Lately I’ve been answering a whole bunch of strike related questions on message boards, so I thought I’d set down my picket sign and put together a blog entry on the subject. I did a script tip on the strike a few weeks back (before there was a strike) and this will probably repeat some of that information.
WHAT IS THE WGA?
Some of you may have heard the Writers Guild Of America is on strike. The WGA is a labor union, just like the United Auto Workers. Basically, once you sell a script to a union signatory company, you have to join the union. And that’s a good thing - the union is designed to protect the writer from being exploited. So they set up a minimum wage for writers and workplace rules to protect us, and a pension fund and health plan. The union is really just all of the members - if a studio tries to exploit one writer, all of the other writers (the union) back that writer up. A union of writers all looking out for each other. Every 3 years they get together with the studios and hammer out a new contract. Just like the United Auto Workers, they try to get raises and keep the studios from slashing heath & pension funds... unlike the UAW, there are often creative issues involved in the contracts. You know, until a couple of contracts back, writers were not allowed on the sets of their own movies, not were they invited to the premieres of their films. The WGA fought for those things and won them.
WHY STRIKE?
The contract was up on October 31st, and despite negotiations before that date, both the WGA and studios were far from agreeing on the key issue: Residuals.
Residuals are the royalty writers make when their films are shown on TV, sold on DVD, etc. Actors get royalties, directors get royalties. When a studio makes extra money from some source outside of theatrical, we all get a share. Not a big share.
Way back when VHS was brand new the writers, directors & actors asked for residuals from home video. The studios said that video was new and who knew if it would catch on? Plus, those danged video tapes are expensive to manufacture.That was back when VHS tapes came in huge clamshell boxes and sold only to rental stores - at about $100 each. No one *bought* VHS tapes. The studios wanted to wait and see what happened before giving everyone a share of the profits. Well, eventually the three creative unions managed to get the studios to budge a little, and they agreed on a small royalty on this new VHS technology.
And nothing has changed since then.
Even though DVD has replaced the expensive VHS tapes. And everyone *buys* DVDs.
Though the residual formula is kind of complicated, it averages out to about 4 cents per disk. That’s not 4 cents for every dollars they make, it’s 4 cents on every disk they sell for $20 (or more). And this home video thing seems to have caught on. Do you know anybody who doesn’t have a DVD player in their home? I know people who have two or three DVD players... and I personally am addicted to DVDs and probably own over 500 of the things. I don’t think I’m the only one with a collection.
DVDs are cheap to manufacture - most studios have theirs made in Mexico. I just googled “DVD manufacture cost” and found a place that will burn my DVDs, do the labels and box and shrink wrap the whole thing... for 38 cents each.
http://www.copycatsmedia.com
You know, I’ll bet the studios get a better price. This guy says studios pay around 25 cents for a ready to sell DVD, and that seems about right. So cost to make the DVD is 25 cents, cost to the customer is $20-$30 retail, after the store takes its cut the studio ends up with about $17.26... of which the writer gets around 4 cents. (source) When you add up the SAG, DGA and WGA residuals, you end up with around 50-60 cents (there are lots of actors in movies). So the *total cost* to studios for a DVD is around 75 cents (including residuals) and they make $17.26... so, what does that make the profit going into the studio’s pocket? $16.50 per DVD? Okay, that iffy home video market is now a $16 billion (with a b) business... and writers are still getting 4 cents a disk. Not a good deal. One that the WGA is trying to renegotiate (and SAG and the DGA will deal with early next year). It’s obvious there is money to share, here... and the studios aren’t sharing.
NOTE: "profit" here refers to the DVD disk, not the the movie. A big budget flop like SUPERMAN RETURNS may require all kinds of revenue streams before it makes a profit. * - see below. (thanks to Fun Joel.)
WHY SHOULD THEY?
Well, that’s a very good question, Frank. I mean, writers are rich enough already, right?
According to the stats, the median income for a *working* WGA member last year was $106.756.00. Not millions. Not even the $200k that gets bounced around in the media. Just over $100k. Now, that may not sound too bad...
But that’s for *working* screenwriters. And last year, only 57% of screenwriters made any money writing scripts. What about the other 43%? Well, they were living off savings and residuals. This is a business where you may go a couple of years without *any* income from writing.
And here’s what sucks - writers are independent contractors (who, oddly, write on work for hire contracts so that the studios can keep copyright) - so we aren’t eligible for Unemployment. Actors are, we aren’t. So when we have no writing income, the only thing we have to live on is our residuals. Oh, and as you know from reading this blog - just because you aren’t earning any money doesn’t mean you aren’t *working*. Writers are constantly creating new spec scripts... which usually don’t sell. They go to endless meetings where they try to set up some project. Producers are always giving us books to read and magazine articles, so that we can come back and pitch our take on the story - hundreds of us do this, an *one* gets the job. For the rest of us, we read the book and developed the story for *no income*. I have gone 3 years without any sales or assignments... but that entire time I was doing *constant* meetings trying to set something up. No pay for that. So when a writer *isn’t* earning any money, they are usually working ten times harder than when they are earning something... and we need our residuals to survive.
One of those other stats - the average WGA writer writes 9 screenplays before making a cent. Name some other business where you do that much work for nothing. And even after you make that sale, not every script you write sells - most don’t. But you need to write a new script so that you have something to send out to producers so that they can have you come in and pitch your tale on some novel or magazine article... on the slim chance that they may actually hire you to write a script. Lots of work without pay. I like to think of residuals as the money that covers the time spent spinning your wheels on things that never happen.
WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Hey, there’s a *second* residual issue involved, too! “Internet and new media”. Right now, when you go to Amazon or Netflix or some other site and download a movie... the writer gets *nothing*. No residuals at all.
The studios are saying the same thing they said about Home Video - internet is a new media and who knows if it will catch on? We should just wait and see what happens before we start handing out money. This is an rerun of the Home Video thing, and my guess is that people will like the idea of instantly downloading a movie... and that may take the place of rentals in the not so distant future. Technology doesn’t get worse, it gets *better*. This isn’t some thing that is happening in the future, you can download a movie on Amazon and Netflix *right now*...
And there are no residuals for that. All of the money goes to the studios. All of it. And the manufacturing costs? There aren’t any! No disk, no box, no shrink wrap! It’s 100% profit!
Um, why should *all* of that money go to the studios? Can’t we get a fair share?
CAN I SELL A SCRIPT?
The biggest question people ask is if the strike will open any doors for new writers. The answer is... no.
Today some of the studios told employees in development that pink slips are on their way. The strike has pretty much closed down every aspect of the biz that has to do with scripts. I have a couple of friends who are readers - and they are not being given anything to read. Now the studio employees involved in buying scripts and developing them are being laid off. The script part of Hollywood is closed until the strike is over.
There was a huge rush to get scripts for projects already greenlit polished and ready to shoot (even over the weekend before the strike). They will be busy making those films over the next *year* - and not be thinking much about new scripts. TV sows have been shooting back-to-back episodes, and most shows have a majority of the season shot. No real need for new scripts there (with a few exceptions like 24). With the holidays only a couple of weeks away, the development folks who aren’t being laid off are either closing up early or just hanging out on the clock for a couple of weeks before closing shop... until the strike is resolved.
So there is no one to read your scripts.
And no reason why they will read your script.
(NOTE: Fun Joel says he's reading novels for producers... so now may the time for you novelists to make your big Hollywood deals.)
By the way, one of the side effects of the strike is that lots of producers on studio lots are being kicked off. If they aren’t making movies right now, the studios are using this as a good excuse to end their contracts. Clearing out the dead wood.
From Hollywood Reporter: "20th Century Fox TV became the latest TV studio to send out suspension letters to writers with overall deals, joining CBS Paramount Network TV, ABC Studios and Universal Media Studios.
"20th TV also began notifying writers assistants Wednesday that they are being laid off effective immediately, but the studio will pay their health benefits through the end of the year, sources said."
Everyone in Hollywood is being sent home... no one to read scripts, let alone buy them.
And one of the things that happened with those stockpiled scripts - well, writers who had been given 3 script deals... but the studio never liked their scripts? Well, the studios went ahead and commissioned those scripts, but now that there’s a strike the scripts are shelved *forever* after only paying the first draft fee. Again, cleaning out the dead wood.
The strike really doesn't open any doors for non-WGA writers. Sig producers aren't scrambling for scripts - they have plenty. TV has already been stockpiling episodes. The main problem will be the topical shows like SNL and Tonight Show and Daily Show... and those shows are just closing down. Jay Leno was handing out donuts on the picket line yesterday - his writers are *his* writers. He hired them. Probably took him *years* to find those writers. They make him funny. He's not going to just hire some writer off the street to fill in. Hey, he's not in his office anyway - so even if you tried to get a job, there'd be no one there to hire you.
A studio isn't going to hire someone off the street to replace Steve Zaillian. If you are as good as Zaillian you have the same chance of breaking in during the strike as you had before (and as you'll have after). Actually - a worse chance during the strike, because they aren't looking for scripts. It's still about the talent. If you have it, you're going to break in... if you don't, the strike isn't going to help you.
The thing with TV shows is that they are writer driven - in other words, the producer of most TV shows is the head writer. They can't keep making shows because the *producer* is on strike. We’ve had a bunch of TV shows close down - they aren’t looking for writers because the guy who would be looking is carrying a picket sign. TV show stars are showing up on picket lines, too.
The strike has not created any openings for non-WGA writers. No one is hiring. No one is reading scripts.
My guess is that Agents and Managers will also be taking an early holiday vacation - since they can't really sell any of their client's scripts. Not a great time to seek representation.
SILVER LINING?
But a non-WGA writer can do one thing that a WGA writer can not do... sell a script to a non-signatory producer. They could always do this. There are companies who are not signatory, most are foreign or low budget companies. They’re still making films - even during the strike - and still buying scripts. I do not have a list of non-sig companies, but they will be the only ones looking for scripts until the strike ends.
Here's a list of *signatory* companies - so if it's not on this list, a non-WGA writer may be able to sell to them: Signatory companies WGA is striking against.
Another door that is open to non-WGA members... "Negative pick ups". That isn't just a description of my love life, it's a loophole studios often use to bypass unions by making deals with an Independent non-sig producer. How it works: the studio buys a completed film... that hasn't even started shooting. The studio isn't *making* the movie, they are just buying a piece of property - a movie someone else has made. But they pay up front - basically funding the film. The rules say the studio can not give notes or be involved in the production of the film... even though it's their money. I think they probably get past that by "making suggestions" to the indie producer who then passes them on to the writer as notes. But the end result is a film made by a non-sig that is distributed by a big studio.
And these deals may be springing up more if the strike continues. Some forward-thinking indies may already be gearing up to do them right now. So, that's the silver lining for you guys trying to break in! Good luck!
My basic advice for strike time - write some great specs. That way you'll be prepared for when the strike ends... and everybody needs scripts.
- Bill
THE FINE PRINT
* A couple of things about "profit" - studio accounting usually makes sure no film is ever in profit. The famous COMING TO AMERICA case exposed that film made $300 million domestic alone... yet was still deep in the red. Studios have all kinds of overhead charges they tack on movies... and also tack overhead costs onto budgets.
I was talking about the strike with a producer at AFM (which may have been technically against the rules, but I wasn't selling him a script) about the profit issues. Some films really end up in the red, and need all the money they can get to get in the black. Couldn't we just make a deal to take our cut *after* the film gets in the black? That was what the studios offered up front, and I think that would be a fair deal... if the studios didn't use that creative book keeping that keeps every film in the red. If they were honest and had open books and didn't throw in all of those fake overhead charges, then didn't do those deals where one division (say Paramount) sells the movie to Showtime (which they own) then sells it to CBS (which they own) then sells it to... the problem is that the big congloms own everything and are able to hide money by shuffling a film from division to division. If there was an honest and open accounting, I think it might be fair to take a % from actual profits. But even Peter Jackson is suing for his % of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies because, you know, those films didn't make any money.
Plus, if the film costs too much to make any money, how is that the writer's fault? When you run down the list of costs on a film, writers are not at the top... actually, nowhere near the top. We are the worst paid key creative people on the film. Let John Travolta fly commercial... don't pay for Travolta's plane. Get rid of the star perks - let them pay for that crap out of their salaries. By the way, that's not anti-SAG - most SAG members are like writers. We work our butts off to earn a living while stars get $25 million and $10 million in perks per film.
TWO PRODUCTION MODELS
Since I was just at AFM, let's look at the difference between the studio spending model and the indpendent spending model. Studios often seem to either be gambling or deficit spending (making a movie too expensive for theatrical to cover and hoping to make the money on DVD, etc). That's just crazy. The AFM model is to never make a movie for more than it can return... in fact, to make the movie at a price that guarentees a profit.
How do they do that? Well, let's use my film BLACK THUNDER as an example.
Based on hard numbers from previous films in the same genre with the same star, they can guess what the film should make. There are actually consulting companies that will take script, cast, director and analyze them using past films and give you the number the film can expect to make. I linked one of these companies to a script tip after attending a presentation - they are amazing accurate - films they have done analysis on have made almost exactly what they predicted. Studios never use these guys - I have no idea why. Probably because they don't really want to hear the results - better to gamble.
So they have a basic budget number for the film, and then they do something strange... They remove the risk (and remove any possible gambling wins). An AFM company will typically sell off rights to the movie before the film is even made! Often they will hold on to some rights to "gamble" with... but they cover the actual production cost before making the film. So a $2 million film like BLACK THUNDER was in the black before they made the film. No risk.
Speaking of Travolta, this production model was used on BATTLEFIELD EARTH... and the film was deep in the black before it was ever released. It could not lose money. It was a major flop for Warner Bros... and that was the "gambling" element. Had the film done okay, that would have been all profit (actual profit) for the producer. Gravy. Now, the "risk" here is, if the film becomes a huge hit... all of those rights you sold won't make you any more money. They make money for the guy you sold them to. But these deals are attractive to AFM companies (indies) because if the film tanks, they won't go bankrupt. They live to film another day. It's a "safe bet" - you don't win as much, but you can't really lose. You know, BATTLEFIELD EARTH made enough money (using this method) that they were thinking about making 2 sequels!
On BLACK THUNDER, the film did so well that it kind of backfired for me. They sold off *all* their rights for top dollar - and were so deep in black they *cut the budget*. They had already made as much as they were going to make, why spend that much on the actual film? Though this is a great way to burn your bridges ahead of you as a producer, it happens all the time.
A studio could play it safe on films, but I think they like the idea of holding on to all the rights and scoring big. I personally think if that's the path you pick, you're stuck with the destination... and it's not my fault.
- Bill
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Hard Deadlines
Last weekend I was at the Screenwriting Expo, teaching a pile of classes. Expo was one of three hard deadlines I had to deal with - Expo was going to happen whether I showed up ready to teach classes or not. My other two hard deadlines are American Film Market and the holidays. My niece is getting married (how can she be old enough to get married?) during the Holiday season, so I’ll be going home for Thanksgiving and sticking around for Christmas and New Years instead of returning to Los Angeles. It doesn’t look like there will be anything for me to do in LA anyway. But that means some things need to get done before I go home. The plan was to finish up the last 3 Blue Books... I have the desktop publishing program on my desktop, not my laptop... so the Blue Books have to be done before I leave my desktop behind. Now it looks like I might get 2 of the 3 finished in time, but it’s starting to look like I may only get one done, now. The materials for the other two I’ll finish up on my laptop, and they’ll be in booklet form at the beginning of the year. There are a couple of other things that I need to get done before heading home for the holidays, too.
The AFM hard deadline really snuck up on me.
The plan was to do some of the new Blue Book articles in the handful of days between Expo and AFM... but Monday I was just wiped out. I tried to get some work done... but my brain just didn’t cooperate. Ended up a day behind. Tuesday, exact same story. Hard deadline approaching! Wednesday, I decided to sleep. Then sleep some more. Wasted the day, but felt a lot better. I designed some posters for film projects in the couple of hours that I wasn’t sleeping. Thursday, I felt great. My brain was fully functional (which is rare). The plan was to stop by Pinks Copies and make up a zillion 8.5x11 “flaps” (posters on one side, one page synopsis on the other) for AFM and get a couple of scripts copies (I need to sell a script in the worst way) and then hit the post office and then actually knock out one of the Blue Book articles... I was feeling good enough to maybe knock out two.
But that was before the copy machines at Pinks began breaking down. Copy places are usually hot enough, but Pinks’ has huge windows facing the setting sun that act as magnifying glasses frying anyone standing at the counter. So, as I’m waiting for them to fix the B&W machine so they can run my scripts I’m burning alive. The machine keeps breaking down. Finally they get my copies done, and we move on to the color copies - and there are hundreds of them, and the machine keeps screwing up, and I’m burning under the hot sun and about to pass out. When all of my flaps are finished, it’s too late to go to the post office, so I head to Starbucks and drink a Venti iced tea in about 3 seconds and get a refill, then quaff the refill in a couple of minutes, then... well, not much got done.
Friday, I’m roaming the halls at AFM with my flaps, wondering if I’m going to get *any* of the Blue Books finished before the next hard deadline a couple of weeks from now.
- Bill
The AFM hard deadline really snuck up on me.
The plan was to do some of the new Blue Book articles in the handful of days between Expo and AFM... but Monday I was just wiped out. I tried to get some work done... but my brain just didn’t cooperate. Ended up a day behind. Tuesday, exact same story. Hard deadline approaching! Wednesday, I decided to sleep. Then sleep some more. Wasted the day, but felt a lot better. I designed some posters for film projects in the couple of hours that I wasn’t sleeping. Thursday, I felt great. My brain was fully functional (which is rare). The plan was to stop by Pinks Copies and make up a zillion 8.5x11 “flaps” (posters on one side, one page synopsis on the other) for AFM and get a couple of scripts copies (I need to sell a script in the worst way) and then hit the post office and then actually knock out one of the Blue Book articles... I was feeling good enough to maybe knock out two.
But that was before the copy machines at Pinks began breaking down. Copy places are usually hot enough, but Pinks’ has huge windows facing the setting sun that act as magnifying glasses frying anyone standing at the counter. So, as I’m waiting for them to fix the B&W machine so they can run my scripts I’m burning alive. The machine keeps breaking down. Finally they get my copies done, and we move on to the color copies - and there are hundreds of them, and the machine keeps screwing up, and I’m burning under the hot sun and about to pass out. When all of my flaps are finished, it’s too late to go to the post office, so I head to Starbucks and drink a Venti iced tea in about 3 seconds and get a refill, then quaff the refill in a couple of minutes, then... well, not much got done.
Friday, I’m roaming the halls at AFM with my flaps, wondering if I’m going to get *any* of the Blue Books finished before the next hard deadline a couple of weeks from now.
- Bill
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Happy Halloween
The SoCal Film Group makes all kinds of short films... this one was made as part of a Halloween Contest put on by American Movie Classic channel, and they managed to be chosen as one of the winners. The movie was broadcast on TV as part of their Halloween special. I talked about it in my Expo horror class, because it puts the protag in a situation where he's very vulnerable, tnen adds horror.
THE LAST STALL
Directed by Steve Nichols Smith
Written by Danny Grossman
Starring Steve Barr
- Bill
THE LAST STALL
Directed by Steve Nichols Smith
Written by Danny Grossman
Starring Steve Barr
- Bill
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saw You At Expo!
I survived Expo! Actually, this Expo was easy for me thanks to two things:
1) Last year, every other class was in the other hotel, so I was constantly running from hotel to hotel. And constantly setting up. And constantly dealing with small rooms. And constantly dealing with bad a/c.
This year I was in the exact same room for all of my classes. No running. I set up once, never had to dig through my bag for my notes - they were already out. And being in one room also helped my CD sales - I dragged a table from the front of the room to the back and laid out my CDs. Last year, they were in my bag and I had to dig them out... plus, nobody really knew they were in my bag, so I hardly sold any.
The downside of being in one room all day - you never get out. I usually run over with my classes - they’re supposed to be 90 minutes and they often end up closer to 110. The last one on Sunday went *way* over, because there was nothing else on the schedule. The problem is, class is over and people have those individual questions they want to ask, which is okay, but I’m not getting a real break between classes. And I’m usually talking when I’m not talking... which makes the voice really ragged on that last class on Sunday. But I’d rather be in the same room all day than have to run to the next class. The other thing that really helped was...
2) Emily from WHITE BOARD MARKERS was my assistant. I owe her a million thanks. Originally the plan was to get her in as my assistant just to get her in. She was a volunteer for the Expo last year, and this year Expo wanted volunteers to work full time for 2 days with no time to go to any of the events. That sucks. I figured she’d get in free, and maybe spend a few minutes helping me here and there, then have the run of the Expo... but it didn’t work out that way. What happened is, there were almost no volunteers this year, so Emily ended up working full time 2 days for me with no time to go to any of the events. And she didn’t complain. And she sold my CDs as if her life depended on it... which meant I actually sold out of almost everything!
So, Emily is the greatest person in the world.
So I picked up my badge and lanyard on Friday, so that I could get into the Networking Party that night and drink. There’s a greenroom upstairs where the drinks are free to speakers, but if all of the guest speakers and guests of honor are upstairs drinking, who the hell is there downstairs to network with? I always think that part of my “job” at events like this is to talk to the folks who paid to be there.
I check out the greenroom, basically looking for the handout with the hotel room maps and class room assignments. Hang out and talk with some folks, including Guest Of Honor Tina Anderson (WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE starring Lorenz Tate) and a guy I talked with at Austin a couple of years ago who has since won the Disney Fellowship (I think) and is on staff on a TV show now. That’s cool when someone you talked to a couple of years ago is trying to break in... and now they have broken in and is a working pro. It’s so difficult to break in, that when someone not only breaks in, but is a success story, that proves good writing pays off.
I left the greenroom when the Networking Party began, went downstairs and paid for my beers.
Last week I was at the Final Draft Big Break Party that had loud music you could not talk over, and now I’m at Expo where they have obnoxious stand up comics so loud you can not talk over them. You have to scream to be heard, and that’s not good on the throat if you have to speak all day the next two days.
As I’m sipping my beer, this guy comes up to me and just pitches his script. I try to ask him why he’s pitching to me, but he just keeps going. When he finishes, he asks what I thought. I, um, am polite and probably a little evasive. Then he says, “So, you wouldn’t be interested?” “No. I have my own projects,” I reply.
As soon as he lives, some other guy comes up and pitches me *his* script*. I’m polite to him, too... but after the fourth or fifth person pitches me their script, I’m wondering what kind of networking party this is... did someone encourage these folks to just pitch their scripts to other people at the party? Is that in the program I haven’t looked at yet?
When the next person starts pitching me, I try to stop him... but he just keeps going. I keep trying to stop him, he talks over me. When he finishes, I ask why everyone is pitching to me. “Well, you’re a producer, right?” “Wrong. I’m a screenwriter.” “But you *are* here to hear pitches.” “No... I’m teaching classes.” “But your lanyard is red, teachers have green lanyards.” Okay, now this is all making sense... sort of... they gave me the wrong colored lanyard and people think I’m part of the pitch fest.
I’m so glad I’m *not* here to hear pitches, because this last guy who pitched me had the worst pitch I have ever heard in my entire life... and I’ve heard some really awful ones. It’s like he took the top three Google search things for the day and tried to combine them into the most topical script ever written. No heart. No soul. Not even a story.
Eventually they turn up the lights and kick us out... kicking out the bad comics, too.
A group of us ends up in the hotel bar, until they turn up the lights and kick us out.
I’m staying at the hotel. No way I’m going to fight traffic on the 405 every morning, then try to teach a class. I’d rather roll out of bed, shower, take the elevator down and teach my class. This also allows me to hang out after the networking parties instead of zooming home just to sleep for a while and then have to zoom back to the Expo.
Saturday I have 4 classes - basically 8 hours of teaching. The full day. The night before I bought a couple of bottles of water from the Liquor store near the hotel (the hotel’s water is almost as expensive as their beer). I brought some instant coffee packets in case of emergency... and the Starbucks line was so long in the morning (imagine 2,000 writers awake before 9 am... and one Starbucks) - I used the instant coffee to make a bottle of iced coffee. Got to my room and set up. Did a full day of classes. Got sidetracked and didn’t have dinner... then went to the Networking Party.
So, the guy with the awful pitch comes up to me and does the pitch all over again. The same pitch. Word for word. I keep trying to stop him - remind him that I have the wrong color lanyard - but he will not stop his pitch. When he finishes, I go through the exact same conversation we had the night before.
They turn up the lights, I go back up to my room... I really need to sleep, I’m exhausted.
But this is Halloween weekend (sort of) and the people in the room next to me are having a loud party that doesn’t end until 4am. I catch half a night of sleep, get up to teach classes... but my instant coffee packets are gone, and the Starbucks line is snaking around the hotel lobby a few times. But I have great luck this day - my “stalker” Matt is close to the front of the line and I offer to buy his coffee if he’ll order mine. I get my coffee, make it to my room and do 2 classes... then there’s a break and the closing ceremonies begin. I sit on a chair in the lobby, half asleep... waiting for Fun Joel’s annual Bloggers Meeting.
Every Year Fun Joel organizes a meeting in the hotel’s sports bar of all the screenwriting bloggers in town for the Expo. I meet Red Right Hand, spent a lot of time talking to Rouge Wave, and talk to all kinds of other people. Emily (White Board Markers) talks about her short film, which sounds cool, and Joel manages to say nothing about his recent trip to Africa. Man, I want to know all of the details! Guess I’ll have to read about it in his blog.
Eventually, I realize I’ve been drinking all weekend and not doing much sleeping, and I’d better head home. I take a final trip through the hotel to pick up any postcards still on the tables, go upstairs to the greenroom and hang out for a while *not* drinking, but talking to Heather Hale who did *12* classes over 4 days! They asked what she wanted to teach, she sent a list of 12 potential classes, they put all 12 on the schedule! I felt like a wimp - I only did half the classes she did! I said goodbye to Bill, the new owner of the Expo, who is a nice guy and did a pretty good job considering this was his first time running the Expo... then I headed home.
Thanks to everyone who took one of my classes, and if you have a question about the class or a comment, you can click *here* and post it along with any class discussion.
- Bill
PS: The guy I talked to on Sunday - man, I wish I could remember your name - you’re an animal lover and disagree with me on THE RING.... e-mail me!
1) Last year, every other class was in the other hotel, so I was constantly running from hotel to hotel. And constantly setting up. And constantly dealing with small rooms. And constantly dealing with bad a/c.
This year I was in the exact same room for all of my classes. No running. I set up once, never had to dig through my bag for my notes - they were already out. And being in one room also helped my CD sales - I dragged a table from the front of the room to the back and laid out my CDs. Last year, they were in my bag and I had to dig them out... plus, nobody really knew they were in my bag, so I hardly sold any.
The downside of being in one room all day - you never get out. I usually run over with my classes - they’re supposed to be 90 minutes and they often end up closer to 110. The last one on Sunday went *way* over, because there was nothing else on the schedule. The problem is, class is over and people have those individual questions they want to ask, which is okay, but I’m not getting a real break between classes. And I’m usually talking when I’m not talking... which makes the voice really ragged on that last class on Sunday. But I’d rather be in the same room all day than have to run to the next class. The other thing that really helped was...
2) Emily from WHITE BOARD MARKERS was my assistant. I owe her a million thanks. Originally the plan was to get her in as my assistant just to get her in. She was a volunteer for the Expo last year, and this year Expo wanted volunteers to work full time for 2 days with no time to go to any of the events. That sucks. I figured she’d get in free, and maybe spend a few minutes helping me here and there, then have the run of the Expo... but it didn’t work out that way. What happened is, there were almost no volunteers this year, so Emily ended up working full time 2 days for me with no time to go to any of the events. And she didn’t complain. And she sold my CDs as if her life depended on it... which meant I actually sold out of almost everything!
So, Emily is the greatest person in the world.
WILL YOU BUY MY PITCH?
So I picked up my badge and lanyard on Friday, so that I could get into the Networking Party that night and drink. There’s a greenroom upstairs where the drinks are free to speakers, but if all of the guest speakers and guests of honor are upstairs drinking, who the hell is there downstairs to network with? I always think that part of my “job” at events like this is to talk to the folks who paid to be there.
I check out the greenroom, basically looking for the handout with the hotel room maps and class room assignments. Hang out and talk with some folks, including Guest Of Honor Tina Anderson (WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE starring Lorenz Tate) and a guy I talked with at Austin a couple of years ago who has since won the Disney Fellowship (I think) and is on staff on a TV show now. That’s cool when someone you talked to a couple of years ago is trying to break in... and now they have broken in and is a working pro. It’s so difficult to break in, that when someone not only breaks in, but is a success story, that proves good writing pays off.
I left the greenroom when the Networking Party began, went downstairs and paid for my beers.
Last week I was at the Final Draft Big Break Party that had loud music you could not talk over, and now I’m at Expo where they have obnoxious stand up comics so loud you can not talk over them. You have to scream to be heard, and that’s not good on the throat if you have to speak all day the next two days.
As I’m sipping my beer, this guy comes up to me and just pitches his script. I try to ask him why he’s pitching to me, but he just keeps going. When he finishes, he asks what I thought. I, um, am polite and probably a little evasive. Then he says, “So, you wouldn’t be interested?” “No. I have my own projects,” I reply.
As soon as he lives, some other guy comes up and pitches me *his* script*. I’m polite to him, too... but after the fourth or fifth person pitches me their script, I’m wondering what kind of networking party this is... did someone encourage these folks to just pitch their scripts to other people at the party? Is that in the program I haven’t looked at yet?
When the next person starts pitching me, I try to stop him... but he just keeps going. I keep trying to stop him, he talks over me. When he finishes, I ask why everyone is pitching to me. “Well, you’re a producer, right?” “Wrong. I’m a screenwriter.” “But you *are* here to hear pitches.” “No... I’m teaching classes.” “But your lanyard is red, teachers have green lanyards.” Okay, now this is all making sense... sort of... they gave me the wrong colored lanyard and people think I’m part of the pitch fest.
I’m so glad I’m *not* here to hear pitches, because this last guy who pitched me had the worst pitch I have ever heard in my entire life... and I’ve heard some really awful ones. It’s like he took the top three Google search things for the day and tried to combine them into the most topical script ever written. No heart. No soul. Not even a story.
Eventually they turn up the lights and kick us out... kicking out the bad comics, too.
A group of us ends up in the hotel bar, until they turn up the lights and kick us out.
NO TIME FOR STARBUCKS
I’m staying at the hotel. No way I’m going to fight traffic on the 405 every morning, then try to teach a class. I’d rather roll out of bed, shower, take the elevator down and teach my class. This also allows me to hang out after the networking parties instead of zooming home just to sleep for a while and then have to zoom back to the Expo.
Saturday I have 4 classes - basically 8 hours of teaching. The full day. The night before I bought a couple of bottles of water from the Liquor store near the hotel (the hotel’s water is almost as expensive as their beer). I brought some instant coffee packets in case of emergency... and the Starbucks line was so long in the morning (imagine 2,000 writers awake before 9 am... and one Starbucks) - I used the instant coffee to make a bottle of iced coffee. Got to my room and set up. Did a full day of classes. Got sidetracked and didn’t have dinner... then went to the Networking Party.
So, the guy with the awful pitch comes up to me and does the pitch all over again. The same pitch. Word for word. I keep trying to stop him - remind him that I have the wrong color lanyard - but he will not stop his pitch. When he finishes, I go through the exact same conversation we had the night before.
They turn up the lights, I go back up to my room... I really need to sleep, I’m exhausted.
But this is Halloween weekend (sort of) and the people in the room next to me are having a loud party that doesn’t end until 4am. I catch half a night of sleep, get up to teach classes... but my instant coffee packets are gone, and the Starbucks line is snaking around the hotel lobby a few times. But I have great luck this day - my “stalker” Matt is close to the front of the line and I offer to buy his coffee if he’ll order mine. I get my coffee, make it to my room and do 2 classes... then there’s a break and the closing ceremonies begin. I sit on a chair in the lobby, half asleep... waiting for Fun Joel’s annual Bloggers Meeting.
BLOOGERS UNITE!
Every Year Fun Joel organizes a meeting in the hotel’s sports bar of all the screenwriting bloggers in town for the Expo. I meet Red Right Hand, spent a lot of time talking to Rouge Wave, and talk to all kinds of other people. Emily (White Board Markers) talks about her short film, which sounds cool, and Joel manages to say nothing about his recent trip to Africa. Man, I want to know all of the details! Guess I’ll have to read about it in his blog.
Eventually, I realize I’ve been drinking all weekend and not doing much sleeping, and I’d better head home. I take a final trip through the hotel to pick up any postcards still on the tables, go upstairs to the greenroom and hang out for a while *not* drinking, but talking to Heather Hale who did *12* classes over 4 days! They asked what she wanted to teach, she sent a list of 12 potential classes, they put all 12 on the schedule! I felt like a wimp - I only did half the classes she did! I said goodbye to Bill, the new owner of the Expo, who is a nice guy and did a pretty good job considering this was his first time running the Expo... then I headed home.
Thanks to everyone who took one of my classes, and if you have a question about the class or a comment, you can click *here* and post it along with any class discussion.
- Bill
PS: The guy I talked to on Sunday - man, I wish I could remember your name - you’re an animal lover and disagree with me on THE RING.... e-mail me!
Friday, October 26, 2007
I'm At Expo....
The Screenwriting Expo is on now. 3,000 - 4,000 screenwriters from all over the world at one event... along with pretty much all of the famous screenwriters in Hollywood. Oh, and I’ll be there, too.
Last year I taught 6 classes, which was a pain in the butt because all of the classes were at the other hotel. Before, when it was at the Convention Center, I might have to dash from one room to the next, but at the two airport hotels you have to dash down the street. There’s a shuttle, but it’s always just left. So I get to do a lot of running at Expo.
The plan for this year was to do 4 new classes and two old standbys. I had done two of the new classes at the Raindance Film Fest in 2006... just before last year’s Expo. The other two new classes were in the works at that time. Two reasons for doing new classes: Hey, *you* don’t want to go to the same old class, and I have audio versions of some of the old classes available, so I’d rather do something new.
But the Expo is under new management, and due to a glitch they had to go to press with the catalogue before they got my new classes... and went with the old ones.
Okay, here is my problem in a nutshell: If you took McKee’s class in 2000 and then again in 2007... it’s word-for-word the same class. He has it memorized. I hate that. I want to try to add something new all the time. The reason why the big 2 day class now has 5 different versions is so that if you were to take the class again, even though the underlying information is basically the same, you’d get a different perspective and different examples and now different film clips illustrating the points. I worry that someone who took the class before will take it again and feel like they didn’t get anything out of it the second time.
So, the big plan was to completely rework all 6 classes, starting with the Naked Character Class, which I thought had some problems last year. The problem was - I have, like, a million pages on character development (actually, well over 2 books worth) and when I set up my class notes, I duplicated some information. That had me stumbling a little bit trying to revise the class as I was teaching it.
So I did an inventory of all of my character articles, I wrote a logline kind of thing for each article on a 3x5 card, and I figured out what the class was supposed to be like... Then all I had to do was organize those 3x5s then organize the articles, then cut out any duplicate info from each individual article, then print a version for me to use in the class. Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately, it’s boring work. So... The 3x5s are still waiting for me to put them in order. Instead, I did a little more work on SLEEPER and wrote a couple of magazine articles and a couple of new Script Tips. I avoid writing by writing something else.
The other 5 classes were going to get new material - I outlined new articles for each... and I’m bringing those outlines with me. Never got around to writing the new material, but maybe I can incorporate it on the fly. That kind of depends on the amount of sleep I get and the amount of caffeine in my blood.
This may sound like I’m a lazy bastard, but the weeks leading up to Expo when I was supposed to do all of this stuff became really crowded. The staff of Script Magazine met for dinner and drinks, to discuss the course for the magazine. I ended up having more drinks than planned - I had put all the info into my phone’s calendar, and purposely put the time of the dinner a half hour early, to remind me to get my butt over the hill. The dinner was at Cat & Fiddle, a cool bar & restaurant with California-British cuisine. Huh? Well, they have fish & chips and other Brit food, plus designer burgers and things that require someone to sun dry a tomato. There’s patio dining, plus a large indoor section... and even dart boards. And they serve Guinness on tap. Well, I look at my phone, see the time of the event, and arrive a half hour before when I had it listed on my phone. That’s a full hour before the actual dinner... but I thought it was just a half hour. So I had some of that Guinness on tap. And then some more. And then I wondered where everyone was, and had another Guinness. By the time people arrived close to an hour later, I’d had 4 Guinness (or Guinnii). And I had a few more with dinner.
The weird thing is - I was fine. I think the tension of all of these deadlines and problems and, well, the fact that I need to sell a script and we’re about to go into a strike, just balanced out the beer.
Anyway, we had an interesting discussion of what we can do to make the magazine better next year - new features and new focus on the writing part of screenwriting.
And a few days later, I went to the Final Draft Big Break Party in this nightclub in Hollywood. Loud music. Disco lights. Screenwriters. Which of those things does not belong? Oliver Stone was the guest of honor and was supposed to make an inspiring speech... he ended up just saying “Be inspired!” They gave out awards to the top 3 screenwriters in the contest, and the cool thing is - pro screenwriter judges each spoke about how much they loved this writer’s script before they presented the award. So Ray Gideon (STAND BY ME) gave an award, Bruce Feirstien (GOLDENEYE) gave and award and Antoine Fisher gave an award. I wanted to track down Bruce afterwards, we have a friend in common... but he got swept outside and I lost him. Antoine was standing about 5 feet away from me. Oliver Stone was probably long gone. Lots of people I know, some I don’t know. A woman gave me a hug and said hello... I *think* I know her from a message board. My friend Robin was there, and we talked for a while. I talked with Michael Taab about the strike vote - while we were trying to hear each other over the loud music, they were counting ballots down at the WGA. I joked they should have a live counter on the video monitor behind the bar like on election night.
Then, Sunday, I went to ScreamFest horror movie festival to see my friend Anthony’s new film HEADLESS, which you can all watch on Saturday night on the Sci Fi Channel. I actually raced to get there, was running late, and when I got to the ticket window there were two guys in front of me tring to decide what movie they wanted to see... at the head of the line! They finally figured it out, I bought my ticket and ran upstairs... just as the movie was about to begin. Afterwards, there was a Q&A, and after that everyone was hanging out in the lobby. The next film at the festival was produced by a guy I know, Morris Ruskin, and he asked me if I was there for his movie... Um, no. He asked me if I was going to stay for his movie.... Um, I’m kind of with these guys, and we may go someplace after the film. Then he walked away. I feel like I pissed him off, but I can’t be everywhere. And I shouldn’t even be here... I should be working on those Expo classes.
After that I was in panic mode over the post cards for a while, but they were delivered without problem. I also had other things to do to prepare for Expo. Somewhere on the list was buy new shoes. My shoes are at that perfect place - completely broken in... and that means they’re kind of scuffed up and ugly. Time for new shoes. I haven’t gotten around to that, yet, so I may be at Expo in my scuffed up old shoes. Probably better than nice new shoes if I’m going to spend a lot of time running between hotels.
So the classes may be the same this year as last year. Sorry. Next year, 4 new classes... maybe even 6 new classes.
See you at Expo!
PS: If you aren’t coming to Expo, you can still take some of my classes... on CD. I’m taking $2 off on my CDs for this Expo weekend only. Click below for more info:
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Establishing relationships, using a couple of horror films (‘tis the season).
Yesterday’s Dinner: Anderson’s Split Pea Soup & a fresh Western onion bagel at home while organizing stuff for Expo.
MOVIES: HEADLINESS - um, a friend made it... I can’t really talk about it objectively. 7 white kids who all look alike and act alike and seem to be interchangeable are on their way to a Halloween party, take a short cut, van breaks down... in Headless Horseman country. Then they lose their heads one-by-one. Anthony told me one of the big problems making the film is that Sci Fi Channel has all of these rules. No more than 40% of the script can take place at night. And they actually analyze the script and if it’s 41% night, make you change it! No brothers and sisters, No dogs, No alligators, No hallway scenes, No... well, the list goes on and on. My guess is that the things on the list can be traced back to some film that sucked. Well, that film with the brother & sister sucked - so no more brothers & sisters in Sci Fi Channel movies! All of this stuff makes for one strange film. Anthony inherited the script, which had all kinds of problems, and he tried to fix them. I don’t think they got fixed. But that brings up another question - why is Sci Fi Channel buying scripts that suck this bad in the first place? Seriously. There are much much better scripts out there. I’ve read them. There are much much better writers out there - you write better than this crap. Sci Fi Channel movies will *always* be crap unless they start looking for better scripts.
MOVIES: WE OWN THE NIGHT. I liked the idea of two brothers on opposite sides of the law, reminded me of MANHATTAN MELODRAMA from the 1930s. But this film was bland. Unemotional. And when there was some big emotional scene, the *audience* didn’t feel anything. That was due to the choices by writer-director. They never establish that these brothers care about each other - or have ever cared about each other. So when one gets in big trouble and the other suddenly shows emotions about his brother... we wonder where all of those emotions came from. All they had to do was show us that these two were once close, but drifted apart. Establish that they once loved each other. Okay, they’re brothers, so maybe we’re just supposed to assume that... but I didn’t. So when one brother suddenly has this big emotional scene, it just rings false. You have to establish this stuff! Hey, all it takes are a couple of photos of the two of them as teenagers, arms around each other. Give each brother that same photo. Make the relationship between the brothers the center of the story. Instead, we have kind of a bland, gritty, cop movie. A car chase that tries to be FRENCH CONNECTION in the rain, but ends up kind of blah. Good to see Tony Musante on screen again.
DVDS: DOUBLE INDEMNITY again... and the relationship between Robinson and McMurray really is amazing in the film. It shows you how a simple thing like lighting someone’s cigar can be used to symbolize a friendship.
PAGES: Are you kidding me? A couple of new magazine articles. Nothing on the script (except some touch up work).
Last year I taught 6 classes, which was a pain in the butt because all of the classes were at the other hotel. Before, when it was at the Convention Center, I might have to dash from one room to the next, but at the two airport hotels you have to dash down the street. There’s a shuttle, but it’s always just left. So I get to do a lot of running at Expo.
The plan for this year was to do 4 new classes and two old standbys. I had done two of the new classes at the Raindance Film Fest in 2006... just before last year’s Expo. The other two new classes were in the works at that time. Two reasons for doing new classes: Hey, *you* don’t want to go to the same old class, and I have audio versions of some of the old classes available, so I’d rather do something new.
But the Expo is under new management, and due to a glitch they had to go to press with the catalogue before they got my new classes... and went with the old ones.
Okay, here is my problem in a nutshell: If you took McKee’s class in 2000 and then again in 2007... it’s word-for-word the same class. He has it memorized. I hate that. I want to try to add something new all the time. The reason why the big 2 day class now has 5 different versions is so that if you were to take the class again, even though the underlying information is basically the same, you’d get a different perspective and different examples and now different film clips illustrating the points. I worry that someone who took the class before will take it again and feel like they didn’t get anything out of it the second time.
So, the big plan was to completely rework all 6 classes, starting with the Naked Character Class, which I thought had some problems last year. The problem was - I have, like, a million pages on character development (actually, well over 2 books worth) and when I set up my class notes, I duplicated some information. That had me stumbling a little bit trying to revise the class as I was teaching it.
So I did an inventory of all of my character articles, I wrote a logline kind of thing for each article on a 3x5 card, and I figured out what the class was supposed to be like... Then all I had to do was organize those 3x5s then organize the articles, then cut out any duplicate info from each individual article, then print a version for me to use in the class. Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately, it’s boring work. So... The 3x5s are still waiting for me to put them in order. Instead, I did a little more work on SLEEPER and wrote a couple of magazine articles and a couple of new Script Tips. I avoid writing by writing something else.
The other 5 classes were going to get new material - I outlined new articles for each... and I’m bringing those outlines with me. Never got around to writing the new material, but maybe I can incorporate it on the fly. That kind of depends on the amount of sleep I get and the amount of caffeine in my blood.
This may sound like I’m a lazy bastard, but the weeks leading up to Expo when I was supposed to do all of this stuff became really crowded. The staff of Script Magazine met for dinner and drinks, to discuss the course for the magazine. I ended up having more drinks than planned - I had put all the info into my phone’s calendar, and purposely put the time of the dinner a half hour early, to remind me to get my butt over the hill. The dinner was at Cat & Fiddle, a cool bar & restaurant with California-British cuisine. Huh? Well, they have fish & chips and other Brit food, plus designer burgers and things that require someone to sun dry a tomato. There’s patio dining, plus a large indoor section... and even dart boards. And they serve Guinness on tap. Well, I look at my phone, see the time of the event, and arrive a half hour before when I had it listed on my phone. That’s a full hour before the actual dinner... but I thought it was just a half hour. So I had some of that Guinness on tap. And then some more. And then I wondered where everyone was, and had another Guinness. By the time people arrived close to an hour later, I’d had 4 Guinness (or Guinnii). And I had a few more with dinner.
The weird thing is - I was fine. I think the tension of all of these deadlines and problems and, well, the fact that I need to sell a script and we’re about to go into a strike, just balanced out the beer.
Anyway, we had an interesting discussion of what we can do to make the magazine better next year - new features and new focus on the writing part of screenwriting.
And a few days later, I went to the Final Draft Big Break Party in this nightclub in Hollywood. Loud music. Disco lights. Screenwriters. Which of those things does not belong? Oliver Stone was the guest of honor and was supposed to make an inspiring speech... he ended up just saying “Be inspired!” They gave out awards to the top 3 screenwriters in the contest, and the cool thing is - pro screenwriter judges each spoke about how much they loved this writer’s script before they presented the award. So Ray Gideon (STAND BY ME) gave an award, Bruce Feirstien (GOLDENEYE) gave and award and Antoine Fisher gave an award. I wanted to track down Bruce afterwards, we have a friend in common... but he got swept outside and I lost him. Antoine was standing about 5 feet away from me. Oliver Stone was probably long gone. Lots of people I know, some I don’t know. A woman gave me a hug and said hello... I *think* I know her from a message board. My friend Robin was there, and we talked for a while. I talked with Michael Taab about the strike vote - while we were trying to hear each other over the loud music, they were counting ballots down at the WGA. I joked they should have a live counter on the video monitor behind the bar like on election night.
Then, Sunday, I went to ScreamFest horror movie festival to see my friend Anthony’s new film HEADLESS, which you can all watch on Saturday night on the Sci Fi Channel. I actually raced to get there, was running late, and when I got to the ticket window there were two guys in front of me tring to decide what movie they wanted to see... at the head of the line! They finally figured it out, I bought my ticket and ran upstairs... just as the movie was about to begin. Afterwards, there was a Q&A, and after that everyone was hanging out in the lobby. The next film at the festival was produced by a guy I know, Morris Ruskin, and he asked me if I was there for his movie... Um, no. He asked me if I was going to stay for his movie.... Um, I’m kind of with these guys, and we may go someplace after the film. Then he walked away. I feel like I pissed him off, but I can’t be everywhere. And I shouldn’t even be here... I should be working on those Expo classes.
After that I was in panic mode over the post cards for a while, but they were delivered without problem. I also had other things to do to prepare for Expo. Somewhere on the list was buy new shoes. My shoes are at that perfect place - completely broken in... and that means they’re kind of scuffed up and ugly. Time for new shoes. I haven’t gotten around to that, yet, so I may be at Expo in my scuffed up old shoes. Probably better than nice new shoes if I’m going to spend a lot of time running between hotels.
So the classes may be the same this year as last year. Sorry. Next year, 4 new classes... maybe even 6 new classes.
See you at Expo!
PS: If you aren’t coming to Expo, you can still take some of my classes... on CD. I’m taking $2 off on my CDs for this Expo weekend only. Click below for more info:
CDs On Sale!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Establishing relationships, using a couple of horror films (‘tis the season).
Yesterday’s Dinner: Anderson’s Split Pea Soup & a fresh Western onion bagel at home while organizing stuff for Expo.
MOVIES: HEADLINESS - um, a friend made it... I can’t really talk about it objectively. 7 white kids who all look alike and act alike and seem to be interchangeable are on their way to a Halloween party, take a short cut, van breaks down... in Headless Horseman country. Then they lose their heads one-by-one. Anthony told me one of the big problems making the film is that Sci Fi Channel has all of these rules. No more than 40% of the script can take place at night. And they actually analyze the script and if it’s 41% night, make you change it! No brothers and sisters, No dogs, No alligators, No hallway scenes, No... well, the list goes on and on. My guess is that the things on the list can be traced back to some film that sucked. Well, that film with the brother & sister sucked - so no more brothers & sisters in Sci Fi Channel movies! All of this stuff makes for one strange film. Anthony inherited the script, which had all kinds of problems, and he tried to fix them. I don’t think they got fixed. But that brings up another question - why is Sci Fi Channel buying scripts that suck this bad in the first place? Seriously. There are much much better scripts out there. I’ve read them. There are much much better writers out there - you write better than this crap. Sci Fi Channel movies will *always* be crap unless they start looking for better scripts.
MOVIES: WE OWN THE NIGHT. I liked the idea of two brothers on opposite sides of the law, reminded me of MANHATTAN MELODRAMA from the 1930s. But this film was bland. Unemotional. And when there was some big emotional scene, the *audience* didn’t feel anything. That was due to the choices by writer-director. They never establish that these brothers care about each other - or have ever cared about each other. So when one gets in big trouble and the other suddenly shows emotions about his brother... we wonder where all of those emotions came from. All they had to do was show us that these two were once close, but drifted apart. Establish that they once loved each other. Okay, they’re brothers, so maybe we’re just supposed to assume that... but I didn’t. So when one brother suddenly has this big emotional scene, it just rings false. You have to establish this stuff! Hey, all it takes are a couple of photos of the two of them as teenagers, arms around each other. Give each brother that same photo. Make the relationship between the brothers the center of the story. Instead, we have kind of a bland, gritty, cop movie. A car chase that tries to be FRENCH CONNECTION in the rain, but ends up kind of blah. Good to see Tony Musante on screen again.
DVDS: DOUBLE INDEMNITY again... and the relationship between Robinson and McMurray really is amazing in the film. It shows you how a simple thing like lighting someone’s cigar can be used to symbolize a friendship.
PAGES: Are you kidding me? A couple of new magazine articles. Nothing on the script (except some touch up work).
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Nothing But Brown Skies
You may have heard we have a couple of wildfires here in California. There might have been something on the news about it. Mel Gibson and James Cameron and many other famous people were forced to evacuate their expensive Malibu homes... yes, they are technically homeless now. There are a dozen wildfires burning all over SoCal - and the day before the Malibu fire started we had a “red flag warning” - high fire danger. What that means is that it’s hot, it’s dry, and it’s windy. The Malibu fire was caused by downed power lines...
We’ve had freakin’ gale force winds down here!
A couple of days ago I was sitting in Starbucks, watching the *metal* outdoor furniture blow away. Chairs, tables... blowing toward the parking lot. People were diving out of the way. Some security guards grabbed some of the stuff before any cars were damaged. People were having trouble walking. Hats and toupees were flying!
So, I come home after a hard day of splitting infinitives and...
My block is dark. In fact, several blocks are dark.
It’s strange to see part of a city with no lights at all. No street lights, no stop lights, no lights in windows, no store lights.... nothing but darkness. You think Los Angeles drivers have no idea what they’re doing in daylight? Wait until the traffic lights go out.
This also sucks, because I had been working on battery in Starbucks and my ;aptop is now dead... and the plan was to finish this article for Script at home. Well, that’s not going to happen. I also planned on doing some work on my Expo classes, and that isn’t going to happen either. The good news is, I spot a power company truck down the street doing something. My guess is the wind blew down a power pole, and they were working on it. That means it would probably be fixed by morning. How many cars would smash into each other while the traffic lights were dark?
I make it into the parking lot without getting hit and use what little moonlight there is to find my way to my front door... where my body blocks the key hole and I have to get the key in by touch. I open the door - and it is absolutely black within. Great! A chance to break a leg.
I have a big heavy duty flashlight under my bed - earthquake preparedness. During the big Northridge quake, I was living in Van Nuys (close to Northridge) and my building was quaked. It happened in the middle of the night, and knocked out the power. I found clothes and shoes by feeling around, and walked out of my 2nd story apartment, picking the stairway I never use... which was good, because the stairway I usually use was *gone*. I could have been killed... so now I keep a flashlight nearby.
Well, the problem was getting to the flashlight using only the light from my open front door. The further I get from the door, the more absolute the darkness. By the time I get to my bed, it’s pitch black. I feel around under the bed, hand coating with dust bunnies, and find the flashlight. Click it on, and everything is okay.
There’s this cool little film written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote the first SPIDER-MAN and almsot every other big Hollywood blockbuster, that takes place in Sacramento, CA during a power outage. All power, all TV, all radio, everything... dead. Food rotting in freezers. People go to the store for supplies... and the cash registers don’t work (they’re all electric, now). So people begin looting stores. Nice people, good people, honest people... looting. Hey, they would pay if they could, but the need this stuff *now*, no time to wait until the power returns... if it ever returns.
When darkness falls, people grab guns to protect their property from looters. And it doesn’t take long for flare ups, arguments, fights to break out. Eventually people get shot. After the world descends into chaos.... the lights come back on.
So I’m hoping the power guys get this thing fixed pretty soon.
For now, I have no TV and I don’t want to kill the flashlight battery by leaving it on. Problem is, it isn’t late enough to go to sleep... That’s when I remember that I own a portable DVD player - a Christmas gift from my parents last year. I had ran down the battery the last time I used it... but *the night before* I had plugged it in to recharge the battery. Hey! I had a DVD player! I also have hundreds of DVDs, including DOUBLE INDEMNITY double disk, brand new still in the shrink wrap. Okay, I would turn off the flashlight, turn on the DVD player, crawl into bed and watch a great Billy Wilder movie. I wish I could sip hot cocoa, too... but that would require power. So I had some grape juice.
I watched the film on the 7 inch screen, getting sleepy...
When the film ended, I was ready to fall asleep... but the power came on. I had flipped the light switch just inside the front door, so I got out of bed to turn it off...
And realized that I had left my front door open.
Could have been worse. I could have woke up the next morning and walked in to discover the open front door in my underpants with my neighbors walking down the hallway.
The fires are far away, but the smoke is right here. Everything is hazy, and they're warning us to stay indoors and try not to breathe any of this crap. The sunsets are orange, and even the moon is orange. Kind of pretty... but hard on the lungs.
I hope all of you who live in areas affected by the fires are safe, and your homes are okay. And I hope Mel Gibson and James Cameron aren’t wandering the streets with shopping carts full of their stuff.
- Bill
We’ve had freakin’ gale force winds down here!
A couple of days ago I was sitting in Starbucks, watching the *metal* outdoor furniture blow away. Chairs, tables... blowing toward the parking lot. People were diving out of the way. Some security guards grabbed some of the stuff before any cars were damaged. People were having trouble walking. Hats and toupees were flying!
So, I come home after a hard day of splitting infinitives and...
My block is dark. In fact, several blocks are dark.
It’s strange to see part of a city with no lights at all. No street lights, no stop lights, no lights in windows, no store lights.... nothing but darkness. You think Los Angeles drivers have no idea what they’re doing in daylight? Wait until the traffic lights go out.
This also sucks, because I had been working on battery in Starbucks and my ;aptop is now dead... and the plan was to finish this article for Script at home. Well, that’s not going to happen. I also planned on doing some work on my Expo classes, and that isn’t going to happen either. The good news is, I spot a power company truck down the street doing something. My guess is the wind blew down a power pole, and they were working on it. That means it would probably be fixed by morning. How many cars would smash into each other while the traffic lights were dark?
I make it into the parking lot without getting hit and use what little moonlight there is to find my way to my front door... where my body blocks the key hole and I have to get the key in by touch. I open the door - and it is absolutely black within. Great! A chance to break a leg.
I have a big heavy duty flashlight under my bed - earthquake preparedness. During the big Northridge quake, I was living in Van Nuys (close to Northridge) and my building was quaked. It happened in the middle of the night, and knocked out the power. I found clothes and shoes by feeling around, and walked out of my 2nd story apartment, picking the stairway I never use... which was good, because the stairway I usually use was *gone*. I could have been killed... so now I keep a flashlight nearby.
Well, the problem was getting to the flashlight using only the light from my open front door. The further I get from the door, the more absolute the darkness. By the time I get to my bed, it’s pitch black. I feel around under the bed, hand coating with dust bunnies, and find the flashlight. Click it on, and everything is okay.
There’s this cool little film written and directed by David Koepp, who wrote the first SPIDER-MAN and almsot every other big Hollywood blockbuster, that takes place in Sacramento, CA during a power outage. All power, all TV, all radio, everything... dead. Food rotting in freezers. People go to the store for supplies... and the cash registers don’t work (they’re all electric, now). So people begin looting stores. Nice people, good people, honest people... looting. Hey, they would pay if they could, but the need this stuff *now*, no time to wait until the power returns... if it ever returns.
When darkness falls, people grab guns to protect their property from looters. And it doesn’t take long for flare ups, arguments, fights to break out. Eventually people get shot. After the world descends into chaos.... the lights come back on.
So I’m hoping the power guys get this thing fixed pretty soon.
For now, I have no TV and I don’t want to kill the flashlight battery by leaving it on. Problem is, it isn’t late enough to go to sleep... That’s when I remember that I own a portable DVD player - a Christmas gift from my parents last year. I had ran down the battery the last time I used it... but *the night before* I had plugged it in to recharge the battery. Hey! I had a DVD player! I also have hundreds of DVDs, including DOUBLE INDEMNITY double disk, brand new still in the shrink wrap. Okay, I would turn off the flashlight, turn on the DVD player, crawl into bed and watch a great Billy Wilder movie. I wish I could sip hot cocoa, too... but that would require power. So I had some grape juice.
I watched the film on the 7 inch screen, getting sleepy...
When the film ended, I was ready to fall asleep... but the power came on. I had flipped the light switch just inside the front door, so I got out of bed to turn it off...
And realized that I had left my front door open.
Could have been worse. I could have woke up the next morning and walked in to discover the open front door in my underpants with my neighbors walking down the hallway.
The fires are far away, but the smoke is right here. Everything is hazy, and they're warning us to stay indoors and try not to breathe any of this crap. The sunsets are orange, and even the moon is orange. Kind of pretty... but hard on the lungs.
I hope all of you who live in areas affected by the fires are safe, and your homes are okay. And I hope Mel Gibson and James Cameron aren’t wandering the streets with shopping carts full of their stuff.
- Bill
Friday, October 19, 2007
Why Me?
A couple of months ago, I realized that the postcards I made for last Expo were almost gone and I hated the design... so I decided to redesign the cards and get some printed for Expo. I gave myself plenty of time, because the last design was a rush job. These cards are nothing special - but Expo has thousands of screenwriters, and my hits have been falling off lately. This would be a great way to get the word out that I have a free script tip every day, and maybe increase my website traffic.
Card designs were sent to a printer on the East Coast with good rates and nice samples. Cards were printed, and to be delivered by UPS ground. I should have had them within 5 days...
But when I checked the tracking page online the day after Columbus Day (about a week after they shipped) I discovered that UPS had made an attempt to deliver to my biz address on Columbus Day... and since it was closed, they sent the cards back to the sender that same day. No second attempt at delivery. No door tag. Nothing.
According to their tracking page, the cards arrived in LA on Monday (Columbus Day), they made one attempt to deliver, then by 9pm that same day (Columbus Day) they were on a truck to the sender.
So, I called UPS. Asked why they didn’t attempt a delivery on a non-holiday? Why they were shipped back the same day?
They said: We don’t deliver to Military Bases.
This confused me, because the nearest military base has got to be at least 40 miles away.
After a great deal of time convincing them that the address was not a military base, I asked - you know, even if it was a military base, why ship it back to the sender on the same day? Why not hold it for a couple of days and door tag it? Well, policy is to ship it back - to make sure the package is promptly delivered. I brought it to their attention that if the package had been delivered, I’d have it. They asked what I wanted them to do, and I said: Deliver the package that is addressed to me. This got me bumped up to a supervisor.
After giving her the tracking number, she tells me that package has been delivered... to the original shipper.
So, I said all of the same stuff. The supervisor admits that a mistake was made, someone ticked the Military Base box by mistake. (I wonder how often that box gets ticked when the driver is running behind and just wants to get rid of a package?) They said they will cover the costs of reshipping - the sender just needs to reship the package and then fill out some refund forms and....
I asked why the shipper should fill out any forms - they didn’t tick the wrong box. She tells me that the package has been delivered - completed - and that we need to start from scratch. I ask if they have a category called UNDELIVERED or MISDELIVERED? She says “No, only DELIVERED.” At this point, I’m probably becoming a jerk... but I’m holding my temper and remaining calm. I’m just trying to figure out how to solve this problem within the rules of their system. So I ask if the package can be retrieved for a second delivery attempt? She tells me someone will call me back within an hour.
Two hours later, I call them again. Go through all of this all over again with new people. And they say again “Someone will call you within an hour.”
Two hours later, my phone actually rings. It’s someone who is going to resolve my problem! I explain everything again... and they tell me they don’t deliver to military bases... and I have to convince them this isn’t a military base, and they say they will take care of it. Problem solved!
Not.
A week later, nothing has happened.
So I call, and go through all of the same stuff with new people again, who all tell me they don’t deliver to military bases, and eventually I get to a supervisor who tells me they have a note that it has been taken care of. I say that’s nice, but do they have a note that says where my package is? No. They have no info that it was ever retrieved and reshipped, or that the anything was done other that the person in charge saying that they have taken care of it. There is no “not taken care of” problems at UPS.
Nice, but I don’t have my package and I want it.
“Well, we don’t deliver to military bases.”
Okay, there was a moment where I almost went UPStal. Instead I remained calm and asked how I am supposed to get my stuff. They said - the printer will have to reship it and fill out a form for the refund...
Fine. I call the printer. I explain what happened. They try to track down the returned package - can not find it. Swell. But they will reprint the cards for free and reship them. UPS Ground. I should have them within 5 days of when they are printed.... and my big fear is that they will arrive on the Monday *after* Expo. I will have thousands of postcards and no one to give them to.
And I’m just waiting for them to get shipped back to the sender because UPS doesn’t ship to military bases....
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: A new one about 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and Vampires.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Brocolli Beef @ CityWok.
Card designs were sent to a printer on the East Coast with good rates and nice samples. Cards were printed, and to be delivered by UPS ground. I should have had them within 5 days...
But when I checked the tracking page online the day after Columbus Day (about a week after they shipped) I discovered that UPS had made an attempt to deliver to my biz address on Columbus Day... and since it was closed, they sent the cards back to the sender that same day. No second attempt at delivery. No door tag. Nothing.
According to their tracking page, the cards arrived in LA on Monday (Columbus Day), they made one attempt to deliver, then by 9pm that same day (Columbus Day) they were on a truck to the sender.
So, I called UPS. Asked why they didn’t attempt a delivery on a non-holiday? Why they were shipped back the same day?
They said: We don’t deliver to Military Bases.
This confused me, because the nearest military base has got to be at least 40 miles away.
After a great deal of time convincing them that the address was not a military base, I asked - you know, even if it was a military base, why ship it back to the sender on the same day? Why not hold it for a couple of days and door tag it? Well, policy is to ship it back - to make sure the package is promptly delivered. I brought it to their attention that if the package had been delivered, I’d have it. They asked what I wanted them to do, and I said: Deliver the package that is addressed to me. This got me bumped up to a supervisor.
After giving her the tracking number, she tells me that package has been delivered... to the original shipper.
So, I said all of the same stuff. The supervisor admits that a mistake was made, someone ticked the Military Base box by mistake. (I wonder how often that box gets ticked when the driver is running behind and just wants to get rid of a package?) They said they will cover the costs of reshipping - the sender just needs to reship the package and then fill out some refund forms and....
I asked why the shipper should fill out any forms - they didn’t tick the wrong box. She tells me that the package has been delivered - completed - and that we need to start from scratch. I ask if they have a category called UNDELIVERED or MISDELIVERED? She says “No, only DELIVERED.” At this point, I’m probably becoming a jerk... but I’m holding my temper and remaining calm. I’m just trying to figure out how to solve this problem within the rules of their system. So I ask if the package can be retrieved for a second delivery attempt? She tells me someone will call me back within an hour.
Two hours later, I call them again. Go through all of this all over again with new people. And they say again “Someone will call you within an hour.”
Two hours later, my phone actually rings. It’s someone who is going to resolve my problem! I explain everything again... and they tell me they don’t deliver to military bases... and I have to convince them this isn’t a military base, and they say they will take care of it. Problem solved!
Not.
A week later, nothing has happened.
So I call, and go through all of the same stuff with new people again, who all tell me they don’t deliver to military bases, and eventually I get to a supervisor who tells me they have a note that it has been taken care of. I say that’s nice, but do they have a note that says where my package is? No. They have no info that it was ever retrieved and reshipped, or that the anything was done other that the person in charge saying that they have taken care of it. There is no “not taken care of” problems at UPS.
Nice, but I don’t have my package and I want it.
“Well, we don’t deliver to military bases.”
Okay, there was a moment where I almost went UPStal. Instead I remained calm and asked how I am supposed to get my stuff. They said - the printer will have to reship it and fill out a form for the refund...
Fine. I call the printer. I explain what happened. They try to track down the returned package - can not find it. Swell. But they will reprint the cards for free and reship them. UPS Ground. I should have them within 5 days of when they are printed.... and my big fear is that they will arrive on the Monday *after* Expo. I will have thousands of postcards and no one to give them to.
And I’m just waiting for them to get shipped back to the sender because UPS doesn’t ship to military bases....
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: A new one about 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and Vampires.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Brocolli Beef @ CityWok.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Accidental Experiment
A while back I posted about the new spec script I had started, SLEEPER AGENT, and over that weekend I posted a link to a pdf of the rough draft opening of the screenplay. At the end of the weekend I removed the link...
I figured a few people would get a chance to read the opening of the script... about a dozen people e-mailed me about it or mentioned it in replies.
Without any announcement, I continued to add rough draft pages to that same URL address. Not on a regular basis, every once in a while I’d add a bunch of fresh pages. And a handful of people noticed, and have sent me e-mails. This has been kind of interesting.
Harlan Ellison once wrote a short story in a bookstore window. You could walk past the bookstore and watch him work.
I think this has been an interesting accidental experiment, and I think sometime in the future I will do the experiment on purpose. Next time I land an assignment, or have a new spec that I plan on writing on a self-imposed deadline, I think I may let you guys look over my shoulder. I may post my pages for the day somewhere on my website.
Might be fun.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: When people Blow Up (Tuesday was a new tip about the WGA strike - hope you remembered to check the Tip Of The Day and didn't miss it.)
Yesterday’s Dinner: BBQ Pork & brown rice at CityWok.
Pages: Preparing for my Expo Classes - trying to figure out a new version of the Naked Character class.
I figured a few people would get a chance to read the opening of the script... about a dozen people e-mailed me about it or mentioned it in replies.
Without any announcement, I continued to add rough draft pages to that same URL address. Not on a regular basis, every once in a while I’d add a bunch of fresh pages. And a handful of people noticed, and have sent me e-mails. This has been kind of interesting.
Harlan Ellison once wrote a short story in a bookstore window. You could walk past the bookstore and watch him work.
I think this has been an interesting accidental experiment, and I think sometime in the future I will do the experiment on purpose. Next time I land an assignment, or have a new spec that I plan on writing on a self-imposed deadline, I think I may let you guys look over my shoulder. I may post my pages for the day somewhere on my website.
Might be fun.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: When people Blow Up (Tuesday was a new tip about the WGA strike - hope you remembered to check the Tip Of The Day and didn't miss it.)
Yesterday’s Dinner: BBQ Pork & brown rice at CityWok.
Pages: Preparing for my Expo Classes - trying to figure out a new version of the Naked Character class.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The Thing I Hate Most...
Some people hate when they are halfway through a new script and read in the trades that someone has just sold a script with a similar idea for big bucks... making their script into a retread... a seeming rip-off.
*I* hate when someone sells a script for big bucks that has a similar idea to... a film of mine that has been sitting on the shelves at Blockbuster for 3 years.
My script GRID RUNNERS was the story of a cop in the future trained in a VR simulator against the mega-villain Dante... and when Dante is cloned into reality, the cop must face the one opponent he knows he can not beat. A producer liked the script, thought it might make a great big budget theatrical. He had a connection at Paramount, so we had a meeting. The guy at Paramount told us sci-fi was dead at Paramount, except for STAR TREK movies. So the project got set up as an HBO World Premiere Movie and I was paid, well, okay money. Sci Fi Entertainment Magazine came out on set, wrote an article (I was even mentioned!) and a couple of months after that issue hit the news stands... Paramount bought this script called VIRTUOSITY for a whole bunch of money.
VIRTUOSITY was the story of a cop in the future who trained in a VR simulator against a mega-villain named SID... and when SID is made real by nanotechnology, the cop must face the one opponent he knows he can not beat.
Produced by Paramount, by the way.
The same thing happened on NIGHT HUNTER - three years before BLADE but with many of the same *scenes*. And I mean the same scenes. Vampires in a rave? Vampires having a meeting around an executive board table? Vampire hunter rides a motorcycle? Vampire hunter uses cool weapons and uses martial arts?
Back in 1992 I wrote (and registered with WGA) this 30 page treatment called SPLICERS about gene splicing dogs and scorpions to create the ultimate tunnel dog / weapon. I scripted it about 7 years ago, with the dog-scorpions designed to go after Osama Bin Laden (hiding in a cave somewhere). Since then, I've had all kinds of producers read the script. At one point, it was almost made. Another time it landed me an assignment. There is one D-gal in town who loves it, and tries to get everyone she works for to make it.
Now, from today's Hollywood Reporter...
CREATURE FEATURE FOR POLLEY, BRODY
"Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody have been cast in "Splice," a science fiction thriller being directed by Vincenzo Natali. The story explores a dark vision of the world of genetic engineering in which two young scientists (Polley and Brody) become superstars by splicing different animal DNA to create fantastical new creatures. Production is slated to begin in November in Toronto."
Can't wait to see it in the cinema.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday’s Dinner: Salad at Fuddruckers.
MOVIES: Saw THE KINGDOM... and wished it had more investigation. It was always too easy to find the clues. When Chris Cooper finds a clue, it leads *directly* to a suspect. Later in the film, a major clue is *literally* handed to Jennifer Garner at a crime scene by a bad guy. Kind of an "I did it!" moment. Lots of stuff that was too easy. And I hate shaky cam. There will be a post on that.
DVD: Watched HARD BOILED again - a great John Woo film. Real characters. Real moments... and babies.
Pages: Only a couple of pages on SLEEPER when I'm supposed to be doing *more* than 5 pages to make up for a couple of days.
*I* hate when someone sells a script for big bucks that has a similar idea to... a film of mine that has been sitting on the shelves at Blockbuster for 3 years.
My script GRID RUNNERS was the story of a cop in the future trained in a VR simulator against the mega-villain Dante... and when Dante is cloned into reality, the cop must face the one opponent he knows he can not beat. A producer liked the script, thought it might make a great big budget theatrical. He had a connection at Paramount, so we had a meeting. The guy at Paramount told us sci-fi was dead at Paramount, except for STAR TREK movies. So the project got set up as an HBO World Premiere Movie and I was paid, well, okay money. Sci Fi Entertainment Magazine came out on set, wrote an article (I was even mentioned!) and a couple of months after that issue hit the news stands... Paramount bought this script called VIRTUOSITY for a whole bunch of money.
VIRTUOSITY was the story of a cop in the future who trained in a VR simulator against a mega-villain named SID... and when SID is made real by nanotechnology, the cop must face the one opponent he knows he can not beat.
Produced by Paramount, by the way.
The same thing happened on NIGHT HUNTER - three years before BLADE but with many of the same *scenes*. And I mean the same scenes. Vampires in a rave? Vampires having a meeting around an executive board table? Vampire hunter rides a motorcycle? Vampire hunter uses cool weapons and uses martial arts?
Back in 1992 I wrote (and registered with WGA) this 30 page treatment called SPLICERS about gene splicing dogs and scorpions to create the ultimate tunnel dog / weapon. I scripted it about 7 years ago, with the dog-scorpions designed to go after Osama Bin Laden (hiding in a cave somewhere). Since then, I've had all kinds of producers read the script. At one point, it was almost made. Another time it landed me an assignment. There is one D-gal in town who loves it, and tries to get everyone she works for to make it.
Now, from today's Hollywood Reporter...
CREATURE FEATURE FOR POLLEY, BRODY
"Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody have been cast in "Splice," a science fiction thriller being directed by Vincenzo Natali. The story explores a dark vision of the world of genetic engineering in which two young scientists (Polley and Brody) become superstars by splicing different animal DNA to create fantastical new creatures. Production is slated to begin in November in Toronto."
Can't wait to see it in the cinema.
- Bill
MOVIES: Saw THE KINGDOM... and wished it had more investigation. It was always too easy to find the clues. When Chris Cooper finds a clue, it leads *directly* to a suspect. Later in the film, a major clue is *literally* handed to Jennifer Garner at a crime scene by a bad guy. Kind of an "I did it!" moment. Lots of stuff that was too easy. And I hate shaky cam. There will be a post on that.
DVD: Watched HARD BOILED again - a great John Woo film. Real characters. Real moments... and babies.
Pages: Only a couple of pages on SLEEPER when I'm supposed to be doing *more* than 5 pages to make up for a couple of days.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Frustration
All of my sales, all of my produced films... no agent or manager was involved in any of those deals. My career is based on query letters and people passing my scripts around town because they liked them. Basically, every sale is the result of some accident - a script left somewhere gets passed around town for *3 years* and ends up at Paramount... and they *buy it*! Since firing the world’s worst agent when I came to town, I haven’t had another agent. I had a manager for a short period of time, and sold nothing. I always wonder what kind of career I’d have if I had some sort of representation. Someone *trying* to sell my scripts... and someone who could get them to the right places.
So, every few years I decide to try to find an agent or manager.
And after a short period of time I get so frustrated, my head almost explodes.
My recent frustration: I don’t really believe in referrals. I think that turns the biz into who you know rather than what you know, and results in crappy scripts written by Tom Cruise’s poolboy getting made while really great scripts from someone who doesn’t have connections becoming landfill. There was a time when it was all about the scripts, and agents were the screeners. They discovered the talent. Now, agents don’t want to discover talent, they want someone to bring it to them.
I know all kinds of people in the biz, I never ask them for a referral.
Maybe I should... but part of me thinks that a guy who continues to sell scripts that get made into films (bad films, but still films) shouldn’t need someone else to vouch for them. I can pour a sack full of DVDs with my name on them onto any agent’s desk. Surely I’m past the point where I might be a one trick pony or someone who got lucky once and sold something. This may make me sound egotistical, but I think my movies should be my reference. And I think agents and managers should just sign me.
But that doesn’t seem to be how it works.
So, I asked one person I know - on the other side of the desk - to refer me to a manager. And that manager eventually got back to me and asked me to send him a script. And when I sent it, nothing happened. So I talked to the manager, and he said “Are you still writing?” Which I tried not to take as an insult. He requested a second script. I sent a second script from my stockpile of virgin scripts that no one has ever read... well, these two aren’t virgins anymore... and I never heard from him again... I *did* send him an e-mail when I had 2 films on the Top Ten DVD Charts a couple of weeks later. I also looked up his client list, and he has two people who have each sold one script to a cable net... um, I think I got that beat. Now, maybe the two scripts *he requested* weren’t things he thought he could sell - but he picked ‘em! He looked over the list of virgin scripts and selected the two loglines he liked best. So if he didn’t like the *concepts* that was his fault. Well, that leaves the writing... I may not be Steve Zaillian, but I can put together a sentence or two... and *the people who buy scripts* like my scripts. And I’ve read many many scripts from writers represented by major agencies... that suck. Obviously, they had a referral. I can’t figure out this manager’s problem.
I’m so pissed off, I send out a stack of query letters to other agents and managers - even some big ones. I’m gonna show this guy! I’m gonna sign with a big agency! Weeks later - no responses to any of those queries. I might as well have thrown them directly into the trash, rather than mail them to an agency where an assistant threw them into the trash. No chance to show that freakin’ manager that he missed out on signing me.
Due to the small world we work in, I actually bump into this manager a couple of weeks ago, and ask what happened. He says he hadn’t read *the* script from me. I said “That’s nice, but since you read the last script, I’ve had meetings all over town on other projects” - in fact, we had bumped into each other as a result of a meeting. He says that maybe he needs to read another script in order to decide. I say, fine - I’ll send you another list of scripts, pick one. I send him the list... and haven’t heard back from him.
Now, I think I’m better off without this guy... but WTF?
This gets me frustrated. I can sell a script that gets made by Sony, but I can’t seem to get a really low level manager to sign me. Can someone explain this to me?
And this is the reason why I don’t have an agent or manager - because at this point I usually say Ef It! And stop the agent quest and set something up with a producer somewhere. Why sit on this stockpile of virgin high concept scripts when I can sell them?
Add to this - all of that chumming I did a while back has me playing phone tag with the producer. He actually called me one day to tell me that he’d call me on Tuesday. That made no sense to me - you have me on the phone *now*, why not tell me what you’re gonna tell me? Tuesday, no phone call. A week later, I call him... get his secretary (he’s in a meeting). He calls me a couple of days later - goes to voice mail. Back and forth. End result? Well, nothing that I know of... but today’s Tuesday, so maybe he’ll call. He never said *which* Tuesday - and there are 52 of them every year.
After a while, you wonder why you go to all of the trouble. Sure, I like writing. Sure, I’m writing for me. But it’s nice to have someone read this stuff sometimes. Especially the people who request it. Most of my stockpiled scripts have been read by no one... and I forget that I’ve written them! I seriously forgot that I had written one of the scripts - it’s a tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it.
If I write a script and no one reads it, does the script really exist?
I mean, why am I even writing a new spec? No one’s gonna read it!
I’m sure that all of you know exactly what I’m feeling. You feel it. In fact, you think I’m just whining right now, because I’ve had all kinds of scripts read by all kinds of people... and nobody’s read your scripts at all. Look, I feel your pain! I know what that is like. I know that I have no room to complain... But complaining is free, so I’m going to do as much of it as I can!
Eventually I realized that this frustration was pointless. If I don’t write new specs, I have *no chance* of anything happening. If I don’t keep turning out new work, I’ll never get another meeting or sell another script. All of this is frustration is just wasting time. Time for another Dr Phil moment where I realized you gotta stop complaining and actually do something. I need to get off my ever-growing-ass and get some pages written.
So I did that.
Somebody, probably Preston Sturges, said that if his career goes to hell he can just sit down and write his way out of it. Think about that. We’re probably in the only business where you can just make up some crazy story... and that crazy story might sell! You never know what crazy story will sell and what crazy story is just a crazy story. But every crazy story may be the one. You can really write yourself out of trouble. Your career stalls - write a spec script! Sometimes Fry’s Electronics sells a ream of paper for 99 cents - you can change your entire life by writing some crazy story and printing it out... and still have 390 pieces of paper left over!
And Friday the phone rang - one of the agents I sent a query letter to would like to read a script. And even if this agency doesn’t sign me, someone will, right? I have to learn to be less frustrated and keep plugging away until someone signs me... and they will.
Good thing I didn't send out all of those virgin specs to producers...
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday’s Dinner: Pork Fried Rice @ CityWok.
DVD: Watched DEATH WISH again as background for a new script tip comparing DEATH SENTENCE (the sequel) to THE BRAVE ONE (the rip-off).
Pages: No pages on SLEEPER, I had to do an magazine article for MovieScope... and stand in line at the post office. But I did some notes on the next scene and hope to do an extra page a day to get this sucker finished by the end of the week.
So, every few years I decide to try to find an agent or manager.
And after a short period of time I get so frustrated, my head almost explodes.
My recent frustration: I don’t really believe in referrals. I think that turns the biz into who you know rather than what you know, and results in crappy scripts written by Tom Cruise’s poolboy getting made while really great scripts from someone who doesn’t have connections becoming landfill. There was a time when it was all about the scripts, and agents were the screeners. They discovered the talent. Now, agents don’t want to discover talent, they want someone to bring it to them.
I know all kinds of people in the biz, I never ask them for a referral.
Maybe I should... but part of me thinks that a guy who continues to sell scripts that get made into films (bad films, but still films) shouldn’t need someone else to vouch for them. I can pour a sack full of DVDs with my name on them onto any agent’s desk. Surely I’m past the point where I might be a one trick pony or someone who got lucky once and sold something. This may make me sound egotistical, but I think my movies should be my reference. And I think agents and managers should just sign me.
But that doesn’t seem to be how it works.
So, I asked one person I know - on the other side of the desk - to refer me to a manager. And that manager eventually got back to me and asked me to send him a script. And when I sent it, nothing happened. So I talked to the manager, and he said “Are you still writing?” Which I tried not to take as an insult. He requested a second script. I sent a second script from my stockpile of virgin scripts that no one has ever read... well, these two aren’t virgins anymore... and I never heard from him again... I *did* send him an e-mail when I had 2 films on the Top Ten DVD Charts a couple of weeks later. I also looked up his client list, and he has two people who have each sold one script to a cable net... um, I think I got that beat. Now, maybe the two scripts *he requested* weren’t things he thought he could sell - but he picked ‘em! He looked over the list of virgin scripts and selected the two loglines he liked best. So if he didn’t like the *concepts* that was his fault. Well, that leaves the writing... I may not be Steve Zaillian, but I can put together a sentence or two... and *the people who buy scripts* like my scripts. And I’ve read many many scripts from writers represented by major agencies... that suck. Obviously, they had a referral. I can’t figure out this manager’s problem.
I’m so pissed off, I send out a stack of query letters to other agents and managers - even some big ones. I’m gonna show this guy! I’m gonna sign with a big agency! Weeks later - no responses to any of those queries. I might as well have thrown them directly into the trash, rather than mail them to an agency where an assistant threw them into the trash. No chance to show that freakin’ manager that he missed out on signing me.
Due to the small world we work in, I actually bump into this manager a couple of weeks ago, and ask what happened. He says he hadn’t read *the* script from me. I said “That’s nice, but since you read the last script, I’ve had meetings all over town on other projects” - in fact, we had bumped into each other as a result of a meeting. He says that maybe he needs to read another script in order to decide. I say, fine - I’ll send you another list of scripts, pick one. I send him the list... and haven’t heard back from him.
Now, I think I’m better off without this guy... but WTF?
This gets me frustrated. I can sell a script that gets made by Sony, but I can’t seem to get a really low level manager to sign me. Can someone explain this to me?
And this is the reason why I don’t have an agent or manager - because at this point I usually say Ef It! And stop the agent quest and set something up with a producer somewhere. Why sit on this stockpile of virgin high concept scripts when I can sell them?
Add to this - all of that chumming I did a while back has me playing phone tag with the producer. He actually called me one day to tell me that he’d call me on Tuesday. That made no sense to me - you have me on the phone *now*, why not tell me what you’re gonna tell me? Tuesday, no phone call. A week later, I call him... get his secretary (he’s in a meeting). He calls me a couple of days later - goes to voice mail. Back and forth. End result? Well, nothing that I know of... but today’s Tuesday, so maybe he’ll call. He never said *which* Tuesday - and there are 52 of them every year.
After a while, you wonder why you go to all of the trouble. Sure, I like writing. Sure, I’m writing for me. But it’s nice to have someone read this stuff sometimes. Especially the people who request it. Most of my stockpiled scripts have been read by no one... and I forget that I’ve written them! I seriously forgot that I had written one of the scripts - it’s a tree that fell in the forest and nobody heard it.
If I write a script and no one reads it, does the script really exist?
I mean, why am I even writing a new spec? No one’s gonna read it!
I’m sure that all of you know exactly what I’m feeling. You feel it. In fact, you think I’m just whining right now, because I’ve had all kinds of scripts read by all kinds of people... and nobody’s read your scripts at all. Look, I feel your pain! I know what that is like. I know that I have no room to complain... But complaining is free, so I’m going to do as much of it as I can!
Eventually I realized that this frustration was pointless. If I don’t write new specs, I have *no chance* of anything happening. If I don’t keep turning out new work, I’ll never get another meeting or sell another script. All of this is frustration is just wasting time. Time for another Dr Phil moment where I realized you gotta stop complaining and actually do something. I need to get off my ever-growing-ass and get some pages written.
So I did that.
Somebody, probably Preston Sturges, said that if his career goes to hell he can just sit down and write his way out of it. Think about that. We’re probably in the only business where you can just make up some crazy story... and that crazy story might sell! You never know what crazy story will sell and what crazy story is just a crazy story. But every crazy story may be the one. You can really write yourself out of trouble. Your career stalls - write a spec script! Sometimes Fry’s Electronics sells a ream of paper for 99 cents - you can change your entire life by writing some crazy story and printing it out... and still have 390 pieces of paper left over!
And Friday the phone rang - one of the agents I sent a query letter to would like to read a script. And even if this agency doesn’t sign me, someone will, right? I have to learn to be less frustrated and keep plugging away until someone signs me... and they will.
Good thing I didn't send out all of those virgin specs to producers...
- Bill
DVD: Watched DEATH WISH again as background for a new script tip comparing DEATH SENTENCE (the sequel) to THE BRAVE ONE (the rip-off).
Pages: No pages on SLEEPER, I had to do an magazine article for MovieScope... and stand in line at the post office. But I did some notes on the next scene and hope to do an extra page a day to get this sucker finished by the end of the week.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
I've Been Avoiding You
For a while, I was writing like a madman - 5 pages a day on the new spec, plus all of my usual stuff like putting up a script tip every day and writing articles and posting answers to screenwriting questions on message boards - and just didn’t have time to put up a new blog entry. I had things to say, I just didn’t have time to say them. I was doing a couple of scenes a day on SLEEPER AGENT. Piling up the pages. In the groove. It was great!
Then, I wasn’t piling up the pages... and I began avoiding you. I didn’t want to post that I had fallen off the wagon. I wanted to be, you know, a good example for you. I didn’t want to be the kind of slacker screw up who talks the talk but fails to walk the walk. Plus, that Scott The Reader guy keeps bragging over on his blog about his 45th day in a row of turning out pages. He was managing to pile up the pages while I was failing!
The set crashing post was fun, but it was something written years ago. The post about HARD EVIDENCE playing on UK TV (which ended up not being so) was work avoidance.
Things went wrong because other writing responsibilities got in the way. A producer called about a project, plus I’m gearing up for my Expo classes, and I had to write up a couple of synopsis to chum the waters, then I went to a couple of parties... and there were a couple of nights where I had trouble sleeping... you see, I’m a really light sleeper, and sometimes a noise wakes me up and I have trouble falling asleep again, and sometimes I just have trouble falling asleep in the first place, plus...
I have all kinds of excuses. And that’s really what they are - excuses.
If I had been writing on a producer’s deadline, none of those things would have gotten in the way. Even if I hadn’t gotten enough sleep I just would have forced myself to write 5 pages, then rewritten them later. I’ve done it before - many times. I’ve written hung over. I’ve written without sleep. I’ve written on bad days. I’ve written with a toothache. I’ve written with a broken heart. If I’m on a deadline, I can probably write on my deathbed.
But this is a spec. No deadline. The excuses can kick in.
Though all of those excuses were the reason why I stopped turning out pages, the reason why I continued to not turn out pages is probably a frustration issue - but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s blog entry. You see, even that ends up being just an excuse.
I realized that only one person could get me back to turning out pages... that’s me. So I “Dr. Phil”ed myself - I called myself a slacker, a goof off, and worse. I realized that I was letting myself get away with doing nothing. That if I wanted to start turning out pages again, I’d have to just... write! No more excuses. No more bullshit.
So, I forced myself to just sit at the keyboard and write.
And yesterday I wrote 5 pages... And the day before that I wrote 5 pages. And today I’m working on my 5 pages.
No excuses.
The first day back at 5 pages? I just reread them - they are 5 damned fine pages. Yes, it’s a first draft and I’m going to have to rewrite them, but I don’t have to throw any of them away. Same with yesterday’s. So far, same with today’s. None of it looks like forced writing - and it really *isn’t* forced. It’s not the writing that is forced, it’s the activity of writing. The butt in the seat part. The writing itself had moments of flow of joy and wild invenion and just plain fun, once I forced myself to just put my butt in the seat and do it.
So, now that it isn’t just a fluke day of 5 pages, but I’m back at it, I thought I’d show my face again.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday’s Dinner: Bacon Cheddar Burger at Fudruckers... ER nurses were standing by.
DVDs: GOTCHA! - one of my guilty pleasure films - for an upcoming project. I also watched my robot hooker from outer space film - haven't seen it in years - to see if the FOR SCREENING PURPOSES ONLY thing gets in the way of the handful of scenes that didn't make it into the release print. Not that I would ever make any illegal duplicates of the full version of that film or anything...
Pages: 5 pages on SLEEPER! Made my quota again. Did a cool thing where a car is surrounded by bad guys on motorcyles, "like a swarm of angry bees". I'm closing in on Act 3, and will soon be in the home stretch.
Then, I wasn’t piling up the pages... and I began avoiding you. I didn’t want to post that I had fallen off the wagon. I wanted to be, you know, a good example for you. I didn’t want to be the kind of slacker screw up who talks the talk but fails to walk the walk. Plus, that Scott The Reader guy keeps bragging over on his blog about his 45th day in a row of turning out pages. He was managing to pile up the pages while I was failing!
The set crashing post was fun, but it was something written years ago. The post about HARD EVIDENCE playing on UK TV (which ended up not being so) was work avoidance.
Things went wrong because other writing responsibilities got in the way. A producer called about a project, plus I’m gearing up for my Expo classes, and I had to write up a couple of synopsis to chum the waters, then I went to a couple of parties... and there were a couple of nights where I had trouble sleeping... you see, I’m a really light sleeper, and sometimes a noise wakes me up and I have trouble falling asleep again, and sometimes I just have trouble falling asleep in the first place, plus...
I have all kinds of excuses. And that’s really what they are - excuses.
If I had been writing on a producer’s deadline, none of those things would have gotten in the way. Even if I hadn’t gotten enough sleep I just would have forced myself to write 5 pages, then rewritten them later. I’ve done it before - many times. I’ve written hung over. I’ve written without sleep. I’ve written on bad days. I’ve written with a toothache. I’ve written with a broken heart. If I’m on a deadline, I can probably write on my deathbed.
But this is a spec. No deadline. The excuses can kick in.
Though all of those excuses were the reason why I stopped turning out pages, the reason why I continued to not turn out pages is probably a frustration issue - but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s blog entry. You see, even that ends up being just an excuse.
I realized that only one person could get me back to turning out pages... that’s me. So I “Dr. Phil”ed myself - I called myself a slacker, a goof off, and worse. I realized that I was letting myself get away with doing nothing. That if I wanted to start turning out pages again, I’d have to just... write! No more excuses. No more bullshit.
So, I forced myself to just sit at the keyboard and write.
And yesterday I wrote 5 pages... And the day before that I wrote 5 pages. And today I’m working on my 5 pages.
No excuses.
The first day back at 5 pages? I just reread them - they are 5 damned fine pages. Yes, it’s a first draft and I’m going to have to rewrite them, but I don’t have to throw any of them away. Same with yesterday’s. So far, same with today’s. None of it looks like forced writing - and it really *isn’t* forced. It’s not the writing that is forced, it’s the activity of writing. The butt in the seat part. The writing itself had moments of flow of joy and wild invenion and just plain fun, once I forced myself to just put my butt in the seat and do it.
So, now that it isn’t just a fluke day of 5 pages, but I’m back at it, I thought I’d show my face again.
- Bill
DVDs: GOTCHA! - one of my guilty pleasure films - for an upcoming project. I also watched my robot hooker from outer space film - haven't seen it in years - to see if the FOR SCREENING PURPOSES ONLY thing gets in the way of the handful of scenes that didn't make it into the release print. Not that I would ever make any illegal duplicates of the full version of that film or anything...
Pages: 5 pages on SLEEPER! Made my quota again. Did a cool thing where a car is surrounded by bad guys on motorcyles, "like a swarm of angry bees". I'm closing in on Act 3, and will soon be in the home stretch.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
More Movies On UK TV...
It seems like all of my movies are popping up on TV in the UK. A strange second life for them, a decade after they were made.
Latest is HARD EVIDENCE, which ends up being my favorite of all the things that got slapped on film by default. It's poorly directed, the director also added a bunch of sex scenes (which may or may not be in the UK TV print) and shooting in Vancouver kind of screwed up the hell-hole Mexican prison angle in the script (being thrown in a Canadian prison doesn't sound nearly as bad), but they filmed what I wrote. When the characters open their mouths, my words come out. Though it's filmed in the least exciting way possible, the actors do what the characters did in the script. The twists are all there. Though nobody ever got any of the film refs - they are in the movie! The mistress lives at #17... the title of a Hitchcock film!
This film is from Warner Bros, but *not* available on DVD in the USA. I have no idea why. It was a huge rental hit on VHS, #7 in the USA when it was released.
Anyway - here's when to see it if you like in the UK. Any questions about the film will be gladly answered.
Hard Evidence (Film)
Starting: 18:30 on Wednesday 26th September. Duration: 2 hours
Showing on True Movies.
Hard Evidence (Film)
Starting: 12:30 on Friday 28th September. Duration: 2 hours
Showing on True Movies.
Hard Evidence (Film)
Starting: 12:00 on Saturday 29th September. Duration: 2 hours
Showing on True Movies 2.
Hard Evidence (Film)
Starting: 16:00 on Sunday 30th September. Duration: 2 hours
Showing on True Movies 2.
By the way, the film is not based on a true story, so I have no idea why it's on True Movies. Maybe it was part of some package of TV movies sold to them?
- Bill
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Keeps On Ticking...
Five pages. Five pages. Five pages.
Okay, I stumbled a couple of days, but I'm at page 67 today... when I'd planned on being at page 75. But I'm not that far behind - I just won't finish by the end of the week, as planned.
- Bill
Okay, I stumbled a couple of days, but I'm at page 67 today... when I'd planned on being at page 75. But I'm not that far behind - I just won't finish by the end of the week, as planned.
- Bill
Friday, September 07, 2007
Osama Bin Laden: Just For Men user!
In the old photo of Osama, his beard is gray. No play for Mr. Gray! So he used Just For Men, to take that gray away!
In the recent photo (a couple of days ago) the gray is GONE!
He looks years younger!
- Bill
Monday, September 03, 2007
Las Vegas Wrap Up!
I need a vacation!
The problem with Vegas is that it is a city of excess. You indulge in all of these behaviors that you know are not good for you - and you keep doing them. Hell, everybody else is! So the casinos are open 24 hours, and they serve drinks 24 hours. I am not a morning person... but I usually am not still up and having a beer at 6am. I love to eat - and it shows - but I usually don’t eat until I feel like I’m going to explode (“It’s wafer thin!”) every day. You go to a buffet at the Rio and it’s all you can eat and the food is good and you want to get your money’s worth and... well, next thing you know you feel like you’re going to pop and you aren’t sure you can walk. Now, if you did that once a week it would probably not be good for you... but once a day? Every day? And one a couple of those days I did an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet where I think I may have ate my weight in bacon. I love bacon. I never eat bacon. When I have a massive heart attack next week, it was probably the bacon.
So my vacation was eating too much and not sleeping enough.
Now I need to sleep and fast (or, at least eat smaller portions of foods that are better for me for a while).
And it’s hot as hell in Los Angeles. I expected to come back from hot Las Vegas (where everything is air conditioned up the wazoo - and you know having a cool wazoo is the key) to about 10' cooler weather. No such luck. It’s so hot, it takes about 2 hours to turn my apartment from Oven to Can Sustain Human Life. I could just keep my A/C on all day, and hand over my next script check to the DWP, but it doesn’t make any sense to me to pay for a cool home when I’m somewhere else...
In Vegas, I was hardly ever outside. Sure, you take the elevated walkway from one casino to the next - but that’s just a couple of minutes. Earlier today it took me longer to get from vehicle to Starbucks... in a freakin’ oven of an underground garage,
Okay, okay... I can stay here as long as I don’t talk about the heat.
One night I was awakened by cannon fire and explosions. Lots of them. I thought that maybe the terrorists had gone after Vegas. Bright flashes from the curtained hotel window. I throw open the shades, expecting to see the Stratosphere in flames... but instead I’m treated to a *wild* lightning storm. Hundreds of bright strikes. Loud thunder. For a second, night turns to day... then BOOOOM! Lasted for about 2 hours. It was too loud to sleep through, so I just watched the show. Went back to bed after it was over. Next day, I caught the news - sections of Vegas (residential) had flooded. They called it a 100 year storm. A whole lotta inches of rainfall in those 2 hours. People’s homes - ruined. Some people plan on suing the city, others wonder why they didn’t have flood insurance.
The next day I’m in a really nice casino on the strip, starts with Bel, ends with Lagio, and I’m playing a slot machine near the hotel elevators, and the doors open and out comes the skankiest whore I have ever seen in my life. I felt sorry for the security guard gripping her arm - I would have worn rubber gloves. Then burned them afterwards. What was strange to me - anyone staying in this hotel could afford a much better looking, smelling, etc hooker. So this unclean thing had to be a *choice*. Weird. Someday a real rain will come and wash away all of the scum and... oh, sorry, I Bickled for a moment.
I had a day where I left the casinos with almost exactly what I started out with for that day... but managed to drink 8 free beers at a variety of casinos. That was my most successful day, under the Bill “Gambling Is All About Free Beers” theory.
One thing that often amazes me is how well people remember me. I was in one casino a couple of times, and the cocktail waitress actually brought me the brand of beer I would have ordered *before I ordered*. She saw me, put the beer on her tray for me. This was strange - and kind of like the Starbucks out in the butt end of the Valley that I go to maybe a half dozen times a year when I have to pick up a package at the UPS warehouse near Van Nuys Airport... and they remember my name and what I drink. How can people I never see remember my name... and why *me*? Now, maybe it was because I tip cocktail waitresses (but doesn’t everybody?) Or maybe it’s because I always say Thank You (and mean it) (but don’t most people?) Or maybe it’s because I just have a friendly and memorable face. Who knows? Anyway, they also remembered my drink at a Vegas Starbucks I worked in every other day.
And this was a working vacation. I actually managed to do my 5 page a day quota on SLEEPER two days in a row, and did some okay work on other days. I finished Act 1. Sure, there were days when I didn’t really do much, but it was still a vacation. There were days were I goofed off.
Now I’m back and I need a vacation... But I have pages to write.
- Bill
The problem with Vegas is that it is a city of excess. You indulge in all of these behaviors that you know are not good for you - and you keep doing them. Hell, everybody else is! So the casinos are open 24 hours, and they serve drinks 24 hours. I am not a morning person... but I usually am not still up and having a beer at 6am. I love to eat - and it shows - but I usually don’t eat until I feel like I’m going to explode (“It’s wafer thin!”) every day. You go to a buffet at the Rio and it’s all you can eat and the food is good and you want to get your money’s worth and... well, next thing you know you feel like you’re going to pop and you aren’t sure you can walk. Now, if you did that once a week it would probably not be good for you... but once a day? Every day? And one a couple of those days I did an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet where I think I may have ate my weight in bacon. I love bacon. I never eat bacon. When I have a massive heart attack next week, it was probably the bacon.
So my vacation was eating too much and not sleeping enough.
Now I need to sleep and fast (or, at least eat smaller portions of foods that are better for me for a while).
And it’s hot as hell in Los Angeles. I expected to come back from hot Las Vegas (where everything is air conditioned up the wazoo - and you know having a cool wazoo is the key) to about 10' cooler weather. No such luck. It’s so hot, it takes about 2 hours to turn my apartment from Oven to Can Sustain Human Life. I could just keep my A/C on all day, and hand over my next script check to the DWP, but it doesn’t make any sense to me to pay for a cool home when I’m somewhere else...
In Vegas, I was hardly ever outside. Sure, you take the elevated walkway from one casino to the next - but that’s just a couple of minutes. Earlier today it took me longer to get from vehicle to Starbucks... in a freakin’ oven of an underground garage,
Okay, okay... I can stay here as long as I don’t talk about the heat.
One night I was awakened by cannon fire and explosions. Lots of them. I thought that maybe the terrorists had gone after Vegas. Bright flashes from the curtained hotel window. I throw open the shades, expecting to see the Stratosphere in flames... but instead I’m treated to a *wild* lightning storm. Hundreds of bright strikes. Loud thunder. For a second, night turns to day... then BOOOOM! Lasted for about 2 hours. It was too loud to sleep through, so I just watched the show. Went back to bed after it was over. Next day, I caught the news - sections of Vegas (residential) had flooded. They called it a 100 year storm. A whole lotta inches of rainfall in those 2 hours. People’s homes - ruined. Some people plan on suing the city, others wonder why they didn’t have flood insurance.
The next day I’m in a really nice casino on the strip, starts with Bel, ends with Lagio, and I’m playing a slot machine near the hotel elevators, and the doors open and out comes the skankiest whore I have ever seen in my life. I felt sorry for the security guard gripping her arm - I would have worn rubber gloves. Then burned them afterwards. What was strange to me - anyone staying in this hotel could afford a much better looking, smelling, etc hooker. So this unclean thing had to be a *choice*. Weird. Someday a real rain will come and wash away all of the scum and... oh, sorry, I Bickled for a moment.
I had a day where I left the casinos with almost exactly what I started out with for that day... but managed to drink 8 free beers at a variety of casinos. That was my most successful day, under the Bill “Gambling Is All About Free Beers” theory.
One thing that often amazes me is how well people remember me. I was in one casino a couple of times, and the cocktail waitress actually brought me the brand of beer I would have ordered *before I ordered*. She saw me, put the beer on her tray for me. This was strange - and kind of like the Starbucks out in the butt end of the Valley that I go to maybe a half dozen times a year when I have to pick up a package at the UPS warehouse near Van Nuys Airport... and they remember my name and what I drink. How can people I never see remember my name... and why *me*? Now, maybe it was because I tip cocktail waitresses (but doesn’t everybody?) Or maybe it’s because I always say Thank You (and mean it) (but don’t most people?) Or maybe it’s because I just have a friendly and memorable face. Who knows? Anyway, they also remembered my drink at a Vegas Starbucks I worked in every other day.
And this was a working vacation. I actually managed to do my 5 page a day quota on SLEEPER two days in a row, and did some okay work on other days. I finished Act 1. Sure, there were days when I didn’t really do much, but it was still a vacation. There were days were I goofed off.
Now I’m back and I need a vacation... But I have pages to write.
- Bill
Monday, August 27, 2007
Bill At Screenwriting Expo 2007
Okay, here is my final schedule for the Screenwriting Expo October 25-28, 2007. Here is the Expo's home page: Screenwriting Expo 2007
You may notice these are the exact same classes I did last year - that wasn't the original plan, but the Expo changed management this year and there was a bit of a SNAFU. So I hope to actually bring something new to these classes... and *next year* I'll do Noir and High Adventure and Subversive Cinema and some of the other classes I've developed. Actually, anyone who reads this and has a "What I'd like to know about this subject is...." can post it here and that will help me redesign the classes.
Discount code is:
2007Expo_Martell
Registration page:
http://csorders.com/store/2007expo.html
After the individual chooses either Option 1, The Gold Pass, or Option 2, the Basic 4-Day Pass, that person would enter the above coupon code onto the first Shopping Cart page and click “Apply Coupon.” The coupon will give a $10 discount on either the Gold Pass or Basic until September 14, and on September 15 until the Expo, it will discount the price $30.
William C. Martell -*- (Rated a star speaker in 2005, 2006)
Guerrilla Marketing Your Script -*- Saturday 9:00-10:30am
Course Description: No agent? No problem! How to make your own connections, find producers interested in your script, get readings and studio meetings, sell without an agent or manager. Instructor has sold over 20 scripts without an agent, 17 were filmed. You don't need an agent to sell, just a great script!
Elements of Horror -*- Saturday 11:00-12:30pm
Course Description: From The Ring to Saw and Hostel, horror is hot! You'll learn everything you need to know to write in this genre, from creating dread, loss of free will, fear of the unknown, classic horror (like The Others) vs. Stalk & Slash and Modern Horror. How to create a monster. What do Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Bride of Frankenstein, The Others, and Open Water have in common? This class will tell you! All of the critical elements necessary to write a script that scares the pants off the audience.
The Naked Character -*- Saturday 3:00-4:30pm
Course Description: How to create original characters that come alive on the page. Story is character, but how do you create those amazing memorable characters? Roles that attract stars? Starting with nothing, you'll learn about active protagonists, visual characterization, distinctive dialogue, and character moments. Dozens of character creation techniques!
Action & Suspense Scenes -*- Saturday 5:00-6:30pm
Course Description: Become a master of suspense! Creating action scenes that show character and suspense scenes that keep the audience on the edge of their seats! Proper use of violence. The 15 iconic suspense scenes and why they work. Instructor has many *produced* action and thriller scripts.
High Concept Hollywood -*- Sunday 11:00-12:30pm
Course Description: How to find and develop ideas that Hollywood is looking for and you are passionate about. A great script with a dull idea is a dull script. Learn tools like Magnification, Flipping, Substitution, Cousins, Word Association, why High Concept is *Your* Concept, finding your personal themes in high concept ideas.
Description & Visual Storytelling -*- Sunday 3:00-4:30pm
Course Description: Sure, your dialogue's great, but description is 50% of your screenplay and film is a visual medium. Is half your script in trouble? Technique-based class with 25 ways to improve description, create hidden camera angles, tell your story visually. Decisions, metaphors, symbolism, why pictures are worth a thousand words.
So that is what I'm doing at the Expo. Come hear my classes live, and make sure you say hello.
- Bill
You may notice these are the exact same classes I did last year - that wasn't the original plan, but the Expo changed management this year and there was a bit of a SNAFU. So I hope to actually bring something new to these classes... and *next year* I'll do Noir and High Adventure and Subversive Cinema and some of the other classes I've developed. Actually, anyone who reads this and has a "What I'd like to know about this subject is...." can post it here and that will help me redesign the classes.
Discount code is:
2007Expo_Martell
Registration page:
http://csorders.com/store/2007expo.html
After the individual chooses either Option 1, The Gold Pass, or Option 2, the Basic 4-Day Pass, that person would enter the above coupon code onto the first Shopping Cart page and click “Apply Coupon.” The coupon will give a $10 discount on either the Gold Pass or Basic until September 14, and on September 15 until the Expo, it will discount the price $30.
William C. Martell -*- (Rated a star speaker in 2005, 2006)
Guerrilla Marketing Your Script -*- Saturday 9:00-10:30am
Course Description: No agent? No problem! How to make your own connections, find producers interested in your script, get readings and studio meetings, sell without an agent or manager. Instructor has sold over 20 scripts without an agent, 17 were filmed. You don't need an agent to sell, just a great script!
Elements of Horror -*- Saturday 11:00-12:30pm
Course Description: From The Ring to Saw and Hostel, horror is hot! You'll learn everything you need to know to write in this genre, from creating dread, loss of free will, fear of the unknown, classic horror (like The Others) vs. Stalk & Slash and Modern Horror. How to create a monster. What do Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Bride of Frankenstein, The Others, and Open Water have in common? This class will tell you! All of the critical elements necessary to write a script that scares the pants off the audience.
The Naked Character -*- Saturday 3:00-4:30pm
Course Description: How to create original characters that come alive on the page. Story is character, but how do you create those amazing memorable characters? Roles that attract stars? Starting with nothing, you'll learn about active protagonists, visual characterization, distinctive dialogue, and character moments. Dozens of character creation techniques!
Action & Suspense Scenes -*- Saturday 5:00-6:30pm
Course Description: Become a master of suspense! Creating action scenes that show character and suspense scenes that keep the audience on the edge of their seats! Proper use of violence. The 15 iconic suspense scenes and why they work. Instructor has many *produced* action and thriller scripts.
High Concept Hollywood -*- Sunday 11:00-12:30pm
Course Description: How to find and develop ideas that Hollywood is looking for and you are passionate about. A great script with a dull idea is a dull script. Learn tools like Magnification, Flipping, Substitution, Cousins, Word Association, why High Concept is *Your* Concept, finding your personal themes in high concept ideas.
Description & Visual Storytelling -*- Sunday 3:00-4:30pm
Course Description: Sure, your dialogue's great, but description is 50% of your screenplay and film is a visual medium. Is half your script in trouble? Technique-based class with 25 ways to improve description, create hidden camera angles, tell your story visually. Decisions, metaphors, symbolism, why pictures are worth a thousand words.
So that is what I'm doing at the Expo. Come hear my classes live, and make sure you say hello.
- Bill
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Ahead & Down, Behind & Up
A few days ago, I had a good day writing, headed to the casino... and lost some money. I ended up dragging myself back to my hotel late, went up to my room... and my mag-key did not work. This meant going all the way down to the front desk, when I really wanted to remove some beers and go to sleep. And, for some strange reason at that hour of the night... or, actually, morning... there was a line at the front desk. Figuring this will only take a minute, instead of going to a restroom to remove the beers, I waited in line. Where it took longer than expected. Because they told me they needed to do some routine maintenance on my room and would need to move me somewhere else for the rest of my stay... would a suite be okay?
Sure. Free upgrade. Cool.
Problem is, I would have to pak and unpack again. Not a big deal, but I wanted to just sleep. I have no idea what was wrong with my old room, and even when I got into it to pack up my stuff (after removing the beers) I could see nothing wrong. But I ended up in a really nice suite several floors up. Some high roller probably canceled, and the room was available for me... the low roller.
The next day I had a terrible day of writing - I think the sleep-to-caffeine ratio was off - and after banging my head against the story wall without much to show for it, packed up and hit the casinos... and won $360. Now, I’m ahead for my stay at that point..
But not by much.
My theory on gambling in Vegas: it’s all about free drinks. If I were back home in Studio City, I might wander across the street to Residuals and have a few beers with friends. A Guiness over there costs $5, add a buck tip per beer and by the end of the night I have probably spent $25. And if I buy a round or two for my friends? Well, I know that I’ve dropped $100 before in one night.
Now, when you gamble in Vegas they *give* you drinks. Free. You still tip, but the costs of the drinks themselves are paid for by the casino. They want you to drink so that you’ll keep playing. So, I figure if I lose $25-$40 by the end of the night, that’s not much different than going to Residuals. The free beers cover the cost of playing for a night. If I lose $100, well, that’s not gonna make me happy, but I’ve spent $100 on drinks before. So what I lose on gambling I gain in free drinks. Once I lose more than I can drink, I quit.
So, it’s all about free drinks - the gambling is entertainment.
My theory on the writing and losing thing is that when the writing goes well I get cocky and take risks that I shouldn’t... and when the writing hasn’t gone well I play more conservatively. Or maybe there’s just some God Of Gamblers that takes care of screenwriting (a major gamble) and fools who wander into casinos? If there is a God Of Gamblers, can there be sequels and can they all star Chow Yun Fat?
Anyway, now I’m in an excellent suite for the rest of my stay - looking out over the lights of Vegas.
And by the end of today, I should have finished all of the CableNet projects. A bunch of synopsis to throw against the wall. Some will miss completely, some will hit and slide off... but I hope that one of these suckers will stick so that I’ll have a deal. I’m going to work on the second studio sequel project when I get back... and focus the rest of my stay either on the spec I’m in the middle of writing or another project.
It seems that every day the writing goes well, I lose money. Every day the writing doesn’t go well, I win. Winning $360 is covering the loses at this point, but Vegas is set up so that they make money from you. I guess the good news is: that means I’m going to have some more days of good writing!
- Bill
Sure. Free upgrade. Cool.
Problem is, I would have to pak and unpack again. Not a big deal, but I wanted to just sleep. I have no idea what was wrong with my old room, and even when I got into it to pack up my stuff (after removing the beers) I could see nothing wrong. But I ended up in a really nice suite several floors up. Some high roller probably canceled, and the room was available for me... the low roller.
The next day I had a terrible day of writing - I think the sleep-to-caffeine ratio was off - and after banging my head against the story wall without much to show for it, packed up and hit the casinos... and won $360. Now, I’m ahead for my stay at that point..
But not by much.
My theory on gambling in Vegas: it’s all about free drinks. If I were back home in Studio City, I might wander across the street to Residuals and have a few beers with friends. A Guiness over there costs $5, add a buck tip per beer and by the end of the night I have probably spent $25. And if I buy a round or two for my friends? Well, I know that I’ve dropped $100 before in one night.
Now, when you gamble in Vegas they *give* you drinks. Free. You still tip, but the costs of the drinks themselves are paid for by the casino. They want you to drink so that you’ll keep playing. So, I figure if I lose $25-$40 by the end of the night, that’s not much different than going to Residuals. The free beers cover the cost of playing for a night. If I lose $100, well, that’s not gonna make me happy, but I’ve spent $100 on drinks before. So what I lose on gambling I gain in free drinks. Once I lose more than I can drink, I quit.
So, it’s all about free drinks - the gambling is entertainment.
My theory on the writing and losing thing is that when the writing goes well I get cocky and take risks that I shouldn’t... and when the writing hasn’t gone well I play more conservatively. Or maybe there’s just some God Of Gamblers that takes care of screenwriting (a major gamble) and fools who wander into casinos? If there is a God Of Gamblers, can there be sequels and can they all star Chow Yun Fat?
Anyway, now I’m in an excellent suite for the rest of my stay - looking out over the lights of Vegas.
And by the end of today, I should have finished all of the CableNet projects. A bunch of synopsis to throw against the wall. Some will miss completely, some will hit and slide off... but I hope that one of these suckers will stick so that I’ll have a deal. I’m going to work on the second studio sequel project when I get back... and focus the rest of my stay either on the spec I’m in the middle of writing or another project.
It seems that every day the writing goes well, I lose money. Every day the writing doesn’t go well, I win. Winning $360 is covering the loses at this point, but Vegas is set up so that they make money from you. I guess the good news is: that means I’m going to have some more days of good writing!
- Bill
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Working Vacation
So I'm in Vegas on vacation. Or shoukd I say "vacation", since yesterday I pounded out a bunch of spec synopsis for a CableNet producer. A couple I really like - and hope something happens with. One is kind of Antonioni's THE PASSENGER meets BOURNE IDENTITY - but with a female lead.
Today - same story, different CableNet. For the next 3 days it looks like that's what I will be doing. I'm actually doing more than originally pitched, because I've had some other ideas along the way. I live for cool ideas like "Planet To Go" - a terraform kit that you can drop on any planet, press a button, and it figures out how to take whatever's on the planet and turn it into an atmosphere that can sustain human life. I'm wrapping a story around that. I've got 9 other ideas like that that I'm fleshing out into stories with characters and plot twists and cliff hanger's for commercial breaks and all the other stuff that will hopefully turn this talk into a paying gig.
Meanwhile - I have not won money. I'm down and hope I can turn that around tonight.
- Bill
Today - same story, different CableNet. For the next 3 days it looks like that's what I will be doing. I'm actually doing more than originally pitched, because I've had some other ideas along the way. I live for cool ideas like "Planet To Go" - a terraform kit that you can drop on any planet, press a button, and it figures out how to take whatever's on the planet and turn it into an atmosphere that can sustain human life. I'm wrapping a story around that. I've got 9 other ideas like that that I'm fleshing out into stories with characters and plot twists and cliff hanger's for commercial breaks and all the other stuff that will hopefully turn this talk into a paying gig.
Meanwhile - I have not won money. I'm down and hope I can turn that around tonight.
- Bill
Friday, August 10, 2007
10 Secrets About Bill
I was tagged by jen and UNK and M. Arthur and...
The rules to the game -- once you have been tagged, you must write a blog with ten weird, random things, little known facts or habits about yourself. At the end choose at least 5 people to be tagged, list their names and why you picked them. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you've been tagged' and tell them to read your latest blog.
1) I know 57 ways to kill a man with my bare hands, but my enemies can rest easy because I always wear gloves.
2) I still work on a Commodore 64 with 5.25 inch floppy drive, but thanks to the latest laser printer, my work looks as good as someone who writes on some fancy, expensive computer.
3) For maximum efficiency, I always wear adult diapers. I am easily able to write for a couple of days before I have no choice but to change myself.
4) I worked my way through film school as a male stripper... mostly furniture.
5) The first movie that really touched me was Spielberg’s E.T.... and it touched me inappropriately.
6) I own 7 powder blue leisure suits... one for every day of the week.
7) I once wrestled a naked man in Reno... I was also naked - if you ever see me in person, ask me about this.
8) I never carry money, preferring to barter... I’ve done dishes in some of LA’s trendier restaurants... and my hands are still soft and delicate!
9) I was once bitten by a radioactive dung beetle... and now I have super powers that I can not discuss in public.
10) Just as a ship's captain can marry people at sea, I have married over a dozen couples who have taken a ride in the back seat of my Toyota Celica on the 405.
I think the problem is that everyone has already done this, so if you are one of the handful of people in the world who have yet to be tagged, please tag yourself.
- Bill
The rules to the game -- once you have been tagged, you must write a blog with ten weird, random things, little known facts or habits about yourself. At the end choose at least 5 people to be tagged, list their names and why you picked them. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you've been tagged' and tell them to read your latest blog.
1) I know 57 ways to kill a man with my bare hands, but my enemies can rest easy because I always wear gloves.
2) I still work on a Commodore 64 with 5.25 inch floppy drive, but thanks to the latest laser printer, my work looks as good as someone who writes on some fancy, expensive computer.
3) For maximum efficiency, I always wear adult diapers. I am easily able to write for a couple of days before I have no choice but to change myself.
4) I worked my way through film school as a male stripper... mostly furniture.
5) The first movie that really touched me was Spielberg’s E.T.... and it touched me inappropriately.
6) I own 7 powder blue leisure suits... one for every day of the week.
7) I once wrestled a naked man in Reno... I was also naked - if you ever see me in person, ask me about this.
8) I never carry money, preferring to barter... I’ve done dishes in some of LA’s trendier restaurants... and my hands are still soft and delicate!
9) I was once bitten by a radioactive dung beetle... and now I have super powers that I can not discuss in public.
10) Just as a ship's captain can marry people at sea, I have married over a dozen couples who have taken a ride in the back seat of my Toyota Celica on the 405.
I think the problem is that everyone has already done this, so if you are one of the handful of people in the world who have yet to be tagged, please tag yourself.
- Bill
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Whole Lotta Shakin Going On
EARTHQUAKE
No, not the cheesy 70s film with Chuckles Heston... we had an earthquake here at 12:58am (a 4.6 on the other side of the valley). Did it wake me up? No - I was still awake. It did remind me of the Northridge quake over a decade ago, that struck in the early morning when I was asleep - and trashed my old apartment building, not to mention knocked out water and power for a few days. We had to go to a public park to get water... and nobody in my neighborhood bathed for about a week. We were ripe. I was one of the lucky ones - I didn’t have a job in public. During the aftershocks of the quake I got a phone call from Ashok Amritraj that he was buying my script THE VICTIM'S WIFE. Thank God the water was fixed before I had to go to my first meeting! But that script sale started a domino run of sales that accounted for most of my produced material. Strange, because those sales were not all to the same company. That year I sold three scripts to three different companies... all in the same couple of months after the quake.
But this quake was just a little shaking - no buildings pancaked, nobody died.
No big change in my career.
Just another day in sunny Los Angeles.
THIS BLOG IS MURDER
You may have noticed some new blog links have popped up on the right (I finally got around to adding a group, and now I have a new group to add). One that you may not know about is The Homicide Report...
Los Angeles Times reporter Jill Leovy wondered who all of those people getting killed in the city were. One day they were a name in the paper, the next day they were old news. So she decided to devote a blog to the murder victims of Los Angeles. She lists their names and as much information as she can find, and often follows up with interviews and articles about the families with profiles of the victims.
There is no discrimination in her blog. It doesn’t matter whether the person killed was an innocent victim, a police officer, or a criminal. All of them have a story. All of them are died violently. All of them left behind friends and family. She tells their story. She turns crime stats into people.
You may cry when you read these stories. You may get angry. But you will come to know these people whose lives came to an abrupt end.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday’s Lunch: Nothing... and Del Taco chicken burrito for dinner.
DVDs GET CARTER - the original good version. I saw this ages ago on the big screen, probably at some revival house in Berkeley. Bought it on DVD... and I can't believe how much I've cribbed from this film. A toast from this film ends up a toast in one of mine. The idea of sudden and unexpected action is something I use. This film is both brutally violent and nostalgic. The idea of going home and hanging out with people who were childhood friends... and now may be your enemy... is just an amazing concept. And the film has twists that knock you off your feet. One that is so powerful... and Caine's acting is so amazing... that you gasp. At it's core, this film is *emotional* even though Caine usually holds his emotions in check. By the way, if you like the BOURNE movies, you should check this out. Very realistic, and Hodges does some interesting framing and composition.
Pages: Fell off the train on SLEEPER, wrote half a page yesterday... but I also wrote a 10 page article for Script Magazine, so it wasn't like I was doing nothing. Actually I did 5 pages on the article yesterday and 5 pages the day before. That's kind of the probem with maintaining that 5 pages a day now - I always seem to have a zillion other things to do. There's always a deadline for me to make.
No, not the cheesy 70s film with Chuckles Heston... we had an earthquake here at 12:58am (a 4.6 on the other side of the valley). Did it wake me up? No - I was still awake. It did remind me of the Northridge quake over a decade ago, that struck in the early morning when I was asleep - and trashed my old apartment building, not to mention knocked out water and power for a few days. We had to go to a public park to get water... and nobody in my neighborhood bathed for about a week. We were ripe. I was one of the lucky ones - I didn’t have a job in public. During the aftershocks of the quake I got a phone call from Ashok Amritraj that he was buying my script THE VICTIM'S WIFE. Thank God the water was fixed before I had to go to my first meeting! But that script sale started a domino run of sales that accounted for most of my produced material. Strange, because those sales were not all to the same company. That year I sold three scripts to three different companies... all in the same couple of months after the quake.
But this quake was just a little shaking - no buildings pancaked, nobody died.
No big change in my career.
Just another day in sunny Los Angeles.
THIS BLOG IS MURDER
You may have noticed some new blog links have popped up on the right (I finally got around to adding a group, and now I have a new group to add). One that you may not know about is The Homicide Report...
Los Angeles Times reporter Jill Leovy wondered who all of those people getting killed in the city were. One day they were a name in the paper, the next day they were old news. So she decided to devote a blog to the murder victims of Los Angeles. She lists their names and as much information as she can find, and often follows up with interviews and articles about the families with profiles of the victims.
There is no discrimination in her blog. It doesn’t matter whether the person killed was an innocent victim, a police officer, or a criminal. All of them have a story. All of them are died violently. All of them left behind friends and family. She tells their story. She turns crime stats into people.
You may cry when you read these stories. You may get angry. But you will come to know these people whose lives came to an abrupt end.
- Bill
DVDs GET CARTER - the original good version. I saw this ages ago on the big screen, probably at some revival house in Berkeley. Bought it on DVD... and I can't believe how much I've cribbed from this film. A toast from this film ends up a toast in one of mine. The idea of sudden and unexpected action is something I use. This film is both brutally violent and nostalgic. The idea of going home and hanging out with people who were childhood friends... and now may be your enemy... is just an amazing concept. And the film has twists that knock you off your feet. One that is so powerful... and Caine's acting is so amazing... that you gasp. At it's core, this film is *emotional* even though Caine usually holds his emotions in check. By the way, if you like the BOURNE movies, you should check this out. Very realistic, and Hodges does some interesting framing and composition.
Pages: Fell off the train on SLEEPER, wrote half a page yesterday... but I also wrote a 10 page article for Script Magazine, so it wasn't like I was doing nothing. Actually I did 5 pages on the article yesterday and 5 pages the day before. That's kind of the probem with maintaining that 5 pages a day now - I always seem to have a zillion other things to do. There's always a deadline for me to make.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Writing In Starbucks
Movies: BOURNE ULTIMATUM... more on that later.
DVDs THE TIN STAR... more on that later.
Pages: 5 pages on SLEEPER! Made my quota. Some good stuff, made up jargon: "Snatch Point" - the best location to kidnap someone off the streets of a major city in broad daylight. When I Googled Snatch Point I discovered it was a soccer term.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Bourne Again Screenwriter
Today is my big day. The day my movie is opening. No, not a script I wrote... a script I wish I had written. I always tell people to write the kind of film you regularly pay to see - especially the type of film you can’t wait to see. For some of you reading this, that might have been SPIDER-MAN 3, I know I was interested in seeing it. For others it may have been PIRATES 3 or TRANSFORMERS or OCEANS 13 or KNOCKED UP or any of the other films that came out this summer. Every weekend at least one big film, and judging by the lines for THE SIMPSONS MOVIE many of you couldn’t wait to see it. I had to wait through most of the summer for my movie, BOURNE ULTIMATUM.
Now, the BOURNE movies aren’t perfect - no movie is. But they are my kind of movie, and I can easily overlook all of the problems in the first two films because for me, the good outweighs the bad. I love the gritty, realistic, *clever* action scenes. I love that the movies focus on character as well as amazing stunts. And I think Matt Damon is kind of the new Bruce Willis - a regular guy who you believe can kick ass. I needed to be convinced of that by the first film, because I though Damon was a pretty boy. He proved me wrong. I love action movies, but had no real expectations with the first BOURNE movie. Now, I hope this one lives up to the last two.
Often, the movies we can’t wait to see disappoint us. They either have too many flaws, and tip the balance far enough that we can’t really enjoy them... or they have built up our expectations to an impossible level - no way any film could be that good. In a way, movies are like love stories - as long as we end with a "happily ever after" title card then fade out, it’s the greatest love story ever told. It’s when we hang around for the arguments about leaving the cap off the toothpaste that we realize there’s no such thing as 100% happiness ever after.
So when your movie comes out, and you stand in line for an hour before seeing it - fantasizing about how great the movie is going to be - and it ends up disappointing you, don’t get angry and decide to write junk. Instead, write the kind of movie you wish it had been. Write the honeymoon, not the bitter divorce. Part of our job as screenwriters is to create that fantasy and desire and excited anticipation for the audience... then try to make sure our scripts do their best to fulfill those expectations.
I’m hoping this BOURNE movie will be the best of the three, but even if it’s not - right now I’m really excited about the film - enjoying it before I’ve seen it.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yesterday’s Lunch: Some sort of multi-grain roll at Starbucks that looked like it exploded in the oven.
DVDs THUNDERBALL - gearing up for Bourne.
Pages: 3 more pages on SLEEPER! Sure, it's less than the 5 I'd planned on, but I'm making progress. Also wrote a line that I think people will quote after they come out of the cinema.
Now, the BOURNE movies aren’t perfect - no movie is. But they are my kind of movie, and I can easily overlook all of the problems in the first two films because for me, the good outweighs the bad. I love the gritty, realistic, *clever* action scenes. I love that the movies focus on character as well as amazing stunts. And I think Matt Damon is kind of the new Bruce Willis - a regular guy who you believe can kick ass. I needed to be convinced of that by the first film, because I though Damon was a pretty boy. He proved me wrong. I love action movies, but had no real expectations with the first BOURNE movie. Now, I hope this one lives up to the last two.
Often, the movies we can’t wait to see disappoint us. They either have too many flaws, and tip the balance far enough that we can’t really enjoy them... or they have built up our expectations to an impossible level - no way any film could be that good. In a way, movies are like love stories - as long as we end with a "happily ever after" title card then fade out, it’s the greatest love story ever told. It’s when we hang around for the arguments about leaving the cap off the toothpaste that we realize there’s no such thing as 100% happiness ever after.
So when your movie comes out, and you stand in line for an hour before seeing it - fantasizing about how great the movie is going to be - and it ends up disappointing you, don’t get angry and decide to write junk. Instead, write the kind of movie you wish it had been. Write the honeymoon, not the bitter divorce. Part of our job as screenwriters is to create that fantasy and desire and excited anticipation for the audience... then try to make sure our scripts do their best to fulfill those expectations.
I’m hoping this BOURNE movie will be the best of the three, but even if it’s not - right now I’m really excited about the film - enjoying it before I’ve seen it.
- Bill
DVDs THUNDERBALL - gearing up for Bourne.
Pages: 3 more pages on SLEEPER! Sure, it's less than the 5 I'd planned on, but I'm making progress. Also wrote a line that I think people will quote after they come out of the cinema.
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