Bill Braunstein had recently moved to Los Angeles when, in 1985, a surprise methane gas explosion blew the roof off a Ross Dress for Less near his Fairfax district apartment. “The sound of the explosion jolted me and my brother, who was visiting from Florida, and was heard for miles,” Braunstein recalls. “It was quite a welcome to the city for someone who thought he only had earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires to worry about.”

So when Bill saw our script “Right of Way” open in an abandoned downtown tunnel with a methane leak, he began thinking of ways the odorless gas might later play into our fictional mayor’s plan to build a cross-town train. Then he remembered the mystery envelope the mayor had retrieved, and the pieces began to click.

“The next thought that came to mind was that it contained a map,” he says. “That could lead to some potential problems if some well-placed folks thought they knew where the subway line was going, but now the land surrounding the methane field is not as valuable as it once was...”

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Maria Paola Chironi, an Italian living in London, had been surfing the web, looking for possible screenwriting partners, when she happened upon news of our Script Project and was immediately intrigued.

She submitted some pages that showed promise for last week’s round and was mentioned here as a runner-up, so this week she tried again. “I have been in Los Angeles many times,” she writes, “but it's difficult to catch on the pages the vibes of a city you don't live in. That's the reason why I focused more on the characters and their conflicts.”

While Bill assembled the nuts and bolts of our dramatic structure, Maria Paola worked on revealing Celeste’s vulnerability and her need for the mayor’s companionship. She also helped define the demise of Celeste’s husband Larry on the orders of his old friend and business connection Sydney.

Both Bill’s and Maria Paola’s submissions had elements our story needed, so in time-honored Hollywood tradition, I crafted our newest pages, 12-14, from both of them. Their blind collaboration serves as a turning point in the script, setting up new possibilities that I’ll discuss here tomorrow.

But for now, Bill, meet Maria Paola. Maria Paola, you may have found the writing partner you were looking for.