Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Polanski On Chinatown

I have an original poster for CHINATOWN on my wall, it's one of my favorite movies. My ill-advised super 8mm feature film was kind of a CHINATOWN homage - a private eye movie that I shot without any permits in San Francisco. Car chases, shoot outs, fist fights... all on location without any permits. Or stuntmen. Or pyrotechs. I blew up my mom's car!

Anyway, here is an interview with the director of CHINATOWN about making the film...



And here is the original trailer for CHINATOWN:



And the CHINATOWN screenplay by Robert Towne. This is the shooting script. I have a copy of the first draft, which opens with Jake getting a flat tire on Cross Drive - named after Noah Cross. In real life, that's Mulholland Drive, named after William Mulholland - who really did own all of the water in Los Angeles at one time.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:

TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Is Your Script Ready To Send Out?
Yesterday’s Dinner: Roast beef sandwich at Quiznos.
Bicycle: No bike yesterday - too much wind! Riding today (as you read this).

2 comments:

Richard McNally said...

Valuable SS today: "If you can't hold your enthusiasm to sell a script in check, you're not ready," and "You're not competing with other Zoetrope writers, you're competing with the top professional writers in Hollywood." Daunting but necessary to acknowledge.

Good luck with Near Hit. Like the title.

Morgan McKinnon said...

Near Hit, I like it. Looking forward to seeing more.

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