Triple Digits

The heat out here is killing me. The dog is sleeping in the bathroom, and I'm stuck inside, typing. Producing on days like this is so much better -- I go to the beach with a script and my cell phone, call some poor hapless writer and give him notes on the third act. Invite him out for Mojitos when the pages are finished.... Mmm, the good old days.

Anyway, my self-imposed purgatory yielded two completed shorts, and a good chunk of second act for my feature, so I'm going to dive back in this weekend. I'm doing a "polish" on an indie film for a friend (for free, of course, cuz why would I want to work for money???) tomorrow -- all the free frappuccinos I can suck down and an a/c'd office for the weekend. Heaven.

The agent emailed me Wednesday to ask if I thought I'd be done with the samples I'm working on sooner (sooner!! Is he NUTS??!!) and a writer-friend emailed me to say that she is almost done with hers (we started at the same time). So, now I'm cutting myself off from the internet as well in the name of sanity.

Last thing: I'm going to wrap up the agent posts by talking about actually submitting to agents, approaches that work, and how to do good follow-up (i.e. do NOT follow my example and submit before you are REASONABLY SURE you can turn in the other samples without having a nervous breakdown).

OK, last last thing: I heard back from a studio friend of mine regarding the director's sample for my producing project. Too commercial to be indie, too indie to be commercial, but intriguing enough for a read of the feature. Hmmm, that's what I was afraid of/hoping for. Sometimes a filmmaker's natural inclination is to tell stories that are, at best, small indie films and their visual style lends itself to bigger budgeted commercial films. That's fine when you have a bigger budgeted commercial script, but when you are trying to get a small specialty label on the hook with your itty bitty movie idea, you really want them to feel like they are getting in on the ground floor of the next Chris Nolan. For me, as a producer, it means I've got to now find: an actor who feels like a "big" commercial actor who can hold the center of an indie film (meaning he can actually act) at a "price" that won't bankrupt me and make all my work add up to $1.50 an hour.

Enough with the stalling, I'm going to click my ruby slippers get back to Kansas and finish writing. Pray for me.....