PolitiChick Producer Courtenay Turner Bringing Book to Big Screen

Screen Shot 2014-03-23 at 10.04.09 AMWhen my good friend and respected colleague, Jeff Helton approached me about producing a movie that he was in the process of adapting from an award winning book into a screenplay I was both honored and intrigued. His subsequent request to immediately fly to Texas to begin location scouting, meet with the author, and the real live characters that inspired the book, left me somewhat ambivalent. As a producer with several films in development I’m exceedingly aware of the difficulties in raising funds for even the most novel scripts and thus I was hesitant to prematurely invest in any way. Now having met Alex the author, and Sue (a truly impressive lady who has inspired one of the main characters) I am immensely grateful for the valuable eye opening experience and impassioned to tell their story.

Meeting Alex was a joy and a gift. She is a truly inspirational woman who has held many titles including U.S National Champion on the 1994 women’s bobsled team! It was her role as a mother that provided the strongest impetus for writing the witty, poignant and riveting, award-winning novel “Damaged Goods”. Her son was amongst many children in the school who were battling serious health issues that she has come to believe are a result of the practices of nearby cement plants. Alex told me stories relaying the value of an inhaler in her son’s school. While a necessity for some, one wouldn’t typically imagine an inhaler to be a “hot” commodity. However in her son’s school it was! She said she could leave her cell phone and wallet unattended and has on several occasions, but if she left an inhaler on the counter and went to the ladies room it was sure vanish before she returned.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Sue Pope. Beyond influencing the plot and character in Allred’s book, the live Sue is incredibly dynamic. She is an elegant, classy, yet tough and bold lady who has had her own health struggles and lost much of her family due to health issues she believed to be complicated by the compromised air quality. The adventures and tribulations of these passionate, feisty women motivated the tale of citizens taking on big business tied to big government.

Narratives focused on weighty subjects run the risk of being tendentious, overly melodramatic, and dry, but Allred has avoided this trap with characters that are multidimensional, and an engaging plot that hooks you. Damaged Goods is novel that is full of compassion, heart, humor and entertainment, and therefore has the potential to resonate for a large audience.

I can’t wait to bring her vision to the big screen!

Courtenay Turner

California PolitiChick Courtenay Turner is a Los Angeles based actress and producer and passionate patriot. She grew up in the suburbs of NYC with a passion for arts, theater and a voracious curiosity about the human psyche! After receiving her BA in philosophy from Hamilton College she headed to NYC to enroll in the Stella Adler conservatory for acting. During her time in NYC she was a founder of small theater company which enabled her the opportunity to fulfill her love for the art and craft of acting while also being a foray into the world of production. She found herself often being asked or somehow "ending up" on the production side of many Indy film projects when she was truly impassioned! Her journey in Los Angeles has led her to many wonderful projects, where she has been able to explore many facets of the entertainment industry and is now in development to embark on preproduction for a dream film project that serendipitously found her. Courtenay recently co-founded Quixotic Memes Productions LLC with a mission of returning "feel-good" entertainment to the heartland of America! She wants to foster hope and inspire people to recapture their dreams by bringing empowering and poignant stories to the screen. In the traditional American spirit she aspires to instill her audiences with the notions of heroism, success, and family values upon which this country was founded. Courtenay is incredibly honored and excited to be a part of the Nationwide Politichicks! Find Courenay Turner at: www.CourtenayTurner.com, www.QuixoticMemesProductions.com and her politically oriented blog where she will be co-writing under the name Belle Liberte, www.CccChronicles.com.

Related Articles

Back to top button
Close
Close

Please disable ad blocker.

We work hard to write our articles and provide you with the content you enjoy. The ads on the site allow us to continue our work while feeding our families. If you'd please whitelist our site in your ad blocker or remove your ad blocker altogether, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you!