AUTHOR OF A THOUSAND IDEAS

Written by freelance author Jerry Marshall

• Even before Wesley Snipes donned his sunglasses as the enigmatic “Daywalker” in BLADE, and before BUFFY and ANGEL became household names on Warner Brothers Television, Oklahoma native, writer, director, Oscar Dean Ray was quietly penning an idea for a dark universe of characters.

• In 1990 he wrote a short story called “THE TREE” and then later began expanding it into the novel “THE NOAH SCROLL”. The story about three brothers who find Noah’s Ark and a parchment in a sealed jar, a “scroll”, that identifies the location of the Garden of Eden and more importantly the “Tree of Life”. In the biblical canon of Genesis, a taste of the fruit from the “Tree of Life” would make it’s partaker immortal.

• His editor, Kathy Yarberry called the novel “a true work of genius”. “If there is such a thing as a ‘gifted writer’, Oscar is it. He is far and away the best writer I have ever read”. After self publishing the novel, Oscar wrote the screenplay adaptation of it and put it on the shelf. “At the time I wasn’t sure who I could sell my idea to. It’s a big budget story and I really didn’t have time to shop it around and I was a little busy at the time.”

• Busy would be more than an understatement. While working 80 hours as a Senior Vice President for a national money management company, in his spare time, he wrote over two hundred movie treatments, a hundred poems and songs, and another full length screenplay “NIGHT RACE” and a short story titled “DAY OF THE NIGHT GODS”. When the opportunity came he jumped at the chance to be an extra on the HBO production of the TUSKEGEE AIRMEN. “I wanted to see how movies were made and even though they paid me I would have shown up and worked for free” says Oscar. Both he and his wife, BAREBONES INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL Creator and Director, ShIron Butterfly and did double duty both as freelance writers for the Muskogee Daily Phoenix and as extras on the set.

• Afterwards, agent Rikki Maslar picked the handsome writer to join her talent agency where he became one of her most requested models and actors. “It’s amazing that she kept me around after my first acting audition. It was horrible. I had acted on stage for years, and then, in front of the camera, I not only froze but I began to giggle nervously. I really sucked that day. I was saying to myself ‘man Oscar nobody stinks that bad’ “. Rikki was patient though and she kept getting me work and I got used to the camera”.

• Eleven years later, the admitted ‘giggler’, has authored three manuals on acting for the camera and has trained more than a thousand students to act in front of it. He is also one of the most sought after screenwriters, film directors and independent movie consultants in the southwest. The Chief Instructor for Darkwood Film Art Institute, Oklahoma’s only institution dedicated completely to the instruction of individuals in motion picture production, he along with his wife also produce the state’s two largest film festivals, BAREBONES INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL and BAREBONES SCRIPT TO SCREEN FILM FESTIVAL.

• Even with his busy schedule he manages to write on a daily basis. Penning three feature screenplays a year and directing or producing at least two training films. His students dubbed him “the author of a thousand ideas”. The latest of these screenplays is the ‘much ballyhooed’ SACRED BLOODS, A VAMPIRE SAGA, scheduled to be produced this spring in conjunction with independent movie production companies, Angry Baby Monkey Pictures, Warrior Entertainment and PZ Productions.

• Called “the best and most original vampire story ever written” Ray released the first ninety eight pages of the story onto the worldwide web www.sacredbloods.com for vampire story lovers worldwide to read, criticize, debate, praise and condemn. Leaving the public to wonder about the last seventeen pages of the movie.

• A ploy that seems to be working as the screenplay is on it’s way to becoming one of the most downloaded stories in ‘web’ history, which might make it the most successfully marketed movie idea since THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and HARRY POTTER. The second most popular genre of movies in motion picture history, vampire stories have a huge fan base. That fan base is quivering with excitement to see how the SACRED BLOODS movie ends on the screen even before the first scene has been shot.

• The ‘author of a thousand ideas’ may find that his best idea was in marketing one his stories not just in writing it. Already there has been interest shown by several producers in THE NOAH SCROLL and he has already outlined the story for the sequel to SACRED BLOODS.