No Man’s Land is a Finalist in the 2020 Showtime Tony Cox Screenwriting Competition at the Nantucket Film Festival!

My senior thesis project, a western drama TV show entitled No Man’s Land, includes a proof of concept trailer, pilot script, and pitch bible. What you see below is the development and final products of a year of work.

 THE STORY -  In the summer of 1867, a reserved young woman named Birdie accidentally murders her abusive husband and races off into the Wild West in search of the mythical No Man’s Land, a town run and governed entirely by women.

Pitch Bible

How I made the pitch bible for No Man’s Land

The pitch bible for No Man’s Land was constructed mostly out of photo collage. As an antiques collector myself, I already had a readily available stock of 19th century tintypes, ambrotypes, cabinet cards, books, and carte de visite. I scanned each antique (examples pictured below) and used them in various ways as backgrounds or frames for my character designs to stand in. For example, the background paper texture on the cover of my pitch bible is from a scan of an early, 1910-1920’s fairytale book I own. In addition to being a great resource for photo collage, these antique items also proved valuable in helping me design historically accurate locations and character outfits.

All scans and edits of above antiques are done by me. These objects and the many more I own were found at flea markets, antique stores, basements, and on Etsy and Ebay.

Pilot Script Excerpt

Below are examples of some books I read in preparation for writing a historical fiction script. Told in diary-like style, The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans was a book I found especially influential. It not only detailed how women lived in the late 19th century, but it also taught me about their vernacular and gave insight into their thought process. In addition to this, the book American Woman’s Home written in 1869 by Catharine Beecher directly inspired the book Birdie reads in my screenplay - The Three Stages to Becoming a Proper Lady.

Proof of Concept Trailer - Animatic

Character Designs

Character exploration sketches, pen and ink.

How I designed the outfits of No Man’s Land

In addition to using the 19th century antiques I own, I did extensive research for designing the character outfits. I collected hundreds of additional reference photos from books like Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail by Lucy Johnson and What People Wore by Douglas Gorsline. I also used the online archives of The Met, the Smithsonian Institution, and local historical societies in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Background Design

Click through to learn how I use color when designing backgrounds for No Man’s Land