that this was a place of almost comedic desperation. Over my two and a half years spent at the “Salv”, as we called it, the eighty-nine year old died, and I was there beside her in the hospital when she did. The fifteen year old went back to Nebraska and I helped her apply for her high school diploma. And I moved on, physically. Yet the longer I spent away from the Salv, the more I found I was unable to move on emotionally. I knew there was a story stuck in my heart about all my memories there. Having graduated from film school, I grew to think visually. It just made sense for me to write a screenplay about this place. The topic, however, was still shaky.
I had been living there two years before the evictions started to take place. Left and right, women were asked to leave. There was word the building was to be sold and the tenants displaced. Real estate developers toured the building and men pounded on doors with video cameras, taping the fact that we had officially received our eviction notice. This threat, however dismal, seemed to bring the women together. They finally could share in each other’s anger, instead of bickering over whose problems were worse. The women organized themselves. They petitioned, the called lawyers, The New York Times did a story about the women trying to repeal the foreclosure (please see the attached document). This is when I knew I had my topic. Only I thought it would be fantastic if the Major himself found a way to save The Markle, if he himself had a stake in it all. And this is how Major Marlowe Griffin became my protagonist.
I am submitting this script to the Massify Lionsgate competition because I want to take this screenplay to the next level. I had trouble finishing the script, so I took it to a workshop at a Seattle community college. In collaboration with the screenwriting instructor there named Matt Terry, I was able to write a full first draft, and then a second draft. Matt was one of the only people who believed in my story and told me to keep writing, even when I was broke, couch surfing and working at a grocery store. This is a story that I need to tell, and this is a story that needs to be heard. I want to realize the beauty of these people I met, and have their portraits painted on screen. This is a compelling and real story that is very dear to my heart. I believe, and have been told by a diverse range of readers, that others find it to be not only interesting and told with a darkly humorous voice, but also meaningful. My ultimate vision for Salvation, would be that it is able to come to life on screen, each woman’s voice, each decision the Major makes, be remembered and portrayed by a director and actors that can capture the humor and humanity of a world of women coming together, led by a young man just learning to believe in himself.