Daniel Elkayam
From my earliest childhood memories, I have always been interested in storytelling. From puppet shows that me and my next-door friend would put on for our neighbors, to making parodies of my favorite movies with a Hi8 camera my parents got me when I was nine, I have always loved making people laugh and smile.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I was naturally an avid hiker, snowboarder, and lover of the natural world. I love camping and traveling and experiencing new things. This extends to my deep-seated fascination with math, physics, and cosmology. The universe is more surprising and wonderful than anything we could ever imagine, and I love exploring those ideas in stories.
To me, storytelling is the one of the highest callings. It is how we connect to each other – how we know we are not alone. The best stories transcend age, culture, and demographics. They are universal.
Echo began as a simple question – what if a powerless person suddenly found themselves in possession of immense capability? How would they be tempted to use it? How would it change them? Could any of us actually resist our darker impulses? The time-travel-adjacent premise of the film grew from my fascination with real-world physics and was inspired by actual quantum mechanics experiments such as the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment – in which decisions made later in an experiment seem to influence measurements that were made earlier. In effect, transmitting the decision back in time. In the real world, most physicists agree it is impossible to use this effect to actually send useful information – but Echo simply asks: “What if it were?”
My favorite science fiction stories are the ones that make just one small tweak to the real world – just one simple “what if” question… and then see what the implications would be. In the case of Echo – what could we do with this power? What would be its implications for free will? What starts as a story about science quickly becomes one about people and desires. I love pulling a thread and seeing what comes of it. I have always felt that forcing the writer (and the character) to operate under more constraints results in more creative and interesting stories.
When I am evaluating a script, the most important thing to me is simply – am I engaged while reading it? Is it making me laugh? Cry? Is my mind racing to figure it out? It’s easy as a writer to get caught up with all the “rules” of screenwriting – is the structure correct? Is it formatted properly? Is it too long? Too short? But in the end, what matters is the connection to the reader. The key is passion for the material. If the writer has it, the reader will feel it. Understanding the nuts and bolts is important, but only in so far as it serves that goal.
Aside from that – a smart person once said brevity is the soul of wit. Scripts should be efficient. A great script is always doing more than one thing at a time – sometimes three or four. Short scripts in particular are especially difficult. To establish a world, set up your characters, introduce a conflict, and then bring it all to conclusion in a satisfying way in just a dozen pages or two requires a deft hand. I think in many ways it’s harder than writing a feature.
My main endeavor at the moment is to get Echo produced! I am also a director and am currently working with a producer to make Echo into a reality as a low budget indie production. Pre-production is coming together beautifully, and I am very excited to share this film with the world. We are currently seeking investors – if anyone is interested they should drop me a line atdanielkayam@gmail.com
Aside from that – my second love after science fiction has always been comedy. I am currently developing a sports/horror/comedy script that I am quite excited about. Think “Friday Night Lights” meets “The Evil Dead.” An ordinary person suddenly thrust into a situation with world-ending stakes, in the most over-the-top fashion imaginable. I think it will be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to sending it to Cambridge when it is ready!