Weighty Pilot Potential - Collette Legault's Heavy

Collette Legault is a talented, L.A.-based writer, and the scribe behind the"one-hour drama with laughs" TV pilot - "Heavy". Heavy took the top spot in Filmmatic's Inroads Season 9 competition, and Collette has been kind enough to provide backstory for her amazing project, and insight into her craft.

1)  How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing for nearly 20 years. I was inspired after the births of my two children and started writing articles, then a novel. Once I tried my hand at screenwriting, a light went off in my head and I’d fallen madly in love with the craft.

2)  What screenwriting, training have you received?

I’ve read a lot of books, but the best training is done on the job. I’ve learned a lot from my writing group that is led by Max Timm. He’s a knowledgeable, patient and approachable teacher. His writing retreats are gold and his method of teaching resonates with me. I’ve also received great feedback and notes from the ISA. Craig James and his crew are wonderful and are great resources.

3)  What writing habits work for of you?  Do you write in short or long shifts, at specific times?

Because of my job, I tend to write nights and weekends. Some days prove to be more challenging than others but 2-3 hour stints work for me. When I’m rewriting and in the zone, I can go all day.

4)  What is your current day job, and how does it influence your project choices & writing?

I’m a TV production manager and coordinator and I love it. I started off on shows like Fear Factor and The Amazing Race, which gave me a front-row seat as to how people behave under pressure. But, most of my stories come from my upbringing. My family of six was house poor, and if I didn't want to spend my life looking like an orphan out of Oliver Twist, I started working at twelve. While most kids worried about homework, I was cleaning houses, slinging fast food, running parts for a mechanic, waiting tables, delivering pizzas and newspapers, catering weddings, and eventually worked as a paralegal and executive assistant. I didn't know it then, but I was building a library of strange experiences and hilarious characters that only became larger and richer with time. I believe there's a gratifying lyricism in the rough inelegance of life that I like to call poetic grit.

5)  Our judges loved your 1 hour TV Pilot "Heavy", how would you describe the project to our readers?

When I was in college, I met Eric Caparulo who described his childhood as, "Fat Albert meets half of the Brady Bunch. Only the Bunch is on welfare, lives in a Puerto Rican neighborhood and Mrs. Brady is high most of the time." When I asked how he made it to college he said, "All because of one man, Heavy." He told side splitting tales of his upbringing with a five-hundred-pound black man and racist, heroin addicted mother. I was intrigued from the get-go.

6)   How did you form the dramatic, sometimes comical, concept behind "Heavy"?

“Heavy” is inspired by a true story. Some of the funniest people alive have had incredibly tragic lives, and Eric loves his like a comical side note. I write stories that use humor as a coping mechanism for tragedy. Eric's story became the seed for my script “Heavy”, and it set the tone for everything I've written since. I want to show the raw underbelly of life, the hope behind the humor to survive it, and how they come out still standing and laughing on the other side.

7)  What are you working on now?  What do you plan on writing in the near future?

I’m polishing the feature version of “Heavy” as well as a pilot called “Good Mourning”. It’s about a woman who is broke, bitter and down on her luck, becomes a professional mourner and learns that pretending to mourn the dead might be the thing that brings her back to life.

8)  Where would you like to be writing-wise, and industry career-wise in 3 years?

In three years, I want to be in a writer’s room. I’d love for my

name to be attached to work people actually see and have a career doing what I love. 

9)  Any advice for those about to craft their first TV Pilot?

Write the stories that fire your inspiration and never stop trying to make them better. I write because I’ve lived many lives and every one of them left me with a story worth telling. And I'm still partially sane, which, for a parent of two daughters and a writer of dark comedy, feels about right.

Congratulations once again to screenwriter Collette Legault, our Season 9 Inroads Fellowship Winner. All contact and script requests for Ms. Legault will be forwarded to her attention.