Just Another Knucklehead

Getting Back In The Groove

2009-12-04T14:56:00.004-05:00

I'm so terrible about writing here recently, I'm sure the few who might have come by to read now and again no doubt have stopped and moved on.

But for the record, here's an update.

I wrote the first 15 or so pages of this new script fairly quickly then totally stalled. Part of it is being extremely busy with work and family stresses that have been piling up to an almost alarming degree, but I think mainly it was because I wasn't sure who my protagonist was, really.

I wrote, like, three pages in as many months. But now I think I know who she is, so I'm back. Page count as of today: 36.

In the interim, some other stuff has happened.

Two management companies have expressed interest in representing me, saying they really liked my writing. One asked that I send some loglines of the script I'm working on now and others I have thought about writing -- offering to give some feedback to help me decide what to work on first.

I sent I think five loglines... and the manager said they at the office through they were interesting but too dark. They say the studios are asking for lighter stuff.

Hmmm.

Okay. I've been noodling around with a very light one -- a rom-com actually, which I never saw myself writing before. I like the broad idea, and I think it's high concept, maybe something the Apatow clan would connect with, but I haven't come up with a full arc yet so I haven't pitched a new logline to them.

Also -- and this to me was the most interesting -- a lawyer who also acts as a manager/agent chatted me up, asking remarkably laser-like questions and quickly distilling what he thought were my strongest selling points. He figured me out very fast -- wicked sharp guy with a keen eye for marketability -- and asked to see my scripts, and essentially gave me an assignment for things to start developing.

Including a couple scripted TV series concepts. Which I've been doing. One of which I think would be very cool.

I think that's also slowed me down on the screenplay -- my mind keeps jumping over to the spec series and pilot script.

But... in the end, the biggest problem has been not sitting my ass down at the computer regularly and banging away. that's what I need to do, to get anything done -- either finishing this script or fleshing out the series.

So that's what I've been trying to do for the past two weeks. I'm not writing every day. But it's getting closer.

Let That Be A Lesson To Me

2009-08-21T11:48:00.005-04:00

I got a notice recently letting me know that my action script had not been chosen as a finalist in a certain screenplay competition.

No sweat. I’ve placed in competitions, but hell yes, I've also been turned down before.

But here’s the thing: this notice included “coverage” from the “first round judge” that “explains the difficult decision” not to include the script in the final round.

Always eager for well-reasoned feedback from professionals, I read the notes immediately.

That’s when I got mad. For a second.

The reader said that the script “is well-structured, moves fast, is briskly and humorously written, keeps you involved and has great dialogue.”

However, he/she was passing because, well, he/she didn’t really like action movies.

He/she felt the main characters were macho types. He/she didn’t understand how people can get shot in the leg and continue on their task instead of going to the hospital. He/she was bothered by the fact that a helicopter was able to approach a speeding motorboat without being heard and wanted to know where the ropes had come from that allowed the heroes to rappel from the chopper.

Can you imagine? A macho-type in an actioner? An ex-special forces soldier getting shot in the leg and actually having the audacity to continue trying to save his abducted mother? The noise of a speeding motorboat at sea obscuring that of a small private chopper? And, mother of God, a rope, the origin of which is not carefully explained???

Um. Are you fucking kidding me? This wasn't a competition with any kind of angle - not a horror competition for example - just supposedly looking for good scripts in any genre. I mean, by all means, pass if it's not any good, but because you don't like the genre?

Like I said, I got mad for a second, and then chuckled to myself and threw the thing in the recycle bin.

Ah well. Let that be a lesson to me. You never know who’s reading your script and can kill it for the silliest reasons.

By the way, the cover form letter sweetly encouraged me to keep trying, because it turns out successful screenplays "often need to be revised several times."

Really. Thanks for that.

Short Attention Span

2009-08-18T13:24:00.002-04:00

Recently I've been thinking more and more about doing a short.

I realize I'm bouncing around too much. The new stolen baby spec, the animated spec, blah, blah, blah. And now this.

But for a long time I've been out of production, spending all of my time at work developing new TV shows and whatever out-of-work time I can writing specs. All of this is based in ideas. I miss the concrete. I miss producing.

Last year I did the 48 Film Project, and it was a blast. It was just wicked fun and exhilarating to get my hands dirty again -- casting, locations, wardrobe, stunts, directing, editing, scoring...

So I keep thinking about a short. And giving myself more than 48 hours to pull it off. I'm too old for that shit.

Then I thought, District 9, Napoleon Dynamite and many others began as shorts that showed off interesting worlds that producers and investors wanted to see in a feature. So I thought about flipping it around a little:

Could I adapt my latest feature spec, an actioner I'm currently shopping around, into a short? If so, and if I direct it myself, and if it turns out well, it might be another way to try to market the feature script. And maybe me as a director in the feature world.

Hmmm. Interesting.

Anyway, that's what I've been doing the last few lunch hours and evenings -- trying to adapt the feature screenplay to a short script.

It's been a hell of a wrangle, and my brain hurts a little. But then again, your brain has to hurt a little if you want to do something worthwhile, doesn't it?

Moving On Past DinoPirates

2009-08-10T15:16:00.000-04:00

Writing music for the day: Secret Agent on SomaFM via iTunes.

Earlier this year I learned a friend of a friend was working in Fox animation, so I started thinking about animation screenplays. I asked myself what my son would want to watch and, mulling over his favorites that if thrown together could create interesting worlds, came up with a title and a vague concept: DinoPirates.

Started to brainstorm storylines. Then I thought, Wait, it’s too easy. So I googled it and found out I was way too late. There already exists an online game called Dino-Pirates of Ninja Island.

They beat me to it. And they added ninjas. So they’re both more productive and smarter than I am.

I’m not giving up though. Still banging around ideas for an animated feature. Perhaps because the script I’m currently writing is a horrific one, about a stolen baby, cut from its mother’s belly. I’m liking it, but it’s so disturbing. No surprise that thinking about movies my youngest kids would watch helps.

I’m onto a new idea now. Got a title, a tag line, some shape of the world – I can see the poster even. And no one has made a show, book, game, film or anything else about it.

Yet.

(Bet they beat me to it though…)

Back Off On The Brakes

2009-07-10T15:26:00.004-04:00

Well, I was going along at a good clip on the new script and then hit the brakes and skidded to a stop.

Been tired at night and busy during lunch. Gotta start up again.

A bit of inspiration: last weekend while having drinks with my friend who is an attorney and who also went to med school, I picked his brain about some legal and medical details that I'll need to iron out for the plot to work. He helped me iron.

Freshly creased, this weekend I'm back at it.

As an aside, expert friends are invaluable. My advice: don't be afraid to ask for input, even if you're not entirely sure what you're asking - generally people love being involved. Maybe it's just me, but I gain so much from talking through potential obstacles - much more than staring at the monitor trying to figure it out on my own... which invariably leads to checking email, reading the Guardian, Googling...

By the way, I didn't make the next cut in the PAGE Awards, so I guess I have to settle for top 25%.

Action script is still out to a management company (who also requested my drama from last year), some pro screenwriters I've made contact with and a couple of producers. So far, no news.

Good Article

2009-06-29T10:07:00.001-04:00

Check it. From trackingb.com:

SPECS & THE CITY

By Jack Traven

‘THE ART OF THE GENERAL’

You sell a spec script. You are, essentially, a screenwriting celebrity. Your face gets plastered across Variety (If you have a headshot. If you don’t have a headshot, you send Variety some unfortunate picture you were saving for Facebook). Variety is great because they actually love to mention how much of a novice you are. It’s a good hook for the article. Example:

‘Awesome Action Movie Spec was written by Jack Traven who used to drink expired milk deliberately until this afternoon, and is somehow managed by Insanely Hot Management Company and, despite all odds, repped by A Recognizable Agency. Traven – amazingly – sold this thing. No joke. He sold this freakin’ script. It’s about some crap. This kid mixes vodka with Gatorade because that’s what’s left in his malfunctioning fridge. Seriously’.

Now, the actual Variety article is usually a little more discreet (and polite) than that, but you get the gist. The fact is, spec writers are hot for a week. A week. New blood. It’s the Cinderella story. Everyone wants the writer. It’s like the hot chick transfer student in high school. She’s gorgeous because she’s new. But she’s only new for a little while. Soon, she just becomes another girl who’s kinda attractive – but has to compete with the previously attractive girls we already were aware of.

Ah, Renae from Australia. I remember you fondly.

The adventure is: There’s a studio-validated hot spec floating around and the spoils are going to be the fun generals.

Generals.

I didn’t know the meaning of the word outside of the Civil War before I sold my first spec. I was a kid back then. All I knew was Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting Blah-blah-blah and the fact that a logline shouldn’t be more than two sentences:

‘It’s Speed meets Good Will Hunting. Also, some vampires are involved’.

Well, you sell that movie and then you go on GENERALS.

The heck is that? It’s such a…general…term.

Well, turns out it’s the lifeblood of the working writer. It’s also the justification of most paychecks of certain creative execs. The manager or agent will set them up. Usually, the manager will hook up the general, and then the agent will e-mail you a week later to see how it went.

‘How’d that meeting go with Platinum Dunes?’

‘They thought I was the janitor. I had to clean out the bathroom’.

‘So…they liked you?’

Generals are very much like a blind date where both parties have a vague idea of what the other person is into. Usually, if I’m sent on a general I do my research on the production company in question. What do they have in development? What have they made? What do they like? I tailor my pitches and (sometimes) even finished specs to fit – what I perceive – are their needs. If I have a completed script that’s like ‘Fast & Furious’ meets ‘Total Recall’ but that production company doesn’t do action. I will somehow spin it to make it seem like it’s closer to ‘The Hangover’:

‘So, like, the Schwarzenegger character…gets drunk…and forgets what he did…then drives a hot car…and makes 200 million domestic on a 40 mil budget. And somehow makes charisma-less Bradley Cooper a star’.

Okay, Bradley Cooper is a nice guy. I take it back.

The point is – they’ll end up reading the script (the first 20 pages anyway) and if they dig – who knows? Maybe that director-led production company wants to take a risk on a script that goes against their typical development slate?! More effective though, is doing the homework and coming up with 1-3 solid ideas on the car ride over the hill. It’s a general. It doesn’t have to be a pitch. Pitch later. Interest now. I can’t tell you how many times I just made up stuff in my Ford Focus with no air conditioning on the way to some hastily-scheduled production company general.

Oddly though, a lot of my loglines had to do with me sweating.

Again, it’s blind date philosophy. Entice. Then, pitch. You’re not pitching a movie in a general, you’re pitching YOU.

I feel somehow like a traitor. I feel like I’m giving away the ‘super secret secrets of screenwriters’ in this column. Especially since this is an open-air environment of both writers, producers, execs, and assistants. But that’s not the case. Because I feel that anyone on the OTHER side of the desk would agree with me. Make generals fun. Make them quick. Make them work. Even the ‘suits’ would concur. No one wants to sit in a room with a new writer who does something like:

‘It begins in Vienna. 1800’s. A political calamity is afoot. We push in on our lead – a 50 year old woman. She has no neck. For the entire film, she’s gnawing on an ear of corn. Cut to – an elderly man. Our lead. We don’t know this yet, but he’s a space alien’.

In a sense, this is a four-quad column – meant for the execs as well, who have to endure the gibbering nonsense that is screenwriters clutching a half-drunk bottle of Crystal Geyser describing their latest opus.

‘It’s Lord of the Rings meets Bio-Dome. Also, some vampires are in it’.

Okay. I guess it’s more of a two-quad column. But who says ‘two-quad’? Is that even a thing? By the way, the ‘vampires’ joke isn’t an exaggeration. I actually had a friend-exec consistently ‘fix’ my various pitches with one loaded sentence:

‘Sounds good. Put vampires in it’.

Didn’t matter that it was a romantic comedy. Didn’t matter it was a political actioner. Didn’t matter it was a period adventure.

‘Put vampires in it’.

Wow. That was seriously his creative input. How do people navigate these treacherous waters? Well, Constant Reader, here is Jack Traven’s Ultra Improved Super Secret Five Tips For Surviving The General Meeting. The ‘Art of the General’, if you will:

1 – Dress like you’re going to Denny’s. You’re the talent. Dress nice? Forget it. They work in an office, you type stories on your MacBook on the toilet. No one needs to dress up. Surprised that they do.

2 – Be cool. And I mean: ‘Be Cool’. Be ready to make fun small talk for events of the past week. Lakers. UFC. That thing that happened at Les Deux with that one chick. Be prepared. If you just wrote a romantic comedy - bitch about your relationship. If you wrote a bad-ass action movie – bitch about getting into a fight. Wrote a dope horror spec? Talk about the scary thing that inspired it. Write it, live it. Or fake it. But don’t roll into a general off an action spec looking like McLovin.

3 – Be humble. You wrote a spec that sold? Nice. Congrats. Welcome to the unforgiving world of professional screenwriting. But you’re not special. There’s about a hundred writers that will get a gig before you. Assignments are tough, but they’re not unattainable. Oddly, studios favor the more expensive writers. You cost a 100 grand. Chris Morgan costs a mil. They’ll hire Chris before you. Still, you need to not have an ego. Prove to the ProdCo that you’re the inexpensive writer for the job. Chris Morgan turns down gigs. You don’t.

4 – Concept, concept, concept. Simple, fun ideas go a long way. You know the movie Face/Off? Even the TITLE of that flick is awesome! Generals are very…well…general. The exec wants to hear something immediate and killer. Sell it in the title. Sell it in a sentence. I know that’s Screenwriting 101, but I think the art gets lost when writers are face to face with ‘decision makers’. Example: ‘Con Air’. That’s a movie that Sir Scott Rosenberg (Yeah, he was knighted – by ME) could have pitched in the room and then just walked away. Simple ideas. Simple genres. Slick titles.

5 – Expect the worst. For the most part, no one’s going to like anything you pitch. Oh, for sure, they’ll say:

‘Sounds really, really cool’.

Or

‘That’s really unique’.

Or

‘Wow. Really well thought-out’.

This is a business where everyone’s afraid to say ‘No’. Even the term ‘PASS’ is very neutral. It’s a PASS. In a sense, they’re just giving the next buyer an opportunity to buy, right? It’s not a ‘NO’. It’s a pass.

Generals are an important part of the development process because they proof ideas. They siphon concepts. Some exec checking his/her texts in the middle of your pitch? Not good. Some exec yelling at his/her assistant for interrupting during your pitch? Good. Go with that. It’s captivating.

If you take a general and that exec is whistlin’ Dixie during the meeting? It’s not worth pursuing. Is it a bad idea? Not necessarily. But it’s not marketable. Stow it. Write it and direct it when you become David Koepp or Brian Helgeland.

Is there a specific pattern for going to a general? Probably not. Is it a morphic field? Totally. There’s no established structure – much like screenwriting itself. Joe Eszterhas has a great quote about general meetings. It goes something like this:

‘Christ. F**k this s**t’.

The general is an unwieldy, fearsome creature. But if you’re in one – you’ve done something right.

Until I rewrite Shane Black…

J-T

PAGE Awards

2009-06-25T17:01:00.003-04:00

Hey, just got an email telling me I made the first cut with my action script:

Dear David,

2009 marks the sixth anniversary of The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards contest, and it has been a record-breaking event! We received 4,394 scripts this year, submitted by writers from all across the United States and around the world.

Today, we're officially kicking off The 2009 PAGE Awards announcement season and we have some very good news for you…

The First Round of competition has now been completed, and the Judges have selected the top 25% of all entries. Based on your First Round scores, we're very happy to inform you that your work was selected to compete in the Second Round:

Congratulations!! Given the level of competition you faced, this is a real achievement.

The Second Round is new this year. The number of PAGE Awards submissions has quadrupled since 2004, and in order to evaluate your screenplays as thoroughly and fairly as possible, we realized we had to add an additional round of competition for 2009. So the top 25% of all entries are now being given an additional round of judging. (Because some scripts were entered and evaluated in more than one category, a total of 1,400 scripts have advanced to the Second Round.)

Our Second Round Judges are now in the process of reading their final stack of screenplays, and in just a few days we will be tallying the totals. We will use the combined scores of the First and Second Round Judges to determine the top 10% of all entries -- our 2009 Quarter-Finalists. So mark your calendar and make sure to check our website on Wednesday, July 1st, when we’ll post our Quarter-Finalist list.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2009-06-22T14:57:00.003-04:00

Once again, someone is about to make a lot of money, as they did last year, doing the exact thing I've been trying to get my company to do for years.

*thrashes about*

*says bad words*

*calms self*

Okay. I'm okay.

Back to work.

The Future of Indie Film? (And a Question...)

2009-06-18T10:20:00.003-04:00

This looks like an amazing new model, similar to one some associates and I have discussed trying to put together. Of course, this model comes with amazing heavy hitters to back it up.

Check it:

http://www.dfindiestudios.com/site/

Also...

I want to tweak the action scenes in my action movie to read better and more actiony. I've been reading the Bourne scripts to see how Gilroy does it. Has anyone read any scripts that have particularly well-written action scenes? And does anyone know how to get ahold of a PDF of the Taken script?

Writers Groups?

2009-05-22T13:38:00.002-04:00

Advice, mm?

How do I start a writers group that isn’t annoying?

If I can figure out a way to carve out some regular meeting time among all the madness, I’d really like to have a good sense of community – and I mean face-to-face, not just on the Internets. I’d like to read other people’s stuff more. I’d like to hear about their processes. I’d like the pressure of having to deliver pages regularly. I’d like to give and get feedback.

I wouldn’t like to have to listen to people who refer to themselves as Artists. I don’t want to hang out with people who think they’re genius writers with nothing to learn. The last thing I want is to be in a group with someone who sees the group as a captive audience for their groundbreaking 600-page script tracing the history of Planet Zythoryx.

Okay, maybe I’m a misanthrope.

But I was in a writers group once in grad school that was great. Everyone was pretty good – we all delivered stuff that was imperfect but interesting. We all understood we had a long way to go. No egos, good humor, no extremists. Laid back but helpful.

And then I remember writing workshops in college that just made me what to eviscerate myself to have an excuse to leave. And sometimes when reading the blogosphere or discussion groups of spec writers, I get so woozy from the self-worship and whining I pass out.

So, those of you (is anyone there?) who have started or joined successful groups, how did you do it?

I know two guys around here I’d like to invite. Start there and see what happens? Put an ad on craigslist that lists the rules? Hey, is that it, create rules?

Advice anyone?

Go Clara, It's Your Birthday

2009-05-21T12:04:00.000-04:00

As of last night I’m eight pages into this next script and already the characters are starting to say things that surprise me.

I love that shit. You start with an idea of a character but sometimes they literally take over and start to become a little different.

Maybe it ends up being a bad thing and in revision you have to bring them back to the character you first envisioned. But in my experience, usually it turns out nicely and you get some stuff that, coming from some unquantifiable place in an imagination on the fly and not from the intellectual act of outlining and character sketching in advance, is richer, more interesting and usually more real.

In this script the lead, currently named Mindy, is pretty much what I expected, but the second, now called Clara, has really surprised me.

So have at it Clara. Go girl go.

Back In The Whatever

2009-05-18T14:08:00.003-04:00

Fell off the wagon there for a while. Or the horse. Or whatever trite metaphor I’m supposed to use.

Anyway, I finished the action script and have started to query agents and managers with it and send out it to my limited contacts and contacts to contacts. One management company has responded positively so far, asking to read the script.

Doing so has renewed my energy to try to get my drama out there, so I’ve made a fresh push with it as well. Got a nice rejection letter from Tyler Perry’s place. Very polite and kind.

The action script was the first one I did the infamous Index Cards with. It was a little annoying to do but I have to say it turned out to be fairly helpful in big-picture perspective and being able to visualize individual characters’ arcs. I recommend it.

And since my own version of kinda-outlining (which essentially means bullet notes on Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet but intentionally leaving space for winging it in process) worked with that script, that’s how I chose the next script to work on:

I started these kinda-outlines on four ideas I had. As I proceeded, I got more excited about one over the others and that kinda-outline went fairly quickly, so that’s where I’m heading now.

Started writing in earnest last night. THREE WHOLE PAGES down so far.

Feels good to be back in the saddle. Wagon driver's seat? USSR?

Who Are These People?

2009-03-02T16:53:00.003-05:00

I work for an independent television production company. We mainly do factual entertainment programs for cable nets like Discovery, Nat Geo, History, TLC -- that sort of thing.

We've talked internally about adding independent films to our slate but it's in the long term plan at best -- just doesn't fit our current set-up.

But that doesn't stop people from sending me scripts and query letters all the time, asking us to produce their film.

Most are terrible, some are intriguing, but we just aren't in that business, and frankly, these people should do enough research to know that.

Got a query email today that I just loved. Copied below, with incriminating info redacted:

I am the creator of TITLE, a script that is an absolute passion project for me and on which, in the past weeks, I've had several discussions with William Morris about the directions for the project, suitable companies, casting, directing, etc. The agent has noted that "LEAD CHARACTER is actually quite a sexy character, everything a female heroine should be", and called the script 'gripping and touching,' and best of all, 'studio-ready.' The agent has also said that “TITLE is a 'high-concept action/thriller,' and that it can be pitched as, STUDIO HIT meets STUDIO FRANCHISE HIT with a twist.”

Because WMA is circling around me and the script, I started looking at production companies, and more intimate agencies, in hopes of finding just the right one for this project before I sign with them, since I believe that the agency might be too big and even getting representation may still lead to the TITLE script getting lost in the shuffle.

I came across your company while doing a search on ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WEBSITE, and would like the opportunity to submit TITLE for your review and discuss if your company may be the right place for this project.

Looking forward to your feedback,

NAME

My feedback?

Well, I hate to disparage any writer. Writing's hard, so hats off to anyone who does it.

But, well, my feedback is that... are you effing kidding me?

An agent at William Morris is "circling around you," talking directors and talent, and you query a small factual TV prodco?

Just doesn't make any sense. I checked and NAME doesn’t have any credits listed anywhere. So, if it's true that WMA wants to rep you, an unproduced first-time spec scriptwriter, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, GO WITH THEM – THEY’RE THE SHIT.

And if it's not true, why such a lame lie?

This Guy Is Awesome

2009-02-25T11:09:00.000-05:00

Check it:

Question For Cinephiles

2009-01-20T13:58:00.001-05:00

Have you seen and enjoyed any movies during which you’re rooting for the underdog hero for the whole film, and then at the end you learn the hero is actually the bad guy?

Trying to figure out the difference between wowing the audience with a cool twist of an ending and pissing off the audience by pulling the rug out from under them…

Haruki & Me

2009-01-09T14:49:00.002-05:00

I’m reading the memoir of novelist Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I’ve only read one of his novels, but I liked it a lot (his writing, in After Dark anyway, is the type that appears very simple but is actually, or maybe also, very complex – I love that), and I’m really digging this memoir. My wife got it for me at the library – not knowing I’d read his stuff, just thinking that, because of the title, I’d be interested. She’s good, that one.

It’s been really interesting how similar our thinking, and even experience, is in some ways – despite enormous differences. I mean, it’s easy to substitute screenplay for novel, and cycling for running, so those differences aren’t too tough to get beyond. And then there’s the fact that he’s a wildly successful writer with a dozen novels translated into 42 languages… and he’s Japanese.

But a lot of what he’s writing in his memoir feels like it could have been lifted from my own journal, blogs and annoying self-indulgent conversations with family and friends.

Here’s one bit I read today at lunch that felt spot-on. He wrote his first couple of novels while running a bar he owned in Tokyo. Of that, he writes:

With the first two, I basically enjoyed the process of writing, but there were parts I wasn’t too pleased with. With these first two novels I was only able to write in spurts, snatching bits of time here and there – a half hour here, an hour there – and because I was always tired and felt like I was competing against the clock as I wrote, I was never able to concentrate. With this kind of scattered approach I was able to write some interesting, fresh things, but… a natural desire sprang up to take it as far as I could… and after giving it a lot of thought, I decided to close the business for a while and concentrate solely on writing.

Hmmm. If only I had a bar to sell…

End In Sight. Kinda.

2008-12-09T21:06:00.002-05:00

Cracked 100 pages on the hitman script. A few more scenes and I’m at the end of the story.

But it’s too early to celebrate.

This has been a new process for me.

The two main differences are that, unlike other scripts, for this one I: 1) sketched out the main plot points start to finish to create a rough outline before I got deep into writing and 2) tried really hard not to self-edit as I’ve written.

The rough outline was really helpful. I kept it loose because I knew that some of my best writing kind of comes out of nowhere, so I wanted to allow some space for that. But I also found it helpful to have a good idea of the next big beat I wanted to get to by a certain point – then wing it getting there.

A little yin, a little yang.

And it’s been dadburn plum liberating not to edit as I go. Normally, before I proceed, I need to make sure everything is clicking. This means a lot of stopping, reviewing, rewriting, stopping, reviewing. This makes it so that, by the time I get through my first draft, it’s usually pretty solid – it might not be good, but at least it will make sense. To most people. But it’s very time consuming, and I think it really interrupts the flow.

So this time, I stopped myself from doing that. If I wrote something that wasn’t consistent with a character as developed so far, I kept it. If it wasn’t motivated yet, I kept it. If it contradicted the plot heretofore, I kept it. I tried to be good about leaving notes for myself – like “Plant the seed for this in act one so it makes sense here” or “Where the fuck did this come from? Justify it or lose it” – but sometimes I just plowed on.

I thought this was important for this script, because it’s an action script, more reliant on plot than others I’ve written, and it’s me writing it. It’s a big, twisty, lots of movement movie, for me anyway, and I knew my character-driven, mildly OCD self would get bogged down in plot specifics if I stopped to worry about which day it was, and how they got to this location, if that dialogue was unique to that character’s voice, who they got the gun from, how they traced that car...

For the first draft, I just wanted to get all the fun things in my head out. So that’s what I’m almost finished with. It's been great, and I think it's working, and I like what this script will be.

Incidentally, I have this friend, whom I hate. He writes these amazing, complex movies that are so fun and so goddamn stylish – and he just wings it. He’s so natural at story and so freakishly smart, he just writes scene one, then two, then three, then four – and without outlining or anything, he has this awesome thing that totally works. And he hardly ever revises.

Did I mention I hate him?

So anyway, I’m nearing the end of the story. Which means of course that, like I told Ryan, once I bang out the last scene and type FADE OUT, the real work begins – because then I have to go back and make it all make sense, have relevance, mean something, be entertaining. I have to make it work.

And that’s a lot of work. But I'm up for it.

Screenwriter Math

2008-12-03T21:04:00.002-05:00

22 query letters regarding last script, The D Line
+
2 weeks waiting
+
0 takers
=
86 pages into next script

Thanks Bro

2008-11-15T13:55:00.003-05:00

You know when sometimes you read a sentence and it just makes you smile and you're glad there are people out there writing, because their doing so sustains you and makes you feel connected to them and everyone else and happy to be alive?

Just read this one, from one of my brother's novels (Melvin is the bass player in a jazz band):

"Next, Melvin. Black hat down over his eyes, lowdown like a sunset, all you could see was the smoke rising from a glow somewhere down in his dark horizon."

The Stars Are Aligning

2008-11-03T09:18:00.001-05:00

As evidenced by:

· Bruce and Barack on the same stage.

· My kids couldn’t be sweeter.

· Went on a ride Saturday with cyclists who were way stronger than me, got my ass whipped and had a blast. Thought, as I was riding, that doing such is much like writing – so much better to challenge yourself than to do what you already know you can do. Which leads me to…

· Hitting 70 pages in the hitman script – definitely made the right choice to go back and start from scratch on the second half. It’s going infinitely smoother now. Getting into some dark areas I hadn’t really considered before, but it’s feeling really good. I can see where it’s going and know how to get there. And I’m really enjoying writing it. Might take a couple days off, actually, to put in some sustained time.

Please, Rewind, Be Kind

2008-10-13T14:16:00.004-04:00

I’d gotten to 61 pages in my action script, and it just wasn’t feeling right.

Writing was difficult. Ideas weren’t coming smoothly. The whole thing felt awkward.

I was thinking, writer’s block? Creative juices low? Just a glitch?

Then I realized the problem was that I wasn’t letting it happen naturally.

I’m not a hippie. But for me to write well, my heart has to be in it.

See, through an associate, if I can use that vague term, I’d heard about some producer/financiers who had liked what this associate and I had done in the past. They said they were interested in working together, and laid out an enticing plan to finance a feature, if the script contained certain elements.

Now, I wrote The D Line because it was a story I really needed to write. It was in my heart. It’s not easily marketable. But I can very much see it on screen. It’s good, and I like it, and it seems a lot of other people do, too. Slowly making its way out into the world. Remains to be seen if someone likes it enough to make it, of course…

But this script I’ve been writing with an eye toward easier marketability. I still want it to be good, something I can be proud of, but I want people to be able to read it and immediately think ticket sales. As everyone says, this is show business.

So I understand the need to make something you can sell. The good news is, I can get my heart into those types of stories, too.

But what I realized is that you have to draw the line. It’s show business, yes, but at least for me, it also has to be something you want to write. I want to write. So I can put my heart into it. Which is when my writing gets good.

So what I did with the action script is go back to where I started putting in the elements these financiers had asked for. That was page 48.

Then I deleted pages 49-61.

And now I’m starting over from there.

It’s going much more smoothly now.

I’m feeling more inspired, the direction of the script makes more sense. It’s working.

It’s still a sellable script, just maybe not to those specific financiers.

Of course, when I’m finished, I’ll send it to them anyway, see what they think.

And of course, I admit it – I’m no hardliner. If they read it and say they’ll buy it if I put in these certain elements, you know I’ll dive back in and rewind again.

Has It Been A Month?

2008-09-26T12:02:00.001-04:00

I’d apologize for being away for so long, but I’m sure I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings…

So the Script PIMP trip to LA was cool. The days got away from me, though, and I missed meeting up with some friends and Chris over at Deep Structure. Was looking forward to it – next time, eh?

It was good to meet and talk to the other finalists at the PIMP party. Always helpful to swap process stories and hear how other people do it. The guys who run the competition were very cool and helpful – they’d read the screenplay carefully and were able to talk about specific strengths and challenges. So that felt nice – that they were fully engaged.

They set up a phone conference with a manager in LA – had a good chat with him. He’d read The D Line and liked my writing but was honest that a black historical drama wasn’t his thing. He does want me to send him the hit man script I’m working on now when I’m finished though…

Part of the prize is a “recommended” posting on InkTip. I uploaded yesterday, and I’ve had seven producers/agents/managers/exec types read the synopsis so far. No three-picture deals being thrown my way of course, but I’m happy to know people are starting to check it out.

I had been stuck on the hit man script for a while – but recently got some helpful feedback on it from thoughtful readers and it’s encouraged me to dive back into it. Not really blasting away at it – still so hard to find energized time to devote to it – but in the last week I’ve added seven more pages anyway…

Off To The Other Coast

2008-08-26T15:13:00.000-04:00

So, I’m heading to LA tomorrow for a few days vacation and to attend the Script PIMP awards ceremony in Santa Monica on Friday.

I’m wicked psyched – looking forward to meeting some new industry contacts and 19 fellow spec writers. Always good to expand the circle. Ready to shake some hands, share some stories, make some plans.

It’ll also give me a chance to reconnect with some friends out there that I haven’t seen in a while. But the dance card’s not full so if anyone’s gonna be in town and wants to grab a beer, I’m game.

Unless you’re a lunatic.

You’re not a lunatic, are you?

Hometown Crime

2008-08-22T12:44:00.003-04:00

I grew up in Montpelier, VT -- an awesome place to live for reasons that will soon become clear.

My little brother still lives there and just sent me a link to the city's police log, which is regularly published in the local paper. Take a look, and you'll see why it's such a great place to live. Whoever writes these must be having so much fun.

Montpelier police log
August 22, 2008

These are some of the major calls Montpelier police responded to from Aug. 6-13.

Aug. 6

One Cummings Street resident wasn't very happy with a stinky visitor. Police received a call about a skunk that had made numerous visits to the property.

Police received a call around 9 p.m. about three kids in dark clothing on the path behind the high school. When police arrived they found no one at the scene.

Aug. 7

One College Street resident learned that a newly adopted dog named Tank was afraid of thunder. Police were called around 12:45 p.m. by the new owners about the dog's escape during an afternoon thunderstorm. A neighbor found Tank and he was returned to his owners.

A black purse was found in a Main Street doorway with no one around. The purse was turned in to police.

Aug. 8

Vermont State Police contacted Montpelier police to let them know a woman had called on her cell phone to report protesters on River Street. When state police received the call the protesters were in front of Tractor Supply. Around 11:45 a.m. Montpelier officers found a group of about 20 people protesting Vermont Yankee and the use of nuclear energy walking on Barre Street.

A woman called police to report witnessing a vehicle cutting off another, causing the second to drive off the road into the parking lot of Walker Motors. The same vehicle had cut off another at the intersection of Barre and Granite streets. The driver of the vehicle was identified as a 73-year-old woman when she called police. She reported a woman had approached her in the parking lot of the Dollar Store and yelled at her for forcing other vehicles off the road. The driver told police she did not recall forcing anyone off the road while behind the wheel. Police did not hear from the affected motorists.

Around 11:30 p.m. police received a call about an alleged theft of a left-handed banjo from a dorm room on College Street.

Aug. 9

A woman called police to report her daughter's apartment may have been broken into because the deadbolt was unlocked. There were no disturbed items in the apartment.

Aug. 10

A woman called police after a neighbor came by around 10 a.m. on Aug. 9 and found a pot of coffee made. The caller had not been up before the neighbor's arrival and suspected that someone had entered the residence and brewed a pot of coffee. Later that day police retrieved the pot of coffee to test it for fingerprints.

Police received a call from a New York man who wanted a case on stolen art be opened and offered police the name of the alleged thief. The accused party later called police and reported being harassed by the first caller.

Aug. 11

Karl Hammer was issued a citation for a charge of violating a city ordinance around 8:15 a.m. Hammer's neighbors called police to report that his chickens were loose on their property. Hammer is set to appear in court on Sept. 25 to answer to the charge.

A sick-looking pigeon on Main Street was reported to police. Upon investigation, police discovered a bird that appeared to be sleeping out of the rain.

A caller reported loud people throwing balls around in the street that had hit parked cars. The caller was concerned the people may be drunk. Police found kids having fun at the reported location and asked that the activity be moved to Hubbard Park or be done more carefully.

Aug. 12

A man called police to report another man was waiting for him outside to beat him up. The man waiting was accusing the caller of stealing from another friend.

Police received a call from a woman who said she had paid to ride the bus, handed over her ticket and then was told the bus was full as it drove away. With police assistance, the ticket purchase was confirmed and the woman was allowed to ride the next bus.

Aug. 13

Police received a call from a person reporting their vehicle registered in Mass. was stolen. When police arrived the caller reported the car had not been stolen, but it was a rental and the caller forgot what color it was.

A man called police to report that he'd been hit by an SUV while crossing Main Street. The vehicle struck him, knocking him to the ground. The driver stopped and asked the man, "You cool?" to which the man replied, "Yeah, I'm fine," according to what police reported. The man refused to be transported to the hospital and was treated at the fire department for minor injuries.

BlueCat Hates Me

2008-08-11T17:05:00.004-04:00

So I didn't make the BlueCat semifinal cut. Poor me.

But I will be heading to LA at the end of the month for the Script Pimp awards ceremony, to press some flesh. Hoping to catch up with some friends in the area, too. Should be fun.

The 48 Hour Film Project was a blast. Tiring, but fun. Hopefully our post guys will create an uploadable file and I can post it here. Winners are announced on Wednesday.

Each team had to include the required character of Harold Ralston, lifeguard, the required prop of a tray and the required line, "That's not the way I see it." Each team drew a different genre -- ours was Holiday Film.

We did a little twist on a Valentine's Day movie. Turned out pretty well, for 48 hours of work. Hopefully you can judge for yourself soon...

48 Hours of Coffee

2008-07-28T14:41:00.005-04:00

I'm doing it. Why not?

The 48 Hour Film Project.
http://www.48hourfilm.com/

Get an assignment Friday night, then write, shoot and post a four- to seven-minute film, to be judged in competition Sunday night.

I'll write/direct/produce, and we've put together a crew of 12 plus a post team.

Interestingly, I'm more nervous about writing than directing.

Should be insane.

And fun.

The D Line's a Mother Effin' P.I.M.P.

2008-07-17T15:10:00.004-04:00

It's been a hell of a good couple of weeks, I must say.

Just found out I'm one of the 20 finalists in the Script Pimp competition. So cool!

Check it out:

http://www.scriptpimp.com/writing_competition/home.cfm

BlueCat Feedback

2008-07-16T14:05:00.003-04:00

Pat over at The Ruckus posted the feedback he received on his quarterfinalist script Union and asked me to do the same.

So here is the feedback on The D Line:

What I Liked:

Your beginning immediately captures my attention, partly due to your ability to write really beautiful action--there is a nice flow and rhythm to it, and you evoke vivid and emotional images with a relatively few number of words, and setting up your characters, story, and themes in entirely visual means. Not only are you a fine storyteller, but your style as a writer is beautiful and expressive and captivating. Very nicely done. There's a sense of authenticity in your script when it comes to the black Harlem community setting that is really exceptional--it feels very real, and very honest (as someone who lived in Harlem for awhile that may or may not give some validity to my comment). The children's dialogue in particular has a very truthful ring to it--it has an honest texture to it that I love, and you have a great ear for how people talk and what they talk about. Your script really shines when it comes to details like the way the kids talk, or the alphabet game the mother and daughter play on the subway, or the "Make-a-Katie," or the moment when Michael decides to help the couple carry their wardrobe into their new apartment; these moments are really beautiful and really priceless and all give further authenticity and beauty to your story and characters. All your characters also feel very real and believable and interesting, and you deal with a fairly large ensemble of major players seemingly effortlessly, knowing just when and how to weave in and out of each story, which in itself is a huge accomplishment. Your script reminds me a lot of David Gordon Green's film "George Washington" in the way it observes these people with both compassion and objectivity, and this comes through these fine, telling details you include. Your script is really engaging and moving and wonderfully structured--I love that it doesn't feel too rigidly structured or plot heavy, but you follow your characters and the whole story feels very organic even as it's ultimately very dramatically and emotionally satisfying.

What Could Be Improved:

Most of the major problems I had with your script were formatting issues. You've got a number of camera and editing specifications that aren't appropriate for a screenplay--these would come later in a shooting script. Some of your sluglines are also improperly formatted--you can change those like "INT. MICHAEL'S APARTMENT: LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS" to just "INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS". Sometimes you tell us, rather than showing us information in the script--in the first scene with Caroline, you tell us that she makes Michael breakfast every day. This helps the reader, but an audience member in the theatre won't get this information unless there is some visual cue or piece of dialogue that suggests this is an everyday event. Another example is on page 15, when you say "Moses recognizes him as TITO." Your dialogue is interesting, but some moments read unnaturally for me--you almost always communicate the right information and the right amount of information, but the words you use don't always sound right. I'd focus on tinkering the dialogue and reading it aloud in some scenes--some of the early exchanges between Michael and Caroline in particular don't work for me. They feel a little too on the nose; maybe you could give them something specific to talk about that show us the the bigger picture of their relationship. I really like when you use a lot of subtext in the dialogue and leave some things unsaid--I think you could do that even more often and it would be very effective. The priest character didn't have the same authenticity for me that so strongly pervades the rest of your screenplay; his character and dialogue felt more like how a writer would imagine a priest acting and talking rather than an actual living, breathing character, and he didn't seem to totally gel with the rest of your script, rather, he seemed like a convenient means of dealing with some of the issues and ideas you want to tackle.a One nitpicky note--using Michael Powell as your protagonist's name was a distraction for me. I wasn't sure if it was an intentional homage to the British director (a favorite filmmaker of mine) or if it was coincidental, but it distracted me, and, if it was intentional, felt unnecessary and very out of place.

Overall, thoughtful feedback that I appreciate. Notes are funny. Always interesting to see what resonates with whom -- and what pisses who off.

This reader is spot on about the sluglines. A lot of them are indeed clumsy. S/he is also right that the priest is a bit thin.

S/he doesn't like my action-that-can't-be-seen, but I've posted about why I do that before and won't bore you again. S/he likes the loose-ish structure, when a few others I sent it to felt it was perhaps too loose. S/he thinks some of the exchanges are too on-the-nose; another trusted reader felt I needed to be a little more overt.

Like I said, notes are funny. Good or bad. You just have to use them appropriately.

By the way, I have no idea who the British director Michael Powell is. I should watch more movies.

Writing Music

2008-07-11T15:47:00.005-04:00

Out of curiosity - and needing a distraction break from writing - I just clicked on the most played playlist on my iTunes here at work.

Turns out this is what I mostly listen to (at least at work) while I'm writing:

How 'bout you?

Perspective

2008-07-07T10:47:00.002-04:00

Just saw this in Variety – an article called Record Wages for Writers.

“Earnings for writers rose 4% to a record $943 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, reflecting accelerated work on feature scripts. Feature work jumped nearly 16% to $502.5 million as studios stockpiled, but TV earnings were hit by the strike, sliding 6.8% to $437.3 million.”

So that’s good news – writers made more money.

Here are some more sobering stats:

“The number of writers employed declined in both categories – off 1.1% in TV to 3,215 and 2.6% in features to 1,899.”

That’s just over 5000 guild writers working in TV and film. In all of America. Total.

So we spec monkeys, all 14 gazillion of us, we need to remember how unlikely it will be for us to hit it. Not to give up hope – no way – but to have some realistic expectations, and use the long odds as an inspiration to write even better. Yes, keep working your ass off. And yes, have a Plan B. And don't kill yourself if you don't get in the club.

My brother has the right mindset. He recently completed his first novel and last week sent out 25 query letters to literary agents. So far, 10 no thanks responses. Which, this morning on the phone, he chuckled at.

It’s hard. Keep trying. And laugh.

Oh, here’s another interesting bit:

“Only 100 of the 150 films projected to start principal photography this year had actually done so.”

So even when you’ve been greenlit, it’s not a done deal. Dear old Greg knows this firsthand.

And this:

“The median average annual earnings for members edged down 0.7% to $60,009 over the four-year period ending with 2007.”

60K median. And that factors in the multi-million-dollar scribes out there. So a lot of people aren’t making much more than their daycare providers.

But really what does this tell us?

We’re an unshakable lot. We are august (and not just John). We have balls, whether we’re boys or girls. We know there’s no chance in hell we’re gonna make it.

But dammit, we’re gonna try.

BlueCat

2008-07-02T09:42:00.002-04:00

Well hey.

How about that.

The D Line made it into the quarterfinals at BlueCat.

I’m no mathematician, but from a glance it looks like about 15% of the “more than 2700” scripts entered made it.

I’m not expecting producers to be scrambling to set up meetings with me and a bidding war to begin, but I won’t pretend to be so cool that I wasn’t excited to see my script listed.

Feels good to have made the first cut of my first screenplay competition.

Might use this as an opportunity to check in with the contacts I've sent it to, see if there's been any movement on it.

And it motivates me to hustle along on this action script – which actually has been going along pretty well the last few days during lunchtime writing sessions…

2008-06-16T14:17:00.002-04:00

Wow, been out for a while.

Here's where I stand.

I'm fosusing more on the action script right now, because there are some producers/financiers who are interested in seeing it. Which is interesting.

I outlined about 70% of the rest of the plot and did some rough character sketches and have now gotten back to actual writing. Though a lot of it is disjointed with transitions much needed.

But it's good to be writing regularly. Which means actual writing at the computer, but also that delicious percolation while not writing. Like when I last went for a long bike ride -- wrote two scenes as I pedaled along dodging semis and roadkill. Got home and wrote them out quickly in a notebook and typed 'em in the next day.

Or puttering in the garden or on my new fixed-gear bike conversion project. I love that -- when the story keeps spooling itself out subconsciously even when you're not thinking about it.

By the way, where the hell has Greg gone? Man, I thought I was getting lame with this...

Why I Didn't Write This Sunday

2008-05-01T14:02:00.003-04:00

The psychology of groups is fascinating. Mark Twain wrote well about how crowds are less moral than individuals – and I experienced same when I was teaching.

Another thing I learned while teaching is that each group has a very distinct mass-personality. It’s specific and predictable, but it’s also conditional and can change immensely if even one or two members are missing. Then it becomes a new group, with a new personality.

I had one class that was hands-down my most difficult class. But only if a certain student were there. Whenever he was absent, the whole class was less of a collective asshole.

Wonder what that kid’s doing now. I’m guessing five-to-ten in a minimum security jail.

Bear with me – I know I’m rambling. Anyway, I was thinking about groups this Sunday when I rode in a new group ride.

Usually when I can get away for a few hours on a Saturday morning, I ride with the local bike shop. It’s a super-nice group of people and their motto is that no one gets dropped. Which means the group essentially travels at the speed of its slowest member.

Sometimes a few of us will go out on sprints and then circle back, but mainly we ride all together. So sometimes the ride takes a while.

Not to mention that the group takes a break a little more than halfway through the ride. At a golf course. With a snack bar. Some of the routes we take mean two stops. One day a few of the guys ordered chili and hot chocolate, and I said my goodbyes and finished the ride myself. I do enjoy the comraderie, and it's not like I'm some super-biker, but I can’t spend all day, boys.

But, at least it’s a ride, so it’s fun.

But last Saturday was pretty busy, so I missed the ride. In fact I’d missed the last four or five weeks and was jonesing for a ride. I checked the website of the bike shop a few miles away in Norfolk (where I actually bought my bike) and saw they were bringing back their B pace Sunday morning ride.

B pace is supposed to average around 18 mph. Cool for me.

20 miles into the ride, as four of us mashed our pedals along the beachfront while surprising gusts of crosswind pounded in from the Chesapeake Bay, I looked down at my bike computer and saw we were going 26 mph.

This was not B pace.

Needless to say, by mile 25 I got dropped.

The other three guys pulled away from me on a long straightaway near the airport. I pushed as hard as I could on my pedals and saw I was still doing 20, but they pulled away like I was standing still.

So I got my ass handed to me.

But it was a great ride – the best I’ve had in a long time.

These three guys were also super-nice, and to their credit, when they had to stop for a traffic light, they waited an extra light cycle to let me catch up. I apologized for holding them up, but one of ‘em said, “Hey, no problem. It’s not that sort of ride.”

So I couldn’t hang the entire time, but it was fun to ride in a paceline the whole time (or the whole time I wasn’t dropped), working hard the whole time, not stopping for chili and cocoa.

This group had a similar mindset of not letting anyone go it totally alone, but they also didn’t mind punishing each other – ‘cause a good punishing can sometimes be exactly what you need.

I like the nice-ness of the regular group. But I liked the psychology of this group, too. And I like the physicality of this one, too: all stronger than me, so I have some work to do.

A Fork In The Road -- With Four Tines

2008-04-22T13:48:00.003-04:00

It’s getting more complicated.

I keep thinking of more things to do. But I can’t do them all at once. And I don’t want to take years to get them all done. So I gotta choose. Choose or lose, baby. Vote or die.

I want to pick two of the following to work on. One will be the primary assignment and the other will be the distraction. I find it best to have two things to work on – when I get stuck or bored with one, I shift to the other and usually doing so breaks through the barrier faced with the first. Natch.

So here they are:

ACTION SCRIPT
I’m about 30 pages in, and I like it. I keep going back and revising the first act instead of moving on, so my page count hasn’t changed in a long time. I have a loose outline of the plot from here on out, but frankly I’m not wowed by all of it and there are holes. The good news is those things tend to work themselves out as I write, so I’m not that worried about them. The big issue now is that I have a lot character development work to do: the two main characters are brothers and their dialogue is starting to sound too similar so I really need to differentiate them more. I started writing out character sketches but got bored and gave up. Need to go back to them.

Got a lead on a group of investors who like the work a friend and I have pulled off before, and who are looking for a certain type of film – this script, tweaked a few degrees, could be it. And since it’s still deeply in process, tweaking it is no trouble at all. So one option is to do it ourselves. Or I can just try to sell it as a spec to someone else.

I’m a long way from trying to figure that out, though. Hell, I’m only through act one.

THRILLER SCRIPT
My brother and I are continuing to bang out a reasonable outline. I’d say we’re about 33% set with it. Once we sketch the rest out, we’ll have to decide how exactly to write it together. I know sets of partners who do it all sorts of ways: splitting up scenes or sequences, taking turns writing and note-giving, sitting in the same room and actually writing together, etc. Since he lives in Vermont, we’ll only do this in-the-same-room thing at the end, at best. It’s a really cool idea, and very marketable. And it’d be fun to do, especially with the bro.

TV SPEC
A friend wants to hook me up with his friend, who’s a producer on one of the CSI shows. I really got into Dexter and am thinking about speccing an episode of that to send to Mr. CSI. My friend asserts that, because of the type of shows I’ve done in the past (lots of forensic and crime stuff), I’m a natural fit for CSI, and I think Dexter is a natural choice to spec for CSI producers.

Haven’t really started planning the episode, though – just thinking of possibilities and jotting down notes here and there.

SHORT FILM
What? A short? Why?

Yes, I’ve produced a ton of factual TV and one full-length feature. And I’ve directed a little, but mainly small pick-up scenes and second unit stuff. I do believe I’d be a solid director, having been a producer for so long, seeing what works and what doesn’t, knowing what needs to go into pre-production, what has to happen – and perhaps more importantly what needs not happen – on set, and what works or not in post. I certainly understand story and how to communicate that to others – actors, department heads, partners, investors. I think I have a good eye, though I’d need a kick-ass DP of course. The good news is I know just such a kick-ass DP who lives nearby.

I’ve been selling myself as a writer/producer, or at least as a writer who thinks like a producer, but now I’m thinking it might be better if I can show the Bigs that I can direct, too. I think I could raise a little money to finance the short, but I would write the script to exploit available materials and call in favors to get talented pros to work at (drastically?) reduced rates and do it for very little money.

Of course, that means writing a perfect short script. And then deciding to invest the time – and available time is more and more rare these days.

Hmmm.

Think I’ll get another cup of coffee and think about all this more.

I Failed

2008-04-09T09:07:00.001-04:00

But only kinda.

I was supposed to be totally finished with The D Line on March 31.

I wasn’t.

But I did finish on April 2. That’s only kinda failing, right?

So there it is. Done. Sent out. No more work on it.

Unless someone comes along and wants it, and asks for changes of course.

Barring that, I vow to do nothing more but send it out and talk to people about it.

To that end, a friend handed it off last week to the management team of the actor I had in mind as I wrote the lead character. This past Saturday another friend got it physically into the hands of a veteran A-lister – the kind of guy who gets lifetime achievement awards now – who has his own production company, the mission statement of which says they formed to produce exactly this sort of film. 16 other copies have gone off to various actors, producers, directors, agents and managers, through industry contacts I have – didn’t cold call anyone or generally query it out without a connection. Might do that later, if nothing happens for a while with the Connection Plan.

I started on the first version of this script more than three years ago. It’s been a great ride, but I’m relieved to be through with it.

It’s good. Solid. So much better than that first version three years ago. Man have I learned a lot.

And now I move on. Whew.

To what? That’s still a battle between the action script and the thriller my brother and I are considering.

Wonder who’s gonna win that battle. This is for certain, though: I'll pick soon, and whichever one I choose to pour my energy into, I won’t work on it for three years.

Quick Update

2008-03-28T10:39:00.001-04:00

I promised myself I’d be finished with The D Line by March 31.

March 31 is almost here.

But I’m gonna make it. Yesterday I cracked a wee problem in the third act, and I’ve addressed the concerns of my friend/reader mentioned in the last post, in a way that still maintains the intended spirit of the script. The slight restructuring/streamlining in act three will actually also help with the clarity issue my friend was concerned about.

And as for Dismal, we’re just about done with deliverables – finishing up some revised foley after a couple of QC failures. Our distributor, Showcase Entertainment, has closed deals with Germany and Greece and is narrowing in on Japan. The domestic distribution won’t happen until all the deliverables are in, but that should be in the next couple weeks.

So hopefully soon I’ll be posting a link where you can buy your very own copy – it’ll be in Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Netflix, etc. Because I know everyone is gonna buy a copy. For themselves and for their mother.

Right?

Until then, if you wanna see us on Showcase’s site, go to http://www.showcaseentertainment.com/ click on What’s New and look for Dismal.

Too Delicate?

2008-03-20T09:21:00.002-04:00

I’ve been a television producer for years – mainly docudramas for channels like Discovery and Nat Geo. This has helped me a great deal as a writer in some ways – even as I write, I instinctively think in terms of producibility: locations, casting, props… what it would take to pull off. This nuts-and-bolts mind is good to have – especially since by now it’s fairly instinctive and it doesn’t interfere with the creative mind required for writing a good story.

But in my early scripts, the style of my writing was too much like a producer. I was including far too much direction for the director and actors and art department and… well, every department. Because when you’re the series producer of a cable TV show, you have to do that. You’re the chief, you call the shots. Literally.

And you better make it clear for everyone, because with our budgets, we don't have time to dick around.

But a spec script going out into the thin-ice pond of Hollywood should not have all that stuff in it. Too much of that shit pisses people off. They want to feel like they have some ownership in it, that they can make some decisions. Which they should.

So I’ve worked on paring it down in my scripts, cutting it back, keeping action descriptions lean.

And I was just about to send The D Line out into the world, to see if anyone would bite. I’m comfortable with it – I really like it now. Then a respected friend, with many years developing scripts in Hollywood under his belt, suggested that maybe I pared it down a little too much.

It’s a drama, a lot of emotion – and emotions, though powerful, are best when rendered subtly. Or at least I think so – histrionics tend to make me roll my eyes, and I think the most powerful emotional moments in life are quiet But my friend said I should be careful – that in his experience, most of the people who will be reading my script at the early stages are not very sophisticated, and some of the important stuff, if not spelled out more clearly, might slip by them.

So although I was feeling basically finished, and I keep promising to stop working on it, I’m doing one more pass. Not to dumb it down – I can’t bring myself to do that, and this is not the sort of script that would work dumbed down. But I will go through with an eye to making sure all the important emotional beats are clear.

It's a tough call - finding that small place that sits the appropriate distance between too much and too little. Especially in such a fickle business.

But this is what we've chosen to do, right?

I'm giving myself until the end of the month. And then I will stop and let it lie as it is and get it out there.

Because I need to move on to the next one.

And right now, that’s a battle between the action script I’ve been inconsistently working on for a while and a new thriller that my brother and I are considering writing together.

I was really enjoying the action script – but now I’m really intrigued by the thriller. And by the challenge of writing with a partner, which I’ve always wondered about. Plus it’s my brother, which would be cool.

Last Night: Gone Baby Gone

2008-03-07T13:15:00.001-05:00

What. A great. Movie.

Authentic. Compelling. Suspenseful.

Thoughtfully written. Beautifully shot. Rhythmically edited.

Real, round, perfectly imperfect characters.

Even a fine score.

And an ending that hurts everyone with a heart and a brain.

Bravo, Ben. Bravo.

Ease Up On The Rule Thing

2008-02-15T08:23:00.005-05:00

Gooserats wrote about this recently, and it reminded me that this has been gnawing at me lately.

One note I almost always get on my stuff is about one of the Golden Rules: don’t write anything in action description that doesn’t correspond directly to what the viewer will be seeing on screen.

Not a bad guideline, I agree, but definitely not an essential rule.

I think the rule came into being to help budding screenwriters remember that although the script is written on paper, it’s written for a visual medium. So always think of what it’s gonna look like and relay that. Of course. Absolutamente.

But I think two overriding guidelines are 1) we should enjoy the writing of the thing while making sure readers enjoy the reading of it, and 2) we should trust readers to do a little work themselves.

It’s difficult and lonely work, writing, so we need to have some fun doing it. I mean, come on, not all of us are getting rich off it. Give us something. Also,it’s boring to read a million screenplays as anyone in the business has to do, so readers should take some enjoyment out of it, too.

I’ve heard directors and actors complain about screenplays spelling things out too much for them, not allowing them to draw conclusions, make imaginative leaps, have a brain. You can in fact describe a physical condition without stating it too literally.

I mean think about it: when you’re watching a movie and there’s a bunch of clunky exposition, doesn’t it annoy you as a viewer? You’re sitting there rolling your eyes thinking, “Okay, thanks, I get it. Let’s move on.”

Same thing a reader thinks, I think, when everything is laid out too literally in a script.

I was reading the script for American Gangster recently. A couple of examples from it, courtesy of Steven Zaillian. The first regarding the fact that writers should have some fun writing and readers should enjoy the read:

Bumpy stops before a display of cameras and stares in. They’re all pointed at him as a pain grips his chest and he sinks to his knees. Frank kneels down.

FRANK
What is it?

Bumpy seems unable to speak, looks to Frank confused.

FRANK
Somebody call an ambulance!

But the store suddenly seems empty. Frank yells into the emporium but can’t be heard above the Muzak and the cash registers ringing up sales Bumpy will never see a piece of. Looking up at Frank, Bumpy manages weakly –

BUMPY
Forget it, Frank. No one’s in charge.

Nice, right? Now, you can’t exactly see “ the cash registers ringing up sales Bumpy will never see a piece of” but, as a reader, don’t you appreciate the artfulness of it? Isn’t it a better way of saying Bumpy’s about to die and his extortion days are over? And if you were Zaillian, wouldn’t you die of boredom and never write again if you couldn’t write like this?

Another example, a few pages later, regarding how description can actually be visual, without being too literally visual:

Richie lunges at him, hits him again with his injured hand - which hurts Richie more than it does Campizi. The paramedics manage to pull him away.

CAMPIZI
What can we do, Richie? You don’t want
to do this. For old times sake, what can
we do? Who do you want? Who can I give
you? You want Big Sal’s bookie? You want
his accountant? I’ll give him to you.

Richie regards him a moment. A policy ring’s accountant wouldn’t be bad. He glances back to the paramedic dabbing at his bloody hand, and notices she’s not bad-looking. She smiles back.

Two things there. Some people might call Zaillian out on “which hurts Richie more than it does Campizi” and on “A policy ring’s accountant wouldn’t be bad.”

But I submit that those actually do reflect something that can be seen. You just have to do a little work. And I mean a little work –- it’s not hard.

True, the first one doesn’t read, “Richie screams and cradles his hand while Campizi barely whimpers” but you can see how those two actors would react to that punch, can’t you?

And the second one, to be more literal, could be something stupid like, “Richie raises his eyebrows, smiles slightly and nods his head” but that would be, well, stupid. You can see his reaction to the offer of the accountant. In his eyes you can see he’s considering the offer.

Come on, I know you can.

The Big Miss

2008-02-12T12:19:00.001-05:00

After reading the first 15 pages or so of the action script I’m (admittedly not consistently) working on, my brother said one scene -– in which one of the main characters, the hit man, makes a protein shake and slugs it down -– vaguely reminded him of a movie he thought we saw together when he was living down here in Virginia -– an early Mark Wahlberg movie called The Big Hit. He said he wasn’t sure why, but when he read that scene he thought of that movie.

I didn’t remember seeing it, but his memory is pretty good, so I figured I probably did –- then I got worried that maybe I had subconsciously lifted a piece of it.

Or should I say, piece of shit.

I slid The Big Hit to the top of my Netflix queue and watched it as soon as it landed in the mailbox. I quickly recognized it –- yes I have seen this movie. And I wondered if I groaned as much the first time I watched it with little brother.

What a weak freaking movie. And frankly, I’m a big Mark Wahlberg fan –- I think he’s fantastic. But this thing: so tired and trite and not fun at all. Bad dialogue, thin characters, unimaginative plot, boring action scenes. Plus they gave ol’ Marky Mark a really shitty auburn dye job.

And don’t even get me started on Lou Diamond Phillips’s character. Or wardrobe.

I will say I liked this movie when it was called Grosse Pointe Blank -– which came out a year earlier. (I wonder if Cusack was mad about that. Actually, he probably just chuckled and toasted himself and his talent.)

Turns out my brother’s memory is flawed -– there were no protein shakes in it, though Wahlberg’s character does slug Maalox like it’s going out of style. Because he’s stressed being a hit man, working for bad people and juggling two women who don’t treat him right. Get it? So he ends up getting together with the cute Japanese teenager he begins the movie by kidnapping. (China Chow, who is adorable.) She’s okay with his being a hit man because it’ll be a “constant adrenaline rush” and she promises that in their relationship, unlike with those other girls, the love will be a two-way street.

It made me feel so much better about my script. Because my script is so much better. So far at least.

Of course… this movie actually got made and mine exists only as 30 pages of a MovieMagic Screenwriter file in my aging laptop. So put that in your pipe, David, and take a Big Hit.

The real question, I suppose is this: why does my brother hate me so much?

Oops, She Did It First

2008-01-29T07:33:00.000-05:00

I’ve been a little worried about the originality of the action script I’m working on. It involves a hit man and a deal gone bad -– not the most groundbreaking motifs for an action film, admittedly. In fact I just read that two of the buzz movies at Sundance had to do with hit men.

I haven’t seen a whole lot of hit man movies, so I loaded my Netflix queue with them, so I can make sure I don’t accidentally go where a bunch of people have already gone. The most frustrating kind of plagiarism is the accidental kind.

This was not a worry I had with The D Line. In that script, the driving dramatic moment that makes everything turn to shit is when a girl commits suicide by stepping in front of a train. The conductor later connects with the girl’s mother and they both struggle to make sense of all this. There’s more to it of course -– but the image of the girl’s suicide is what started me thinking about the story in the first place.

A couple years ago I was listening to a report on NPR about how long it takes to stop a train -– which, it’s no surprise, is a long time -– and I started thinking about what it must be like for a conductor to see that he’s about to hit something, from a long way off, and there’s nothing at all that he can do. Like if someone steps on the tracks and waits to be hit and killed. I just thought that was a great, powerful image that I’d never seen dealt with in a movie.

Then, last night, I started leafing through the January/February issue of Creative Screenwriting.

And I saw I’m not as much of a vanguard as I thought.

And I said, “Fuck.”

There’s a brief article about a screenwriter named Micky Levy and her first produced screenplay, Rails and Ties.

From the article:

“Around that time, Levy became fascinated by the American railroad system… attempted an action movie in which the climax involved a huge fight to gain control of the locomotive… she grew frustrated… a conductor agreed to meet her… he began talking about rail-related suicides… even when they see the victims, conductors often can’t stop the trains in time… she had found a better story… about a train tracks suicide and the effect it has on a conductor who forms a bond with the victim’s child.”

It’s directed by Allison Eastwood and stars Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden. Check it out:

Fuck, man.

I mean, like I said, there’s a lot of stuff in my script that’s not in this -– and a lot in this that’s not in my script… but is some agent gonna be like, “Oh shit, not another train suicide movie!”

Just goes to show you what we all know -– there are no original ideas.

So it’s all in the execution.

Let’s hope mine is as good as hers, ‘cause she got it made.

Micky Levy actually seems kinda cool, and is now working on a nonfiction film with Amy Berg. You go girl~~

If I'm On Hold, I Might As Well Work

2008-01-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

So the weekend came and went with no call from J.

Listen, everyone’s busy. Especially people in New York. Really especially people in the music industry in New York. So I’m not going to sweat it.

Maybe he calls, maybe he doesn’t. (I sound like a 12-year-old girl trying to be brave, don’t I?)

Maybe he handed the script off to the actor’s management, maybe he didn’t.

We’ll just sit back and see.

To tell you the truth, it’s not too bad if he didn’t hand it off yet. See, I’ve decided to make a few changes. Nothing too drastic, but I’ve just been talking to a few trusted readers, and I think it could use a wee tweaking.

I know, I know. You can’t tweak forever. Or rather you can tweak forever, and so you shouldn't. But these are pretty minor, and I know what to do, and I think they’ll make it even stronger with just a little more work.

So I’ll do a minor revision -- and do it soon, because I have a couple of other contacts standing by, graciously waiting to hand it off to some more Hollywooders, and I want to be ready to start showing it around once the strike ends.

And, to those of you who have it and are interested, I’ll track the changes, so if you want to check them out you won’t have to read the whole thing over again.

By the way, the work on the action script went pretty well in DC. I actually worked on it during a few breaks in the conference and for a couple hours each night. It was more adjusting the first act than moving past it, so I’m still only a little past 30 pages, but it’s feeling pretty good.

I never really send out preliminary pages -- doing so kinda freaks me out -- but I did send the first 17 pages of this one to a small circle of folks whom I trust and am PATIENTLY awaiting their FEEDBACK.

Hint, hint.

Mainly I was asking them if they think the general direction is solid. I know it’s messy and has some holes -- but these are BRIGHT PEOPLE who are SMART enough to see where I’m going and can TELL ME IF IT’S IN THE RIGHT NEIGHBORHOOD.

Hint, HINT.

Travels Of The Spec Script

2008-01-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

So I got in touch with J (see a couple of posts ago for an explanation) and have an update on The D Line's travels.

Sorta.

Yes, he did receive the script. Yes, he read the script. Yes, he enjoyed the script. Yes, he wants to talk about the script, and he's calling this weekend to do so.

I didn't ask if he handed it off to the actor's management, and he didn't bring it up, but I'll ask this weekend.

So the update is... no real update.

But maybe after this weekend.

As for the action script, I'm about 30 pages in. I have to go to a three-day conference for work in DC next week, so that's two nights in a hotel room alone.

Hopefully I'll cowboy up and actually spend some good time writing while I have it.

Come on David -- you can do it!

2008-01-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

If you are in need of reassurance that there is true beauty in the world beyond the type pimped by Vogue, that there is such a thing as soul in a country that created smooth jazz, that there are reasons to smile even when no one is paying you or giving you 20% off –- and if you’re wondering if kids can be born with a deep wisdom before we teach them a thing –- look into the eyes of this little girl.

Holy Hibernation

2008-01-07T14:02:00.000-05:00

Fell asleep there for a few weeks...

What's awakened me is the realization that loglines suck.

And I say that mainly because I suck at writing them.

Or one for The D Line anyway.

It’d be easier if this screenplay weren’t a thinky ensemble period piece in a non-standard structure. Or so I’m telling myself.

But hell, don’t you think it’d be easier to write a logline for Spiderman than for Magnolia?

But I’m gonna do it, dammit! Just try and stop me!

Actually, my wife and one of the other bloggers ‘round here both picked the same one from the batch I sent them, and they’re both smart, so I think I’ll go with that.

In other D Line news:

I submitted to BlueCat and will to Scriptapalooza soon.

And, a funny thing.

I wrote The D Line with a certain actor in mind to play the lead. He started out as a music artist and made the jump to movies (though his records are still great), and I’m a huuuge fan of both his music and his acting. From the very beginning of this process, I had him in mind to lead. It helps, I think, if you can picture people as you write characters. Even if you're casting pipe dreams.

The manager of a friend of mine suggested another actor –- an amazing actor who could pull it off without question, but in terms of my initial intention, it was this guy. Not that I'd stop said manager from sending the script to the other guy, mind you.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we were at my wife’s high school reunion and we met a guy she knew in high school, we’ll call him J. Cool guy, good to talk with, good energy. The kind of guy you meet at a high school reunion and you’re not desperately thinking up excuses to slink away –- “Uh, gotta get me in on that Macarena, looks hot!” I met a couple of those guys, by the way, but this guy I liked.

When we got to the so-what-are-you-doing-now bit, he mentioned he worked for a record company in New York. And it just happens to be the record label of the aforementioned wish-lead for The D Line.

“Really? You know, interestingly, I wrote this script…”

Turns out J is into movies, has worked as a music supervisor, and oh, happens to work in the same offices as the music management team of the guy I wrote the goddamn script for. J agrees to read the script and then hand it over to them.

Now, this is certainly nothing to get worked up about. I mean, maybe J will be too busy to read it, or maybe he won’t like it and won’t want to hand it off, or maybe the music managers will be like, “The fuck’s this? We don’t do movies.”

But still, it’s cool. So maybe, just maybe, the script is a few steps away from its intended star.

Or maybe it’s in the trash can.

Hopefully at least the recycle bin. Let's think of the earth, people.

I Think This Is My Favorite One

2007-12-13T15:01:00.000-05:00

But they're almost all great.

I trust you all are watching these, and reading UnitedHollywood, and keeping the faith.

It's important.

Details, Details, Details

2007-12-04T16:56:00.000-05:00

The Gimp asked about deliverables, and maybe other indy filmmakers might have the same question, so here’s the quick rundown.

Deliverables are basically your last hurdle as a producer. And they’re a big’un.

They’re the final stuff you need to deliver to the distributor to make everything all legal-like and to allow for the physical production of film prints, DVDs, artwork, marketing, etc.

Film companies have big staffs (heh, heh, he said big staff) that do nothing but create, compile and deliver deliverables, but you as an independent producer have to buckle down and do it yourself.

And it sucks.

Here’s some of the stuff you have to give them, excerpted from our agreement:

.40 production still photos on a CD or 35mm color slides
·Still and likeness approvals
·Full credit crawl
·List of names and/or likenesses that must appear in art
·List of names that must appear above title
·Approved billing block
·All logos which are required to appear on the art
·Synopsis
·D5 High Def 24p tape of the feature with eight audio track assignments
·Downconverted digital masters both NTSC and PAL
·NTSC DVcam and Digi-Beta tapes of the feature with Dialog and Effects only
·CD of the licensed music, with the songs in their entirety.
·20-30 DVD screeners, with continuous visible time code over picture
·Feature and Trailer Continuity Dialogue List
·Music Cue Sheet, Composer Agreement and all Music Licenses
·Screenplay and Motion Picture Copyright Certificates
·Certificates of Origin – 10 original documents notarized
·E&O Insurance Certificate
·Copyright Report
·Press Kit (consisting of press clippings, advertising materials, actor, director, producer bios, etc.)

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? And there's more where that came from...

Mmm. Sure is fun.

And The Strike Slogs On

2007-11-30T14:34:00.000-05:00

I haven’t really done any writing since the strike started.

I’d like to say it’s in solidarity with the WGA. And maybe it is, subconsciously. But it could also be that I’ve been lazy.

I’m totally behind the WGA though, so I am in solidarity with them, actually. In fact, I’d like to hear someone really explain why the writers should not get these very reasonable shares in profits. Explain it to me, with a straight face, and swear on your mama that you believe it in your heart, and I’ll buy you a Camaro.

You deserve a Camaro.

So, since I’m not working on the action script, what else can I tell you?

Um, my dad hasn’t hit any more deer.

Thanksgiving was good -– had the turkey in the smoker all damn day and man was it tasty.

Oh, we’re just about wrapped up in the distribution deal for Dismal. Now comes the pain in the ass that is deliverables. Great. Can't wait.

And at work, we’re shipping the rough cut of our new pilot to History Channel tomorrow for Monday delivery. It’s really good -– I hope they like it.

‘Cause I’d like to keep receiving a paycheck.

And now that I’m comfortable with it, I’m compiling a list of Industry Contacts to send The D Line to. Will likely do that after the strike ends, so as not to appear a scab.

I'm no scab.

And hey, you indy filmmakers out there, Moby is offering free music for use in non-commercial films and shorts. Check out: http://www.mobygratis.com/film-music.html

El Jefe

2007-11-14T13:51:00.000-05:00

Saw Springsteen Sunday night in DC.

Holy shit.

What a storyteller. I mean, yes, obviously, he can write great lyrics and tell stories that way. But he’s also a master at using the songs to weave a larger tale.

His song choice, the way he arranges, reinvents and plays them live, his pacing, knowing when to be serious with a subtext-laden blues, when to just have fun with balls-out guitar rock, how to make 30,000 people laugh or scream or cheer all at once –- everything comes together in one great story you can’t put down.

Throughout the night he threw some lovely jabs at the Bush administration and the way they’re pretty much fucking up everything they touch. Then when he played "The Promised Land," dedicating it to a young soldier sitting in a wheelchair stage left… it totally changed the meaning of the song compared to what it meant to me when I was a kid.

I won’t go into a song-by-song breakdown. I could, but I won't. But listen. Even if you don’t love Springsteen’s music, you should go see him on this tour. You will not be disappointed.

And if you’re like me (the first album I ever bought was Born To Run, purchased at Cap’n Bullfrogs in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont when I was 10 years old -– and I’ve been a constant fan since) you must go see him on this tour.

The six-song encore was worth the price of admission itself: six back-to-back, knock-down, drag-out, rollicking songs that just blistered from beginning to end: "Girls in their Summer Clothes," "Growin' Up," "Kitty's Back," "Born to Run," "Dancing in the Dark" and "American Land."

Whew. I’m still exhausted from it.

Actually, come to think of it, that "Kitty’s Back" alone was worth the admission price.

Whoa. Two Posts In One Day.

2007-11-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

Saw this on the Kung Fu Monkey.

Perfect.

Deer, Old Dad

2007-11-08T11:38:00.000-05:00

I like to take note of little events in real life which, if I saw in a movie, would usually make me chuckle and think, That wouldn’t really happen…

Because these things do happen. Greg and Emily post about them all the time.

And they’re good to keep in mind, as a writer.

Like the other day when my dad hit a deer.

I grew up in Vermont and my parents, my sister and her family and my little brother and his family still live there. There are a lot of deer in Vermont. And they haven’t quite figured out the whole moving vehicle thing yet, as a species.

My mom is down here with us this week and so my dad, being a man, decided to go over to my brother’s house for dinner, I’m guessing largely so that he wouldn’t have to thaw out another frozen meal my mom no doubt stocked the freezer with. So much work to thaw after all.

So he’s flying up County Road –- yes it’s called that –- in his pickup in the darkness of a countryside evening (sounds like a Garth Brooks song, don’t it?) and a deer bursts from the side of the road and he slams into it.

Now this can be very dangerous. Not as dangerous as moose, but dangerous. Moose, man, those things kill people all the time. They’re super tall, with skinny legs and they’re wicked heavy –- so if you hit them, their little legs snap and their huge body crashes through your windshield... and you’re dead.

This happened to the father of one of my mom’s students a couple years ago. It happens a lot.

Deer can screw you up too, if they come through the windshield -- and even if they don’t they can cause a wreck that can screw you up.

Sorry, one more aside, then back to the story. In high school up there I worked in a car wash. Worst. Job. Ever. Washing cars in Vermont in the winter, when car washes in Vermont are busiest because people wanna get all the road salt off their cars. My clothes would literally freeze.

Holy shit, these tangents are killing me. But what I was saying about the car wash is that a lot of people had these deer whistles attached to their side mirrors. They were designed to blow a high pitch whistle when the car was moving and there was air flowing through them, the thought being the whistle would ward off deer.

Two things: I bet it didn’t work, and they almost never survived the trip through the car wash anyway. God knows how many of those damn things I cleaned up from the bay while smoking pot with my best friend Jim during breaks.

(Maybe not the worst job ever, come to think of it…)

Back to my dad.

So he hits the deer on the passenger front side -– big bam, scared old man, much more scared deer. Dad stops, the deer’s gone.

Exhale. Continue drive up County Road to Patrick’s house.

There, he checks his truck, sees lots of damage, grabs Patrick and goes back to see if the deer is there, see if they can help it.

Aren’t they sweet?

No sign of the deer, so Dad calls the State Police, as you’re supposed to do. This is where, to me, it gets funny.

The dispatcher takes Dad’s info, then says she’ll report it to animal control. She then asks, “If we find the deer and it’s freshly dead, do you want us to bring it to you?”

So: kill a deer with your car in Vermont… get meat for the winter!

Dad declined, by the way.

Okay, it probably wasn’t worth all that reading of meandering prose, but it does tell me that suspension of disbelief needn’t be that difficult. The world’s a funny place…

Getting Closer

2007-11-06T14:37:00.000-05:00

Quick update on Dismal.

Our attorney, working with EP Jeff, has decided which of the five distribution offers is the best, and they’re calling that company today.

We did some negotiating with that company before the entertainment lawyer stepped in –- having a brain and a bit of experience, it was easy to spot the crappy portions in the deal, and the distributor struck those down quickly upon request. So I think we’ve already negotiated it to as good a deal as we can expect, and I’m hoping the paperwork will happen quickly so they can start selling this thing. It should go fast -– our attorney is an LA guy with plenty of clients way bigger than us so they shouldn’t screw around with him much.

So… hopefully you’ll be able to buy, rent, on-demand and otherwise watch it soon.

And, to you true indies out there, take this simple piece of advice: don’t sign the first distribution deal you get, no matter how excited you are. The first draft of any deal offered is not going to be in your best interest -– that’s a simple fact. The distribution company will always try to make the terms best for them at first -– that way if you sign it, they make out better. I can't even fault them for that. But there’s always room for negotiating.

Do a little homework, talk to some people who have struck out on the path before you, then respectfully point out where you’d be screwed. If they like the product, and if you’re not asking for ridiculous stuff yourself, they’ll compromise. They all did with us.

What A Birthday Present

2007-10-29T11:56:00.001-04:00

Thanks boys.

Now I can go back to writing.

Thanks Jehovah

2007-10-19T09:36:00.000-04:00

Ohhhhh. So that's what they meant. All suffering soon to end.

The Red Sox won -- and I had my laptop with me, you know, on my lap, while I watched the game.

So my Sox stay alive and I also did some writing. Not a whole lot of writing, mind you, but some writing.

Whew. On both fronts.

100 Movies Countdown

2007-10-18T12:45:00.000-04:00

There's a fine brilliance here:

All Suffering SOON TO END!

2007-10-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

Playoff baseball is bad for my writing.

The Red Sox being down 3-1 in the ALCS is bad for my everything.

But, I was accosted by a disarmingly sweet Jehovah’s Witness at the gas station this morning and handed a small booklet entitled “All Suffering SOON TO END!”

Might this mean the Sox are going to win tomorrow night, and the two games thereafter, then sweep the Rockies in the World Series?

Or, does it mean the Sox lose tomorrow and are eliminated, which signals the end of playoff baseball –- or at least the need to watch every second of it -– for a die hard Sox fan… so I can write again at night?

Which suffering is it, Ms. Witness? Sox keep going and win the series but I still don’t get to write for a while? Or Sox get knocked out and I go back to writing?

By the way, the booklet mentions that soon God will remove wickedness from the earth and this planet will become the paradise it once was. The part about this that concerns me is that the booklet also declares that all the dead people will be brought back to life to enjoy the new paradise.

We’ve seen the movies, so we know how it ends when the dead are brought back to life.

Plus, think of the traffic jams…

(Shit. It just occurred to me. Maybe I'm part of the wickedness that will soon be removed. Guess that solves my traffic worries anyway.)

Riding The Rationalization Horse Now

2007-10-12T10:52:00.000-04:00

I’ve fallen off the write-every-day horse.

But wait, not really.

My job developing TV series requires me to write every day, a lot of the time all day every day.

Brainstorming new concepts, honing those concepts into structured series, researching. Creating storylines, writing crisply, designing dramatic verbal pitches. Always keeping in mind brands and formats, marketability and resonance to specific demographics. Revising, revising, revising. Throwing out ideas that end up going nowhere and starting over.

But I’m rationalizing, aren’t I?

This isn’t screenwriting.

It’s good training for screenwriting, to be sure. But it’s not screenwriting.

Gotta get back on the horse.

I have nine pages on the new action script. It’s a good beginning, but I was thinking this morning that instead of continuing with the story, I want to stop and do some thorough character sketching.

I’ve never done this in preparing for a script, but for this one to work, my two main characters need to be razor-sharp. My fear is that they could end up being too much alike and/or too hackneyed. So I’m gonna sketch them out before the plot thickens.

Saddle up.

By the way, I had a great pitch meeting with a cool cable channel on Wednesday. They loved the series concept. Two good signs: after my first couple sentences, the VP says, “What a great title -– I like it already.” And then, midway into my pitch, as I told a spooky story that could be part of the show, she says, “Ooh, I’ve got goosebumps!”

We have a little follow-up work to do, which we can do quickly -– but the decision to greenlight or not is gonna have to wait until the first of the year because they’re operating under strict commissioning parameters that have their hands tied until then.

Curses.

I just hope their brand doesn’t morph again by January…

Does That Count?

2007-10-04T13:32:00.000-04:00

I’ve kept up the write-everyday thing, but only if you count writing as opening up the script, fixing a spelling error, re-titling it again, thinking about it for a few minutes and then saving and closing it again.

Do you count that as writing?

I do.

On the new script I have only four pages. But they’re okay. Today in the shower I outlined the next scene but haven’t had time today to actually write it.

This script is a departure for me –- an action script. Which is probably why it’s exciting.

I’ve sketched out an idea of the arc of the first two acts but I don’t know how it ends. I’m not too worried, though, as even having an idea about two acts is more than I usually plan in advance. I tend to like having the story unfold as I develop the characters. Let them do a little storytelling. They usually do alright

Well, back to work -– prepping for a pitch meeting at a cable channel next Wednesday and we gotta have our shit together. Gotta get some more series signed, to keep the workplace going, to get more paychecks, to keep the power on in the house, so I can finish this action script…

Fresh Start

2007-10-01T13:44:00.000-04:00

Ohhh, last week was one of those weeks at work, alright.

One of those weeks where everything’s wrong. Where throughout each day, you find yourself asking yourself, “Why am I doing all this again? And for what?” Where the F word is strewn about with wild abandon.

But then Friday afternoon I wrapped up the draft of D Line and sent it off to some trusted readers who’d requested it.

Then a bit later Friday afternoon I resolved most of the stuff that had been driving me ape shit at work.

Friday night the Red Sox took the AL East title.

Saturday morning I went for a good 35-mile bike ride and did a few sprints with a couple guys who are stronger than me so I ended up totally blasted and delighted.

Saturday afternoon I played soccer, baseball and just-play-with-a-ball with my son in a sunny field until we were both giddy.

Saturday night my wife and I took turns staying up literally all night with the baby whose tummy was in turmoil (which was exhausting but actually makes you love the little critters even more and so in a way made me happy).

Sunday afternoon we picked out pumpkins and other fall plants and the boy and I did some gardening until dinner.

And this morning I brought with me to work the pages of notes I have for the next script, which I’m going to start today during lunch.

That's right kids. A new script. Something I haven't faced in a long time.

But after this weekend, I'm a new man.

And so, now, this week, it’s gonna be one of those weeks.

One of those weeks where everything works out right.

Not Yet

2007-09-19T16:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my first daughter’s 19th birthday. Which means she’s now older than I was when she was born.

We’re a lot a like –- just today on the phone we realized we had both found and fell in love with the band Eels recently. And when I asked her yesterday how it felt to be 19, she launched into a hilariously deadpan musing on sudden enlightenment. Sounded exactly like some wiseass thing I’m sure I said to my own father once.

But I was thinking, if she followed in my footsteps too closely, I’d be a grandfather right now.

Wow.

A grandpa with a one-month old baby himself.

Funny world. Glad I’m in it. I love it.

(And glad I'm not a grandpa yet. Please let me get more grey first...)

In terms of writing, I’ve been inspired by Scott the Reader’s write-every-day self challenge. I haven’t done at least an hour a day like he has, but I've done some non-work-related writing four days in a row now. Of course, he’s at like 36 or something…

In terms of other people’s writing, I rewatched part of Rushmore a few days ago. I really love the scene where Blume goes to see Miss Cross at her house and she offers him a carrot. It’s a great scene about the beginning of a love affair. Little is said overtly, but so much comes across in terms of attraction, curiosity, nervousness. Love.

I found the scene online and read it. Not much is given away in action lines, either. A fine example of trusting the reader, the director, the actors to get the scene.

Which I know is a risk.

Because what if they don’t get it?

But then, should they be reading it if they don’t?

Bravo Messrs. Anderson and Wilson.

Clever Little Bastard

2007-09-13T10:48:00.000-04:00

Michael Davis was pretty smart in making sure he got the directing gig and not just the script option for his Shoot 'Em Up.

I tried to upload his animations into this blog but it didn't work.

So two things:

1. How do I do that? I hit the ADD VIDEO button, then chose the file and clicked upload, but all it did was put a blank box in the body of the post. Like this:

2. If you're interested, check them out at the Creatve Screenwriting podcast on iTunes. To convince New Line he should direct his own script, he made animated storyboards of some of the action scenes. 17,000 drawings or something. Smart use of his time, I say.

By the way, his interview is interesting, too. After writing 35 screenplays and directing five movies, he almost left the business to be a teacher because he was frustrated he wasn't "making it."

35 screenplays. Five films directed. Worked for years in LA.

Important cautionary tale for us specsters. It's a long and brutal road ahead of us.

First one who makes it, send up a flare.

Rubber Duckie, You're The One... (But Do You Sometimes Hate Water?)

2007-09-06T11:49:00.000-04:00

I realized this weekend that my wife has made me a little girly.

Which bugged me and my testosterone a little.

But then I thanked her for making me a better writer.

Now, I’ve never been mister macho, grunting my way through conversations unless they’re about sports or porn, slapping waitresses on the ass, wanting to beat up people to amuse my friends. But I am a fairly normal guy.

And recently, I’ve become a little more girly.

To wit:

A) I sometimes like to take a bath instead of a shower. Actually, this is when I realized this whole thing this weekend -– as I was taking a bath. I’ve always been a shower guy. Seems more practical. I always wondered how you can really rinse off when you’re in the bath. But my wife comes from a long line of bath-takers. So I tried it. Now I kinda like baths. Maybe I should try to save manly face by saying it makes me feel like I’m in Unforgiven, soaking my weary bones after riding with the other cowboys all day. Wait, that still sounds girly. How about I feel like I’m in Deadwood. With whores all around. Relaxing after killing a Pinkerton who looked at me sideways. Another whiskey Dan, you cocksucker!

B) I sometimes refer to things as being cute. Been doing that more and more, actually, with the arrival of the baby girl. Who is cute, after all. And all the little clothes and blankets that come with her. Also cute. So far I haven’t pulled out the, “Awwwww” that a lot of women preface “cute” with, but I’m on that road. So don’t be surprised if, when you show me a photo of your new hybrid car, I turn my head to the side, furrow my brow and exclaim, “Awwww, it’s so cuuute!”

Why do I bring this up in a blog about writing?

I’m getting to that.

A couple days ago Bob Edwards interviewed Joyce Johnson, one of Jack Kerouac’s girlfriends, about her new book Minor Characters. (I read her Door Wide Open, which is a collection of letters between the two of them, with commentary by her –- very nice.) Anyway, she read an excerpt about watching Jack watch a cat eat its food. He crouched at a distance, taking in every move of the cat as it ate.

Simple enough -- a lot of people might not have noticed him doing this. But she did -- she knew the importance.

He did this, I’m thinking, because he wanted to be able to write right about cats when it was time to write about cats. Or that cat in particular, maybe. But he was studying it. Carefully. How does a cat eat, really?

So in the bath I was thinking about character. And how, if I wrote me, I might not think to write me taking a bath. Because I’m big man tough growl. But I like a bath now and again.

I think about the characters in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In The Sopranos. Even in The Last Kiss (one that surprised me).

Those writers made good, solid, consistent characters, like you’re supposed to –- but they made them real by making them realistic. Not too predictable. Varied. Rich. Screwed up.

My guess is those writers have spent a lot of time watching the real characters all around them. And remembering that when they wrote.

It’s a good reminder, as I go through these next revisions on D Line –- to, yes, make the characters distinct from one another and consistent within themselves… but also a little inconsistent.

MLK was a model of love… and had fidelity issues. Johnny Cash was a genius… and an asshole of a drug addict. Hell, I bet George Bush even loves his kids.

No one is always one thing. So let’s not write them so.

Grrrr. Then, Ahhhh.

2007-08-31T10:39:00.000-04:00

Grrrr.

Starting tomorrow, it will be illegal to reincarnate in Tibet without the permission of the Chinese government.

I would be laughing hysterically right now if I weren’t so pissed off.

The superficial silliness of this new law belies more evil intent by the Chinese government. With this law in place, when HH the Dalai Lama dies and reincarnates, the Chinese government will be able to legally imprison the new Dalai Lama –- if he chooses to reincarnate in his homeland.

This way they’ll be able to do what they did with the last Panchen Lama -– whom they kidnapped and imprisoned when he was six years old in 1995. They then of course named their own Panchen Lama. Who, interestingly, seems to be very complimentary about the Chinese government’s handling of Tibet.

Fucking makes me go fucknuts.

Hey Greg, you have some pull over there. Can you talk to these people please?

Okay, let’s end with good stuff. HHDL would like that.

Today is my son’s second birthday and my father’s 69th birthday. We’re gonna have a kickass pizza-and-waterslide party tomorrow. Wanna come?

Recently, as I write, I’ve been mainly listening to two stations on iTunes radio: Ambient Popsicle from Groovera and Secret Agent on SomaFM. Check ‘em out.

But right now I’m listening to Art Pepper’s The Trip record. Great simple-and-beautiful jazz.

Currently reading Right Livelihoods by Rick Moody. Though it sounds Buddhist, it’s not. It’s a collection of three novellas and the first one is fantastic –- quietly funny and loopy about a retired guy who lives on a posh island and believes he’s uncovered an international plot to take over the island… though he’s not about to let that get in the way of his drinking or his dancing with driftwood sticks on the beach. Love it.

(If I were good at making links, I’d do so to make it easier for you to find these things. But I’m not. Sorry.)

Teen daughter comes home tonight. Baby daughter slept curled on my chest like a walnut half for two hours last night.

Feeling better. Ahhhh...

Thank You, Mr. Booker

2007-08-28T09:55:00.000-04:00

This happens just about every time I'm at some gathering where small talk is required.

STRANGER: So what do you do?

ME: In what circumstance?

STRANGER: For a living.

ME: Oh, I'm director of development for an independent television production company.

STRANGER: Cool! So you make TV?

ME: Well, I used to be a producer, so I used to actually make the shows, but now I'm in charge of development.

STRANGER: Cool! How does that work?

ME: I'm sorry, I think my ankles are on fire. Excuse me.

But now, I have a quick and easy summary I can reference to help explain what my professional life is. Thank you, Mr. Charlie Booker, for this helpful primer:

No Lifeguard On Duty

2007-08-27T12:07:00.000-04:00

I dove into D Line revisions on Saturday night.

Into the shallow end.

Ouch.

I started at 9. The boy was asleep, the girl was nestled with Mom and Nana as they watched Take The Lead.

It was a perfect set up for me. I had the notes of some trusted readers. I had my own notes as to what I wanted to do, having gone through the entire script several times. I had free time. I had Charles Lloyd’s Hyperion With Higgins playing. It was quiet. Dark.

I started nodding off at the keyboard around 9:30.

Bonk.

Ouch.

Thankfully my son is a wunderkind and pulled me out (though I outweigh him by 165 pounds), performed CPR, expelling all the water from my lungs, and then crawled back into his bed with his stuffed octopus.

But the baby slept pretty well last night, so I’m not particularly exhausted now. Went for a long bike ride yesterday afternoon. That always helps with energy and ideas. Maybe I’ll take the boy out for a run in the jogging stroller after work.

And then… then I dive back in. Trying not to knock myself out this time.

PS: Thanks for all the kind words about the wee one!

PPS: Realized I should do a Dismal update. We have written offers from three distributors/sales agents and a verbal one from a fourth. Once that fourth set of paperwork comes in, we'll go over all of them, hem and haw, decide, question our decision, undecide, argue, have a couple drinks, stare at the wall, then decide and sign. So hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to announce the distribution deal we went with and you all can start buying multiple copies of this film, or start pestering your local theater owner to run it if the deal includes domestic theatrical...

She's Here

2007-08-23T16:28:00.000-04:00

Born Monday at 11:21am. 7 lbs, 14 oz.

Mainly purple for the first few minutes.

Perfectly healthy and wonderfully beautiful.

‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

While Greg’s important post at the Web of Lies a few days ago reminds me how depressing the world can be, this wee lass reminds me how fantastic it can be.

Last post I mourn the loss of a young and gifted artist named Ringo. This one I celebrate the arrival of this lovely girl.

A little yin for your yang, people.

Am I happy, or in misery?

As for writing, just before she was born I finished my first pass at full revision notes on the hard copy of the D Line script. Next up is tracing each character’s arc to look for weaknesses, then making the changes to the script itself.

Last night I was soothing the baby girl at 3am when the toddler boy cried out from his room. Went in to check on him, babe in arms, and found he had terrible diarrhea, spilling out onto his PJs, his mattress.

Purple haze all in my mind, don’t know if it’s day or night.

Gonna be like this for a while.

But I’m gonna do my best to finish up this script soon.

Baby’s doing well. Teenage daughter says she might come home from college for the weekend.

Whatever it is that girl -– by which I think Jimi means “those girls, that boy” -- put a spell on me.

Ringo

2007-08-16T10:49:00.000-04:00

Mike Wieringo, one of my roommates my freshman year of college, passed away last Sunday, apparently of a heart attack. He was 44 years old.

Mike was a fantastic guy –- wildly talented with his comic book art, very funny in a dry, self-deprecating way… and the only person I’ve ever known to fall asleep standing up at a party. You should see the praise the people in the comic world are writing about him –- Google him, you’ll see how respected he was.

Toward the end of our year together, I screwed up one night and was an inconsiderate roommate –- loud and stupid. Rightfully, Mike got pissed -– and there was some tension as we parted ways.

Over the years I kept up with his career from afar –- seeing his work in some comics (I’m admittedly not a huge comic fan, but I do maintain a subscription to Iron Man, the comic I loved as a kid) and checking in on his website (www.mikewieringo.com) now and again to see his daily blogs and sketches. I kept telling myself I should write to him, to reconnect, but I never did.

I got back in touch with his brother Matt -– another roommate, and another talented artist and hilarious mofo, with an encyclopedic knowledge of film -– a couple years ago… but never did with Mike.

Wherever he is I hope Mike knows I always thought he was cool as shit and that I’m sorry I was an ass.

Last night, thinking of Mike, I wrote to my high school biology teacher to thank her for being such a great teacher and role model -– someone from whose bag of tricks I stole almost every day I taught. This was something I’ve been meaning to do for years.

Totally Boring

2007-08-13T12:52:00.000-04:00

Some preliminary progress in terms of the D Line rewrite. But only a little bit, and in fits and starts. Haven’t been able to devote any real, consistent time to it.

But the nursery’s looking good, and we’re ready for the baby, whenever she decides to join us.

At this stage what I’ve been doing is compiling the notes that I got –- the ones I agree with I mean -– and then going through a hard copy of the script and writing my own notes about what I want to change, add, delete, rework. Sometimes my notes are specific, with the action and dialogue I want, and sometimes they’re fairly vague placeholder stuff like “Add scene where Michael fails to help Moses.” And sometimes it’s a mix.

But so far, I haven’t come upon any insurmountable problems, so that feels good.

I need to finish that step, and then I want to go through each of the major characters’ story arcs, tracking just their scenes, to make sure they’re all sound, noting on the hard copy wherever there are problems. Then I’ll dive in and actually make all the changes.

And, judging how things normally go with a newborn, that’ll probably be Fall of ’08.

But I did finally read and write notes on Ryan’s comedy script -– though I still owe Jeff the same on his horror/thriller. Sorry Jeff.

By the way, Ryan had a script he wrote for a short optioned, so that’s very cool. It’s always nice to have validation, so I bet he’s psyched –- even though he’s playing so cool he’s not even blogging about it.

I've been cheating a little. I told myself to focus just on the D Line rewrite, to get through it so I can move on, but I keep finding myself jotting down setups and dialogue for this action-suspense thing I've had in my head for a few months...

Toldja. Totally boring post. But hey, I posted.

Tagalicious

2007-08-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

Got tagged by Greg. Wrote a song about it, like to hear it, here it go:

1. My first year trying to be a writer I made about $14,000. And a good chunk of that was for the part-time work I did at a preschool program at a rec center. It’s a tough business, writing. That year, my daughter and I didn’t have enough money to buy good ornaments for the Christmas tree (we lost a box of them, I think in a move, and had to replace them) so we made them. Out of things like milk jugs, toilet paper rolls and Star Wars figures. Those are still my favorite Christmas tree ornaments.

2. This is my dream possession:

Everyone knows that when you have kids you don’t have much money, space or time to buy a lot of things for yourself. This actually works out okay for me, because I’m not that into things. Thankfully, my wife is not shy about telling me when it’s time to buy a new pair of Levis. But this bike, man I’m aching to buy it. Tricked out, it’s only about six grand. That’s not so much, right? Right?

3. I can sleep pretty much anywhere at any time. If I’m tired and there’s nothing else I need to do and nothing else stopping me, I can take a nap anywhere.

4. I have a little bit of an OCD thing in that if I have to mail a bunch of letters, I’ll count them a few times in between putting on the stamps and putting them in the mailbox. This has become much less of an issue in the age of online banking. So thanks, Bank of America. Oh, also, I often do a countdown from 10 when doing a task with a definite ending –- like filling a glass with water –- pacing it so I start with 10 and hit 1 at the end. It’s kinda like I find the 10-beat rhythm of it. Weird, right? I don’t get it myself. I bet only my brother thinks it's cool, but he's a drummer and loves anything about rhythm.

5. Sometimes I think about becoming a physicist or a biologist – can’t decide which.

6. I think it’s shameful that I'm not bilingual. I mean, I can get by in rudimentary French, and I muscled through trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica, but it’s terrible how monolingual I am. Arrogant American bastard. I so want and need to learn Spanish. Gotta get on that.

7. I am absolutely and utterly bewildered by this Bush-Cheney administration.

8. I donate to charity often, as requests come up, but for 15 years I’ve also been sending monthly donations to these people: http://www.splcenter.org/. My wife is friends with some of these people: http://www.mvpsacramento.com/ and now we also give monthly donations to them. But still, I don’t do enough for the world. There are so many people out there who have it off so much worse than me -– so much that we’re not even in the same game. I know this, so why don’t I do more? Actually, I should get on that before I go learn Spanish.

9. My junior year of high school, I got third place in the two-mile at the state champion track and field meet. Hey, you take your glory where you can find it. I was determined to win the next year, but then I blew my knee out training for cross country my senior year and so did not compete in track that year. Or ever again. So much for glory. Now I think back to when I could run two miles in less than 10 minutes and I weep. Openly.

10. I am neither smarter than, nor a better writer than, our friend Greg at the Web of Lies and Deceit. (See his tag post.)

Now, in terms of tagging others, I’ll just do Jeff of Gimpdom 149. He's new to the fold and we'll welcome him this way (plus I think most of the others have already been tagged…).

Inspiracion Mexicana

2007-08-01T10:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at lunch I listened to the Creative Screenwriting podcast of their interview and Q&A with Guillermo Arriaga.

I really love his movies, or the ones I’ve seen at least: Amores Perros, 21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Babel. All very complex, very smart, very stylish. I love the way he leaves a lot for the viewer to do, not answering every question, how he interweaves storylines so powerfully, how the characters in his films are fantastically fucked up and authentic.

A few times I’ve been a little confused by some of the connections between his multiple plotlines. Like Chieko, the Japanese girl in Babel. She was absolutely brilliant -– both as a written character and as played by Rinko Kikuchi –- but the connection to the other stories felt a bit forced. Her father gave the Moroccan guy the gun? A little too tangential, compared to the rest?

(Of course, who am I to judge, right? At lease Arriaga has some freaking movies in the theaters…)

But anyway, he’s one of my favorite screenwriters so I was glad to listen to him talk -– he spoke mainly about Babel, but also about his process in general. And to tell you the truth, it sounded a lot like my process. And he's so honest and unapologetic.

In fact, he was downright inspirational.

I decided that I’d go home and plow right into D Line, feeling validated that the way I write, and the type of stories I create, might just work. Especially this script.

I was so pumped up that after I finished dinner, gave the boy a bath and tucked him in bed…

…I put together a bookcase for the boy's room and worked with my wife getting the nursery ready for the baby.

Sorry Guillermo, mi companero, I failed you.

But tonight! Tonight I write!

Right?

(And I'm a jerk, Ryan and Jeff, for not having gotten to your scripts yet. But tonight! Tonight I read! Maybe?)

Confessions

2007-07-05T10:44:00.000-04:00

I’ve been a bad writer.

I got helpful notes on D Line and have done zero revisions.

I promised Ryan I’d give him notes on his rom com. Haven’t read it.

Another friend just gave me a script to give notes on. Haven’t even looked at it.

I have four very loose outlines for the next script and I keep waffling as to which one I should jump on first.

I used hung instead of hanged when writing about a death by hanging. (Sorry Emily and any other English teachers out there.)

Please forgive me.

What I need is focus.

You want focus?

Here's focus:

Did you watch this in 2003? One of my favorite moments in cycling. Flying down a mountain, Beloki falls when his tire ruptures, Armstrong avoids him by turning off the road -- and has the presence of mind to keep going through the field, on those wee tires, at that speed... then sees the ditch by the road in time to stop, hop off and carry his bike across... then gets back on -- without causing another crash -- and keeps going to finish the stage.

Now that's focus.

Time To Write

2007-06-21T09:12:00.000-04:00

By now I’ve gotten a few sets of notes on D Line and, accordingly, I’ve decided to quit writing forever.

Kidding.

Not all the notes intersect or overlap, but there are a few key areas that everyone seems to agree on. This is good, since they are mainly the things I was having doubts about.

And so far, no one has told me to quit writing forever.

Addressing most of the notes shouldn’t be too difficult -– though finding the time to really focus on and address the notes continues to be a problem. You see all these movies about writers who are blocked and how hard that is -– they spend hours staring at their Underwoods of MacBooks, smoking cigarettes and watching the wind move the leaves in the trees outside the window, waiting, waiting, waiting for inspiration to kick in so they can create.

What a great problem to have: all the time in the world to write, but no ideas.

(Though I’ll pass on the cigarettes. Substitute coffee or something. Or sometimes, a good cigar.)

Anyway, you call that angst? Are you kidding me?

Try getting up at 5:45am, less than six hours after you went to bed, because the wee boy is screaming ‘cause his left eye is crusted shut and that’s just pissing him off to no end. Go to work, not realizing you still have chunks of pineapple on your shoulder, where the lad threw them while you were distracted assuring the wife she’s still beautiful, and even more so, at eight months pregnant. Spend a few hours in meetings discussing the four or five projects that need your attention immediately, then break speed limits to get to a lunch with the guys who want to make more movies, but dammit get back in an hour because those projects at work aren’t gonna develop themselves. As you drive home that night, listen to Miles Davis, because it helps, and try to spend the 20 minutes in the car brainstorming how you’re gonna fix those script problems. But then forget those brainstormed solutions because it’s dinnertime with the family -– chat with the wife, riff on Star Wars quotes with the teen, bathe the toddler. When 10pm rolls around and everyone else is in bed (wife and son) or out with friends (daughter), sit down to write.

And then get some good work done before you pass out.

I think most of the people who read this feel me -- we're all working other jobs while we try to hone our skills and bang out some good scripts. So yea for us!

I’m gonna push on through the D Line revisions, because I’m itching to start on a new script.

Oh, I have ideas all right. Just give me the time.

Lovely Kids

2007-06-14T11:27:00.000-04:00

My second daughter, in utero and gorgeous already.

My son, nearly two and a perfect mix of cool and cute.

My first daughter, almost 19 and beautiful in every way.

Overall, I'm one lucky bastard.

(By the way, the last two pics were taken on my phone, so excuse the bad quality.)

Well Said Sir

2007-06-13T14:11:00.000-04:00

"I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting or adding to what is there." --David Chase

And so it's over. Perhaps the most revolutionary show in decades, and second in storytelling only to Six Feet Under, in my opinion... The Sopranos has ended.

Talk about well-earned pay for writers, producers, actors, directors, editors. All of them top notch.

And the ending was exactly fitting. And as Chase says, he needn't tell us why.

Cheers all around.

Dome Dash

2007-05-31T10:35:00.000-04:00

We spent five days in central Washington state over the Memorial Day weekend, at the two geodesic domes my in-laws live in. Beautiful, rural, windswept valley. Great weather. Plus geodesic domes.

Spent a lot of uninterrupted time with wife and son (daughter stayed in VA to work, saving for a new car), went for some good runs, drove an electric car… and got a lot of good (and overdue) work done on D Line.

In fact, I feel like it’s at the readable draft stage, so I’ve sent it to a few companeros for feedback.

Dear Companeros,

If you’re reading this, and if you’re reading D Line, please do not be kind. If it stinks, tell me it stinks. Cruel but fair is what I need.

And if it’s brilliant, tell me it’s "kinda okay." Don’t want me getting big in the head or nothin’.

Thanks.

At work, we’re gearing up to pitch a couple new series to Discovery Channel, either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when a few people up there are free.

And we’re a few pieces of paperwork away from having a four-part pilot/miniseries, in the hopes of it turning into a full series, on History Channel.

Overall, things are looking pretty good.

What A Candyass

2007-05-14T09:35:00.000-04:00

I am.

Really.

There I am complaining about not having time to write. Poor me. Whining to beat any number of bands. Like a nancyboy.

So then Friday night rolls around. Son goes to sleep at 7:30. Wife goes to sleep at 8. Daughter's out with friends.

Perfect time to write. Right? Bang out a lot of those revisions to D Line I’ve been planning. Git ‘er dun.

But nooooo.

Instead, I recall that the Red Sox are playing the Orioles, and since MASN carries all Orioles games, I realize I have a rare opportunity to watch my beloved Sox.

So I do. Instead of writing.

And they lose.

How's that for fitting metaphor?

Busted Ankle, Finish Line In Sight

2007-05-11T17:27:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is maddening.

I feel like I’m maybe 10-15 hours away from having a good, solid second draft of D Line.

But I just can’t find the time.

But I need to find the time.

Because I’m close. And I want to send it out into the world for feedback.

I wonder if I can talk my wife into letting me lock myself into a hotel room for a day and a night, have the management take out the TV and phone, leave my cell phone in the car, bring some good food, good coffee and good spirits… and just blast through it.

Prolly shouldn’t try. Wife’s pregnant, son’s been sick, daughter’s home from college. Now’s not the time to shirk the family responsibilities…

By the way, as for a Dismal update, we're negotiating with the foreign distributor/sales agent I mentioned. They've been good about revising to meet our needs. Looks like the deal is a fair one, so the question becomes, If this is a good, standard deal, is this the company we want to go with, or should we look for this deal with someone with bigger guns?

Decisions, Decisions

2007-05-01T09:18:00.000-04:00

We have an international distributor who is making an offer on Dismal. At first glance, they appear to be a good company and the offer seems fair, and fairly standard, in the broad strokes we’ve discussed so far.

I like that they limit their titles per year so that they can really push them –- I’d hate to be one of 100 films being repped at a booth in Cannes. They’ve distributed some films that have made some money -– no huge hits, but their model seems to be selling smaller films that don’t take as long to become profitable.

Like ours.

Plus they appear to be decent people. Though we are, to be sure, checking references…

They want to bring Dismal to Cannes… which is great but would mean making a quick decision, since it’s only a couple weeks away. I’m not a big fan of that for obvious reasons.

But it’s not like they’re saying, “Sign now so we can bring it to Cannes or the deal’s off.” So we might just pass on this first film market, to give us more time to check out some other offers and carefully review the terms of the contract.

It’s an exciting position to be in –- someone already wants to buy our film –- but it’s also an awkward one. Everyone agrees a filmmaker shouldn’t jump on the first offer -– be patient, give it time. Fair enough. But what if, on the odd chance, the first offer happens to be the best one? Or as good as any other?

Tricky.

Anyway, they’re gonna draft a contract and we’ll review it with out attorneys and we’ll see what happens. We also have screeners making their way to Lionsgate, Sony, New Line and a few others through some contacts, and several other distributors (both domestic and foreign) have been calling to get more information, so maybe there will be more news soon…

To complicate things further.

But, of course, I’d rather have this kind of complication than the opposite -– not having any offers, ever, and having to face the investors. Now that’s an awkward position.

You Lose, Cho

2007-04-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

Haven’t blogged in a while.

First, I was hit with the worst flu I think I’ve ever had. I mean, a week of literally not being able to do much beyond sit up in bed every now and again to make sure I didn’t get bedsores like an old woman with a broken hip.

That was the easy part.

Because then, April 16th rolled around. And my daughter goes to Virginia Tech.

She’s safe, thank anything and everything that can be thanked, but it’s obviously been rough. She’s handling it pretty well, though she’s certainly reeling still. But she’s a person who really has her shit together, so I know she’ll be alright in the end.

As the stories came out, it got more and more difficult for me. As I was telling my family recently, I read about these kids who were killed and I saw that they are all exactly like my daughter. They are her. She is them. The things written about them -- great kids, hard workers, good friends, big futures, smiles that stay with you -- that's my little girl. And she was doing exactly what they were doing, at exactly the same time, just a few buildings away. I try to suppress them, but these thoughts of what-if keep coming and it's horrifying. She was so close.

And then the media (who drove my daughter and her friends to additional tears, by the way, invading their grief in a mad scramble to break some new element of the story) started playing the message of the gunman.

I quickly stopped watching.

Because I will not give that piece of shit what he wants. I will not receive his message. I will not ingest his manifesto. I’m not interested in his story or what drove him. I do not care what his intent was. And I definitely will not accept his reasoning.

So fuck you, Cho. And I mean that sincerely. You are nothing. You don’t win. You don’t matter.

What you did matters, to the people killed and those they left behind and to your own family, for whom I feel great pity. But you, you don’t even get contempt. You’re already out of the picture. No legacy. Nothing.

And, by the way, since this is a writing blog, allow me to note that you were a shitty writer.

Healthy Young Infant For Sale

2007-04-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

I spent the whole of Sunday locked in a dark room with five other guys.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

See, we spent the day with the sound editors doing the final mix review. I know I’ve posted about this before, but I love sound design and sound editing -– because of its furtive nature. It improves the film experience in a remarkable way -– yet done properly the viewer shouldn’t think about it at all. Love that.

Maybe a few people might bring it up when thinking back on the movie at the bar over a couple beers with other filmsters, but not while they’re watching.

Anyway, it was an excellent day. The editors and composer did a great job and we were mainly unanimous in the notes we had for additional tweaks, which the boys are working on now. Since this is one of the last steps in the process it made it extra-excellent. Excellenter, even.

Composer Len is sending me his score on CD, and maybe I can figure out how to post some of his cues on here for you to listen to -– ‘cause they’re pretty fucking cool.

From here on, we have some spot checking on a few sound tweaks and visual effects, then finishing and dubbing -– and we take Dismal out into the world, looking for distribution.

Our baby, up for sale.

Two Steps Back... But In A Good Way

2007-03-27T19:56:00.000-04:00

It’s David, late to the party one more time.

I read all kinds of posts and articles and books and such about the almighty Index Card. I suppose it’s always made sense to me, something that obviously would be helpful in revision. I mean, no duh.

But I’d never really done it before.

Well, I popped my cherry.

Last week, I asked my dear Movie Magic Screenwriter to please print out my latest draft of D Line as index cards. And my dear faithful Movie Magic Screenwriter complied, snappily. How nice.

Friday night I cut out the cards, laid them out on my dining room table, poured a neat glass of Bushmills Black Bush, slipped the iPod earbuds into my ears and took two steps back.

And POW –- perspective.

No wonder all these people were recommending it. It really helps.

Really.

No kidding. It’s not just an OCD, Type-A, control freak thing.

So much easier to isolate the story arcs of individual characters, one at a time, to really trace where they’re going, at what pace, why. So much better to see the overall structure and to spot the holes in logic and plot. So much easier to see how reorganizing scenes would work or not work.

I worked for two nights like this, making notes on the cards of revisions that needed to be made. Then we had a dinner party on Sunday.

So now the cards are back in a pile, secured by a couple of rubber bands, snugly tucked away in my bag.

And now I know why all those people recommend attaching the almighty Index Cards to the inimitable Cork Board.

Dining room table: bad idea.

Yet again, David’s late to the party…

Hey, Is That Where Google Got Its Name?

2007-03-21T16:20:00.000-04:00

Been working on developing a pilot for a new history/anthropology show for a few days straight now and my brain’s starting to get googly.

As I’ve posted about before, this is where the creation of a TV show gets difficult: when you need to create a verbal pitch and written documents that quickly and clearly illustrate that it’s not just a cool idea, but a compelling, fresh television show that’s easy to visualize from start to finish -– and will last multiple seasons, constantly building ratings and staying relevant and on-brand, in an increasingly fickle world. Oh, and be producible for essentially no money. And we can start yesterday, if you just sign here.

Which is very wiggly work. It, like any good storytelling, is taking something as ephemeral and formless as an idea and turning it into something that exists without you. And I mean without you. Tricky. Lots of mind-wrangling and idea-surfing. Grinding your skateboard of creativity on the handrail of the staircase connecting thought to reality. (As if that staircase exists, says Buddha, chuckling…)

I don’t know what any of that means. But you can see, after you work on it for a while, your brain gets googly.

Great googly moogly even.

So I’m taking a break. Focus on something else for a moment. Allow a fresh perspective to creep in. Free your mind and all that.

So I’ll spend a couple minutes telling you about a little forum we had last night.

In conjunction with the ONFilm festival sponsored by Old Dominion University, the Hampton Roads Film Office set up a panel of independent filmmakers in the area to talk after a showing of Oscar-nominated shorts at the coolest arthouse theater in the area, the Naro (www.narocinema.com).

There were five of us who spoke and took questions about all aspects of making indy movies. It was great to get together with like-minded folks who are navigating some of the same waters, share ideas, horror stories, failures and successes.

In fact, afterwards I proposed doing so on a regular basis. My wife is in a book club and a women investors club. I have friends who are in writer’s groups. AA seems to help an awful lot of people.

There’s no doubting the importance of community, and this is true in the independent film world, too. While reading the blogs of writers and producers is helpful, think how much better it would be if everyone were in the same room.

Which would be easy to do in LA or New York.

But I think we can pull it off in VA, too.

I’ll let you know if it happens, and if it works.

Back to work, googly or no…

Pa(ren)thetic(al)

2007-03-15T21:40:00.000-04:00

Len and I finished spotting Dismal last night, and he’s plugging away at the rest of the score. Thankfully, he had done a lot of great work on the rough cut (most of which we were able to keep or just tweak a little) so it’s not a total do-over.

Also plugging away are our fine sound editors, Larry and Cret. We’re planning to do a review of the mix (with music) on April 1st (and that’s no joke). Then little fixes and problem-solving as needed, and we’re off by the second week of April.

And the update on D Line: tonight I start a (restructure) rewrite. It’s a complex story, with multiple characters, and it jumps around a lot. Which was intentional, because I wanted it to have a jazzy feel, as it’s a piece in which jazz plays a central role… but I have to take into account that jazz structures (musically or story-wise) are hard to swallow by non-jazz fans, so I think I need to take it (a tad) more toward the traditional.

Not entirely so, but making it a little cleaner, in a classic story sense. It still has to maintain some of its jazzy qualities, though, or it just won’t (work).

So here I go.

(Which means, Greg, if you haven’t started reading that draft I sent you –- and with your wife in town and your remarkably busy work schedule I imagine you haven’t –- then don’t. Wait for the new one.)

(Oh, and also, Ryan, I got your script and promise to get back to you soon…)

Spot On

2007-03-13T09:39:00.000-04:00

Spent three hours on the phone last night with Len, the composer of Dismal, spotting the movie.

This is some of the producing work that I absolutely love. The creative interaction with the creative people who make the movie really shine.

For those of you who don't know what spotting is, it's not when you get a little, um, flow unexpectedly. I mean it is that, but in the film world, it's when you go through the movie scene-by-scene, talking about tone, intention, feeling, etc., deciding where music begins, where it ends, what it sounds like -- and probably most importantly, where there should be no music at all.

(A little advice for the beginner: if your composer creates a wall-to-wall score, find a new composer.)

Ideally, of course, this spotting session should happen with you and the composer in the same room. If possible, every creative decision should be made with people looking at each other. Communication’s always best that way -– as is bitch-slapping. But with Dismal, we have no real money to fly around meeting people all the time, I have a full-time job (hence starting at 8pm) and the composer's in Pennsylvania while I'm in Virginia. So we did it over the phone, each with timecoded DVDs running.

Making it all the more interesting is that Len’s a great composer, very creative but also practical, and we really understand each other. I can’t say enough about the value of hiring the right team.

Anyway, this, as I said, is one of the fun parts of producing. And it's one of the parts that most people don't know about. Which is maybe why I like it so much. Do it right, and it enhances the film dramatically but the viewer doesn’t really notice it. It’s stealth creativity. Ninja style.

Same thing with sound design and editing -- I love sitting with the sound guys and working through all the ways to amplify the quality of the film -- little sounds here or there, silence when it should be silence, snapping twigs, sound effects, foley, ADR, all that great background stuff that can really make or break a film.

In fact, if I had to change positions in the film and TV world, I think I’d switch to sound design. Love that shit.

By the way, in the three hours spent last night, we got through roughly half of the movie, so we finish tonight. Looking forward to it. Because over the phone, Len can’t bitch-slap me.

Uncle Walt Says Lay Off

2007-03-12T13:53:00.000-04:00

I’m quoting from memory here, so don’t hold me to it, but in one of his many fantastic poems Walt Whitman wrote something like, “Better than to tell the best is to leave the best untold.”

This is kinda what’s occupying my writing thoughts lately.

I tried, as I was writing D Line (formerly known as “the Harlem rewrite”), to keep a strong filter up to snag any dialogue or action lines that were too heavy-handed. You don’t want to hand the reader everything -– and by reader, I really mean the director or actors who might ultimately get behind the script and want to work on it. But in day-to-day America, it seems people want everything handed to them, so you end up being inadvertently trained to give them everything.

I know the first couple scripts I wrote were way too heavy-handed –- telling everything.

But the moves I like best are the ones during which I have to do a little work. No easy answers. Lots of unsolved problems. Not too much unchecked, uninspired, way-too-easy redemption. I like the ones where you have questions running through your mind during the credits, and not just about why they needed that many stuntmen.

I was thinking about this last night, while watching The Illusionist –- which was okay, but it handed me everything. I like to do a little concluding of my own, a little critical thinking. And so naturally, I’m trying to write such a script.

But where to draw the line can be tricky. To be sure, subtlety and careful open-endedness can be easily misconstrued as idiocy and lack of clarity.

As I go back and reread D Line, making notes for the next draft, I wonder if I hit the balance. This is not just an artistic question –- though I hope for my soul's sake it's mainly so -– but a practical one, too.

If I’m going to use this script to try to break into Hollywood, get an agent, maybe a manger, try to sell it and work my ass off to help shepherd it into theaters, do I have to dumb things down a little? Spell things out? Hit a more conservative structure? Do people who have to read hundreds of scripts want to do a little work for a story?

I suppose the answer’s obvious, if I’m just trying to get into theaters. Then, the answer would be, yes, dumb it down, write the Robert McKee tripe in which the cookie cutter is clearly visible and the marketability shines through like a great glowing Golden Arches, and hope you hit the blockbuster fever-of-the-day at the right time.

But I also want to write movies that I’m proud of. Oh, I know. I’m naïve. Okay, in some ways, yes I am. But it’s true: I want to at least start by trying to write honest scripts about honest people with honestly messy lives.

If, after multiple failures, I end up jaded and writing thin plastic schlock to get a paycheck, okay. Fine. Ain’t too proud to beg.

But first I want to try not to tell the best, but to leave the best untold -– so that someone sitting in the theater will be able to find it on their own terms.

Dismal Trailer

2007-03-08T08:16:00.001-05:00

Official DiSmAl trailer 1

Add to My Profile | More Videos

It loses a lot of quality being compressed to fit on MySpace, and then transferred here, so it doesn't look as beautiful as the full HD version does... but you get the idea anyway.

Dismal Poster

2007-03-07T12:23:00.000-05:00

Here's our poster. Whatcha think?

Pants On Fire

2007-03-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

'Member when I said we had picture lock on Dismal? 'Member that?

Um.

I lied.

When our DP reviewed the whole thing this week he found a bunch of stuff that our second camera shot that isn't going to work once we up-res to HD and project on the large screen.

So we have to cut the shots.

All of them.

Which means finding time with the editor to recut.

And having the sound editors skip those parts.

And telling the composer his pacing's all off now.

Ah, but it's not really lying to you. We did have picture lock. Honest. This is just the way things go. No matter how finished you think you are, no matter how well you think you've planned, something's going to screw up. And all you can do is try to fix it.

Which we will. We'll still have our final-final by the first week in April. It'll just be a little hairier go now. But dammit we're all dedicated to making this the best thing it can be. And it will be.

Just a week later than we thought.

Skewed Perspective

2007-02-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Man I should be better at posting to this regularly. Just so busy. But I just finished my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in record time so I have a few minutes for a quick update.

We have picture lock on Dismal. Whew. It's a very good, solid movie, entertaining throughout -- and now it's gonna get better as the sound editors and composer get to work. All that, plus onlining and color timing should be finished by the end of March.

Which means by April we can do a cast and crew (and friend) screening and start hitting the sell hard: getting back in touch to the distributors who've called us, contacting other distributors, maybe renting theaters in LA and New York to screen for distributors. And we're continuing with the film festival circuit.

Speaking of that, someone on the team was expressing some worry, saying that so far, it's been nothing but rejections, so he's worried we'll end up with a very expensive coaster.

Huh?

We didn't make it into two film festivals. Two.

Is that something to worry about? Does that mean we're doomed? Hell no. I heard that, in its first round of pitching, American Idol got turned down at every network and all the major cable channels. There are tons of stories of now-classic movies, books and people who at first were rejected a hundred times. A thousand.

Please people. This is the film industry. While it's true that only 13 days passed between the start of writing on Basic Instinct and its being sold for $3 million, usually, it's a long, slow, cruel business.

So let's stick to it, shall we?

Grrrrrrr

2007-02-09T14:38:00.000-05:00

Okay. I’m pissed. And it takes a lot to get me pissed.

The company I work for is experiencing a difficult lean time. It happens sometimes in the TV business, when a gap appears between show contracts. Production companies accordion up and down with staff levels all the time. We’ve been fortunate that in almost 15 years we’ve had very little down time, and few hiatuses. Hiati?

Anyway, we could be looking at a hiatus soon. Just went through a round of painful layoffs -– some very good, skilled people had to go, people whom I hope we can rehire soon once we get some more series up an running. All of us are worried.

But word’s starting to creep around the small-minded gossip grapevine that this is largely my fault. Since I’m in charge of development, it must be that I’m just not doing my job.

They’re not, of course, considering the 25 projects I have on the development grid, or the seven projects that various networks have expressed great interest in and could go forward at any second. They’re not looking at the corporate trouble way beyond me that our company’s going through that’s contributing to the lean times. They’re not realizing our main client is going through a massive upper-level restructuring and have instituted a freeze on new programming. They’re not considering that selling shows isn’t just saying, “Hey, I got this great idea” and then boom, you’ve got a contract for 13 hours. This is hard work, and it takes time.

One of the theories I’ve heard about is that last year I wasn’t doing much for the company because I was working on Dismal all day. Another good one: the professional conference I went to last week? Oh, all I did there was try to sell Dismal.

This is where I get pissed.

First of all, I wrote the script before I took my current position, while I was freelance writing from home. Secondly, when Dismal moved beyond a let’s-shoot-on-weekends-with-friends project and into a full feature, I had many talks with my employers, outlining how I would manage both projects and keep them separate. We came to a clear agreement and I kept to it.

Since then I have worked my balls off to do as much as or more for this company in terms of development than anyone has, ever -– and to make sure I do the work on Dismal I’m responsible for on my lunch breaks or after I go home nights or on weekends.

And as for that conference? It was a FACTUAL ENTERTAINMENT conference for TELEVISION. Factual. As in, not drama. And television. As in, not movies. There was literally no one there to talk Dismal with even if I wanted to.

Simple bastards. I mean, I understand people are frustrated, but shit, know the facts before you go slinging someone’s professional reputation in the mud.

I know I shouldn’t care. People do this gossip shit all the time. Just let it slide off, lad. But it’s hard to let it slide off -– because A) I actually have feelings, and this hurts, and B) once people start saying things often enough, they cease to sound like gossip and start to sound like fact. And like I said, this is my professional reputation.

GRRRRRRRR.

They Want The Boob

2007-01-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

On Dismal we're one scene away from picture lock. And what a scene it is.

Or so I hear.

Turns out that all the foreign distributors who have contacted us have asked these questions:

1. Are there any stars?

2. How long is it?

3. Do you have a good poster?

4. Are there boobs?

Huh?

You heard me: are there any boobs. Seems that for an American thriller to sell well and easily in worldwide territories, there must be breasts. And nipples.

Now, I'm certainly not against breasts. In truth, I happen to love them. Wonderful elements of a wondrous sex.

But at first glance it seemed too weird to try to put breasts into a movie based primarily in a swamp.

It was actually one of our sound editors who had the idea. In the original story, as the hero is held captive at the bad guy’s shack, he has a flashback of him trying to pick a girl up in a bar –- reminding him that he’s been a shitty husband and father, and providing the impetus to try to escape and get back to his family to make things right.

Well, our man Cret says, “Why not play that scene in a go-go bar?”

Turns out we had No. Problem. At all. Getting the camera and crew together for a reshoot in a titty bar. To say nothing of extras.

Surprised? Me neither.

So we shot it -– but I had to leave before the clothes were shed, and I haven’t seen the scene cut together. Which explains the “so I hear” from the top of the post.

But we’re VERY CLOSE to being finished editing picture, and then it’s on to sound and music… and THEN… hellllllooooo nurse.

So, breasts notwithstanding, it's very good news. Soon, we're in the business of selling. We've gotten a lot of calls from studios and agents and distributors asking to see a screener -- and we've been politely declining, waiting until we have a good solid cut together. Which should be by March 1st. So, soon, we don't have to decline anymore...

Step One

2007-01-24T17:47:00.000-05:00

Last night, at a little before 11:00, about two inches down on page 93 of the Harlem script, I typed FADE OUT.

So there. The first full pass is finished.

Now the real work begins.

The Corner(s)

2007-01-18T14:49:00.000-05:00

Ah, I feel like I turned a corner last night on the Harlem script. I feel like I’m really close.

For a while I could see some brick walls looming ahead, and last night I figured out a way over at least some of them.

I guess I'm mixing my metaphors a little. So, for continuity, let's say I figured out how to turn a few corners and walk around some of the walls.

Of course, getting around these walls only leads me to the next set of walls that I'll need to traverse in order to wrap up the script. Still, I’m thinking over the next couple weeks I might have a complete first draft. I really need to because it’s time to start working on new stuff.

Dismal update:

We’ve submitted to SXSW and Tribeca, and Seattle’s due February 1st. Those are all the rough cut, which is a bummer. But I think the ones thereafter will be the better, cleaner cut.

Speaking of which, the editor thinks he’s gonna be finished with the latest round of changes Friday night. Hopefully he was able to address all of our concerns and we can lock picture soon. Then, probably three or four weeks after that, depending on people’s schedules, we should have our “final” cut.

Because, as I said, it’s time to start working on new stuff.

How MacIver Writes

2007-01-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

“Steal a march on the random images that invade you, by choosing and filling the mind with the pictures you will attend to; drive them together with strong connections into a story you can’t take your mind off. Teller of tales, do not wait to be possessed; start building a seamless construction, impregnable to daydreams. When you go to bed, of course, you’ll have to take whatever dreams are sent, and maybe some will be of use.”

I just finished Rules for Old Men Waiting, by Peter Pouncey. It’s about an old man, MacIver, who realizes that now that his beloved wife is gone, he will be too. And soon. So he decides that before he dies, he will write one, whole story.

That’s a good goal to have, I think, as you face your death. He had no one to say goodbye to. So he wrote.

It was a good story he wrote. And in a way it saved him.

And this advice to himself, excerpted above, well, that’s good advice for all of us. One more vote for the discipline of writing. Give your mind the structure. Create a rhythm for the creativity and entice it out of its coy little shell.

Thanks, Mr. Pouncey. Writing just might save us.

Or drive us mad.

An Open Letter To The Artists

2007-01-12T10:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Subway® Sandwich Artist,

I work very hard to tell compelling stories in screenplays, and so far, I’ve made very little money at it. So I feel you. I understand your plight. Truly.

You have to stand there on your feet all day behind the sneeze-guard plexiglass, asking people what type of bread, what meat and cheese, which of the seemingly endless combinations of fixins they’d like on their footlong.

And I’ve seen your customer base. They’re base all right. Rude, condescending, downright smarmy if you look cute in that black visor. They bark orders at you, getting frustrated when you can’t read their noncommittal little minds. My God, they ask what kind of bread you have when it’s right there on the placard!

Let's not even talk about those middle-aged trophy wives and the ridiculous demands they have for their wraps.

Again, I get it. I am your witness.

Substitute executive producer for customer, and tension and humor for Genoa salami and jalapeños, and we are the same.

We’re brethren.

So it is with nothing but love that I point this out.

In his recent book The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood, Joe Eszterhas suggests, “Don’t ever refer to yourself as an artist.”

Sage advice indeed.

As I said, I understand how difficult your job can be. But -– and again, take this as a non-judgmental, open-hearted suggestion on how you might improve your important work –- to my way of thinking, a true artist could get it right -– or at least make an actual, discernable effort -– when I ask for “just a little mustard and just a little mayonnaise.” And yet, Sandwich Artist, no matter how slowly I speak, no matter the eye contact I hold, no matter the emphasis I put on my request (a request an informal poll of 23 eaters of sandwiches assures me is a reasonable one), you still positively swaddle my goddamn sandwich in mustard and mayo.

And I think it hurts so much because I know you’re an artist. Or at least claim to be.

So please, brother or sister, I ask this of you: either take care with the condiments of your craft, as an artist would, or call yourself a sandwich maker.

In Solidarity,
David
(Or, as you might remember me: six-inch wheat, turkey and pepper jack, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cucumbers, green peppers, jalapeños, just a little mustard, just a little mayonnaise)

Say Hello To My Underpaid, Overworked Friend

2007-01-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

In Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics –- which I heartily recommend to everyone by the way –- he includes a fascinating bit about drug gangs. Turns out that the average foot soldier in a major Chicago street gang that this economist studied made a little over $3 an hour. And they were the ones most likely to get shot by customers or other dealers, or to be asked to go kill someone for their superiors, or to be arrested by 5-0.

(“5-0.” See my street cred? It’s just dripping off me…)

So, less than minimum wage, with the threat of death or prison always present.

Why?

Apprenticeship.

They know that they have to put in the time at the bottom, and work hard, and impress everyone, and survive, if they’re ever gonna make it to the level of Tony Montana so they can shove their face into a mountain of cocaine and scream out, “The world is mine!”

Not unlike the TV and film industry, eh?

A coworker recently mentioned she was feeling a little frustrated with where she is in the business and asked how I moved up. My answer: I did some time in the television equivalent of slinging rock on a trash-strewn street corner without making enough money to buy new Nikes.

(Thankfully, my brother works for Nike so I get a wicked good discount…)

But that’s what you have to do.

The good thing is, nobody asks you to shoot anyone else, and nobody wants to shoot you. Stab you in the back, yes, but not actually kill you.

Now, I’m not saying I’m a tough guy martyr, poor me, look what I had to go through in my life. Believe me, I understand how much more difficult my life could have been –- I definitely lucked out when I was born a healthy white male in middle class America to parents who cared fully.

I’m just saying you have to suffer a little.

Well, not everyone has to. There are those who are so brilliantly gifted that they immediately rise to the top. But there’s not many of them.

Most of us have to suffer a little.

At 37, I’ve managed to make a pretty good life for my family and me –- with, of course, the support of my most excellent wife, who is quite successful in her own field. We’re happy, which is most important, but we also have the benefit of being fairly comfortable, financially, due in part to my work in the television industry. My mom says I’m a success. Not a whopper, but it’s been a good ride.

Moms are cool.

Now I find myself going back to the corner with crack in my hand –- or, as they say in Greg’s new favorite show, pandemic in my hand. But this time trying to make it in the gang called Film.

Let’s hope Paramount doesn’t send some roughnecks on a drive-by.

And by the way, don’t do cocaine, even if you make it to the top. Cocaine is bad for business.

Just ask Tony Montana.

Sick Day

2007-01-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

Home today with the sick laddie. He threw up Tuesday night and has had a low grade fever ever since.

It's terrible when your kids are sick. Especially when they're this young and can't understand what's happening to their little bodies. The lad's ALWAYS on, always running and climbing and throwing himself at the world.

Except when he's sick.

Today he's kinda listless, just wants to sit around. Which he never does. So we went for a long walk with the stroller and the dog. We watched a little Noggin (big stuff for a kid who never watches TV). And he's taken a couple naps.

It's so sad seeing him this way, because I know it's not him normally, so I know he must feel really, really shitty.

But I realize it's easier when he's sick. And better for my writing.

I admit it: I've been writing while he naps.

And enjoying it.

I feel so guilty.

This Is The End, Magical Friend

2007-01-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

Do you need to know how it ends?

If you stroll the screenwriting blogosphere, you know there are all sorts of answers to this, all very well and passionately argued and all very contradictory.

There are those who say you’re foolish not to outline the entire arc of each character from start to finish, so you know the whole big picture before you begin. All kinds of stuff about index cards and cork boards and timelines and beat sheets.

There are those who say you need to have a pretty good idea of where the story is going or what the characters are gonna do so there’s a framework in which the people can play around.

And then there are those who say you just have to send the characters off and let them find the story themselves. Hippies.

And of course a million variations of these three.

I think I’ve tried them all, sort of, and I’m not sure which works best for me. I think it works best for me if I have a pretty good idea of what I want to happen, but not outline too strictly in the beginning. This way, I have a sense of direction, but there’s enough wiggle room to allow for some magic to happen.

If Magic decides to show up of course.

Yet with this rewrite I’m working on, I find myself worried because I don’t really know what’s gonna happen with one of the main characters. Normally I don’t worry about this. So why now? No idea.

Sometimes I think this character just needs to grow a little in the ensuing pages and take over from me (I know this is sounding pretty flighty, but I’m guessing any writers who happen to be reading know what I mean) and figure it out himself. But sometimes I worry he's endingless because he doesn’t matter and isn’t authentic.

Anyway, I’ll let you know. I’m about 40 pages in, and I think it’s going okay. We’ll see.

Magic, my dear, your presence is requested.

iDad

2006-12-21T15:34:00.000-05:00

Normally, I don’t write about personal stuff in here –- trying to keep it a writing/producing blog. But maybe I’m being too uptight about that and I should just write about things when they seem like they should be included.

Like last night.

I had to charge my iPod –- as Greg says, one of the greatest gifts to man -– and my daughter’s laptop was in the office so I plugged in there. Which got me perusing her music collection. Which got me smiling.

There’s a lot of stuff I love on there -– some of which I think I might have led her to, some of which she found on her own, some I didn’t know at all.

She came home and there I was, stealing stuff from her iTunes. She sat with me and we started talking about music.

HER: Take that Jack Johnson. It’s good music for mornings.

ME: Hey, you have Pink Floyd. Haven’t listened to that in years.

HER: The Wall’s good college music.

ME: Sure was. Is.

HER: Remember this one, when you sang it at karaoke in Maine?

ME: Holy shit, I gotta take that one. I love this 50 Cent/Queen mash-up.

HER: Yeah, which Queen song is that?

ME: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Kanye, cool. I should give you a copy of Late Registration. Didn’t I send you Pharrell’s new one?

HER: Yeah, it’s cool. Thanks.

ME: I love “Keep It Playa.”

HER: You realize how funny you sound when you say that, white man?

We both crack up. It is funny. She says she can’t believe she’s doing this with her dad. So weird. I agree.

But it says so much about us and our relationship that it makes me smile warmly even now.

I love that kid.

Way more than Kanye.

Viva Vacay

2006-12-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

Man, am I looking forward to having next week off.

And not ‘cause I’m lazy and want to sleep late. Oh no, having a 16-month-old means sleeping late vanished as an option more than a year ago…

One, I get to spend some good time with my family, and working really puts a dent in that. Pays the mortgage, yes, but hinders the whole personal-interaction-with-family thing. With my daughter in college, time with her comes all too rarely – though she’s home now. And with my son, I usually get an hour before work, and an hour and a half after. Thankfully, my wife stays up a little later than him, so we get a little more time together. But, point is, it’ll be good to just be together.

And two, I’ve committed myself to writing a lot during the week. I feel I’m at a critical point in the Harlem rewrite – like I’m on the edge of either pushing through the problems and having them at least theoretically solved, or throwing in the towel and, sobbing, admitting it just can’t be done.

Please let it be the former.

Also, during my percolating time (including a good bike ride on Sunday and a leisurely shave this morning) I’ve had some new ideas for the suspense thriller, the horror flick and the police drama.

Oh, plus another production company asked me if I could write a 40- to 60-minute short for them and I just can’t help thinking about it and even started writing a little…

Anyway, once I don’t have to think about work-related writing for a week, I’m gonna bang some shit out. Probably not as prodigiously as Greg or Ryan, but hopefully I’ll give a good boost to my page-per-month average.