![]() ![]() That was part of the early conversation as he talked to Hallmark. One of his priorities was to keep his distinctive voice in the script. “For the most part when I was there, it was me sitting and marveling at the fact that it was happening.” He also filmed a cameo part as a tourist. “I was there to help problem-solve in the moment,” he says. During the time he was not on set, he would receive random text messages and phone calls. On the set, an average day was sitting by the director watching a scene being filmed and making last-minute adjustments when needed. ![]() Payne was present in Park City, Utah, for three days. It was a collaborative process, and the script they wound up filming looked like something I wrote.”įilming started in early June and was done in three weeks. Once we had approved the outline, everyone took a step back and let me write the movie. “They gave me a tremendous amount of freedom in the first draft. “I am not saying I won’t eventually myself, but for now I can say that my first experience was wonderful,” he says. Payne has heard horror stories from friends about television producers and network interference, but his experience was positive. He took some time away from his regular job and wrote all day, did theater at night and then came home and picked up where he left off, going “slowly insane” from the process. There are too many stories to be told.”īut the two months he was given to construct the Hallmark script pushed his writing process. “I don’t want to spend two to three years developing a single script. “When I am writing for theater, I prioritize ‘Let’s make it happen quickly,’” he says. Payne is used to writing at a fast pace, which is evident in the sheer number of plays he has written over the past few years. Even planning for commercial breaks was also something he had to adapt to. Luckily, his team was happy to help him learn the process. Hence, the mistakes he made on the learning curve were mistakes on actual drafts he had to turn in to producers. His plan was to write samples that people would never see. Part of Payne’s vision coming home from Los Angeles was to spend the summer teaching himself how to write scripts for movies and television. ![]() I thought I could contribute a new voice to the stories they do, and they agreed that it was an interesting possibility and wanted to give me a shot.” My Summer Prince features actress Lauren Holly. “I’ve had years of training on writing stories that speak to this particular audience. “I feel there is a lot of crossover between people who like shows at Georgia Ensemble Theatre and those that like Hallmark movies,” Payne says. Two weeks later, though, Hallmark Channel was in touch.Īdmittedly, he was intrigued by the possibility of writing for Hallmark because the commissioned works were for a target audience similar to the ones he had at Georgia Ensemble Theatre and Springer Opera House in Columbus. “It was with the expectation that I would be available to pitch things or take writing assignments in the fall,” he says, since his spring calendar was full. After signing with a manager in Los Angeles at the beginning of the year, he went there in March to meet with a lot of networks - 12 in all. The writing gig came about quicker than Payne envisioned. Her assistant goes in for her - and the assistant and the prince find they get along better than they thought they would. ![]() She comes in to diffuse the situation, but unexpectedly is taken by her own crisis. Over his long career, Topher Payne has penned plays that have appeared all over Atlanta, and one in New York last year, but this weekend he sees his name on a different kind of project - a Hallmark Channel TV movie.Īiring August 6 at 9 p.m., My Summer Prince is the story of a public relations crisis manager (Lauren Holly) pulled in after a bad boy European prince is arrested in Idaho for defacing a landmark. ![]()
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