As a filmmaker, I’m always on the look out for interesting stories or facts or themes that could possibly be fashioned into a fictional story that I would enjoy telling… and that article is one… a good one.

The article is a great example of the types of things that I look for and save for potential material down the road. The article specifically mentions the story of a woman searching for an apartment who was duped by another woman in New York acting as an apartment’s lease holder. The supposed lease holder met and took first and last month’s deposits from about 20 people and then high tailed it out of the county to Germany with about $60,000 of other people’s money. Now what makes this story interesting is that 1. It isn’t the only time that New York City apartment searchers have been duped by such a scam and 2. The woman who is recounting her story for the Village Voice ended up meeting a number of different people who were duped just like she was… and that’s the interesting part.

When I read this story, I thought how great an opening that would be if two, four or more people all met at the police station as they are all filing reports about this fraudulent supposed lease holder that took advantage of all of them (not to mention their money). That’s a great HOOK for the first act of a screenplay! The options are endless and that hook gives outsiders looking in a real feel for how cut throat the real estate market really is on this island we call Manhattan.

So with that, I offer you this gift… this hook if you will. Take that opening, fashion it to your story and run with it… no payment necessary, just a special thanks in the end credits when they roll. EB