Showbiz Expo 2011

Last Saturday was Showbiz Expo... which is not the same things as Screenwriting Expo (which still hasn’t paid me from last year’s classes)... *Showbiz* Expo was the original.

It began sometime in the late 80's or early 90s as a trade show for entertainment computer equipment, and quickly grew to a huge annual event that took over most of the Los Angeles Convention Center with every single element of the entertainment industry - from the latest in cameras and lighting and lenses and camera cranes and cast trailers and catering and everything else you would ever need to make a movie. I began going when I first came to Los Angeles in the early 90s, because it was *free*. It was two days, and there was so much stuff that you couldn’t see it all in a single day. Every single camera company was there.... every light company... and what was really fun were all of the peripheral companies you’d never think of.

You’ve seen movies like TERMINATOR 2 where a whole city gets nuked? Well, in those pre-CGI days those were models, and there was always a company who specialized in building model cities for movies... plus, if there’s one company that does it, there’s at least one other company that does the same thing and competes with them (usually two). So there’d be three companies that make model cities. And two companies that make radio controlled model planes for film - really detailed models that look like the real thing on camera. And a dozen guys who do storyboards. And five companies that make custom swords and weapons. And four people who train animals. And... well, think of every single thing you need to make a film, and all of those people were there! If you were interested in the biz, it was like Disneyland. Plus, there were always a bunch of catering companies with food samples - like a free lunch!

The parking lot of the Convention Center was filled with all of the big equipment - at least a couple of helicopters with camera mounts, plus trucks and generators and big camera cranes and all kinds of other stuff. It was fantastic.

But by the beginning of the 2000s, the show began shrinking - people could see demonstrations of the latest equipment online... and by 2003 it was gone. Then, in 2009, a new company bought the name and trademark and brought it back to Los Angeles... On the same exact weekend as Screenwriting Expo! Talk about confusion! It was a much much much smaller event, barely filling a small hall at the Convention Center, and focusing on *actors* - so it was a bunch of acting classes and no equipment. Only one day... but you can do the whole event in an hour and still have time left over. This is the third time for the show, and not that much has changed from 2009...

REGISTRATION NIGHTMARE

Just like in the old days, registration is free until the event. But unlike the old days, you now register online by filling out this seemingly never-ending form. The big problem is, you think it’ll just take a minute... but then it ends up being pages and pages and pages! You see, they also had a zillion add ons that cost money, and that free online registration is really a hard sell for the paid add ons. They have classes and webinars and an after party and networking tables (you pay to sit at a table with other people who paid to sit at that table), and focus groups (I don’t know what that’s all about) and a place an actor can leave a stack of headshots and a place a film maker canm shoiw their movie and maybe you want to put your flyer in the gimme-bag and maybe you want to sign up for a booth next year and maybe you want to run an advert in the program or...? Anyway, you have to check or uncheck a million boxes on a dozen pages as part of registration - and they have these great annoying pop up boxes that ask “Are you SURE you don’t want to take a webinar on Hand Gestures For Actors?” So, after going through all of this crap, instead of sending you a badge that you can put in their plastic holder when you show up (like the old show used to do, and other shows do), they just send you a page with a bar code so that you can complete registration at the event...

Complete registration.

What this means is - you show up, stand in a huge line, when you get to the front of the line they send you to one of a dozen or so laptops... when you enter your e-mail address and then have to go through all of those pages where you check and uncheck boxes for all of the add ons and then deal with the pop ups “Are you SURE you don’t want to take a webinar on Defining Your Character’s Walk For Actors?” (Click Yes or No.) About twenty minutes to half an hour of this stuff, in the event that you changed your mind from the day you registered until today. Um, not likely. I think part of the deal is they hope you miss something and they automatically charge you for the after party or that webinar on Eyebrow Movement For Actors. And you can’t skip ahead - you must go through every single check box and pop up in order to get to the page where you print your badge.

When I got to the front of the line, and they sent me to the computer... the wifif system crashed and we had to wait for at least a half an hour to do a half hour of checking and unchecking boxes... as the line grew longer and longer!

After clicking Print Badge I went to the printer station where a guy gave me the paper badge and a plastic badge holder... and I had to put the badge in the holder myself. Except the badge was about an eight of an inch too big! I had to fold part of it to get the thing to fit! This is the kind of silly stuff that makes you angry.

ONCE INSIDE..

Still a small hall, but at least this year there were a few pieces of equipment in display - a jib-arm company, a company that sells remote-control camera helicopters, a rental company that specializes in Red cameras, and a hybrid honeywagon company. Nothing like the old days of Expo, but maybe getting there. The rest of the stuff was mostly aimed at actors like last year, but I wandered around even though I don’t think I may turn thespian any time soon. Last year they had a whole aisle of TV/DVD combos playing people’s backyard movies in search of distribution. You could put on a headset and watch for 90 minutes. This seemed weird to me, because I don’t imagine any distribs showing up at this event and signing some film after standing there with a headset on for 90 minutes. This is one of those strange things I see people doing sometimes - even screenwriters - finding the post passive and least likely way for their work to be discovered. “Well, I have all of my scripts posted on my website, so producers can find them and buy them...” - what are the odds of a producer stumbling on your website in the first place? Wouldn’t the odds be better if you tried contacting producers with query letters? Well, same deal with that movie you made - there are distributors out there, why not send them a DVD and query? Or try to meet them at film festivals? Or some other *active* method of getting your film sold? Hoping someone is going to walk down an aisle and watch the movie is the long shot of all long shots... but Showbiz Expo makes money on these people. This year: No TV/DVD combos... instead those little portable DVD players laid out on a table. Not impressive at all. There were also some CD players on the table with music composer samples. Fewer than last year - maybe half a dozen movies instead of a whole aisle.

But there was still the whole aisle of headshots with little boxes for business cards. “Hey, I saw your headshot and want to hire you for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 5! More passive methods to stardom. I did look at whatever credits these folks had (usually student films) to see if one of them might have been in one of my films. I remember going to an IFP screening once and the star of the indie movie was a guy who had a small role in CRASH DIVE... that was kind of cool. Because I show up on sets of my films for the free meal, I end up hanging out with the crew and the supporting actors - sometimes buying them drinks at the wrap party or the last day of shooting. So I knew this guy, and it was cool to see him play a lead in this little indie flick. But none of the headshots were actors who had ever been in anything I wrote. So, the next thing I did was look at hot actress headshots for a potential girlfriend. None of the damned headshots mentioned marital status... but they had mostly been in student films. I’m looking for a *rich and famous* hot actress, who can help *my* career.

After the headshots was a bulletin board where you could post crew and cast needs, and then the aisles of acting classes and head shot photogs and other mostly actor related stuff. Last year there were a bunch of start up “social networking for the film biz” places, and they were all back this year. Though the social networking thing may be a good idea, I wonder how many people are on some film specific place? Would you be able to interact with people higher up the food chain than you, like on FaceBook? Or would it mostly be other people at your level? Who signs up for these things?

Hey - there was a vegan catering company with free samples... a snack!

I walked past the Write Brothers booth - and the guys said hello. They make Movie Magic Screenwriter, which I’ve used forever, and for whatever reason they know who I am. I suspect they have flashcards of pro writers so that they can spot us in a crowd. They had a show sale for MMS, and I forgot to ask about it... I have a brand new laptop, still in the box, that I need to get all my stuff on eventually. The laptop I’m using now only holds an hour charge on the battery, and when I looked at replacement batteries they cost enough that it made more sense to just buy a new laptop... even though this one is only a couple of years old. A couple of years in Computer is a lifetime! So when laptops hit giveaway price a couple of months ago I bought a new one to cut my film on... and still haven’t set it up. Guess I missed my chance for the show price on Movie Magic...

The Writers Store was there, which was great. Smaller booth than usual and Jesse wasn’t there, but great that they had a presence. I bought that old version of Movie Magic Screenwriter, back when it was Script Thing, at the old Writers Store on Santa Monica - back when the idea of a specific program for writing screenplays was something new and exciting. Since then, I’ve shopped at Writers Store for screenwriting books and whatever else when they moved to Westwood... and bought a book a couple of months ago at their new Burbank location. It’s a great place!

On the very last aisle, facing the wall, I found the Scriptwriter’s Network Booth... and was recognized again. Now here’s the strange part - one of the members volunteering at the booth recognized me... from London! He took my class at the Raindance Film Festival once. Small world. Well, the Network is closing in on their 25th anniversary, and I’ve been a member for something like 20 years - since I first moved to Los Angeles. I talked to Joe about doing a class or something for the Network, and that’ll happen sometime in the future. The last time I did a class for them, afterwards some people wanted to buy Blue Books or CDs... and I didn’t bring any. I guess when people usually do classes for them they bring stuff to sell... I was just doing a class. This time, I guess I’ll bring stuff. We talked about how the organization is doing these days, etc. There was a demonstration stage in the center of the room - with no one doing any demonstrations - and I told Joe that next year if they did this I’d be happy to do a class or two on that stage to drum up some new members for the Network. I would probably be at the Expo anyway, and bored out of my skull after seeing everything in an hour... so why not?

Hey, and maybe some producer wandering through will hear me talk and want to buy a screenplay?

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Emotion Pictures - What do you want the audience to feel?
Dinner: Panera - sandwich.
Pages: Two great scenes (4 pages). Still behind, but getting there!
Bicycle: Rode all over the place.

Movies: EXPORTING RAYMOND - Documentary (sort of) about producer Phil Rosenthal (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND) having one hissy-fit after another as Russian TV makes their own version of RAYMOND. The guy can not just sit back and watch, and can not let go - he must be the boss even though the show is in Russia. He wants to keep the show 100% the way it was in the USA, even though this is a different culture and many things just don't work. Though there are some actual problems with the Russian version (the costume designer and her dogs in cute outfits, and the actor the network wants to star) much of this film is Rosenthal nit-picking everything. At one point his driver/bodyguard claims to have a several week hospital appointment, I suspect just to get away from him. What was interesting to me is the number of successful US sitcoms adapted for Russia - and when they show clips from them you realize they are all heavily concept based... and then there's RAYMOND which is just about a guy and his family. One of the Russian network guys says the key to THE NANNY's success is that it's a Cinderella story, and that fits the crazy costume woman's theory that Russians want to see upscale people in nice clothes. Other things in RAYMOND seemed to not translate at all - Raymond gives his parents a subscription to the "Fruit Of The Month Club", but in Russia no such thing exists. While watching the movie, I wondered how many of the other little things about life that made RAYMOND funny just don't exist in Russia... and whether Rosenthal's nit-picking about how a line is supposed to be delivered makes any sense to the Russians. The film seems to be cut to show that Rosenthal was right all along - the Russian director gets tired of his constant notes about every single line and begins ignoring him... then in a later scene agrees with something Rosenthal says and fixes it and the scene works better... but I'm not sure that makes Rosenthal always right. He may have been completely wrong with his other notes. And it isn't until Rosenthal flies back to the USA that the show actually gets retooled and becomes successful. So it's hard to know if he was right all along... or just a major irritation. A few laughs in the doc, but mostly I was cringing and wanted to just slap Rosenthal and tell him that he's the problem. I ran a tip a few days ago on how the reader/audience can see your attitude between the lines, and this doc showed us more about Rosenthal than he probably wanted us to know.

Lancelot Link Thursday!

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who read Vonnegut's Welcome To The Monkey House in High School, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are seven cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) New JAWS book!

2) Ten Coolest Hidden Passages (including one into an office).

3) If Summer Movie Posters Told The Truth!

4) Obi Wan Kenobi Is Dead!

5) Map To New York Superheroes.

6) Want To Buy Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang?

7) If you are one of the five people who hasn't seen Damn You Auto Correct! here is is.

8) This week's car chase: Luc Besson's TAXI 3, with the French Sylvester Stallone... and a cool bicycle vs. motorcycle chase!



That guy looks just like Stallone, doesn't he - but the voice is higher.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Sledge Hammer - if you want to send a message, call Western Union.
Dinner: Philly Cheese Steak.
Pages: A couple of good pages, still behind.
Bicycle: Short bike ride.

Movies: BRIDESMAIDS - about a half an hour too long, a scattershot plot (what's up with the roommate scenes?), and rated R only for language... but funny and Kristen Wiig is great. Show stolen by Melissa McCarthy. It's Apatow produced - so where's the nudity? In the sex scene Wiig wears this bra that looks bullet-proof! Come on! At least give her some lace! I would have loved to have the gal from RENO 911 nekkid (and her character was sex starved, so it would have worked), but aren't Apatow movies usually filled with male full frontal nudity? Here - the film is PG (except for language and really crude humor). They seriously should have focused the script before they filmed it and cut at least 20 minutes. It meanders all over the place and needs some more jokes. I want Wiig (and the women) to have a huge hit like HANGOVER, but am afraid this isn't it.

A Little Hard on The Beaver

Here's my entry on THE BEAVER screenplay written on 12/30/08. Now that the film has come out, I thought I'd re-run it.

Thought about running this on May 20, when the film was scheduled to open wider... but now it looks like that will not happen. According to the LA Times, THE BEAVER has flopped big time - so they have scaled back the "wide release" to only 30 cinemas after the film got mixed reviews and failed to sell any tickets.

Between writing new script tips and an article for Script Magazine and poking around on a spec about Country Western Bars, I’m reading some of the Black List scripts. First up was THE BEAVER, which got the most votes. Now, as someone who has been on a film fest jury or two, I know that just because something gets the most votes doesn’t mean it’s the best - often it means it’s the one more people agree on... and that is often the “most average” of the group. But I did go in with pretty high expectations - these are supposed to be the best scripts out there.

I should also mention that I have a huge problem with reading scripts (and this may even extend to writing them) - I am a real world, production oriented person. You may read a script for the beauty of a description - and I can appreciate that, too, but for me what is more important is: how will this look on screen? How will an actor deliver this line? How will this scene make the audience feel? Will there be enough donuts on set with sprinkles that I can snag one before the Teamsters get to them? So something that is pretty and practical is great, something that is pretty and not practical is just wasting my time and making me angry. When I read a script I’m looking at how it will translate to the screen... and then how it will translate to the audience.

The Black List "experiment" is an interesting one - the idea of finding the screenplays that development people think are the best. I think the weird thing from looking at the list is that it is skewed towards strange and quirky and arty and sometimes even "this is not a movie" screenplays. Instead of being great material that could easily be a *great* mainstream movie, it seems as if part of the criteria is that the scripts must be something no studio would ever touch... and THE BEAVER kind of fits into that theory. This is not a really clever genre script - the kind of great movie I wish Hollywood was still making - it's a weird non-genre story that I can not imagine ever selling... though I guess I'm wrong on that one, since it's now going to be a Steve Carrell movie. The Black List is like a rebel list: development people purposely picking projects their producer bosses would probably hate. At times it seems more like a "Fuck you!" list than a list of great scripts that need to be made. It'll be interesting to see how well THE BEAVER works as a movie... and any of the other strange scripts that made the list and now seems to be hot stuff in Hollywood.

THE BEAVER - the story is basically AMERICAN BEAUTY meets Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, about a upper middle class guy who comes to realize that his life is crap... but when he puts on a hand puppet, the puppet takes over in a strange version of Tourettes and he takes control of his life again. That’s a great idea for a comedy, though this is a drama - and the execution has some problems, but by the end the script has some solid emotional scenes that make it almost work.

If I’d had this idea, the problem I would see going in would be that the hand puppet could easily slide into becoming an exposition device that just blurts out what the character was thinking or feeling... and that is one of the big problems of the script. Much of the story is *told* instead of shown through the hand puppet... and on top of that, the writer decided to have the hand puppet narrate! Yikes! This results in long blocks of speeches by a hand puppet that tell us what is happening or what the protag is thinking or wants or needs. Much of the hand puppet interaction rings completely false - there is an endless speech to a board of directors (at our hero’s job) where not a single board member interrupts - even though the speech is major policy change and given by a talking beaver hand puppet. Everyone allows this hand puppet to drone on and on without interruption - which creates a pile of expositional speeches that litter the script.

The other thing about the hand puppet - it’s not funny or clever. There is *one* line about the CEO’s death by hooker, and all of the rest is just kind of bland stuff in a British accent. No great cutting remarks, nothing that you really wish you had said but couldn’t - because you didn’t have a hand puppet doing the talking for you. Since “sock puppet” is an online term for a false identity that says all of the things that you can not, I believed this sock puppet would say all of the things Walter could not. You know, the clever, cutting things that will get you fired or punched if you say them yourself. A couple of weeks ago I saw GRAN TORINO, which has got to have the most un-PC dialogue of any film in the past few years. Eastwood’s character is constantly saying things that are completely inappropriate - and that produces laughter. He calls people names to their faces! But here, the Beaver mostly just makes speeches or says something that is not clever or cutting... something that Walter might have easily said himself without fear. And, when you compare the Beaver’s dialogue to Triumph’s? Seriously - watch that first Triumph clip where he goes to the dog show and try not to hurt yourself laughing. That puppet says things you wouldn’t even think of thinking! Triumph is too honest... and you wish that the Beaver had been more honest and more funny.

And that may be because this script falls into no genre - it is not a Steve Carrel comedy and even says in the script at one point that it is not a Jim Carrey comedy. So maybe they weren’t trying for humor (in a script about a talking beaver hand puppet)... But if this script was supposed to be more dramatic, like AMERICAN BEAUTY, it still doesn’t measure up. Not only is AMERICAN BEAUTY *funnier* - Lester does say many of those fantasy things you’ve always wanted to say but would get fired or punched - it’s not as *dramatic*. When Lester snaps, he does all of the things he has always fantasized about... and basically relives the time in his life where he was most happy - he becomes a teen again. He buys the car he wanted as a teen, lives life as if there is no tomorrow, and even ends up working a teen type job at a drive through. He completely changes his life after the snap...

But once Walter finds The Beaver, he changes *nothing* - he has the same job, tries to get back to his old life with his wife and kids. He has this potential power to change - the Beaver hand puppet - and doesn’t use it. Once he has the beaver hand puppet - he does nothing differently, except talk in long speeches in a British accent (why doesn’t anybody ever interrupt him?). He just lives his old life, and more or less does it the way he used to. The changes - he takes his wife out to dinner and teaches his youngest son woodworking - are things he could have easily done without the puppet... and not really any big deal.

The great comedy idea of a guy possessed by a talking beaver hand puppet is also completely at odds with the serious tone of the script. I don't see how this is going to play on screen at all. When I imagine the serious scenes with dialogue coming from a hand puppet, it just becomes silly. The puppet undercuts the drama - and is going to create unintentional laughs no matter who directs it. On the page this may work, on screen I can't imagine it working at all.

The script also has these story cheats, like the woodworking. The youngest son is given a hunk of wood and many sharp and dangerous tools... and the kid is instantly happy! No actual dramatic scenes needed! And Walter’s failing company? Hey, they sell hunks of wood and sharp and dangerous tools to children - and they are back in the black! Like by magic! And everybody loves Walter! Walter writes a book... and it’s a best seller! He’s instantly on Oprah! Yes, I know it’s only a movie - but I like to see a little work done on things like this... even if it’s just a line about how kids are tired of passive toys and games, which give them nothing when they are done playing. They want something to show for the time spent playing other than a high score on some computer screen. Some *justification* for the woodworking set to become this massive hit. Though the Beaver says he did focus groups - we never see them, so I do not believe they existed.

These story cheats are most prevalent in the older son’s story track - from the cliche portion of wall where he bashes his head regularly to the cliche rubber band on his wrist he snaps when he catches himself acting like his father to the hot cheerleader who is secretly an artist and has murals hidden in her brother’s room... yet she never acts like an artist at all. We never see her as an artist pretending to be a cheerleader - she isn’t drawing on her peechee folders (or whatever they use these days). I drew on *everything* and was drawing in class when I was supposed to be listening - and still got good grades. And I’m not an artist - I was a bored kid with some basic drawing talent and lots of imagination. I wanted to believe she was an artist because she said she was, but the *evidence* didn’t support it... so I was always waiting for the twist that her brother was the real artist and she was just a silly cheerleader. By the way, she didn’t seem particularly bright, either... nor did Porter (oldest son). We get no *demonstration* - only what is told to us by the characters... and that might all be lies.

The script takes a strange, bloody turn at one point - that makes no sense.. But kind of reminds me of the Jim Carrey movie THE MASK - and, again, that’s a film with a similar premise that explores that premise much much better than this script does. The problem with this bloody scene is that it is so out of place in this tame story that you wonder if it will survive all of the way to the screen. Basic tone issues. If you think about the violence in AMERICAN BEAUTY, it is just as big as the other events in the story so it fits. When you are doing sound editing, you may get different volume levels from different sources, and there is a filter-gizmo that goes through the entire sound track and makes it all the same volume level, so that it doesn’t suddenly BLAST at you - like those loud commercials in the middle of a TV show. I think stories need something similar - sort of a tone adjustment - that makes sure you don’t have some scene so shocking and different than anything else we have seen so far that seems to belong in some other script. I am all for pushing the envelope, and even having that one scene in your script that you know will be cut because it goes too far... but you want that scene to fit the script that has come before. The violence in AMERICAN BEAUTY was completely within the world of that story... the scene in THE BEAVER just seems to come out of left field. Hard to imagine that violence working on screen at all.

But here’s the thing - a movie and a screenplay can be saved by their ending... and as a story continues, we tend to become invested in the characters... so by the time I reached the end of THE BEAVER I wasn’t thinking about all of the problems as much as I was thinking about all of the things it did well... and that end (which oddly uses the narration I disliked from the beginning) had me liking the script despite its flaws... even though the ending was also kind of a cheat. Instead of solving Walter's problems, he's kind of pushed aside in the story in favor of the older son and cheerleader subplot. It's the old switcheroo - which is not what you expect from a script that's #1 on the Black List, but at least gives us a big emotional resolution on the page. I can see why it got a bunch of votes - but still can’t see how it will work on screen as a Steve Carrell movie without some heavy rewrites. I'm wondering if that end that made me tear up on the page will just seem like some completely out of left field tack on when it hits the screen. Reading a script takes more time than watching a movie, and what seems like a gradual change from Walter's story to the oldest son and cheerleader story on the page might really seem like a cheat on screen. You have to read past the language in a script and see what ends up on screen... but maybe they'll fix the flaws and this will be Carrell's biggest hit since 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN?

Next, I think I’ll read Scott Frank’s script... which was at the bottom of the Black List.

Classes On CD On Sale!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Holiday Block older tips that need a rewrite and haven't run for a while.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Mom's home cooking.
Pages: Poking around on this old thriller script that takes place in a Country Western Bar - I hope to kick off the new year by finishing this sucker.

MOVIES: GRAN TORINO - The Clint squint is back! The second Eastwood movie to come out this season is completely different than THE CHANGELING in almost every way. From the trailer, it looks like GRUMPY OLD DEATH WISH - and it is - but the film is also much more. It’s a comedy. Now, when you think Clint Eastwood and comedy, you instantly think of orangutans or chimpanzees... but Clint is the closest to a lower primate in this film. He plays an old, racist, foul mouthed and really grump retired auto worker named Walt who lives in the same house in the same neighborhood he has always lived in... only the world has changed around him. What was a great neighborhood in the 40s or 50s is now broken down slums filled with immigrants. Hmongs - from Laos and Viet Nam. He hates ‘em. He has a dozen names for ‘em, each one more outrageous (and funny) than the one before.

Walter is a guy who is too old for the bullshit of being polite - maybe he always was - so he has an insult for everybody. The movie opens with the death of his wife, making Walter all alone in his old neighborhood... and when people try to comfort him, he snaps at them. He calls his Priest a virgin, and then goes on to trash him and all of the BS parts of religion. When his sons try to get him into a home for “active seniors” he tells them off - saying things that no one would ever really say... they might think them, but they’d never actually say them. That is Walter’s charm - he says what we think but would never say. All of the terrible things, all of the impolite things, all of the funny things. He’s like the late, great, stand up comic Sam Kineson.

This character of Walter says so many evil, racist, impolite, and downright mean things - you wonder what would have happened if another actor had been cast in the role. We know Eastwood, we like him... and Eastwood has a way of saying all of these terrible things so that they are more comedy than derogatory. Instead of hating Walter - which we might have done if another actor had played the role - we grow to like him because he says exactly what he thinks without any filters. Eastwood makes him not evil, just cranky. But some other actor - even a well liked star of Eastwood’s caliber - might not have been able to pull off this character. This is about the most unlikeable lead character I've ever seen on screen. I can just imagine all of the development notes this thing might have gotten about making Walter "more likeable"... probably from the save Devos who voted for THE BEAVER!

The trailer might make you think this will be wall-to-wall kick ass, but the film does something different. It takes this grumpy old man who is set in his ways and hates the immigrants who surround him, and through the story, forces him to deal with the world around him and become a member of his new neighborhood. After the kid next door tries to steal his prized Gran Torino, Walter has to deal with the kid and his family - he can’t just hurl insults at them from his porch - and discovers that these people who look very different than him are actually more like him than his own family. He takes the boy under his wing and teaches him to become a man... and that’s the meat of the story. Sure, there are kick ass scenes and Clint does an interesting variation on DEATH WISH, but most of the film is the growing relationship between Walter and the family next door... and how he becomes so involved with them that their problems become his problems (then there’s that ass-kicking portion of our show).

I believe the Hmong actors are civilians, but they give really good performances for non-actors in a film shot at Clint-speed (he shoots really fast, few takes, usually no rehearsals). Sue, the girl next door, comes off really well - she has a great personality and you believe this old fart might be talked into coming over for a big family dinner (and free beer) by her. Tao, the boy, gets to act sullen and introverted - much easier for a non-actor, but the kid also pulls it off. You believe every single one of these characters. I think the Priest needed a little rewriting - he’s okay, but the character comes off very passive and kind of bland. I’ve been rewatching a bunch of Noir films, and one of the great things about casting someone like Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster in the lead in those films is that they brought personality to the roles. Both of those actors were incredibly versatile, even though you might not notice it from only seeing a couple of films, but when you cast someone like Lancaster he could make low key characters interesting with a line reading or a gesture or some other character thing he would bring to the role. If the Priest role had been played by one of those old school actors, it might have been more interesting.... but he comes off kind of flat in the film.

POTENTIAL END SPOILERS

Okay, I always try to disguise things so that I don’t completely spoil the movie, but I thought I should warn you anyway. The big problem I had with GRAN TORINO was the end. Eastwood’s revenge plan requires that the ultra close-lipped Hmongs who would never rat on even the most evil member of their community actually talk to the police... or the whole revenge plan falls apart. It is clearly set up that the Hmongs would *never* go to the police - yet Clint’s plan requires it... so the whole revenge plan kind of folds in on itself. For Clint’s revenge plan to work, a Hmong must do what they never do and go to the police... but if the Hmong would go to the police we wouldn’t really need Clint’s revenge plan - the cops would take care of it. It wouldn’t be as exciting as Clint’s plan, but it would be a potential resolution. Oh, and for the Clint revenge plan to work, the Hmong character must talk to the police at a specific time in order for the police to act in a specific way at the specific time that all fits in Clint’s revenge plan. In other words - it’s all up to chance and coincidence. A *better* method would have been to use the Priest character (who has a silly scene at the end already) and have him be the one who brings in the police at the right place and at the right time for Clint’s revenge plan to work. Clint might have given the Priest some information about his revenge plan, knowing that he would go to the police, but also lied about time or place so that the police wouldn’t get there too soon and prevent him from kicking a bunch of low-life ass. The Cavalry would show up in time to see that it was a fair fight and not Clint going psycho (so we can have a happy ending), but Clint could still kick enough ass to give us the movie we paid to see. Those of you who have seen the movie know what I am talking about, those of you who haven’t hopefully won’t guess the details of the end from that.

END OF SPOILERS

So GRAN TORINO manages to be two movies in one - a heartwarming story of an old guy who is alone in the world and finds friendship and community... and a badass GRUMPY OLD DEATH WISH flick about an old Korean War vet who is completely underestimated by the gangs and drug dealers and scumbags who are ruining his old neighborhood. While watching, I wondered if this whole script was sparked by the line “Get off my lawn”. And no one growls like Clint!

PS: My interview continues on the Writer's Bloc Show on Virtual TV Network, with the LAST part, about the postponed movie #20 and VOLATILE:

THE WRITER'S BLOC: ** Bill On TV **

PPS: More of my damned movies showing on Sky in the UK! I'm sorry...

M4M2 (UK): Friday Jan 2 - 15:10 - Black Thunder - When the world's most powerful stealth jet fighter falls into enemy hands, only one man can get it back. Starring Michael Dudikoff.

You have been warned.

- Bill

Lancelot Link Thursday!

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who wonder if an infinite number of monkeys could have written the song Day Dream Believer, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) Screenwriter Dan Fogelman.

2) Ten Amazing Flash Mobs!

3) Seven Pieces Of Conventional Movie Wisdom Disproved By The Success Of FAST FIVE.

4) Summer Movie Release Schedule - pick which film you will see each weekend!

5) How To Make *Good* Raunchy Comedies.

And today's Car Chase, from TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA...



I think I've probably used that one before, but here it is again in honor of the CASTLE episode with the same title.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Put A Face On It! - antagonists in stories that don't have villains.
Dinner: Togos ham & turkey sandwich.
Pages: Um, an awful day... just over a page.
Bicycle: Medium bike ride.

Sleep Vacation?

I’m way behind on this script due to all kinds of things: Some quick page one rewrites on a couple of scripts going out, a rewrite on an assignment, some work that had to be done on another project, a couple of articles for Script magazine, general laziness, a two week period where I got an invite to a screening almost every night - and I went to sit-com tapings on the other nights, a bunch of crazy errands, and a complete lack of sleep. If you read the blog, you know that I’ve always had sleep problems - I’m often up late, or doing something, and add to that I’m a light sleeper. Paul Schrader made a film called LIGHT SLEEPER with Willem Defoe - I’ll watch anything that Paul Schrader makes, even though a large percentage of his films don’t work at all. He has tone problems. But he’s always interesting, and since I’ve always had sleep problems and always been a light sleeper I went to see Schrader’s film. Maybe even at a late late show.




The thing about being a light sleeper is that some noise will wake me up in the middle of the night - and I have no idea what that noise is. The noise happened while I was asleep. Might have been a police helicopter chasing a suspect on the 101, might have been a sonic boom, might have been someone in my building dropping something heavy... like the safe they stole from the jewelry shop which lead to that police chase on the 101. I have new neighbors on my left side, and they had a couple of late parties that didn’t bother me as much as their early morning leaving-for-work door slamming loud conversations. A pair of young guys probably trying to break into show biz, but I think they work as salesmen or something - they wear ties. After the door slamming, they have a conversation (loud) as they walk down the hall... past my apartment. I can hear them through the damned walls! But it’s not just them, it’s all kinds of things that wake me up... and sometimes it’s just me. I have this bad habit of staying up later and later - there are some movies I’m watching for a project and I maybe I can squeeze in one movie before I fall asleep? (“The plot is wafer thin!”) Then, when I wake up after not enough sleep, I realize I have this damned script to write, so I shower and shave and grab the laptop and get to work.... and kind of drag myself through the day without getting much done because I’m exhausted.

So I decided to take two days, get out of town, just me and the laptop and that script. No distractions. No DVD player and no DVDs. Nothing except the script. Get two days worth of momentum going and then just keep going until I’m finished. Force myself to focus by removing distractions. I book a hotel, I book a flight, I pack only the script material and nothing else. (Okay, clothes.)

Working vacation.

Funny - I don’t have any other kind. I take my work with me wherever I go, and even though I plan every year to *always* take Sundays off, last Sunday I was trying to get some pages written on this script... and that was Easter! I end up working 7 days a week... except I’m often so tired that it’s hard to call it work. Over the Christmas holidays? I wrote a script in a couple of weeks, plus did all of the normal holiday stuff.

So going out of town to get some work done is really nothing new. I hop my flight, take a taxi to the hotel and check in, grab dinner. I find a good rib joint and get barbeque sauce over most of my body as I eat a huge plate of ribs, a baked potato with the works (including actual bacon - and kind of Canadian bacon at that, not much fat), some corn, some slaw, some corn bread... and a couple of beers. By the time the cute waitress came back to ask if I wanted desert I was almost asleep on my plate. No desert tonight - tomorrow I’m a typing demon! I have done some outline work on the plane and I am prepared to write a stack of electronic pages! I head back to the hotel, wash my hands and face (those moist towels they give you just make you presentable to the public)... but it was too early to go to sleep. I’m on a two day *vacation*, right? So I walk back to a jazz joint I’d passed on the way to the rib joint and went in and listen to four guys play music... and have a couple more beers. When I was almost asleep, I walk back to the hotel... and read a book for a while. When I thought it was late enough to go to sleep, I get into bed with the TV on and eventually fall asleep...

Woke up the next morning, still tired - but I have a script to write! Instead of going back to sleep (which my body is begging for) I shower and shave and grab the laptop and head to a cool little indie coffee shop on some side street that I found while looking for a Starbucks. Tried to write, but was just tired. Exhausted. I basically dragged myself through the day, switched coffee shops halfway through the day - but the walk between didn’t get my blood flowing as much as it made me just want to lay down and go to sleep on the sidewalk. I actually get a page or two done, but the plan was 7.5-10 pages, and 5 pages is my normal quota... that I haven’t made on a new script since Christmas (when I was doing 7.5 on most days). I *need* to get pages done. I *need* to get some momentum going on this script so I can get to FADE OUT.

My dinner that night was a big salad, steak, garlic bread, another baked potato (no bacon), and a slice of chocolate cake. I think the last time I had cake was my birthday... but the picture in the desert menu looked delicious and the cake itself delivered on the photo. As I ate the cake, my eyes wanted to close - but I fought it. I will enjoy eating this cake, dammit! It’s *early* - children aren’t even in bed at this hour! Went back to the hotel... and was going to grab my laptop and go back out and work... but I was too tired. I thought about *forcing myself* to work, but that’s what I always do... and maybe that’s not the answer. I mean, when I’m exhausted like this forcing myself to work just means sitting and staring at the laptop screen with Movie Magic open. Not much actual work getting done. So I thought I might take a nap and then go out later and grab a beer somewhere and drag along the laptop...

12 hours later I woke up.

Maybe I needed to sleep? The thing is, I was still tired. Not groggy from oversleeping, I was tired enough to go back to sleep for a while. But, check out time was approaching. I considered staying an extra day, but I suspect changing my flight would cost me a fortune - so I packed and left - a couple of hours before my flight to sit in that indie coffee shop and do some work before grabbing a taxi to the airport. Even though I felt like I needed more sleep, I also felt much much better than the previous day. I *needed* that sleep. I actually got some pages done - though not as many as I wanted - and felt pretty good by the time I needed to get to the airport and have the TSA touch my junk.

But all of this made me wonder if I should use some of those air miles from my various journeys to take a monthly sleep vacation. Go somewhere - no computer, no notebooks, no work to do... maybe just my Kindle - check into a hotel, spend 2 days reading and sleeping, then head home. And if I feel like sleeping 12 hours plus? Just do it. Yes, I can sleep at home... if I had any willpower to ignore all of those distractions. And funny how sleeping in that hotel room allowed my brain to not worry that maybe that sound was the phone or someone buzzing at the front door or something that I needed to wake up for. Even though I’m a light sleeper, I managed to sleep through whatever noise there was in the hotel. Maybe my subconscious knows that whatever happens in the hotel isn’t really my problem. There’s a Do Not Disturb thing stuck in the mag-key slot, so there’s little chance that knocking is on *my* door (though once in a hotel someone knocked on my door in the middle of the night and it was a hot woman in a slinky dress who wanted to know if I was Mr. Walpurgus... I reluctantly told her it was the wrong room... probably couldn’t have afforded her, anyway... I always wonder if “Walpurgus” had already paid for her with a credit card, so maybe I could have pretended and gotten away with it? I mean, after it’s over she can’t exactly take it back, right?) - but the phone in a hotel room isn’t going to ring unless it’s some emergency and I’ve slept through check out or something. My brain knows it’s safe to click from Light Sleep Mode to Light Coma Mode. At home, some part of my brain worries that the phone *might* ring while I’m asleep.

Hmmm, maybe I should actually force myself to take Sundays off? Actually do the long bike ride to no fixed destination I always have planned? Even though I’m behind on this script - and just about everything else I need to do - maybe a day off every week will make all of the other days more productive?

And I’m also considering taking a sleep vacation... right after I finish this damned script!

PS: In an example of being both lazy and driven - this blog entry is about 7 pages of writing that *could* have been on that script I need to get finished!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: They Gave It All Away In The Trailer! - and the remake of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.
Dinner: L&L Hawaiian BBQ
Pages: Still trying to dive back into this script!
Bicycle: Yes - rode against the wind for a while.
Movies: FAST FIVE.

Erik Bork at Alameda Writers Group - May 7th

I've spoken at the Alameda Writers Group a couple of times, and they asked if I would help them get the word out about a FREE lecture by Emmy Award Winning screenwriter Erik Bork (BAND OF BROTHERS, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, etc). So here it is...

EMMY AND GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER ERIK BORK TO SPEAK FREE
ALAMEDA WRITERS GROUP SATURDAY MAY 7 AT 10:00 AM
GLENDALE PUBLIC LIBRARY AUDITORIUM
222 EAST HARVARD STREET, GLENDALE 91204

ERIK BORK is best known for his Emmy and Golden Globe-winning work as a writer-producer on the HBO miniseries BAND OF BROTHERS and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON. He has also sold multiple pitches for original series – and written pilots – for NBC and Fox, worked as a writer-producer on staff of drama series for Warner Bros. TV and Twentieth TV, and written features on assignment for Playtone, Steven Spielberg, Universal Pictures, HBO and TNT. He’s represented by Creative Artists Agency.

Erik did classes last year at the Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe - where I still have open seats in *my* class this year. Info on how to sign up for that...




The Screenwriting Conference at Santa Fe - May 27th - 31st, 2011.

Okay, now I'm going to go back to working on this script...

- Bill

Do You Know The Way To Santa Fe?

I'll be teaching at the Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe again this year, and becuase I've postponed my Los Angeles class - this may end up being the only class I teach this year. And it's only a month and a half away!





I'm sure I mentioned before that Santa Fe and the Raindance Film Festival are the reasons why I taught classes in the first place. Both called at about the same time a decade ago and asked if I wanted to teach a class for them, and I told both that I didn't teach classes, and both said: Come out out and try it, you'll like it! I've always been terrible at public speaking, so I thought it might be a good idea to deal with that - so I said yes to both.

Santa Fe was great, and that first year I basically just did a class based on my book Secrets Of Action Screenwriting. I've gone back several times over the years, and was there last year with Josh Olson - who will not read your fucking screenplay (except he read portions of his student's screenplays as part of his class). The great thing about Santa Fe is that Larry tries to keep it Working Professional Writers as teachers. So your teacher may be an Emmy Winner or and Oscar Nominee like Josh or some dude with a bunch of awful action films that play every week on the UK's version of Spike TV like me. But he tries to avoid that thing other conferences do where it's a bunch of Script Gurus with consulting services who have never sold a script telling you how to write... while plugging their own services. At Santa Fe, you learn from people who do it for a living.

And there's access. I mentioned in my blog entries last year that I went out to dinner with a group of students every night I was there - and so did almost everyone else. I was also in the hotel bar every night with some of teh other teachers and many students - and we talked screenwriting. I answered a bunch of questions from people who were not in my class - which is cool because you may get a different answer from me than from one of the other pros (we all have different experiences). Though I'm pretty easy to talk to at someplace like Expo, I've done events where we were kept separate from the students the whole time. Expo is kind of like that - one year at the "mixer" party that students paid money to attend, all of the teachers were in the "VIP room" upstairs. I felt guilty and went down to hang out with the students. Santa Fe - no walls, no separations. There's always a "mega panel" with all of the instructors answering student's questions, and students and teachers eat lunch in the hotel restaurant together - sit at my table if you want.

So this year I'm back in Santa Fe, and in addition to my 3 day class where I tear apart your first ten pages and go through all of the elements of writing (this year we're going to look at concepts, too) - I'm doing a short class based on the *revised* Secrets Of Action Screenwriting book. Kind of a flashback to that first class I did in Santa Fe a decade ago.

If you're interested in taking my class, there are still a couple of seats available, check it out!

The Screenwriting Conference at Santa Fe - May 27th - 31st, 2011.

Here is last year's blog entry on my adventures:
Santa Fe 2010.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Self Discipline - not as much fun as self bondage...
Dinner: City Wok - Tomato Beef
Pages: No sleep yesterday, so no pages written.
Bicycle: Yes, short ride.

Lancelot Link Thursday

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who think they need to remake John Landis' movie SCHLOCK! with modern special effects, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) Frank Sinatra *IS* Dirty Harry! and other films that never were!

2) Cinemacon: What will this summer's flops be - from people who have seen more of the films than anyone!

3) Movie Barcode - great films turned into skinny lines of information.

4) Brain Garfield (DEATH WISH) on Don Westlake (POINT BLANK, THE HOT ROCK).

5) Screenwriting news from The Onion.

6) This week's car chase is from NO PROBLEM! a 1975 comedy that's kind of a riff on THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY...



- Bill

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Revealing - which is not about turning an adult cow back into the baby cow.
Dinner: Burger, onion rings & Barney's Beanery.
Pages: Still trying to dive back into this script after working on 2 others for a week... and struggling.
Bicycle: No - had a screening to go to.

Kids! Get Off My Lawn!

This is probably because I’m officially an old man, but I wonder why kids don’t seem to care about anything but themselves anymore. And, I’m fairly sure I was one of these kids once - but also fairly sure I had slightly better manners.

It's been cool in Los Angeles lately - after a couple of days of 80', we've gone back to winter for some reason. I’m sitting in a Starbucks by the door and a whole flock of really loud kids enter - school just let out, I guess - and as soon as I think “indoor voices please” the kids manage to click the door to “stay open mode” and don’t close it, just stand in line with the door open and the overhead fly fan going crazy and cold air blowing in. After a few moments of the door open next to me, I get up and close it.

Cut to: same girls, same door... on their way out. Again, they click the door to “stay open mode” and again no one closes it. Now, this happens all of the time - and it’s not only kids - there are many adults who also leave the damned door open. But this time I decide to step outside before closing the door and ask the kids to please come back and close the door that they opened...

And they yelled at me. So I yelled back that they opened the door, they need to close it. And they yelled some more and called me names. Um, these are like 12 year old girls. They called me things I wouldn’t call my worst enemy.

Door: still open.

But here’s the question - what do you do now to get these people to close the door? I can continue to close doors for strangers for the rest of my life, but I didn’t open these doors, and it’s not my responsibility to close them. And If I don’t close them, it just trickles down to someone else like me who also did not open the door. If none of us closes the door, it gets cold inside Starbucks and we all suffer and eventually some employee who should be making your drink has to get out from behind the counter and close the door. Then, your drink is late - and maybe you are late for a meeting - and maybe because you are late you get fired or don’t get the job or some other terrible thing. Yes, I’m kind of making mountains out of molehills, but how many times in your life have things gone wrong because your timing was off by a minute? And, even though I’m specifically talking about closing doors, here, there are lots of other things that are just like this - where people just don’t care and cut across three lanes of freeway traffic to make their exit because they forgot to merge over... and cause a ten car pile up? These little things are really big things.

The person who opens the door should also shut it.

We are all human. We have all left some door open somewhere. I’m sure the reason why I stuck my head out the door and asked these kids to come back and close the door is because they did this *twice* in the space of 5 minutes... and didn’t notice and didn’t care. So, I’m imagining hundreds of doors all over Los Angeles left open by this group of 12 year old girls. And they have learned that this is okay, and will keep leaving doors open all of their lives - billions of open doors that others have to close!

Poliely asking did not work.
Demanding did not work.
What *does* work?

The door was sill open.

I closed it on my way back inside.

Sometimes, you just have to do it yourself... even if it's not your responsibility. You can complain about things that are wrong, or you can work to change them.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Revealing - which is not about turning an adult cow back into the baby cow.
Dinner: Burger, onion rings & Barney's Beanery.
Pages: Still trying to dive back into this script after working on 2 others for a week... and struggling.
Bicycle: No - had a screening to go to.

RIP: Sidney Lumet

Great director of urban dramas, often dealing with police or criminal activities. He will be missed.



- Bill

Lancelot Link Thursday

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who want to see a movie about a gorilla who goes to live in the mist of New York City, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are three cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) Larry Cohen comments on Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover movie.

2) How NOT To Deal With Critics! - thanks to Harry Connolly

3) Greatest Query Letter Ever! "A magic unicorn who poops glitter and controls zombies."

4) And today's car chase...



CORVETTE SUMMER is the movie Mark Hammill made right after STAR WARS and everyone was sure it would be a huge hit... it was not.

- Bill

Rewrite Weekend

So, one of my circling projects is an older screenplay that some new folks are interested in. On Thursday I got a phone call that things were heating up and there would be some rewrite notes coming to me soon by e-mail, and if I might be able to do a quick rewrite over the weekend before it’s submitted that would be great.

By Friday evening, when I left to go to the movies with my friends - no e-mail.

Well, I made an executive decision - I had a basic idea of what the rewrite notes would be, and I also knew what *I* wanted to do to improve the script (and give it a better chance), so I thought I’d do a rewrite over the weekend anyway, and if their notes popped up I would work those in. I could wait (and do nothing) or work (and get things accomplished). I think human nature is to wait for the notes, but that's probably a mistake.

The two major things in this rewrite - a core change to match the demographics of the market which did not favor the sex of the lead character. Though there was some talk about giving every character a sex change - men turned to women and women turned to men, like in the second version of THE MALTESE FALCON - they decided it made more sense to keep everyone the same sex and just take the focus from the lead character and shift it two the two secondary leads of the opposite sex. The story stays the same, we just shift point of view - and that completely works in this story.

The other major thing was the ending. A dozen years ago when this was about to be made (and then fell apart at the last minute) that producer gave me some notes including a “Producer’s Twist”... and that screwed up the end of the script, and I’d have to rewrite the last 20 or so pages. You know how a plot twist isn’t something that *changes* the story, it merely reveals something that was already part of the story? THE SIXTH SENSE is a great example - that twist at the end isn’t a change at all, and when you view the film again you realize that the information revealed in that twist was *always* there - in every scene since page 7 - and you just hadn’t noticed it. (Or, maybe you had - some people claim they figured it out early). But a twist is something that has been set up and is part of the story all along, but revealed later. And once it is revealed, you go “Of course! It was there all along! How could I have missed it!” A “Producer’s Twist” doesn’t work that way at all - it’s some twist that was never set up, never part of the story - just tacked on at the end. Imagine if at the end of WITNESS there was this twist that Harrison Ford had been dead since getting shot in the parking lot and the Amish kid says in the last 5 minutes that he sees dead people... like Harrison. You watch the film again and there’s *nothing* that would ever make you think Harrison is dead - he interacts with everyone and dances in the barn, etc. It’s a complete tack-on. That would be a “Producer’s Twist” - they think they are being clever by adding an extra twist - and usually not just a twist that isn’t set up, but often makes no sense at all. Then you have to go off and type it up.

So, that producer a dozen years ago had come up with a “Producer’s Twist” to make the hero into the villain at the end... but the villain is also still the villain, so there’s just this extra unexplained villain at the end and no good guy at all. It just ruined the whole script, and the twist was completely unmotivated, and we ended up with no likeable characters by the end. So I had rewritten the last 20-25 pages to try to make it suck less and make slightly more sense, but I always hated that twist.

Okay, here’s the thing - technology has changed in the past dozen years. Back then a brand new desk top computer might have a 2GB hard drive... the laptop I’m typing this on has 500GBs! So storage was a premium, and all of my scripts were on floppies. Because floppies were not cheap, I didn’t have a disk for each draft - I’d just copy over the old draft with the new draft. Any cool scenes that got cut I’d save on another floppy - never know when I might find some use for them later. But when I did the rewrite that ruined this script a dozen years ago - I saved it over the good version. Now, somewhere there is a hard copy of that good version - but it would take me forever to find... easier to just figure out how to fix the end and remove that “Producer’s Twist” than find the old version on paper and *retype it*.

Again - another reason why it would be easy for me to do nothing. Hey, instead of working, I cvan just wait for the notes and do nothing! There are always good excuses not to work, we have to fight them. Nothing ever gets done if we allow all of those good reasons not to work to get in the way of working.

So, Saturday I did a marathon writing day - and by 1:25am (Sunday) I had rewritten the first 69 pages of the script, not only shifting the POV so that another character was the lead, but writing the big scenes that made that character into the lead and adding some new suspense scenes that I really liked... but Sunday would be the big day - those last 20 pages or so, plus the pages that came before them.

Sunday I was originally going to go to this paperback book show way the hell out in the west valley, but most of the writers I wanted to see were not going to be there... so I decided to skip it and finish the rewrite.

One of the things I had done in Saturday’s rewrite was to create a whole new suspense element that threaded throughout the screenplay - and paid off in some of Sunday’s early scenes. Another thing I had to deal with was intensifying a scene that created a domino reaction in Sunday’s pages. Plus the POV change stuff. Some of the characters who died before made it to the end this time around - and that had to be set up... and some of the characters who made it until the end last time died this time around (so they wouldn’t be there to do some of the story/plot things that had to be done, and some other character would have to do those things... and those characters would have to be changed to be the kind of people who would do those things - and that’s a major character overhaul that changes everything. Almost every line of their dialogue and almost every action had to be changed.

When I broke for dunch (between dinner and lunch - maybe “linner” sounds better?) I sat down with those last 22 pages (printed out) and figured out how the new ending would work. Some of the scenes could be salvaged, just with different characters in them (since the other folks were dead). Some new scenes had to be written. But the biggest thing was that the *order* of the scenes was completely different. Oh, and since the POV shift thing - a different character was the “hero” and a different character was the “love interest” and one of these characters had not survived before! But the romantic thing had to be wrapped up differently. I scribbled notes on the pages, along with arrows and cross outs and name changes... and by the time I had finished by dunch I knew what the last 20 pages or so would look like... now all I had to do is write them! Easy... not!

Just after midnight on Sunday (technically Monday) I had the rewrite finished. I did a final read through, caught 3 typos, made a decision to leave an iffy line of description, and e-mailed a copy for them to read first thing Monday morning.

I am happy with it - mostly due to some new suspense scenes I wrote Saturday that are "Hitchcockian". This thing is like WAIT UNTIL DARK and REBECCA and SPIRAL STAIRCASE and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN all rolled into one...

But the moral of the story? Sometimes you have to do an enormous amount of work in a limited amount of time and you can’t wait for inspiration - you have to learn to inspire yourself. For me, the hardest part is getting started. Once I get going, I get into the story and characters and get excited about figuring out how to fix that next scene. But I have to push myself for a while - and write even though I’d rather do something else (anything else). You have to learn how to give yourself that push - and get enough momentum going that you get into that writing groove... even though you may not feel like it. Screenwriting is a job where you might have plenty of time to write the first few drafts and then some insane deadline to do the rewrite they are actually going to film. In this case, most of the “work” was getting myself off my lazy butt and into that rewrite. I could have done some work on Friday, but thought I’d just wait for the notes... and mostly goofed off all day!

Today I’m “goofing off” writing this, when I’m supposed to be working on another script project. It’s easy to lose the momentum and watch the latest YouTube video where Hitler has problems with Rebecca Black’s FRIDAY song and blows his top... but we have to self-motivate and get those pages done! Especially if we have plenty of time to write that first draft.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Be Indispensible - what makes you a good employee at your day job makes you a good writer.
Dinner: Subway - tuna melt.
Pages: Didn't make my 5 pages on Monday, but did some work over the weekend.
Bicycle: New bike - hardly ridden! It's been raining every day in Los Angeles. Monday it didn't rain, but was cloudy and muddy. Plan to ride Tuesday.
Movies: LIMITLESS and LINCOLN LAWYER and 2 others in the cinema we'll discuss later... when they are released.

Lancelot Link Thursday

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who wonder if there's a movie on the Planet Of The Apes that ends with Cornelius discovering a monkey version of the Statue Of Liberty buried on the beach, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) Fans vs. Suits and the fate of the film biz.

2) Ben Hecht's CASINO ROYALE?

3) Simpsons Jokes Per Episode Chart.

4) Famous Objects From Classic Movies Game.

5) First review of THE BEAVER!

5) This is the first car chase I have ever posted starring Chuck Norris... I know - this brings my masculinity into question. But there is a fruit cart!



Also, probably the only car chase where the driver is wearing a *sweater vest*!

- Bill

Do It Yourself!

My article in the current issue of Script Magazine is about my project to make my own film for pocket change later this year. We've come to a point where you really can make your own movie or TV series for an affordable amount of money... and I'm going to do that, and maybe crash and burn and look like an idiot.

My friend Carlos, who took my big 2 day class the first time I did it in the USA has been writing screenplays over the years and decided to make his own web series. He has shot his first two episodes and posted them... and one of his actresses was nominated for an award for her work in the series!

Here's a link to the show: LAS TUNDAS OF THE VALLEY. Check it out!

This ties in to yesterday's blog entry about the Get Off Your Ass And Do Something pill - Carlos took that pill and now has a webseries.

- Bill

Women's Day (not to be confused with DAY OF THE WOMAN)

One of my favorite directors had breasts.

Before Kathryn Bigelow directed a bunch of kick ass action movies, there was a hot actress from the early 1930s who played babes, but seemed more interested in edgy roles and ended up in some great crime films like THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT playing the femme fatale. She was versatile, and could play almost any role - from innocent sweethearts to mean bitches to vulnerable blind girls and *anything* in between. After starring in a bunch of great films where she stole the show from stars like Humphrey Bogart and Richard Widmark and Edward G. Robinson, at the end of the 1940s she decided to take control of her career and *did not* re-sign with Warner Brothers. She was smart and ambitious... but also no longer in her 20s.

Someone's video valentine to Lupino from YouTube. You can see how versatile she was be all of the different "looks" she had:



She starred in one of my favorite movies (THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT) - I have the original poster folded up in a box somewhere. If you haven't seen this one, check it out. The story's about a couple of long-haul truckers, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, just trying to earn a living. Bogart's the family man, and (SPOLIER!!!) about a third of the way into the movie gets into a horrible truck crash and gets his arm ripped off - spends the rest of the movie with only one arm. Raft stumbles into Noir territory when he manages a trucking company owned by Lupino's husband... and she is not happily married. There's a cool murder-by-automatic-garage-door-opener (really!). Here's a scene where Raft is torn between the nice girl he loves and manipulative Lupino:

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940)



Okay, Lupino's experiment being a non-contract player star isn't going exactly as planned - she's getting less work for less money. But she's smart. She starts writing screenplays - and selling them. The director of one of her screenplays NOT WANTED (1949) - about baby snatching - gets sick... and Lupino jumps in and finishes the film. And does a great job. This leads to work as a director - though mostly on B crime films. Except, that's what she's good at. She knows how to film action and suspense and make a film that really kicks ass! So she's now a triple threat - she is writing action films like PRIVATE HELL 36 (directed by the great Don Siegel) and directing great action and thriller films like THE HITCHHIKER and still acting in movies like:

WOMEN'S PRISON (1955)



Okay, before WOMEN'S PRISON she starred in this next one, directed by the great Nicholas Ray, where she plays a blind woman who kind of redeems a *very* violent cop. Oh, and when Ray got sick, Lupino took over and directed until he was back on his feet. This is one of my favorite films, with a great Bernard Herrmann score. The YouTube clips can not be embedded, but click on the links and check them out.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952)

Trailer for ON DANGEROUS GROUND.

Scene from ON DANGEROUS GROUND with blind Lupino and violent cop Robert Ryan meeting for the first time. Oh, her brother is the killer he's chasing - and he tends to shoot first, and when the alleged perp is dead, read them their rights. So, this ain't gonna be a smooth romance.

Next, here's a clip from a movie she co-wrote with her husband (Collier Young) and directed 100% of, that is a great example of a contained thriller that doesn't seem contained. A ton of suspense is generated when two guys on a fishing trip pick up a hitchhiker who may or may not be a psycho killer on the run. The film is mostly 3 guys either in a car or at a camp site out in the middle of nowhere. There's an insane suspense scene at a campsite in the middle of nowhere - the psycho killer has a gun on the two guys... as they wait for him to fall asleep so they can escape. But is he really asleep? Or just pretending?

THE HITCHHIKER (1953)



Lupino has 8 screenwriting credits on IMDB and 41 movies or TV series she directed. Usually multiple episodes of the TV shows (9 episodes of THRILLER, 8 episodes of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, etc.) She is the only woman to direct a TWILIGHT ZONE episode (THE MASKS) and directed a bunch of TV episode for action shows like THE FUGITIVE and THE UNTOUCHABLES... and GILLIGAN'S ISLAND! But where I fell in love with her as a director - the Boris Karloff Presents THRILLER show, where she was one of the "staff directors" in rotation. This show was like the HITCHCOCK PRESENTS show (in fact, shared many of the same key crew members and was shot at the same studio for the same company). When I was a kid, the show was re-run in the afternoon after I got home from school, and was just great stuff. My favorite episode was GUILLOTINE, based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich and directed by Ida Lupino. Your head will explode from the suspense!

Period France: Man convicted of murdering the husband of some babe he was sleeping with is waiting for his execution day, by guillotine. There is an unwritten law that if the executioner dies, all of the people he was supposed to kill that day are pardoned. There's no back up executioner, and you can't just let a janitor do it. So our killer-hero has the hot babe whose husband he killed, seduce the executioner and poison him the night before the execution. But the executioner is a big man, and instead of dying, he's just sick. Terminally sick, but heading to the prison to do his job before he dies! And the episode cuts between the executioner struggling to make his appointment with our killer-hero... and the killer-hero getting his last meal and the guards testing the guillotine on heads of cabbage and the killer-hero telling the priest he expects a miracle. The suspense just keeps building until you can't stand it anymore. When I was a kid, I immedeately wanted to know who wrote that story and who directed that episode.

And the answers were Cornell Woolrich, and the great director Ida Lupino... who happened to be a woman.

Direceted 41 movies and TV series (multiple episodes). She died in 1995.

- Bill

Class Movie Suggestions

For the first time in about 5 years I'm doing my class in the USA (Los Angeles) and will use my new "Thematic" method to break down 5 films in the class - I have selected 3 films, but need 2 more.

What I am looking for are recent popular films (made within the past 10 years) that I can use as examples of theme. What are your suggestions?

- Bill

SCRIPT SECRETS: THE BIG IDEA is an INTENSIVE two day course - screenwriting stripped of the theoretical nonsense! This is the "classic class" - starting with finding an amazing idea - the kind that makes producers salivate! Then we'll go step-by-step from blank page to the big screen and show you how to create great characters from that idea, plus solid techniques to improve your dialogue, create lean-mean-evocative description, flesh out your story and improve screenwriting abilities! Plus a section on selling your script!

April 16 & 17, 2011
Burbank Airport Marriott - Producer's Room.

Click For More Info.

- Bill

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Emotional Openings and those NARNIA movies.
Dinner: Leftover Chinese food.
Pages: Poked around on a spec when I should have been working on this rewrite (assignment).
Bicycle: New bike, not much riding. Weather is the major reason - it's cold, has been rainy, and I had a cross-town meeting. Hard to get back on the bike when you are freezing.

Please Stop Dying!

RIP: Jane Russell.

Some of my favorites:



HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951) opposite Robert Mitchum, directed by the great John Farrow. Odd crime film that takes place in a Baja resort where gangster Raymond Burr is trying to force ultra-cool gambler Mitchum to get back into the United States without the law finding out about it. Mitchum's in love with singer Russell - but is she part of the scheme or not? Kind of breezy, loose plot that almost feels like a comedy at times.



MACAO (1952) again opposite Robert Mitchum with the great Josef Von Sterberg directing. Again, Russell plays a singer - this time on a ship to Macao where she has a night club gig. Mitchum is living in exile in Macao and his only way back to the USA is to take down a crime syndicate... which owns the night club Russell is singing in. And this is one of the William Bendix/Mitchum movies.

DARKER THAN AMBER (1970) based on a John D. MacDonald novel, with Rod Taylor playing Travis McGee and Thedore Bikel playing Meyer and Robert Clouse (ENTER THE DRAGON) directing. Russell plays The Alabama Tigress - a neighbor of McGee's who was a man in the books... but she plays the role perfectly even though she's a woman. This film is not on DVD, and hard to find anywhere without being cut down to nada. It's one of those kick-ass action flicks from the 70s that was neutered for TV... and the theatrical version seems not to exist any more.

But those are the movies of Jane Russell's that *I* love, she's best known for:




THE OUTLAW (1943) - the risque western directed by Howard Hughes about Pat Garrett starring Janes Russell's boobs (the poster shows her with cleavage reclined in hay... almost offering a roll in it) - she plays Billy The Kid's girlfriend.




THE PALEFACE (1948) - quasi remake of the Keaton short starring Bob Hope, with Russell playing Calamity Jane.

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) with that other pair, Marilyn Monroe, as a pair of singers who leave their boring lives behind to become sensations in Paris... and find love along the way. Plus the sequel - GENTLEMEN MARRY BRUNETES with Jeane Crain instead of Marilyn.

The other RIP is Gary Winick, producer of a bunch of films and founder of InDigEnt films - which made indie films on digital formats for pocket change with biog name stars who just wanted to act in a movie where they weren't replaced by CGI every other scene. He produced and directed TADPOLE with Sigorney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth and Ron Rifkin and John Ritter at a cost of $250k - and if you haven't seen it, it's a great little film! He made TAPE and PERSONAL VELOCITY and PIECES OF APRIL and many others - and even though I don't like everything he produced, he gave a voice to filmmakers who we would never have heard of without InDigEnt. As a director he made 13 GOING ON 30 and CHARLOTTE'S WEB and LETTERS TO JULIET and many others. He was 49 years old - too young to die. But he leaves behind many cool indie films. He'll be missed.

- Bill

Who *Should* Have Won?

Here are the nominees and the winners... but who should have won?

BEST PICTURE
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
WINNER: The King’s Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year, written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter, Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; 
Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception, written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right, written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
WINNER: The King’s Speech, Screenplay by David Seidler

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours, Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
WINNER: The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3, Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit, written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone, adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
WINNER: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
WINNER: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit
David Fincher, The Social Network
WINNER: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
David O. Russell, The Fighter

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
WINNER: Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
WINNER: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan, Matthew Libatique
WINNER: Inception, Wally Pfister
The King’s Speech, Danny Cohen
The Social Network, Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit, Roger Deakins

BEST ART DIRECTION
WINNER: Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
Happy Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1, Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
Inception, Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Doug Mowat
The King’s Speech, Eve Stewart, Judy Farr
True Grit, Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

BEST EDITING
127 Hours, Jon Harris
Black Swan, Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter, Pamela Martin
The King’s Speech, Tariq Anwar
WINNER: The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Alice in Wonderland, Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1, Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter, Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
WINNER: Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2, Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
WINNER: Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood
I Am Love, Antonella Cannarozzi
The King’s Speech, Jenny Beaven
The Tempest, Sandy Powell
True Grit, Mary Zophres

BEST MAKEUP
Barney’s Version, Adrien Morot
The Way Back, Eduoard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk, Yolanda Toussieng
WINNER: The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

BEST SOUND EDITING
WINNER: Inception, Richard King
Toy Story 3, Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
TRON: Legacy, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit, Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable, Mark P. Stoeckinger

BEST SOUND MIXING
WINNER: Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick
The King’s Speech, Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen, and John Midgley
Salt, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan, and William Sarokin
The Social Network, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, and Mark Weingarten
True Grit, Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter F. Kurland

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
127 Hours, A.R. Rahman
How to Train Your Dragon, John Powell
Inception, Hans Zimmer
The King’s Speech, Alexandre Desplat
WINNER: The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

BEST SONG
“Coming Home,” Country Strong, Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light,” Tangled, Alan Menken, Glenn Slater
“If I Rise,” 127 Hours, A.R. Rahman, Dido, Rollo Armstrong
WINNER: “We Belong Together,” Toy Story 3, Randy Newman

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Hors la Loi (Outside the Law) (Algeria)
Incendies (Canada)
WINNER: In a Better World (Denmark)
Dogtooth (Greece)
Biutiful (Mexico)

BEST ANIMATED FILM
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
WINNER: Toy Story 3

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz
Gasland, Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
WINNER: Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Restrepo, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land, Lucy Walker and Angus Aynley

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
The Confession, Tanel Toom
The Crush, Michael Creagh
WINNER: God of Love, Luke Matheny
Na Wewe, Ivan Goldschmidt
Wish 143, Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
WINNER: Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
Sun Come Up, Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger
The Warriors of Qiugang, Ruby Yang and Thomas Lenno

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Day & Night, Teddy Newton
The Gruffalo, Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
Let’s Pollute, Geefwee Boedoe
WINNER: The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary), Bastien Dubois

So, who got robbed?

- Bill

Lancelot Link Thursday

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who think 12 MONKEYS would have been better with an additional monkey, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...



Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) 5 Hollywood Secrets That Explain Why Movies Suck! (you already knew one of them)

2) How to *Guarentee* your sit-com gets cancelled!

3) Oscar Winning Screenwriter Vs. Scientology - also tons of backstory on Paul Haggis.

4) 11 Biggest Movie Flops Of All Time - I didn't write *any* of them!

5) Aaron Sorkin on Screenwriting.

6) And today's car chase...



Okay, it's a boat chase... but I'm slowly easing you into accepting the Big Wheel Chase clip I have.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: When The Hero Runs Out Of Time and a couple of Denzel films.
Dinner: Airport food.
Pages: Travel day.

Script Secrets Class: Los Angeles

It's been almost 5 years since I last did my 2 day class in the USA! I've been busy writing, but done it in London and Hong Kong and Denmark. But now I'm bringing it back to Los Angeles...

SCRIPT SECRETS: THE BIG IDEA is an INTENSIVE two day course - screenwriting stripped of the theoretical nonsense! This is the "classic class" - starting with finding an amazing million dollar idea - the kind that makes producers salivate! Learn brainstorming techniques, how to tell the difference between a movie idea and a book or stage play idea. The basics of high concept. And how to kick-start your imagination.

This class is jam-packed with techniques to create great film ideas, then I'll take you step-by-step from black page to the big screen and show you how to create great characters from that idea. Learn how high concept can be *your* personal story. How to find theme within the concept. How to create amazing high concept scenes that actually *explore character*, plus solid techniques to improve your dialogue, create lean-mean-evocative description, flesh out your story and improve screenwriting abilities! Plus a section on selling your script!

Now with The Thematic - the most powerful screenwriting tool I've ever created! Start with a story idea or a character, and it will take you step-by-step, finding the perfect supporting characters, amazing dramatic scenes, dialogue that works on more than one level, actions that show emotional conflict, and more. Thematic uses your story's theme to generate the other elements of the story, creating the template for a tightly focused character and theme based screenplay. This is not a machine or a formula, but a unique way to look at writing your screenplay.

For 2011 we'll be using the movie GHOST as our primary example, with clips from that film as well as NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE MATRIX, AIRPLANE, THE BIG SLEEP and DILLINGER.

April 16 & 17, 2011
Burbank Airport Marriott - Producer's Room.
Register TODAY!
Only $249

Click For More Info.

Yes, this is spammish - sorry! I finally booked the hotel and wanted to get the word out to people who have asked about the class.

- Bill

Lancelot Link Thursday

Either 1 day late or 6 days early! Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who wonder why your waitress has hairy legs... and a hairy back, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent's waiter brother...



Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) Movie Posters for remakes we wish were true!

2) The Coen Brothers Screenwriting Secrets Revealed!

3) Real James Bond era Spy Gadgets!

4) Time Out's 100 Best British Films - with an upset! The BFI's #1 film is pushed to #2 by another thriller!

5) What if David Lynch directed the Superbowl?

6) This week's Car Chase is from a Luc Besson movie...



I watched this film on VHS back in the day and thought it was crazy... but fun. Wonder what else this guy has made?

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: How To Study A Screenplay .
Dinner: Fish & Chips at what has to be the last remaining H. Salt Esq - in NoHo. Place ain't cheap! Greasy fast food - over $10.
Pages: Yes - a great scene yesterday. Still way behind, but you will cry every 15 minutes when reading this script!

Chain Gang Escape

Almost three years ago (beginning of May 2008) I bought a bicycle and began riding again. Though there were many reasons, the main one was because I was fat and not in great health. I needed to get some regular exercise, and riding a bike from coffee shop to coffee shop not only kept the blood circulating, it was also a great way to think about the next scene while I was cycling there. I have lost weight, am in better health, and know how to quickly put my bike on the front rack of a city bus without tearing my hand off...

But Saturday, someone else was riding my bike - it was stolen.

The real pisser is that I had just changed the rear tire and tube - and that’s a bitch to do. Had I known the bike was going to be stolen, I would have left it as it.

So I have to buy a new bike.

The pisser is that the bike was locked, at a public place where it shouldn’t have been stolen, and there were other, better, bikes parked nearby that were not stolen. My friend Mark had his bike parked next to mine, and they didn’t steal his.

Sometimes life is like that. I may have blogged about my general bad luck in the past - a couple of years ago I was standing with some other folks in line to get into a screening and a bird pooped on my head. Just me. No one else got pooped on. Now, maybe I slighted this bird sometime in the past, who knows. But when something like that happens, even though you know it’s completely random, you begin to buy into those bird conspiracy theories. To feel like you’re getting screwed and everyone else is not (well, they don’t have bird poop on *their* heads). But the reality is just that bird poop happens. It’s not personal. Best to just shake it off and keep going.

I talked to my friend Mark about the bike theft - and he’s had several stolen as well. Sometimes you can have the greatest lock in the world, and they use freon to freeze it and smash it and steal your bike. You can’t kick yourself for not having a better lock, and you can’t go around blaming everyone for your missing bike... and you can’t be paranoid that evil bike thieves are following you everywhere just waiting to get your new bike. Just have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to your life.

The good news is: soon I will have a new bike.

- Bill

Avoid TV in the UK Today...

Wow - it's playing all week! They still have the synopsis wrong, but the film sucks - so who would ever notice?




- Bill