Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Richard Soriano. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Richard, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Taking care of special needs adults was one of the best experiences in my life. I realized how much we had in common: a twisted sense of humor and an appreciation for pop culture. They also taught me to appreciate how blessed I was when I was struggling in my personal life.

I was driving them around, and an ad came on the radio about finding your soulmate. One of them, who is a high functioning autistic individual, asked, If you can find your soulmate, why can’t you find my mother? I was heartbroken. This inspired me to write My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving. It gave me the chance to humanize them with their sense of humor.

One of my favorite times was our ritual of watching The Walking Dead on Sundays with them. They loved the zombies as much as we do. When Holly and I were married we had zombies climbing our wedding cake. Who else would you rather be with at the end of the Zombie Apocalypse?

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Success stories never reveal the germination of their relentless pursuit. What made someone toil after many failures? Well, let me tell you about mine. I remember receiving straight A’s on my childhood report card. Much to my father’s chagrin, there was a ‘B’. But Dad, it was only PE!

Even though this happened in my childhood, it haunted me for years. I internalized this to mean that I was not good enough. And it was a driving force that helped me finish our movie after working on it for 12 years. I worked two jobs and Airbnb’d my house to self fund our film. I created different sets in our house such as the back office of the laundromat. I drove around Los Angeles for over a year looking for a cemetery and laundromat.

Many of my characters and stories have the recurring theme of obligation (or as my wife, Holly Soriano, calls it, ObligASIAN). My characters tend to be insecure about not being good enough. Marcus, in our movie My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving, did whatever he could to please his family.

Wanting to be good enough to please my father, helped me pivot back into software engineering.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The last three years I’ve struggled to find a software engineering position after a number of years of absence. I was like Chris Gardner, Will Smith in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. No matter how hard I tried, the worse my situation became.

Trying to relearn software development was like going from a flip phone to a smartphone. I felt completely obsolete. I sent out resumes right before the pandemic. Then, my car was stolen before my job interview during the lockdowns. For several months, I couldn’t even get an interview. The stress was getting so bad that I had a heart attack.

Laying in the hospital bed, taught me to slow down. My mind was so preoccupied that sitting alone in church listening to the rain outside, I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts, much less God. I was reminded about the cardinals of virtue, about the importance of temperance and fortitude.

I was grateful that we finished shooting our movie, My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving right before the lockdowns and we were in post production. It was one of few things that I really looked forward to every week. This new found sense of gratitude fueled me to re-edit the movie eighteen more times and hold ten technical screenings with friends and family even after the Director’s cut. I tormented my friends with over twenty different versions of a trailer that I edited. I had never even edited a trailer before!

I was nervous at the cast and crew screening, Chris Wu’s mother ugly cried during the movie. She has a special needs son besides Chris. She felt heard and understood. My hard work had paid off. Several months later, I won best screenplay at the Entr’2’Marches film festival in Cannes, France.

For the next year, I focused on gratitude and joy for several minutes a day. I’d apply to jobs out of love instead of panic mode. After a couple of dozen software interviews, 100’s of applications and no offers, I found a job.

At our annual trip to Comicon in San Diego, I had $300 left in my bank account and no prospects next week. I stood in the darkness at Hall H by the restrooms. I just received an unofficial offer letter. In disbelief I re-read it several times. I handed my phone to Holly. She was in shock too. I grabbed her tightly. I bawled my eyes out.

Why did it take so long?! Why?

I posted the photo of Will Smith, as Chris Gardner, crying tears of joy. It was the final scene of the movie where he joined the crowd of the employed. He rejoiced in happiness. I found the job of my dreams. Senior Software Engineer.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

In Los Angeles, there are very good screenwriting teachers. I wish I had known earlier about Corey Mandell’s screenwriting classes. He teaches writing techniques in short exercises as opposed to writing a full screenplay or pilot. One of those exercises was writing conflict and emotional escalations in a scene.

My scenes never worked unless my characters pulled out guns to escalate the scenes. Week after week, I wrote a countless number of scenes but couldn’t emotionally escalate. It was easy to notice it in everyone else’s scenes, but not in my own writing.

After six months of this, I let go of trying to please my father, oops – I mean teacher, and I wrote from my heart. I expected harsh words from Corey, but instead he celebrated this. He encouraged me to dig deeper. I held myself too far in check out of fear of disapproval.

Corey’s a great teacher that teaches you to think for yourself as opposed to telling you what you did wrong. I wish I had known about his classes sooner. This would’ve saved me years and countless number of drafts.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myapocalypticthanksgiving.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myapocalypticthanks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyApocalypticThanksgiving
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-soriano/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MyApocalypticTh
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXu0wQ60PY&t=6s
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/MyApocalypticThanksgiving