Swapping Favors

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I will be directing my very own short film sometime later this summer (or fall, depending on my cashflow!). She's a producer (no aspirations to write, direct, act or become a manager) so we had a great discussion about how I can get it done. She brought up a ton of very specific no-budget issues, and then called me back three days later to ask me if I would write a short for a friend of hers. We talked about a couple of ideas and I pitched one which is actually a scene from a feature I wrote the treatment for a couple of years ago. Long and short: we're location scouting on Saturday. What the hell is wrong with me? Don't I have enough to do already???!!! Goodness.

Anywho, I got all excited because the filmmaker has an actor who I really dig, free equipment and a commercial fishing boat down in San Pedro Harbor. Now, if you ever meet me you will laugh your ass off, because despite my urbane appearance I am always put myself in these outrageous situations for the sake of "experience." I've been to bomb-scenes with news crews waiting to see if anything blew up, met with DEA agents, been on the scene of a gang shootout while the bullets were flying.... You get the picture. Like a good producer, my friend knew the way to my heart: A hot guy and a dangerous, dirty location. What girl could resist that? :-)

Aside from an extra 50 hours worth of work (yes, I really do estimate how many hours I would spend on a project, just like an attorney) I'm using this to get a nice little sample (not really something that will get me a job, but when I was an exec I read shorts if I was on the fence about a new writer, but didn't have time to read a longer sample to see if it was worth a meeting), and to road-test my friend as a producer. If I like the way she works on this one, think that we would work well together when I'm directing (I anticipate being emotionally high-maintenance and she's pretty no-nonsense) then I may ask her to produce my short when I've finished the script.

In the meantime, I'm nearly done with the third draft of the short and will be sending it out by the weekend to various interested parties. Then I'm going to get back to work on my other writing project (book, script) and take my dog to the dang dog park for five hours so he can leave me alone!!