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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday October 24, 2007 - 37 Artscene Oakville Beaver · WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24 It all began with a couple of star-crossed dinosaurs Screenwriter has been honing craft since she was in grade school By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Hollywood actors are reading a script she wrote. A movie she penned is coming to life on screen. It's an idea Oakville native Karen McClellan is still getting used to ­ it hasn't sunk in yet. "The movie is filming right now, and it's so exciting for me," McClellan said in a phone interview from Toronto, where she now lives. "I think that's one of the most satisfying things for anybody working in the business, to actually see your work make it to screen, and to have people make the movie that you wrote. It's kind of surreal." McClellan's film is called Bridal Fever, and was picked up by the Hallmark Channel, a major network in the United States. Delta Burke, of Designing Women, and Rescue Me's Andrea Roth are among the actors cast in the film. Karen McClellan "All the actors are so fantastic," McClellan said. "It was very trippy as all of this started to happen over the summer ­ I couldn't believe it. I have to place myself every once in a while." A graduate with a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting from the American Film Institute, McClellan has amassed an impressive resume over her 10-year career in the business. Her credits include writing for CTV's Alice, I think, Show Me Yours on Showcase, and Teletoon's Gemini-award-winning Olliver's Adventures. Despite the success, McClellan never expected Bridal Fever to come to life ­ probably because she wrote it seven years ago. "It was literally hanging out at the bottom of my drawer, collecting dust," she says. "It's such a cliché, but it's true." She sent out the script to production companies as a writing sample, and before she knew it, Hallmark picked it up. After some rewriting, Bridal Fever was put into production. "It's really amazing to imagine it and put it on paper, but it's a whole other thing to see it, and see what everybody did with," she said. "I was on set and it's just amazing the work they've done with it." Bridal Fever is a romantic comedy about "an unlucky love editor assigned to work with a top romance novelist," McClellan said, the latter played by Delta Burke. "She sets up her editor with her idea of who the perfect guy is. She meets two guys, one is ready to get married, the other is Mr. Right, but he doesn't seem like Mr. Right at first." These romance stories aren't new for McClellan ­ she wrote her first as a Grade 3 student at Falgarwood Public School. "I wrote this long story for Mrs. Freeman. I remember it being about 40 pages, about star-crossed dinosaurs," she said. "It was about these two dinosaurs, I think it was a stegosaurus and brontosaurus. The set-up was they weren't supposed to get together because they were two different tribes, but they fell in love." While romance has always been an interest when it comes to writing, McClellan says she'll write about any genre. "It just has to speak to me, and generally, you know star-crossed lovers, rich historical pieces, complicated heroes, anti-heroes, those are all areas that really call out to me," she said. Currently, McClellan is a writer and co-producer on The Best Years, a one-hour series in production for The N and Global TV. She has several projects in development, including an hourlong series for CTV called One Degree of Katie, and a series optioned by Keatley Entertainment entitled Jennifer's Double Life. McClellan is also co-creator of Rebound, a half-hour drama developed through the National Screen Institute's Totally Television Program and further developed by CTV. None of this success came easy, the White Oaks grad says. "Each job was a stepping stone on top of another. It was one break, that led to a bigger break and the next job led to a bigger break," she said. "I think it's really a matter of writing and putting your work out there and trying to go for as much as possible. Hopefully, sooner or later, everything culminates." After studying at the American Film Institute, McClellan lived in Los Angeles for a few years, but moved to Toronto after 9-11. She then enrolled in a CBC Primetime Television residency program through the Canadian Film Centre, where she made Canadian contacts in the business. "Now I'm at a stage where people are starting to come to me, which is great," she says, "but that's because I've put in a lot of time, going out to them saying, here's my work." A goal for McClellan is to continue what she's doing, and have one of her TV shows go to air and stay there. "This industry can be feast or famine," she said. 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