Rick Helin

Screenwriter/Documentary Filmmaker, aka "KailuaKid".

Rick is a product of Kailua HS / San Jose State University. Rick's avocation is sharing obscure moments of history through the preservation and archiving of related vintage film footage.

Rick constantly strives to improve his writing skills. He was one of the first to attend Robert McKee's three-day seminar on 'Story' during the 'waning days of the twentieth century'. Rick recalls with great fondness the four-day Screenwriting EXPO 5 he attended in Los Angeles in 2006, scurrying between screenwriting classes taught by the likes of Ken Rotcop, Blake Snyder, Karl Iglesias, Michael Hauge, Syd Field, Dave Trottier, Pilar Alessandra, and Richard Walter.

From that experience, "Bare Republic" was born. A true exposé of the infamous lurid trial held in San Francisco in 1885. This courtroom drama details the divorce charges against Senator William Sharon lodged by his young paramour, Allie Hill. His only defense: "How can you sue me for divorce when we were never actually married?" Associated Press ranked this story one of their top 10 stories of the 1880's.

More recently, Rick produced a feature length documentary titled "SS Malolo and the Millionaires Cruise of 1929" detailing the first three month leisure cruise of the Pacific using rare film footage, journals, and still photographs taken by extremely wealthy passengers aboard the cruise.

Rick's recent screenplay offering, "Why Goofy Hates Mickey", is a light comedy that reveals the "unauthorized almost true story" of Walt Disney's early years of animation (Top 15% at Nicholl 2021, a Second Rounder at Austin 2020, as well as fourth at Scriptapalooza 2020). The film's premise, "What if Walt Disney never actually put pen to paper but, instead, hired actors to portray his characters which he then filmed as they acted-out their assigned roles on a secret sound stage then ran that film through a primitive motion capture device? This film details these unknown actors rarely told back stories... stories legally kept secret for more than ninety years due to the iron clad non-disclosure agreements imposed by the studio." Probably the best kept AND the longest held secret in Hollywood!

Another historical drama is "Hawaii Calls" . In 1925, a US Navy seaplane and her five man crew becomes lost while attempting the first non-stop flight from California to Hawaii. When search parties declare them dead, the abandoned crew put together a unique plan to rescue themselves.