The Film Diva

Coming Around the Mountain...

2011-05-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

A very short post. I haven't abandoned the blog just had to reprioritize my writing to get more work on the book finished. I've been working loosely with a manager-friend the last few months, but mostly focused on getting a spec finished and hammering out the end the novel. It's slow going right now, but between my travels, moving, packing and hawking my (writing) wares I'm beat. I'm working up a post about creating competing agendas for one's characters. Something that goes a bit beyond talking about antagonists and protagonists.

In my own work, I tend to like anti-heroes and a lot of times I write characters who could be considered "evil", but that I like to think of as misunderstood. :-) Might be autobiographical issues at work here. LOL. Anyway, I'm doing what I can and hope to get the blog back up and running as soon as I'm settled and not living out of a suitcase.

Happy writing!

BREAKING INTO HOLLYWOOD PT 1: SAMPLES

2010-04-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

I'm deep into the novel right now. The TV pilot I wrote last fall is out to producers and I'm getting some positive and some not-so-positive-but-don't-stop-writing-just-maybe-do-another-draft types of comments back. It's hard not to stop and go back to the pilot, but until I get answers back from the three big production companies that I'm most interested in, I've vowed to work on the book.

Hard to sit on my hands and not second-guess this plan, but it's important to stick with the plan, at least until it's clear that a course correction is necessary... which is what led me to this blog post.

What does it take to get some attention in this town?

I've blogged about this before (here, here, and a couple other places I'm too lazy to find. LOL) but now I'm going to get back into the nitty gritty of what types of samples, the numbers, the quality, the subject matter, all the good stuff that we, as writers, fumble around trying to figure out... sometimes for years. **Le Sigh**

Samples:

You need 'em. Don't disillusion yourself into thinking you can move out here with a hope and a pitch.

NOBODY IS BUYING PITCHES.

Those pitches you read about in the trades, or hear about on some blog somewhere, those pitches aren't real. They don't exist. They are FANTASY PITCHES. In today's marketplace, there may well be an idea or two IN A GIVEN YEAR that sells based entirely on its "hotness", but the vast majority of buyers are holding out for a package, an engine, something they can put their money on and defend around that long table, or maybe just to their boss, or their boss's boss. This means that even though a writer may not have a completed script, the pitches that are being purchased nowadays are essentially ready to go to script once the deal is inked. Sure, there might be some perfunctory passing around of outlines, etc. once the ball is rolling, but for the most part, buyers are demanding, and getting, fully worked out stories. This means a LOT of work has been put in before feet hit pavement.

It wasn't always like this, and for certain market segments there is some leeway, but for you, the novice writer, or maybe mid-career writer who is changing formats (TV to Film) or genres, the pitch without a celebrity attachment is basically just another way to work on spec 3-6 months and then face outlining on spec for 3 more months if people are interested, and THEN finally getting paid to draft... at which point you've listened to a lot of cooks tell you how to make the soup. Unappetizing if you ask me.

All of this assumes, of course, that you have at least ONE high-quality sample -- preferably one that's been purchased and/or produced -- but a well-liked spec can get you in the door for the meeting that leads to the opportunity to pitch -- again, more free work you are giving away but some folks like to do that....

There are a lot of fair to middling folks out there in development land. They will believe that your sample is the second coming. DO NOT TRUST THEM. You're sample may well BE the second coming, trumpets, horseman, many-headed beasts, the whole nine, KEEP WRITING. As writers, we have the unique advantage of being able to make more acreage. If you have a sample that gets a strong response, great, it will make selling your next script easier. A writer's power lies in the ability to generate and execute story. At some point, a buyer will realize that you are an endless supply of ideas that have been committed to paper in script form, and will reward you with a wonderful overhead deal like the ones enjoyed by the big A-List writers (who are coincidentally all White men, but that's a post for another day...). Until that deal is signed, KEEP WRITING.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but, seriously, KEEP WRITING. Write script after script. When your newly acquired agents call you to pitch job opportunities, imagine their delight when you tell them you have another script that will be ready soon. Trust me, they will piss themselves with delight. As will your producer friends who have just found a nice foreign financier and need something to wrap a check around.

WHAT SHOULD YOU BE WRITING?

Hmm... it's pretty late and I have a chapter to finish, so I'm going to leave off here and write a lengthier post after I talk to a few folks. Remember: KEEP WRITING.

Writing... pitching... Happy Holidays!

2009-12-16T10:42:00.001-08:00

I've been hard at work these last few months, so, even though I vowed to keep blogging here, I've fallen off. Eek, please forgive me!

Right now I'm finishing up a TV pilot spec. That's all the rage right now for those of you out there trying to break into the TV business. The one I'm working on is a premium cable show idea and I'm planning to shop it directly once it's completed. The curse and the advantage of having been a producer is that I'm unwilling to hand it over and wait by the phone for someone else to figure out how to do the selling. :-)

I've learned quite a bit over the last year and half working on various TV projects (those that lived and those that didn't). Feel free to post questions in the comments and I will answer or get answers.

And Happy holidays!

Still Alive and Kicking... barely

2009-09-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

I do still check in on the blog from time to time, I just haven't felt moved to write very much. There's a glut of blogs out there sort of "covering" the topics I'm interested in, and doing a much much better job. I guess I just felt redundant. LOL.

I've been doing less freelance work this past year. A lot less. I wanted to push myself to finish the novel and get a few other personal things completed. I'm gearing up for another push this fall (after the High Holies) but took the entire summer to lay low and rest. I wrote a couple of scripts last spring (one for freelance $$ and one as a TV sample) and I have to finish a feature spec that I pitched out last spring (got some interest but no sale). I'm not that exciting right now.

I have been working on a few ideas about craft that I'll post here. I've done a bunch of reading over the summer, specs, novels, novels-in-progress, etc. and a note that keeps coming up again and again is: what is this piece about? I have some thoughts on how to keep all of that straight while writing, and also, I thought I'd write a piece about critique -- how to give it, how to take it, and when you shouldn't look for any but keep your head down and keep pounding out the pages.

For now, just know that I'm out here. Writing, reading, producing. I hope you are too.

RIP Paul Newman

2008-09-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning and read the news.

WESTPORT, Conn., Sept 27, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Remembering the life and legacy of Paul Newman, Newman's Own Foundation has issued a statement. The statement, from Vice-Chairman Robert Forrester, follows:

"Paul Newman's craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.

"Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one's life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.

One of my favorite Newman movies is the infamous HUD. I'm going to do a Newman fest tonight. Cheers, Paul, for a life well lived!

Isaac Hayes has passed on...

2008-08-10T15:33:00.001-07:00

Singer, songwriter Isaac Hayes dies at age 65 - Yahoo! News

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. He was 65.
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A family member found him unresponsive near a treadmill and he was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was not immediately known.

I was also going to post a blog about the Mac Man, Bernie Mac, but this caught me off-guard. My condolences to both families.

Live From Abbey Road

2008-08-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Just checking in -- I promised I'd write more frequently, I didn't promise there'd be anything revelatory. :-)

I'm watching Live from Abbey Road with Def Leppard. Oh man, what a great Saturday. Reminds me of being a teenager.

Foreign Markets

2008-07-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

I still haven't made it out to see DARK KNIGHT. I know, I suck. I'm probably going to go tomorrow morning or afternoon. I was in Tahoe last week with my writing group working on the novel. It's going pretty well, but there are still tons of things to do. Anyway, as I work on my pitch document for this remake idea, I've been thinking a lot about foreign market concerns.

The reality is that the movie business is 60-80% driven by foreign financiers who are purchasing rights for sale overseas. Movies that don't have a strong foreign appeal are far less likely to be purchased and greenlit. What are the elements for a globally-appealing film?

First and foremost, genre. Action films don't require very much by way of translation. Sub-genres like heist films, gangster movies, detective stories, thrillers or horror films are all solid bets. As an artist, it's important to keep these things in mind when deciding to spec out a story, since you're spending months at a time on something with no idea where the market will be once you complete it. Also a strong genre sample helps a baby writer to get re-write gigs.

Movie stars run a very close second to genre. Most films are marketed with pictures of the lead actors on the poster. These actors do not have to be stars in the US, in fact, when casting is done on films supporting roles are often re-written, or created with specific foreign stars in mind.

Budget -- the US is still the only country that creates mammoth spectaculars like DARK KNIGHT as a matter of course. Studios sell of pieces of films (usually as part of a slate) to foreign financiers, but very few foreign financiers venture into the blockbuster movie-making business themselves (and, yes, I know about CHRONICLES OF NARNIA and ERAGON, but those are specific cases that have strong US executive elements driving them). This means that another important element is understanding the budgeting process and what different talent elements will bring in terms of a market return.

All of which is way down the road for me and my little pitch document. I'm still doing competitive research reading and trying to decide if I'll bring in a writer or writer/director before I go back in to visit the studio.....

Howdy, Strangers!

2008-07-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

I've been busy. Working. Writing. And vacationing.

The last few years I've been really focused on writing, and learning to write, and haven't really generated any producing projects to speak of -- other than the ones that have fallen into my lap I've mostly just been collecting ideas. Well, this fall I've decided I'll try my hand at setting up a few things and see how I feel about diving back into that end of the business. Baby steps.

My first effort is towards acquiring the rights to a film that was made about 30 years ago. I'll keep you posted if it works out. I've contacted the rights holder and am waiting to hear back if there's any interest. If there is I'll write up a sales document -- basically a 1-2 page story idea which details my "take" on the re-telling and see if that gets any traction. If it does then I'll find an "element" (writer, director, actor or, given the state of the business, a financier) and walk into one of these big friendly agencies (*snark*) and give up a few percentages of my speculatively nice fee to have a package put together.

I think I've written about packaging before, so I won't go into the details of it here, but suffice to say that it is the best and worst thing to happen to the producing side of things since the studios were all sold to conglomerates and greenlight decisions started being affected by stock prices.

I'm planning to do a few book and short story options as well. *Sigh* It sucks to be working alone, so I'm hoping to find someone to partner up with, either another "creative" type or someone who really is just trying to produce. That would be nice since I hate all the paper-pushing that goes along with the job.

OK, last part of the update (and I promise my next post will be a real post, not this information dump) I recently started meeting with a group of kick-ass screenwriters, all relative newbies, and it's been great. The pace is fast which is part of the reason I joined the group, and we turn in pages every week. Some of these guys are turning scripts around in 1-2 weeks which is intimidating since I'm an unrepentant chiseler-in-stone type of wordsmith, but I thought it would be a good idea to pick up on the habits of people who can pour the pages out. I've learned a tremendous amount just talking to these guys and I can feel the studio story-development plaque shaking free. :-)

I'm off to the gym, trying to get my sexy back (still) after a long, lazy winter. Or two. LOL.

Story Ideas

2008-03-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

What the hell is going on in Germany? I just read an article about two soldiers who were caught soliciting the blood of their comrades for sausage making. The nutty part is that they were caught because the soldier they had solicited went to his CO not to complain or alert him, but to find out if it was against regulations. Umm, how about being against common standards of decency and good sense? Or hygiene? I had chicken sausage for lunch so this particular story has got my stomach roiling.

It's also one of those insane crazy, real-life-is-batshit-nuttier-than-fiction stories that can serve as a good springboard. I immediately started thinking what kind of movie/TV/novel/short fiction framework would this work in? How could you get around the farcical nature of the premise (soliciting blood from your friends to make sausage)? What kind of people would read a recipe that called for blood and assume it called for human blood? Who would get a request like this from a friend? Who would hear a request like this and not vomit in their mouth immediately? What was the reaction of the CO who heard the request? What about the others who HAD given blood? And those who had been asked and refused?

After a while, a little narrative builds up: THE POISONER'S HANDBOOK meets DUMB AND DUMBER or STRIPES meets TRAINSPOTTERS (because these guys had to be on some kind of hallucinogen, right?). I start thinking about who these two guys are, or maybe who the CO is, or the girlfriend of one of the guys who refused who's been looking for a way to off him and has found the perfect patsies. Then I start thinking about how the ending would work, what kind of set-up would it take to get there? Are there a couple of good twists that could make this ride worth taking?

Then, the market concerns -- how big a movie is it? Is anybody making off-beat character movies like this right now? If so, what kind? Are they star-driven projects or is the studio trying to get in them for low dollars and might be willing to buy a pitch or spec and then put it together.

Now I'm thinking about how I want to work on the project. Is it something I want to write myself? Is it something I think I can get a writer for? An established writer or a rookie? What agencies should I go to? Should I partner with a manager?

And the most important question: What rights do I need to pursue this? [There's a long post somewhere in here about story rights that's been covered more effectively on sites like FindLaw so I won't embarrass myself here (that's what the attorney earns that fee for, right?).]

Once you start the brainstorming process, you can find yourself far afield of the original story, so I don't worry about the rights until I get to the point where I'm selling. Most studios don't mind a little outlay for story rights. It's a place to "hang your hat" that protects the rights to a true-life story from someone coming in later and claiming they submitted a story that is exactly the same as yours. The flip side is you don't want to have a competing project based on your idea that either already has the rights to the underlying material or has been specced out when you're holding a pitch.

This has happened to me on at least one occasion -- I actually had someone hear I was pitching a story inspired by an article, this producer went out and optioned the article, brought in a writer who was on my short list to rough out a pitch, sold it to a studio I was meeting with later in the week, then turned around and offered to bring ME on as a producer. Uhmm, no thanks, but I appreciate all the hard work and remind me to never tease a pitch again.

Love You Jack!!

2008-03-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

Normally I'd put this on my other blog, but I can't take it seriously enough to do that. Jack Nicholson is hysterical. And that last quote has to be one of the most sexist endorsements I've ever heard in my life. RFLMAO.

The Craft of Development

2008-02-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

I recently met with a friend of mine to discuss a script. One of the main issues I've encountered, and the reason my friend called me up to ask for a read, is that it is difficult to navigate the development process on your own. Most folks will read your script and give you their impressions and overall concerns about a script. Some hardy souls will sit down with you and talk story, maybe give you some craft concerns to follow-up on, but rare is the reader who will really hang in and get you through the development from concept to spec. So, my friend and I agreed that we would exchange material and put in our full professional rigor to one another's projects.

When I give notes, I like to go through the entire script once with a pen and mark up my first impressions, then I sit down and write a memo of my impressions and possibly suggestions for springboards, then I go back over the script and pull out my page notes, type those up, sort them into categories and see how they relate back to the notes I started. Finally, I put the whole thing aside for a couple of days (or hours as the case may be), re-read the script (a clean copy with no notes on it) and mark it up again, then I re-read my notes and see if my impressions or understanding have changed and I make adjustments accordingly.

For the most part, this system leads to a lengthy meeting in which I go through the script page by page with the writer, we talk about theme, motive and intentions, the original vision for the story, what worked and what didn't, we talk about writing exercises that might help to unearth new story or character understandings, then we go through the writing strategy for the next draft. Sometimes you can skip parts of this -- especially if the writer's concerns were specific and can be directly addressed -- but most often it seems like you can skip this part, but really you need to push through until you see the words THE END.

This is the craft of development. At some point, you'll sense that the work is best viewed through the eyes of an actor and that's when it's time to set up a reading. I have a few casting director friends and actor friends that I call when I need to do this and then I get a theater rehearsal space or a stage and have at it. I don't worry too much about how close to the character the actor is, but I do try to work with actors who have training and have done stage work -- I'm sure I've mentioned this before.

Anyway, I'm reworking a spec this month which I will turn over to my friend for his notes and I have to get back to work on this indie script I'm working on for a friend. And the book still refuses to write itself. Damn it. :-)

Two of the women in my novel writing group have either sold or are on the verge of selling their books, so, while I am immensely proud of them, I'm looking at my collection of pages and desperately urging them to breed. I missed our big reading in December because I was overseas on a gig, but I did get a nice set of stationary from the bookstore (mmm, fancy), and I think we'll probably do a reading down here. I haven't read any of my own work in so long I'm terrified of the idea, but I'm fully committed to the writing lifestyle and I know this is part of it.

Home for the Holidays

2007-12-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

I made it back from my freelance gig alive. It will have to suffice to say I worked literally around the clock for 7 days straight, and now it is over. I had to buy a new computer because my old laptop -- despite sending out under the warranty twice -- finally stopped working. It was a Compaq which I got a great deal on, spent a couple hundred extra on the warranty and then had the whole thing fall to pieces within a 2 month period. I got about 36 months out of it, so I guess you get what you pay for, I just wish the ending hadn't been so spectacularly ill-timed.

I decided to take the plunge and shift to Mac. My printer is on its last legs and I have to replace almost all of my other office equipment within the next year anyway, so it seems like I might as well join 99% of the creative community. So far, I'm completely in love. I do not like the wonky sound my sleek new black MacBook makes whenever I put a DVD in the drive, but everything else is beautiful. And the keyboard is wonderful. After pounding away on that Compaq for 2 years I feel like a drunken sailor abusing this beautiful little thing. And I can see everything I type on the display. Marvelous. I just uploaded some pictures, no video yet, probably wait to do that until I set up the external hard drive and the extra monitor, but I'm eager to play with all the new toys on here. I feel like I already got my money's worth when I was traveling and someone tripped on my power cord on the plane and it just broke away from the computer instead of sending the whole thing crashing to the floor. Me and my seat-mate (another new Mac convert) just grinned at each other, shook our heads and said, "Now that's worth 2G's right there." Yes, I'm a big gadget nerd. I'll admit it. :-)

I'm going to go back to posting about production related issues in the new year. I've spent a lot of the last few months doing very low-budget indie work, and no-budget cable television stuff, so I'd like to get into that a bit and pick everyone's brains, and I'm starting to get inquiries and interest in doing webisode/mobile phone work from a few corporations that specialize in media. I recently pitched some work for mobile content to a company that has a lot of media content and they had some interesting things to say about rights clearances, etc. that hadn't come up in any of my creative discussions with folks, so I'm wondering if its because they are relatively new to internet media, or if this is an area of litigation and liability that is just catching up to the big media companies. Anyone who has insight, please feel free to post or email me.

Anyway, my writing group put on a reading last week which I wasn't able to attend. It went very well, I'm waiting for my tape, but I think we may do a few more in other cities. That's way more exciting to me than the prospect of another one of these freelance gigs -- I'm my own boss, I answer to no one and people listen to my suggestions and advice. :-) It's hard to be a Diva in today's world. All this free will nonsense going around.

Long Time, No Post

2007-12-11T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

I've officially past the halfway point in the novel! Yay! This was only accomplished by cutting myself off from reality for the last three weeks and now I'm craving human contact. The strike sucks, and I think will continue to do so for at least a few more weeks before it even starts to look better, and anyone who wants to maintain his or her sanity is focusing on "outside interests". Better blogs than this one have taken on this topical issue, so I'll just stick to the production and development stuff.

On that note, I'm currently heading overseas to produce and "direct" a little documentary. It's been a whirlwind three days which started on Saturday when I checked my voicemail for the first time in days. A friend of mine called to offer me a budgeting gig with a client, one thing led to another, and now I'm sitting here in a hotel room, bleary eyed, hacking away on my dying laptop. You gotta love your friends -- when I called her today to let her know the status, she started laughing when she realized the guys had actually contracted me for the work. This is one of those crazy jobs they make you sign an NDA for, nothing X-rated, but one which may die a quiet death in obscurity. I hope not, I really like the guys I'm working with, it's giving me a chance to employ some of my favorite people in a time when most folks aren't working, and I get per diem. Heh, heh, heh.

Anyway, unlike productions past I won't be able to share any details at all. If that changes I'll post some photos. In the meantime, some of my favorite advice with plenty of Tom Swifties thrown in: stay cool, especially when you're hot.

The Incredible Ron Rifkin

2007-11-14T17:39:00.000-08:00

Via the HuffPo blog of Jon Robin Baitz:

At one PM, Ron Rifkin and I walk away, and have some lunch. But not before
he explains to a French journalist, in perfect French, that he is here "because without the word, what is there?...There is nothing..." It is capped by a perfect Gallic shrug, as good as any Parisian who knows the truth is the truth is the truth. C'est la guerre.

WGA STRIKES!

2007-11-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Jim Henshaw has an excellent post which I think should be given consideration by everyone who cares a whit about the film business. I’m going to post it in it’s entirety here, and if Jim wants it down, please let me know and I’ll just excerpt it.

I think we’re still in early days with this. Folks have a vague notion of how their lives will be affected by the strike, but they haven’t really hunkered down inside it and had to make tough choices – rent or car note? Birthday gifts or gas money? Those days are coming. The only way for writers to come out ahead in this is to immediately effect the economics of the studios and networks. That only happens by galvanizing your base: viewers and fans. Since it’s clear that the AMPTP isn’t planning to go back to the table (and, yes, I’ve heard all these rumors of back-channel talks, and all I can say is if they aren’t above board, there’s something shady going down), writers need to immediately impact the jobs and economic security of the people on the other side. Fear runs both ways.

I also think it’s well past time to ally with the other unions in the country and get them on board with signs of support. Stickers, bracelets, you name it, it should be out there so that the strike calls attention to Corporate Greed versus Labor unions. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops, teamsters, they’re organized and should be called up and asked to show solidarity. I’ve heard directly from insiders that the studio executives believe the writers are foolish, naïve and short-sighted for striking. These guys don’t think there will be any progress made, and that if there is any concession, it will be nominal, meant to keep the WGA leadership from losing face.

I’m a military brat, so, to me, those are fighting words.

Anyway, here’s Jim’s excellent post:

Half of me is on strike and half isn't. Half goes to work every day and half doesn't. I'm a multi-hyphenate writer member of the WGA and the Writers Guild of Canada, producer and of late director. Explaining how I fragmented so much is far too complicated. To be honest, I don't fully understand it myself.

With the WGA on strike, my business in that realm is at a standstill. On the plus side, the long distance phone bill this month promises to be a little more manageable. On the WGC half, I can write for Canadian companies working in Canada and I'm fielding calls from Canadian producers trying to figure out how to profit from the current labor disruption and hoping I'll get aboard that train.

Not a chance.

There's much at stake in this WGA/AMPTP dispute and no matter how you frame it, doing anything but fully supporting the WGA is tantamount to helping the American media conglomerates gut our fellow writers -- and do the same to directors, actors and anybody else who works in film and television as soon as they finish with the scribes.

Big Media is in trouble. Oh, they've put a rosy face on things. All those recent acquisitions and mergers have allowed them to appear fat and happy at the bottom line. But the risk averse nature of the new corporate owners has gradually led to their TV audience dwindling. Repetitive styles and sequels do not make for a reliable source of steady cash at the box office. DVD sales have peaked. The Music business is in freefall and everybody seems to be going to the internet.
The internet is where the money and the future lies.

Only the corporations don't own or control the internet.

Yet.

Under the current system, the movie business is financed primarily by DVDs, followed by the box office and then sales to television and other distribution systems. Problem is that because of their own risk aversion and mismanagement, that money
isn't going to the studios that make the movies anymore. Global Media Intelligence in association with Merrill Lynch, just published a report concluding that much of the studio income (current and future) has already been alotted to the top stars, directors and producers in the form of participation deals. That's a share of the gross revenue, not just the profits, of a movie.

Major studios are now giving away as much as 25 percent of a film's receipts under these agreements. Some stars even get a share of the sales of popcorn and milk duds.
Industry-wide, the payout was $3 billion last year alone, with many of these players still making fortunes even when the films themselves lose money. It's a system that closely replicates the corporate structure of the companies controlling today's media; where obscene sums are paid to a few but at the expense of everyone else involved and imperiling the very business that could easily sustain them all.

In TV, the economic climate is just as bad because of the same level of greed and mismanagement. Last year, a relatively good one by all forms of measurement, the major networks still had to give back $200 Million to their advertisers in the form of "make goods"; meaning free commercial time to make good on promises of audience numbers that weren't delivered.

One week into the strike, late night ratings were down 30% and numbers in all time slots are expected to decline precipitously once current shows run out of original material.

The question is not only how much the nets will have to "make good" this season, but how much their advertising clients will be willing to offer up front in June to finance next year's pilots and series. The prevailing wisdom is -- a whole lot less than they did this year.

This mess is the result of stupidity. The whole system could easily be run better, creating a positive financial outcome for all concerned. But then all those concerned might leverage some creative control or ask for a share of income that better reflects their contribution and that just isn't allowed.

So Big Media's only hope to regain and retain the profit margins they've enjoyed to date is to break the unions and control content on the internet. But building the same stranglehold on creativity and distribution they've enjoyed up to now requires complete and absolute control of every penny flowing through that new media conduit.

If they break the writers, they'll move on to break SAG whose membership has both a shorter average professional career and a lower median income, making it harder for most SAG members to sustain any long term resistance. Directors, the smallest guild, would inevitably follow and that will be that.

The thin gruel that makes up the bulk of what's on television and available at the multiplex would now come to you online as well.

This isn't a battle between Big Media masquerading as Producers and a bunch of guys who write scripts. It's the opening salvo of a war over who can have a place in the media of tomorrow, It's also a reflection of the desperation of conglomerates whose only hope of creating shareholder value is through the complete elimination of all shared revenue streams and the subjugation of their workers.

So what can you do?

Being a thousand miles from the nearest picket line, I asked myself the same question and came up with a list. Here are 10 things you can do to support the striking writers of the WGA, their fellow artists and the countless others who provide you with your entertainment options.

1. STOP WATCHING AMERICAN TELEVISION. I'm not saying kick the TV habit. just stop watching anything created or broadcast by any of the BIG 6, Newscorp, Time Warner, GE, Viacom, Sony and MGM. That may mean watching CBC in Canada or a lot of tele-novellas stateside, but you'll survive and you might even find something you like. If you must watch "House" and "CSI" until they're out of original episodes, so be it. But please don't watch the reruns or what replaces them. And if the Neilsen people call before then, tell them you're not watching anything and tell them why.

2. STOP BUYING AND RENTING DVDS. Writers get virtually nothing from their sale, either to you or the rental place. Tell the kid at Blockbuster why you're not renting from him. He's a film geek and doesn't like studio product for more reasons than you'll ever understand and will therefore appreciate your "stickin' it to the man". Once this is over, he'll happily have a free bag of M&M's and a big Coke waiting to greet your return.

3. STOP DOWNLOADING from iTunes or any other pay site for media. Writers get nothing from those purchases. Yes, downloading from pirate sites is stealing. But paying for downloads when the revenue is not shared with the creators is corporate theft. Is stealing from thieves a crime? I'll let your own moral compass be your guide on that one. Watch what you already own. Swap with friends. Just don't put another dollar in the hands of the WGA's persecutors until this is over.

4. STOP GOING TO MOVIES. Again, I'm not asking you to give up date night or Sunday afternoon with the kids. Just don't go to see anything made by the BIG 6. Their names are plastered all over the ads, so the marks of the beasts are quite visible.

There's a ton of indy features you can go to see instead, along with art films, documentaries and foreign films. And those foreign flicks are not all in French, Swedish or Italian. Remember: Canadians, Australians and the British all speak English and also make some damn good movies. Try breaking down other cultural barriers you might have too because there's great stuff made by the Chinese, the Japanese and at least a million different guys in Bollywood.

5. STOP BUYING PRODUCTS from the multi-nationals who own the networks and studios. A comprehensive list of their holdings can be found here. Your Mom or your girlfriend/boyfriend does not need a GE hair dryer or a Westinghouse toaster oven for Christmas. Buy jewelry instead. At least then you're only supporting local warlords and slave traders, in some cases, a moral step up from the average Multinational CEO.

There's also a lot of guys who aren't named Sony making Plasma TVs. Get your news and sports information online instead of buying Time or Sports Illustrated. The information you get will also be less than a week old. And understand that people write good books that aren't published by Simon & Shuster (another Viacom company).

Y'know it's appalling how much these people own and yet they still can't seem to make ends meet without screwing writers. I think their shareholders should be asking who's in charge.

6. BECOME A SHAREHOLDER. Buy one share of one or all of the BIG SIX. Given what's going on, you might want to make that purchase on margin and short the stock. Then start phoning management to complain about how things are being run. Be a pest. You're a shareholder. It's your money they're throwing around on private jets and gourmet lunches while box office and ratings are suffering. Ask a lot of questions about those movie participation deals. How come the shareholders weren't told a quarter of the cash flow was going to that Spielberg guy and Tom Cruise? Why should your dividends end up financing E-meters?

Hound them about the accuracy of their books too. Do you think these people would only cheat writers?

7. THE SAME GOES FOR TV SPONSORS. Find out who buys ads on your favorite show and phone them up. Tell the guys at Ford that you want 24 episodes of "24" or you're going across the street to the Dodge dealership. You might also ask what kind of message they're sending by having a guy who's going to jail for DUI as their product spokesman while you're at it.

Overall, let any sponsor know that you're not very happy with them using their ad dollars to support businesses like TV networks who don't treat their employees fairly. Suggest that you won't be buying their product until they pull their ads. If enough people call, that strategy works. I know, I've been on the wrong side of it. Even if it doesn't work, you'll get a nice letter with some coupons.

8. COMPLAIN TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES. There's an election coming up in the USA. Call your local candidates and anybody running for President and ask where they stand -- on the side of greedy, faceless corporations or ordinary people who can outvote them on a scale of about 10,000 to one? When they patronize you with the obvious answer, demand to see some tangible proof. There are photo-ops aplenty for any politician who walks a WGA picket and a lot of questions that need to be asked of those not brave enough to show up.

In Canada, this political objective can be accomplished by asking your MP how come
the CRTC allows Canadian networks to buy so much programming from people who don't want writers to earn residuals which could support their families in a land without universal health care, subsidized theatre and guaranteed maternity leave.

9. PHONE PETER CHERNIN AND LESLIE MOONVES. These two network CEOs told WGA negotiators a deal could be made if DVD payments were taken off the table and then reneged on that promise when the Guild complied. If I was on the negotiating committee, I'd be raising that DVD payment 1% a day from now until a deal is finally reached. You can't allow this kind of duplicity to go unpunished.

There's no way to end any labor dispute until a level of trust between the parties is achieved and these two men all but eliminated that possibility. They both need to be called to account.

You can reach Mr. Chernin at 310-369-1000 and Mr. Moonves at 323-575-2345. Don't let the nice lady on the switchboard deter you, the boys are somewhere in the building and you will be forwarded. Studio policy requires that all phone calls placed between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm be voice answered and logged, making the staff less
available to assist these two reprehensible CEOs in putting their plans for world domination into action.

10. SUPPORT INDEPENDENT PRODUCT ONLINE. Writers and other creatives are already offering new media forms of entertainment online and it's not hard to find. Just Google what whets your appetite and a thousand options will present themselves. It's just as easy to crack a beer and flop in front of your computer as it is using a couch and a television. And it's going to get a lot easier real soon. There are entire networks here that you've never heard of, original webisodes and alternate universes and graphic novels and real people you can interact with while being entertained.

There are opinions expressed here that are not diluted or spun to serve the self interests of mega-corporations as well as products and services that will never carry an "As seen on TV" sticker. It's a brave new world that isn't owned and controlled by six companies. A place where artists and audiences can engage without a grasping middleman and where the future can be shared equitably.

Sharing equitably is what this strike is about.
Thanks for doing whatever you can in helping us all get there

Amen, Mr. Henshaw!

And here’s a link to John August’s ABC’s of residuals.

And to the United Hollywood WGA strike blog.

A Little Update

2007-10-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

So, the last few weeks have been hectic. The show is in post, on the East Coast, and I'm trying to settle back into my writing routine. That includes more regular posting. I promise.

There are a few things percolating that I will blog about if they get a little less ephemeral. I've pitched a couple ideas recently, but with the strike coming up, it's hard to tell if the interest (and the exec) will still be around once things get back to business. In the meantime, I'm keen to polish up the feature drafts I finished last spring and to get another current TV spec together.

I'm trying to get my samples in a good place for after the strike so I can go out and set up a few producing gigs and writing projects. The actor who was involved in my TV gig is interested in something I pitched to him, so now I have to circle back around and find out if I can get any traction on the idea (with him, his reps, and the network/cable outlets I think would want the project). And I have to decide if this is the best use of my time. It's easy to get your head turned by projects that seem like they will fast-track themselves (because an executive has expressed interest in the idea, because there seems to be talent circling the project, because a financier has contacted you asking for material), but frequently it's best to hedge a bit and not go completely off your own game plan.

When you are established, i.e. people know you can deliver on what you are pitching and that what you deliver is commercial and/or has artistic merit this part of the process isn't as painful. You aren't fighting for credibility, just for a place at the table. If I were to go back into the industry as a development executive, or start producing mid-range urban films (under $15-20 million pix) I'd have an easier time of it, but showing and proving as a writer is an entirely different struggle. It's a lot more emotionally difficult because I actually care about the material that I'm pitching, I've lived with it, fought with myself over it, built up a lot of investment in it, and then here comes the d-girl side of me telling myself everything that's not working or needs to be changed in order to get it through the right doors.

Ugh.

Anyway, "Pity Party, your table for one is ready." Back to the grind, people. And it's not all bad. I'll let you know some of the good stuff once this dark bit has passed. :-)

No Good Deed....

2007-09-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

I'm "segment producing" for a friend of mine for this little show that will air this fall. Nothing exciting (including my paycheck), but it has got me on the run. It started out as a 2-day favor that has morphed into me negotiating rights deals, booking crews and trying to get network exex to close talent deals. Ugh. This. Is. Why. I. Write. I miss my little dog. I miss my quiet little armchair. I miss my afternoons curled up at Starbucks, tapping away at my little scribblings.

Anyway, back to the grind. I'll keep you posted. Novel is/was going well. Trying to get some pages together for a reading in the Bay Area at the end of the year. The novel-writing group is getting some national coverage which is very gratifying. If only my book were finished, perhaps it would help me move ahead.... :-)

Keep on trucking, people.

Many New Developments

2007-08-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

I hope things are going well for all of you out there. Hollywood is dead as a doornail right now since it is the last days of August. I just came back from the Bay Area and I'm trying to get it together to leave town again next week. I trust you have your vacations well in hand, are not stressing out about the strike (since a work slowdown/stoppage is sort of a given at this point as a result of the accelerated spending), and are polishing up those specs.

I'm burnt out and this heat has made me a little nuts. I had a massive computer problem last week -- my hard drive overheated and I thought it had melted. Luckily, it was just a burnt out fan, but let me tell you, I was sweating it! So, the laptop is down which means I'm forced to write on my desktop in the overheated cottage. Poor me. :-)~ I'm just glad I got the "backup" machine. And my friends thought it was overkill. Ha! I'm also splurging on an external hard drive (my car has an oil leak, but the hard drive felt like more a of a priority. I still have my bike!) and I urge all of you to BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVES. I try to do it every week, and thank God for that, because I had literally just backed it up when the machine froze up and stopped responding to me. I'm buying a Seagate 320Gb drive through buy.com. It should get here any day. Can't wait. I almost got the 500gb because it's not that much more expensive, but I really only keep music and pix on it other than my FINAL DRAFT files, so that seemed like an indulgence.

OK, I know I'm boring you all to tears. Have a great end of summer. I may not post until after Labor Day -- I have some book-related stuff going on that's taking up a lot of my time.

MAX ROACH IS GONE

2007-08-16T10:40:00.000-07:00

RIP. Man, I love Max Roach. First Mr. Batiste and now Max. I hope you all get a chance to spin a few for a great jazz man.

Again with the Random Musings...

2007-08-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last week or so figuring out what I'm going to do with myself if there is a strike. I have a few ideas for reality shows so I'm developing those and will see where that takes me if and when the time comes to put that iron in the fire. From what I understand networks will have banked enough episodes of things to get them through November sweeps, then it's winter hiatus, then back with some mid-season replacement stuff that is shooting as you read this and if there is no strike, back to business as usual, but if there is a strike it will be wall-to-wall reality. I think anyone working at those big reality production houses has their fingers crossed right now. I know most studios learned from their mistakes last time around (2001) and have plenty of options in case things get nuclear around here. Including putting executives on leave and not renewing contracts. I had a clause like that in my deal, but, fortunately, it never came to that.

Last time around, just like this time, agencies took advantage of the strike to trim their client lists and cut loose anyone who was under-performing or just plain troublesome. I had a few friends who were "fired" by their agencies and it has been a long road back. First the year of depression and humiliation, then the year of spec writing and humiliation and depression, then the year of the comeback, and bitterness and depression.... :-) Anyway, I credit that last major trimming with consolidating the position and power of managers in this town. There were tons of very talented people suddenly at loose ends, desperate to get back in the game, willing to write on spec who were accessible, some for probably the first time in a very long time.

I'm also developing a series of webisodes that a couple of girlfriends of mine and I have been kicking around since May. One of my friends recently landed at a new internet entertainment site and they are desperate for content. She is lucky enough to be hooked up at a place that is the daughter of a highly trafficked site so they need content more than anything right now. I doubt it would cover more than the cost of producing the actual work, but considering that we were going to do it all for free, this seems like a good way for me to get a little directing under my belt before I attack my short film.

If any of you (Will?) have suggestions for the approach one should use when shooting for the itty bitty screen I'd love to hear them. I read a post over at Complications Ensue about Mobisodes that really started me thinking about how to do this. We don't really envision this thing ever getting off the internet and onto a phone screen, but I am really concerned about the screen ratio of that YouTube box. I've shot some stuff for TV before (just news footage when I was a wee-little Diva still delusionally thinking I wanted to be a hard-hitting journo) and it seems to me that the "readable" portion of the screen is the same -- meaning lots of close-ups and medium shots. I actually like movies that take advantage of depth of field (I'm thinking about TOKYO STORY here), so I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts about that, specifically. I haven't seen too much stuff produced for the web that uses depth of field in any meaningful way and I'm not sure if that's the constraints of the medium (resolution and bandwidth interrupting the impact of long shots that rack focus and/or feature fore, mid and background action) or just that the medium hasn't matured enough for folks to be exploiting it that way yet.

Anyway, back to the reality stuff. I have a close friend who I kick ideas around with, talk story, gossip, etc. She and I have been trying to find a way to spend all of 2008 out of the country. Preferably not working, but we will take what we can get. I'll keep you posted. I still have to get to my cheese tour of England and France....

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!!

2007-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not advocating that there be a strike or that there not be, but from everything I gather it really won't matter by the middle of September, most of the studios will have effectively committed all their development funds. This means: no spec sales unless you are A++ talent and ready to hit the set with the hot little pages in your hand; no work done on existing projects unless your executive is sleeping with the head of accounting, there will be no checks cut on steps not already commenced; no greenlights on anything not already greenlit; no new executive hires, but possibly some folks will get let go during this time (only if the strike actually starts though).

The town is on fire with folks working around-the-clock. LAT had an article about the number of permits FilmLA has issued in the last couple of months -- which doesn't even begin to guesstimate the amount of work going on out of town. My friends who work at agencies are telling me it is a frantic scramble to get clients on to jobs before there aren't any and my writer friends are telling me they are being told by their studio bosses that if the projects they turn in aren't greenlight-able there probably won't be another step for a while, if ever.

This is a good time to work on your spec material, save your money, and get ready for the post-strike glut when the studios have to prove to top talent that they have money -- the last time there was a near-miss, in 2001, the months preceding and immediately after the strike were ripe for spec writers. A lot of pitches were sold as well, but studios were eager to show that they had budgeted well and were still in business.

Anyway, it's also a good time to take that long vacation in the Andes you've always wanted, but couldn't ever find the time for. You've got about 8 weeks to plan it. :-)

Adaptation

2007-07-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is adapting a short story of hers into a movie for a well-known indie filmmaker. She's never done this sort of thing before and has put in a lot of time over the last few months struggling with film structure. As a short story writer, plot isn't necessarily an important part of the work -- not to the extent that it is in most films, anyway. I think she's doing an admirable job wrestling the thing into something workable, but she asked me a question the other day that made me realize how artificial the writing advice for film is.

When writing the first draft, DO NOT WORRY ABOUT STRUCTURE. There are people out there throwing up their hands and proclaiming that's bs. Don't listen to them. If you are an absolute beginning screenwriter, someone who is still learning, there is absolutely no reason to beat yourself about the head and neck with 3, 5, 7 or 9-act structure talk, let alone the 8 sequence or reel method that you find bandied about the internet unless you know your story cold.

I know there are people out there who work from character charts, outlines, and arcane algorithms of their own devising. I'm not talking to the 2% of you who do that. You probably go around figuring tip in your spare time or adding things up for fun. God bless you. No, I'm talking to the rest of us who need a flashlight to see in the dark and who double the tax and add a couple bucks when the check comes.

The chances that you are going to sit down and on your first pass pound out a structurally balanced film are pretty doggone slim. No matter how many notecards you go through. I've seen enough failed screenplays and met with many aspiring writers who crashed and burned and went back to their day jobs to know this. No, for the vast majority of newbie writers, the best method to write a screenplay is 1) learn how to write a short story; 2) learn how to write a scene and then 3) write a first draft of your short story as a screenplay without stopping to think about structure.

I'm not pulling this out of my you-know-where.

By their very nature short stories contain around about the amount of story information you need for a screenplay. They have the added advantage of being a story-form that most people (or rather, most of those who went to highschool in the U.S.) have had the (mis)fortune of having to attempt at least at the 9th grade level. No need to learn anything new in order to get out the most important thing for any movie -- the story itself. In film this would be called a treatment. But don't think of it that way, close your eyes, take yourself back to the raging hormones of your early teen years and the smell of chalk and sweaty sneakers, and pound out a short story version of the movie you want to make.

Got that done? OK, now, go through the short story and pick out the scenes: flashbacks, plot-related scenes, characterization scenes, all of them. A scene is a unit of action within a film/play/book that typically takes place in one location (although you could argue that a character moving from the living room to the kitchen is one scene, or conversely, that a movement from dressing table to the bed would constitute a new scene, for my purposes here we're gonna go with the broad definition above). At this point, it may make sense to you to outline. I say may, not that you absolutely have to outline. I mean that. You are trying to stay focused on the story not the container you are going to pour it into. Check over the scenes and make sure there is a narrative flow, that things make sense to you.

Finally, crack open your screenwriting software/template/notepad and have at it. Write all the way through to the end. Do not stop. Do not think about act breaks, just follow the story you have assembled thus far. Done? Good. Make a clean printout/copy. Put it away for a few days.

NOW, get out a chart with the acts broken down by structural element. Not with your story content, but with whatever method you are trying to use. 3-act, 5-act, 7-act, 9-act, 8-sequence, reels (I have no idea how this works, sorry Chris Soth, I haven't bought your book yet, shame on me, I'm sure it's fabulous). Fill it out as best you can based on what you remember. Do not reference your first draft. Don't do it. If you can't remember, fake it.

Pull out that first draft. Read all the way through to the end. Mark-up anything that feels like it doesn't belong with a giant red 'X'. Mark up anything you want to keep. NOW pull out the structure outline you made, and start your second draft outline combining the two. I like to use QUICKPLOT because it lets you see the structural element next to the actual scene work, but use notecards and lined paper if that works best for you. You are on your way to a complete story that is also structurally balanced.

There's nothing worse than leaving money on the table. I'm sure we've all seen movies and felt that nagging suspicion that something could have been better explored, better exploited. by using this method you can really get "underneath" your characters in a way that won't distract you from your real purpose -- storytelling. As you become more adept at screenwriting, you can let go of the short story "crutch" and start leaning on the outline method more, and learn how to incorporate the structural elements into your process sooner. Some very talented filmmakers work this way.

Some of these structures are foreign to the way that people actually tell stories. Listen to any of your friends telling a story and you'll find digressions, tangents, false climaxes that have nothing to do with the story, etc. Even in someone who is a great oral story teller. Don't beat yourself up wondering why your first draft (or any subsequent ones, for that matter) aren't structured like a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The truth is that in the filmmaking process, structure takes a beating. Half of the executives and filmmakers you'll come across don't know anything about it. They can tell when something's off (if they've ever made a hit, that is, and let me tell you, that list is pretty damn short), but most of the time, they just have a hunger for something, and they'll know if your story is feeding it.

Because screenplay writing methods are such religiously held beliefs, I'm sure there are folks out there with a burning desire to prove me wrong. Go for it. Feel free to leave questions, comments, hate mail and death threats. But if you brick me on your blog I want a shout-out. I love it when people brick me. No such thing as bad publicity. :-)

RANDOM MUSINGS

2007-07-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

It's too hot in my little cottage to do much thinking and I refuse to abandon the dog and head to Starbucks. Last summer we only had about 10 days of really heinous weather, but this entire month has been on-again/off-again heatwave after heatwave. Not to mention the single-digit humidity that's making my eyes dry out and th dog's fur feel like straw. Poor puppy. I rearranged the house a few weeks ago and he refused to sleep in the room where I moved his bed to. He went back in the other room, curled up under the furniture that was now occupying where his bed used to be, and stayed there until I finally gave in, moved the cabinets back where they were, put the old carpet back down and put his bed back on top of it. Stubborn dog....

***************

The director just emailed me to let me know he's picture-locked and is sending the film off for scoring and a sound mix. He's calling in all his big favors for this, so I think there may be a sound stage visit at some point. If there is any interest I could blog about that at some point.

***************

For me, I'm working on my book (more these last few weeks, sorry for the no posting), finishing up that outline I started so many weeks ago, and tweaking my spec pilot. One of my friends was staffed on a show that is new this fall, very exciting. She's been telling me all the good stuff about how the writers' room works on her show, and her boss loved 2 of her pitches, so she's probably going to get something aired this season. She rocks.

I've got some major stuff brewing, but it's slow-boil stuff, so no big announcements yet, if the attorneys get involved I'll share. It's book-related not screenplay or TV stuff, but still very exciting for me. I have a few minor things published, but I'd love to have a big fat unapologetic credit on my resume. When I started the novel, I was looked at it as a creative outlet. I can't imagine it will sell a million copies and by my dream house, but if I sell it and get enough to buy a writing shack in the forest somewhere that would be amazing. Fingers crossed that the slow-barge to publication doesn't get hung up on a sandbar (and, no, the metaphors in my book are not this bad).

***************

With this writers' strike looking more and more real, deal-making around town is stutter-stepping. It's business as usual, except it really isn't since writers are paranoid there won't be work at the end of the year, and studios and networks aren't buying at the same pace. Not to mention all the agency blood-letting going on. Feels like it's almost time for a game of musical chairs. All it takes is the strike, a few bad movies, and a couple of moguls on the loose to upset the applecart.

***************

I was reading all of Nikki Finke's coverage of the Ed Limato madness over at ICM, and I can't help but feel like she's being spoonfed her coverage (big surprise). I remember a few months back reading about another (much more junior) agent's job-hopping and it read like a press release. Note to tipsters: when calling in favors to spin your firing, do not include personal details that only you would tell someone else, but that no one would ever gossip about. First sign of an amateur, and a surefire way to mark you as a big-mouthed narc to friends and foes alike. Just saying.

Anyway, back to the Limato-nightmare. Hollywood is the kind of town that you can except to get jacked in at any time. Especially when you get old. There aren't too many old guys who are sacrosanct around here, and the few who are still know how to administer a beat-down. I don't know Mr. Limato, or the other gentlemen involved personally, so I can't comment on that situation, but the rule of thumb around here is keep attacking. Especially if they don't know you are. Unless they can strip him of his clients, the only thing they can hope to do is keep "servicing" them until one of them decides to defect. I can't see that happening since his clients are known for how loyal they are and Ed's swung for the fences for them for, literally, decades. And those guys still work. I hope he ends up someplace he's respected, with great directors and a solid drama writing list. I hate to see folks disrespect their elders.

***************

OK, I'm going to workout, then I have to meet a friend for dinner. Have a great weekend. Requests, comments and tips are always welcome. But no spam. Unless it's fried.

TALK TO ME

2007-07-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Don Cheadle stars in this film, TALK TO ME, directed by Kasi Lemmons. Here is a great review of this film at EW. I saw this on Wednesday with a friend of mine and we both had a great time. It's funny funny funny, Cheadle's performance is amazing (I wouldn't go so far as to say Oscar-caliber because the screenplay never allows us to find out what demons are really chasing him, or see him in the community which it keeps telling us he embodies), Ejiofor does his best to be a street ni**a from the 'hood, (a tall order when you can hear his mouth searching for those b-more/dc vowels) and the music is great.

I wouldn't say rush out to see it tonight, but if you are in blockbuster-burnout like myself, this is definitely a solid way to counter-program your brain.

PSYCH!!

2007-07-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'm such a sucker for this show. I think the writing is hysterical, but what makes it really work is the chemistry between the two leads. This is the latest promo, and if you don't follow the show, I hope you still enjoy it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8KBNWsxOcTA

California Dreamin'....

2007-07-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

In LA, the Al Gore III DUI/drug bust isn't a story about privilege, wealth and the intersection of celebrity and drug use. No, the story here is about the car. Or, more specifically, how fast the car can go. Today's LAT has a front-page (bottom of the fold, at least) story about how Gore III's reckless driving bust shows that the Prius isn't for whimps.

This may also explain why Transformers did so well this week. Fast cars, drugs and loose women. The New American Dream.

Tetris Japanese Style

2007-06-14T10:00:00.001-07:00

Via CUTEOVERLOAD (one of my favorite sources), here's a youtube clip of a Japanese version of Tetris. I'm waiting for this to make it to the US. Unfortunately the embed code on the clip is no good so you have to click through to see it, but trust me, this one is well worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bK63uSTTNs

Book Trailers

2007-06-10T08:30:00.001-07:00

Perusing the Galley Cat blog this morning and I came across a post for a new graphic novel called THE BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY. I wish they had an embeddable link so I could post it here, but it's worth clicking through to see. Basically the author took a screenplay, made it into a graphic novel, then made a trailer of the graphic novel. The literary critic in me is in a tizzy right now.

Anyway, given how stiff the competition is for eyeballs these days, this seems like an interesting little off-shoot for book marketing. I hope more authors/publishers get into the act -- I love books, but aren't they better when you don't have to read them? :-)

Parkour, anyone?

2007-06-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

I randomly came across this on YouTube and thought I'd share. I love watching these videos but they make my shins ache....

First Cut

2007-06-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

I'm going to see the first cut of the short film I worked on last month. The director wants to cut about 10 minutes. Before I see a first cut, I'm always hoping the film will be close to being finished. Like, if you know you want to cut 10 minutes, cut 10 minutes then invite me to see it. :-) Seriously, for a filmmaker, the process of going through successive cuts can be overwhelming. You're watching the film everyday, you've already lived with the script and the actors for months and months (in this case way too many months) and now you've got to find cuts you didn't know existed.

I both love and hate this process. It's hard to watch the film and decide what you don't need, especially when you are seeing it with someone who has watched it for hours and hours before you got there. My favorite method is to watch it all the way through, make notes at the end, then re-watch it with a notepad, compare the two sets of notes and then watch it a third time with that compiled set of notes in hand to see if I agree or disagree. This way I have a couple of impressions: the average viewer impression -- I have ADD so that more than makes up for any "expertise" I might bring to my first viewing :-)~ -- the critical observer impression and, most important, the informed critique impression. Every cut is different, so from that point on it sort of tailors itself to the situation. I have a lot of experience with editing myself, so I really enjoy this process. It's not as frantic as production, and there's plenty of time for rational discussion.

The light posting is going to continue while I finish this freelance gig. I love to get paid, but then you have to do the work!!! Aargh!! I want to finish my spec!! OK, enough of the complaints. Suck it up and get back to work, lady!

MANAGER-AGENT ARTICLE

2007-06-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

The WGA website has a great, lengthy article on the agent-manager thing. I recommend it for anyone trying to wrap their brains around the byzantine layers of representation in Hollywood. It's at least as good as the one I wrote way back when *snark*, but not as entertaining as John Rogers'.

Sorry I've been out of pocket. I took on a freelance gig and have to finish up the rewrite in the next week. I have a couple of posts I've been dawdling over that I hope to get out this week. One is about film commissions (and a belated h/t to Jim Henshaw for this information he gave me which I do not know how to post... maybe I'll ask Unk if he can host some pages for me?), and the other is about post-production since I'm due to see the second cut of the short film at some point this week. I'm really keen on empowering as many people to make their own films as possible -- that's the keystone of my evil plan -- so, I hope you all are being productive!

Buzzell's Men In Black

2007-05-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

About 3 years ago, I read part of a milblog by a guy named Colby Buzzell called MY WAR. Apparently the guy was later censored and pulled down all his posts, wrote a book and just won an award from NPR for it. This is a PBS recreation of one of his posts. I'm a fan of war movies, some of my best childhood memories are sitting on the couch watching them with my father. While polished up from his original post (which I can't find, but if I do I'll update this post with it), this still has the raw bewilderment of a young man caught in a fucked up situation.

UPDATED* KID NATION LINK

2007-05-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'm now officially obsessed with KID NATION. Let me know what you think of the teaser.

***UDATE***

I'm putting in the youtube link which is sized for the blog. Those CBS guys must be new to this whole weblogging thing... :-)

KID NATION and The Network Upfronts

2007-05-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

First, thanks to Monstroso for tipping me (and all of you) to the active page for Disney's writing fellowship. This program is widely acknowledged as the best one in the business, and the only one that pays a living wage. I highly recommend that folks apply for it. I did a few years ago, didn't get the fellowship, but I'll probably try again this year, but on the feature side.

This week is UPFRONTS week. All of the networks travel to New York and announce their fall line-ups. I've been burning the midnight oil following developments and viewing whichever pilots I can get my hands on and I think this year's crop is going to be very interesting. ABC is going whole hog on the magical realism stuff, Fox is doing it's character-driven best, NBC is going big with lots of adventure and sci fi (yay!) and the CW is staying young at heart with shows all geared to teenagers and fanboys. I thought REAPER was a good pick up but have not heard anything about GOSSIP GIRL except it's probably like the OC does Manhattan.

And then I heard about this show from CBS, KID NATION.

A new reality show, "Kid Nation," will take 40 children and set them up in an
abandoned New Mexico town. Cameras will follow them as they try to set up
their own society without adult supervision.

Anyone who has kids or has supervised them is cringing in horror at the thought they will be a) separated from their parents; b) allowed to run their own town; c) given attention through cameras while they are unsupervised. This reminds me of a sci fi short I read when I was in highschool. If I can find the title I'll post it. It just sounds nutty.

PILOT VIEWING SEASON HAS BEGUN

2007-05-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

Right now, in TV rooms all over Hollywood, network executives are watching pilots and deciding the fate of next year's schedule. I'm weasling my way into as many of those living rooms as I can. I have a pretty good line on seeing some of the basic cable shows this weekend, so if I see anything good I'll let you all know.

I met with a director friend of mine this week. He shot a pilot for LOGO which they didn't pick up, so he was bummed, but he's got a crack new agent who promises to help him put together the financing for his indie film, so at least there's some glimmer of hope there. We talked about a few of these festival deadlines that are coming up. I hope all of you out there submitted to Sundance. It's a great workshop environment, you do come out of it a stronger writer, and that's one of the few festivals that mean something in town. The Nicholl Fellowship also closed on May 1, and that one actually pays money. So, the next two up are Disney Fellowship (usually the end of June, but they haven't posted their 2007 application yet), Film Independent's workshop (due today, but they have a late fee you can pay and turn in your script 5/28/07) and Warner Brothers writing workshop, which technically costs money, but is such a good hook-up it's worth it, and the CBS Diversity Fellowship, which is invaluable for people who do not have any industry experience.

I'm off to take my Grip/Electric guys out to drinks. The gaffer and a production associate are joining me and another producer at this little bar in Hollywood.

DAYS THREE, FOUR AND FIVE IN THE... CARD

2007-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend we finished shooting the film. Since we shot on HD we actually recorded to a digital card. I was so nervous watching the digital transfer guy walk back and forth when he switched the flash cards out, I kept yelling for folks to clear the way for him like he was carrying a transplant organ.

I'd forgotten what it was like to produce something this size. I had a blast. Because our crew was so small I got to drive the police cruiser and hit the "take down" lights, and the firetruck guys let me sit inside and touch the switches. They were going to let me drive it, but after the owner told me it was worth $350,000 I passed. :-)

I'm beat to hell and I still have to finish up the budgeting stuff, so I'll try to write more later. I hope everyone is doing well. I'm way behind on my blog-reading because the DSL at my house is impossible, but hope to catch up this weekend.

Day One

2007-04-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

We wrapped our first day of shooting early. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it means the director's not getting enough coverage. Today it was a good thing. We had a great crew, including some college-age volunteers who showed up for four-hour shifts and ended up staying for the entire day. The worst thing was that we couldn't book any walkies for the weekend, so the ADs were miffed and had to use their outside voices inside (not that ADs have inside voices, really).

We had a smoke effect guy for today and he was awesome, helped with the load-in, blew some incredible dense smoke, dealt with the b.s. of having to shout through a door over a loud fan because of the no walkies situation, and the footage looked really scary. I'm happy. The only thing that went over was craft service. :-) My DP was happy, the Gaffer looked a little peeved because we had a problem with one of the lights. It actually shorted out all over the floor. Scared the heck out of me, but, of course, the guys just kicked the sparks out of the way and started hacking away at the light with little metal screwdrivers....

This Thursday we're shooting the stuff in the moving car, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday we are back in the location we used tonight. I'm trying to rest up for Sunday which is the day we have the firetruck, ambulance and cop car and shoot until 3am. I'm going to bed now. I've been up since 4AM, not counting all the startles I had making sure we didn't forget anything major. I'm crashing now, so I'll write more later this week.

I See Kinos...

2007-04-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Went to pick up the equipment today, very exciting. I'm off to buy expendables tomorrow and to strong arm some volunteers. In order to get a break on our location fee, we agreed to split the shoot into two pieces. We shoot one day on Sunday which requires a full load-in and load-out of all the equipment and props, then we are off for four days, we shoot the interior of a moving vehicle, then we're back in the location for three days. The last day we are doing a small "company move" from interior to exterior.

The "company move" for folks who haven't worked in production is exactly what it sounds -- the entire production from craft services (food) to video village (director's chair, video playback monitors) moves to a new location. In our case we will be moving from the nice cozy inside of a loft to the parking lot below. To save money on the shoot, we agreed to vacate the interior by a certain time (not that the owner could rent it out anyway, but he's a skinflint with high hopes).

OK, I've got stuff screaming to be done (namely the dog needs a walk). Ciao.

The Diva and the 3-Ton Truck

2007-04-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

We start shooting on Sunday. Today I finished putting in our equipment order. The woman who runs the equipment house has been an angel and gave us everything we wanted on a 1-week rental (even though it is technically a 10-day period) for 40% off and then rented us a 3-ton truck for cost. This is why movie-making in Hollywood got me so excited when I first moved here. Below-the-line folks are very work-product oriented. Sharp contrast to executive types who are much more concerned with prestige and having a nice trailer. And that's no exaggeration. I once worked with a producer who told me he considered "set work" to be blue collar and that the real work of producing happened "in town" putting the films together.

I can't deny that there is a lot of work you must do before you get to set, but, for me, the work of making a movie is in... the work of making a movie. Picking your crew, pulling together insurance, making deals for the location, chatting up the guy who owns the firetruck so he'll throw in extra axes and gear.... I do miss blowing up helicopters though, but some day I'll make another film that costs more than my car. :-)

The reason we were able to get such a great deal is that our DP had a great relationship with a Gaffer who knew a Best Boy (Girl? She's a woman) who had opened a rental house. He treated her well, we treated him well, and, through the transitive property of Hollywood friendships, we get to enjoy her largess. Oh, yeah, one catch. This is a short film, so, no teamsters. I'm breaking out my trucker cap and getting ready to haul ass across town. If you knew me better you'd realize how truly frightening this is... for other drivers. Just a little warning if you find yourself in front of a 3-ton being driven by a gal with a cell phone plugged into her head.

No Gaffer? No problem!!

2007-04-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

We are five days out from our first day of production. I've been nailing down disparate details left and right. Yesterday I booked a firetruck that comes with three firemen, and tomorrow I'm getting an ambulance and a police car. My brain is mush, so I won't embarrass myself by trying form any coherent thoughts here. My newest headache is that the DP emailed me to say the gaffer bailed. Oh well, at least I've got my firemen to console me. :-)

UPDATED: OK, I was a little slap-happy last night, I did NOT mean to post that pic twice (although it was nice to see....)

Tiny Bubbles

2007-04-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

NPR : Hawaiian Entertainer Don Ho Dies at 76

My family is from Hawaii, so I grew up listening to Don Ho, watching specials featuring him, and singing along with him. Aloha Don.

In short film news, we are closing our location agreement today. There was a lot of back and forth to get the rate down (and I still think we should scrap it and go low-tech), but we're finally about to close. We have insurance, I'm renting a fire truck that comes with four outfitted firemen, I have an ambulance and a cop car on standby, and a nice stretch limo with tinted windows. Hmmm.... Now I have to deal with catering, the electrician, set decorating, getting a fire marshall and lining up some dang PAs. I have a pickup truck which I can't drive because it's a manual transmission, so every time I need it I have to find someone who can drive for me. Seems like it would be simpler to just learn how to get out of first on a hill, right? Maybe next year.

Anyway, the shooting schedule is done, I'm updating the budget and I have to talk to the sound guy to make sure he has every thing he needs. The problem with short films is that if you offer folks some help, they ask for things that cost money. I better get some good payback for this one.

For my own short film, the one I'm planning to direct, I found a really great community-based theater with some incredibly well-trained actors to help me stage a reading next month. I randomly went to drinks with a friend from film school and mentioned the topic of my short and he offered to grandfather me into the group that he works with. I'm excited to be getting back into it.

My pilot is almost ready for public consumption. I received excellent notes from the indie director I worked with last summer. He finished shooting a TV pilot last month and was out here for another TV thing, so we talked on the phone about the script, I turned around the notes he gave me and he re-read the draft, gave me some adjustments and when I finish those I'm going out to managers and agents. I have a few people on the line from the last few months, so we'll see. I'm totally out of season on this and probably will end up not getting read until summer, but a few folks have said they will call in favors on my behalf. It's funny for me to be both producing and sending my spec out into the world. On the one hand, I'm telling middle-aged men to calm down and let me handle things, and on the other, I'm having crazy stress dreams about being asked to leave cruise ships because I booked my tickets too late....

Some Changes Around Here

2007-04-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here surrounded by paper, covered in paper cuts, watching a crappy movie that is being remade for waaaay too much money. I took a freelance gig with this director to pay back some of my Hawaii debt. So, instead of doing my work I'm blogging. Figures.

I finally went through and added links to some folks who link to me, put up some of the resources I refer folks to and that I use myself. I hope you all like them. Feel free to drop a comment in the box if you have a question, objection, etc.. I will link to folks who link to me, I just may not be entirely aware of who you are, so please give a shout out. I've been thinking about changing the look of the blog and going with something more like kottke.org.

The short film just got a kick in the pants. We are scheduled to start shooting in the next month because the location we want to use has an opening. They are raping us on the location fee, but because it's full service we decided the better part of valor was to lay back and think of England. At this point, we are having our first full production meeting on Friday. All the department heads are set, most of them are pros/semi-pros (meaning they've worked on a few projects, but may not have actually run a department). I'm left with some crappy work -- like getting the catering together, finding out how much this is actually costing us (I've got ten thousand emails that have to be added up and stuffed into an excel spreadsheet), and then herding all the cats into the center of the room for the next three weeks.

We've gone over the shooting schedule ad nauseum. The director is doing a production rewrite in preparation for the shooting script. The biggest issue is that we have to hurry up all of the equipment rentals and gathering of the free props and set dressing items. Details, details, details!!! Production marches forward on deadlines and details. And I haven't even gotten into the smoke effect we are planning to use on the set.... Ugh, did you know fire marshalls in LA get paid $120 per hour and you have to hire them for an eight-hour minimum!!!

I like to break down my production work in sections. Right now I'm trying to finish everything that requires expenditures of money. That means I have to finish up the budget, make the calls about the catering, and figure out how the heck I'm going to smoke up this hallway and then later have a firetruck, an ambulance and a cop car with full lights strobing at night without having to hire a cop to babysit the set. These things can take on a life of their own, and I don't want them to take over the show since, rightfully, they are there to set the stage and to allow the director to have a piece that has high production values.

Enough stalling. I have to get back to stripping off pieces of my soul so I can make my rent at the end of the month....

Agency Pitches

2007-04-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Los Angeles after two weeks in Hawaii. I had a great time, got some writing done, browned a bit, ate a ton of tropical fruit, and started planning for my next big trip sometime this summer. Don't know where it will be, probably Italy since I haven't been there yet. ANYWAY....
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she mentioned attending an agency pitch session. Agency pitches are meetings in which executives and agents play speed dating with writer/director/actor careers. Basically, the agency comes over en masse to meet with all the executives at a network/studio and they "pitch" clients for various open assignments. These meetings typically take place monthly for film studios, and roughly quarterly for television.

In the case of a film studio (although it works exactly the same in television), the head of the studio and the head of the agency talk in advance about what projects are a priority. Then, the agents all come to the lot, sit down and pitch their clients. If an agency doesn't have a strong client list, then the meetings are icily polite. For the A-list agencies, the biggest agents don't typically show up with all the minnows, but they will send a number of senior level agents over to play footsie. When the agents come, they bring some kind of resume book with each client's credits and sometimes a short bio (especially for less established talent).

That part is pretty dry, but the real purpose of these meetings is to get good gossip: Who is dating whom, who just got divorced, which writers/directors/actors are recovering from drug addictions. Assignments do get filled this way, an executive makes a comment, an agent remembers a client's words in passing about a love of ballooning, or time spent as an arctic explorer and the next thing you know... summer home in Crete! A girl can dream....

Sorry for the sparse posting. I got back from Maui and have been immersed in putting together information for the short film I'm producing which is finally SHOOTING in two weeks. I can't wait!!! I'll blog about the process this month starting later today!

First post: herding cats aka how to get disparate folks on the same page during production. Mmm, producer fun.

Maui-tude

2007-03-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

I'm in Kaneohe Bay, O'ahu right now. Tomorrow I head to Maui for my annual writing retreat with my novel-writing group. I'm very excited. I finished the latest draft of my pilot on Friday and am waiting for feedback so I can polish it up before sending it out into the wild. For the next two weeks, though, I'm working on my tan, my book, and my sanity (in that order).

I'd much rather blog about how great it is out here -- my family grows a little coffee and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some fresh beans -- but I'll try to focus and blog about business-type things. I'm actually watching clouds roll down a volcanic ridge as I type this, so please excuse any randomness which results.

When I get back to LA I'll do a post about agency pitches. Until then, Aloha!

It's Pilot Season!!!!!

2007-03-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm putting something up to let you all know that I'm still alive. Still pounding the pavement out here in LA. It's pilot season which means it's almost time to PUT YOUR PENCILS DOWN and TURN IN YOUR EXAMS! That's right, staffing season is starting up in a matter of weeks. Some shows are already lining up their senior writers, but for us baby writers trying to break in, this is our chance to polish things up one last time and hit the party circuit to get our little faces out there for jobs.

I've been reading every drama pilot I can get my hands on, and there are tons out there. I think I've read about 20 so far, and the competition is pretty stiff for shows this spring. Lots of good stuff, plenty of procedural-esque shows, but many many more soap opera type shows set against various backdrops. I'll check with my suppliers to see which scripts it is okay for me to talk about (i.e. the drafts aren't under wraps on pain of someone's death) and I'll blog an update. I'm happy to say I've read a bunch of shows I liked, last season I wasn't as impressed -- the writing was almost universally solid, but the show ideas were... eh. This year, I feel like the show concepts were interesting (minus the soap operas which aren't really my thing), but I'm withholding judgment on most of them until I see the casting choices because they could go either way.

There are a couple of very interesting sci fi/fantasy-type shows that I'm excited about, so I'm going to see if I can write about those first. I'm happy to say that no one has written anything even close to the spec pilot I'm polishing, I've still got two more networks worth of stuff to get through, but, so far, all clear. :-)

Thank You, Mr. Whitaker!!

2007-02-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Forest Whitaker! I don't normally cry at the speeches, but he had me in tears. He's such a beautiful soul.

Reno 911: MIAMI and HOT FUZZ

2007-02-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

Just came back from the movies. I saw Reno 911 with a friend of mine and laughed my ass off. This movie has so many great moments in terms of the comedy, the use of the medium, and the aesthetic of the genre -- the Robert Altman-esque motel sequence with the upstairs-downstairs floating camera was freaking brilliant, funny and was set to orchestral music with a music-visual pun that as awesome. Go see this movie. It's based on a Comedy Central series that I enjoy.

Also, I'd been meaning to link to this movie, HOT FUZZ, by the makers of another film I've seen at least 10 times, SHAUN OF THE DEAD. I love these guys so much. They are hysterical. The trailer looks really funny and there are so many great British comedians in it to enjoy. Can't wait for it. It comes out April 13.

Being There with the Christian Right

2007-02-25T09:27:00.000-08:00

Reading the news online and came across this New York Times article about the Christian Right and their search for an '08 candidate.

"A group of influential Christian conservatives and their allies emerged from a private meeting at a Florida resort this month dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn. The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign. But in a stark shift from the group’s influence under President Bush, the group risks relegation to the margins. Many of the conservatives who attended the event, held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election."

It reminded me of that Hal Ashby film BEING THERE. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, put it in your netflix. It's adapted from a Jersy Kosinski book (he also wrote the controversial novel THE PAINTED BIRD, a precursor to the James Frey scandal).

I love Peter Sellers in this movie. It's dated now, but still very funny.

Funny Funny Funny

2007-02-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

Randomly on the internet and found this Jimmy Kimmel skit by George Takai in response to Tim Hardaway's asinine homophobic admission. H/t to Da Blog and Editthis. Enjoy people.

LAT: Server Unavailable

2007-02-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles Times : Server Unavailable

Is this a sign of the apocalypse? What gives? Anyway, I got great notes back from a TV director-type friend of mine on the one hour drama spec pilot. I have to do a pretty major restructuring to the teaser, but otherwise just character adjustments to smooth it out for the next big submission which will be to a friend of mine who works for one of the networks (she works in Current, not Development, darn it). Wish me luck. This week should be absolutely nutty.

Daybreak Online!!

2007-02-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

For those of you who were fans of DAYBREAK, ABC finally has the other episodes up online. I'm going to catch up on my HEROES right now and then dive right it.

This one is just for you, Will!

Richard Abate Is at Endeavor

2007-02-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

For some reason over the last week 80% of the searches have been for a post I wrote months ago about Richard Abate. I've never met Mr. Abate, but he does represent two good novelist friends of mine, and, apparently, this last week he has changed agencies. Starting this week he is now a proud member of the Endeavor family having ditched ICM. In the interests of those of you looking for dirt on Richard's move, here is a little link courtesy of Media Bistro.

Please remember, I have no feelings about this one or the other. Do not shoot the messenger. :-)

Fund Your Film: Grant Money

2007-02-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

Just skimming my emails quickly and I came across one from the IFP New York. I don't have any idea who is where in the funding process, but if you are shooting at least 60% NYC, IFP has a grant to pay for a newbie. Up to 10K, I think, to hire a crewmember who has never served in a particular job-title before. For example, a grant like this could be used if you have an art director stepping up to Prod designer or a PA stepping up to AD, etc.

The film's budget has to be under $3 Million.

This may be worthy of a post on its own, but independent film financing can come from any combination of sources. Financiers who specialize in it like Newmarket Capital or Deutsche Bank, "angel" investors who are typically individuals or groups of individuals, loans, self-financing, and whenever you can dig one up, grants. I think New York is smart to put these kind of film dollars on the table because it increases local production which spreads loot all over town, and it also could potentially help to build up local talent. I hope some other film commissions pick up on this idea or similar ones. Reminds me of that Canadian Content tax break (is that even still available?) which made it mandatory for productions to hire Canadian nationals in above-the-line positions in order to get money from the film commission. The details escape me, but as I remember it the money came in the form of a tax "rebate" which essentially added 10-30% of the budget back into your film. All those movies shot in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal took advantage of this -- which explains why New York and Detroit look so much cleaner in movies. :-)

When you are putting together your film, assuming it isn't something that is locale specific (e.g. MY SUMMER AT GRAND CANYON probably can't be shot in Minnesota), the process benefits from a producer with her/his eye on tax breaks, grants and incentives all over the world. Some of these are publicized, some can only be found through word of mouth. A solid working line producer is worth his/her weight in gold when you are rooting around for this information.

I'm always encouraging folks to get out there and put those words you type up on the screen. The best way to learn how to make movies is by making one. So, here's some loot. No more excuses. And then drop a note by the old bloghouse so I know what happened. Good luck.

What About the Writers????

2007-02-06T11:54:00.001-08:00

I read an article in the New York Times this morning that made me want to scream. Yet another non-filmmaking journalist whose closest brush with cinema was at a Blockbuster video store has written an article about what's wrong with Hollywood. I guess if I stop reading them maybe they'll stop writing them....

Anyway, the thesis of the article is that because studios indulge talented directors rather than challenge them, there has been a decline in said directors output and, subsequently, in quality films. As if the answer is stop blowing the director. How about the fact that flash and dash writing has been on the rise since the (not so coincidental) rise in the spec market??? Or the fact that it's easier to get a promotion as an exec if you have the "right" relationships because your boss has less taste than tepid water? Or that agents care more about perk packages than they do about the quality of the material they put their clients in, or.... well, I'm sure you can see where this ends up.

Anyway, it always and in all ways goes back to story. And to telling a good one, well.

Another Heroes Post (UPDATED)

2007-02-05T19:04:00.001-08:00

I'm a big fan of directors. I spent the first part of my time in Hollywood working for a seven-figure earner, chatting up the A-list DPs he wrangled into working for him, and in general, geeking out over every aspect of the craft. So, a little shoptalk from Mr. Beeman's excellent HEROES blog. *****SPOILERS******* below. Nothing major, but if you are a diehard maybe read this one after the show.

****UPDATE**** and these guys would be: Greg Beeman, and Jeannot Scwarcz, director.

GB: How does your personal visual style mesh with the HEROES style?

JS: Well, I’d like to think it does very much so. I prefer bold angles. Not boring, tepid over-the-shoulders. I hate to be at eye level.. Nate (the director of photography) said I fit in perfectly..

GB: Let’s talk about the Japanese sequence, with Hiro and his father. It fits into the HEROES “look” very well, yet it is also different.

JS: Nate, the D.P. is a real film buff, as am I. We had a lot of conversations about taking that sequence into a Kurasowa style. Meaning that we played with depth and composition. Besides being spoken in Japanese, the scenes had a very Japanese content and conflict. They were formal in nature with lots of changes in the power dynamics between characters. So, beyond the dialogue, Nate and I said, “let’s do a Kurasowa style.” A very full frame. Not much camera movement. Instead the characters walk into their close ups. People move within the frame as the power dynamics change. Whoever has the power in the scene in any moment is also the largest in the frame. As the dynamic switches the composition switches. Also we used a lot of negative space, meaning the space between the characters and to the left and right of the characters. Nate and I were both very versed in this film language. We discussed it in prep, and we had shorthand about it on the set. At the end of the day, I think the sequences work well because they are supported by the very Japanese theme.

GB: Very much so.

I'm still busting my tail on these scripts, but I will eventually start posting on the regular again. I promise.

Another Heroes Post

2007-02-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

GB: How does your personal visual style mesh with the HEROES style?

JS: Well, I’d like to think it does very much so. I prefer bold angles. Not boring, tepid over-the-shoulders. I hate to be at eye level.. Nate (the director of photography) said I fit in perfectly..

GB: Let’s talk about the Japanese sequence, with Hiro and his father. It fits into the HEROES “look” very well, yet it is also different.

JS: Nate, the D.P. is a real film buff, as am I. We had a lot of conversations about taking that sequence into a Kurasowa style. Meaning that we played with depth and composition. Besides being spoken in Japanese, the scenes had a very Japanese content and conflict. They were formal in nature with lots of changes in the power dynamics between characters. So, beyond the dialogue, Nate and I said, “let’s do a Kurasowa style.” A very full frame. Not much camera movement. Instead the characters walk into their close ups. People move within the frame as the power dynamics change. Whoever has the power in the scene in any moment is also the largest in the frame. As the dynamic switches the composition switches. Also we used a lot of negative space, meaning the space between the characters and to the left and right of the characters. Nate and I were both very versed in this film language. We discussed it in prep, and we had shorthand about it on the set. At the end of the day, I think the sequences work well because they are supported by the very Japanese theme.

GB: Very much so.

I'm still busting my tail on these scripts, but I will eventually start posting on the regular again. I promise.

Executive Death Match

2007-01-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

It's rare that so much corporate business ends up in the papers. But, once again, we find ourselves privy to all the dirty little secrets over at Par.

As I speculated in an earlier post, Gail Berman is getting back into television, pulling together financing and turning her frown upside down by leveraging her resume and that of her friend Lloyd Braun. Now is the time when you call in all your favors and get a nice fat baby from the dear showrunner friends and acting talent you coddled and favored when you were on the other side of the fence. Expect Gail to keep making announcements about how great she's doing and how hot she is: you gotta beat back the vultures with sunshine in this town. Good on her. Come out swinging. She definitely didn't waste any time. Probably doesn't want to miss pilot season. She'll probably offer to co-finance something the network or some other production company can't quite pull together. A new shop forming up is great news for anyone with a spec pilot (anyone with a track record and an agent, that is). If you count yourself among those folks put your ear to the ground and find out what type of material she's looking for and then fling it into the open maw. If it's any good it might hit the ground running.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everyone's winding themselves up for some slow-singin' and flower bringin' (to quote Biggie Smalls, my favorite rapper). It's never a good sign to get this much negative ink. Ever.

And in happier news, the Death Star showed ominous signs of creating an event horizon in the middle of Century City.

I'm glad I work at home....

Production

2007-01-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

I started out my career working physical production. I like telling people what to do and how to do it, what can I say? :-)

Anyway, there aren't any blogs out there covering the logistics of making entertainment. The headaches, the joys, the way stuff can go right and the way it can go terribly, horribly, embarrassingly wrong, and then how you can pull it together anyway. Greg Beeman has a great one that covers the logistics of putting HEROES together. I've been reading it and having production flashbacks. In a good way. Most of the time.

I highly recommend it. It's a great read, very informative, it does have spoilers, but nothing too outrageous. If you haven't actually produced anything you are working on, or had your work produced, then think of this as a virtual reality machine. And then get out there and make it happen.

Battles To Be Fought

2007-01-29T17:36:00.000-08:00

LAT had an article today about the battle for control over at Paramount. Interesting stuff. Keep your eyes peeled, anytime things get put in the paper, an announcement is not far off....

Hugh Laurie

2007-01-18T20:20:00.000-08:00

I love Hugh Laurie. When I was in England last month I had a chance to watch some episodes of A Bit of Fry and Laurie and came to a new appreciation of him. In honor of his Golden Globe victory, here's a little snippet from the show.

Bon Mots

2007-01-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

I'm still working on my screenplay, keeping my ear to the ground for dirt from the Globes and barricading myself from all the Sundancing coming up, so I'll not be posting too much.

I'm working on building some additional conflict into my lead character's relationship with his parents, so I find myself sucked into every psychodrama taking place within 100 miles. Here's a little gem I found via kottke. Enjoy.

Bill Burr

2007-01-16T17:32:00.001-08:00

I came across this a few months ago and fell out. Then, I read the blog entry he wrote about it and almost lost my mind. I loved his HBO standup special, but have never seen him perform in person.

As far as sheer guts I give him a hats off -- this rant came three hours into a show in front of 10,000 people in which every comedian had been merciless booed from the first comedian up. Here's the top of his blog entry:

City of Brotherly Love
Over the past two months I..ve gotten about 5 thousand e mails asking me ..What the fuck happened in Philly?.. ..Why were those people booing?.. ..Did you just come out on stage like that, or did they fuck with your first?.. So I..ve decided to answer every fucking question with the longest blog in my space history.

To be honest, I don..t really remember much of the set. All I know, is that when it was over, I had a headache, and I felt like I had just gotten into an argument with a relative.

The weirdest thing about that whole episode, was that my brain got locked in ..Go Fuck Yourself.. mode. I couldn..t shut it off.
For the next three days, I was walking around New York, muttering insulting shit about Philadelphia, as if I was still on stage..

..RON JAWORSKI, THAT STUPID FAT-FACED POLACK. HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO THROW IT TO ROD MARTIN BEFORE YOU REALIZE HE..S ON THE OTHER TEAM? ..HEY COACH, HE KEEPS RUNNING THE WRONG WAY......

THREE DAYS I walked around New York doing that. I really felt like I was going crazy. I was still pissed at that fuckin.. crowd and I couldn..t stop arguing with them in my head. I was telling a friend of mine that I felt like I needed some sort of comedy healing. That if I could go on stage in front of 12 old people, with some easy listening music in the background, maybe I could get my brain to stop envisioning caning an entire amphitheater with a mic stand. I literally wanted to saw down the roof of that fuckin.. place and have it land on the crowd.

I love comedians. I've had the pleasure of befriending a few of the funniest folks in the business and the war stories I've heard always have me on the ground. This, however, is definitely one of the funniest. It would be funny just to read the blog entry and hear the retelling, but to actually witness him lose his mind and go apeshit on the crowd took me right over the side.

I'll go back to more coherent posting in the next couple of days. Right now I'm in draft hell and can't be held responsible for my ramblings.... :-)~

"Experience Strategies"

2007-01-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

Cruising around the internet today and I came across a great post at adaptive path blog about how companies like Google and Flickr are using "experience strategies" to define their mission statements.

Experience strategies are clearly articulated touchstones to guide product teams in all the decisions they make about technology and features. An experience strategy defines a product requirement from the perspective of the user, and what they want to accomplish, achieve, do.

The post goes on with an example from Flickr's About Us page:

1. We want to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them.

2 . We want to enable new ways of organizing photos.

A related post about the success of the Google Calendar (which I use and love love love) goes on to say:

Here’s a product whose very definition was predicated on empathy for true customer needs.

There's also a great excerpt from the Google presentation about the development of the Calendar code which I think can be reverse engineered for folks who come at filmmaking from other fields. (I couldn't figure out how to get the picture in the middle of the layout, so it's up top, sorry.)

This is very similar to the way that commercial films are put together. Genres are the "handles" we use to shortcut the "experience strategy" we have planned for the audience: horror (we want the audience to be scared), romance (we want the audience to experience love and heartbreak) and so on. Some people call this the "ride" a film offers its viewers. Films that effectively deliver on a genre promise are rewarded with viewers (and sometimes awards, but that's a different post).

In creating commercial films, we also frequently talk about the audience's "buy" or the "gimme" i.e. the logic gaps that sometimes are necessary evils when creating spectacle. Examples of this abound, especially in most popular sci fi films (a recent one is DEJA VU, which readers here will know I really dug, but had a ton of questions about in terms of logic and science paradoxes). Spoof films like SCREAM, and the spoof of the spoof take-off on the idea, SCARY MOVIE, have made a genre out of winking at the audience and playing up these gimmes, making them the "experience."

Film is a temporal art, much more akin to music than literature, and the human brain has a limited attention span. Take advantage of this by making it a part of your strategy (i.e. "to deliver a non-stop emotional journey"), shore up the gimmes in your script by wrapping them in novel/ dramatic/ funny/ scary moments. Most audiences will forgive you -- look at the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or any other Bruckheimer/ Bay-type movie. They'll even recommend the film to their friends. And that word of mouth is gold.

UPDATED Berman Out, No Surprise

2007-01-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

There are tons of theories on why this didn't work, and I think most of them have grains of truth. The reality is that Paramount is a roiling mess right and not an easy place to work for anyone, contract or no contract. The writing was on the wall when Stacey Snider got hired over at Dreamworks and they cut Gail's slate. Still, she'll cash out big, call in some favors, use the one thing no can take from you -- your taste -- and be back. Probably in television. So, don't cry for Gail, she's got her full 2006 bonus coming to her and will either accept some insane pay-out or take a long vacation. Hopefully her stock options vested at 32, since Viacom is trading at around 42 today.

Deadline Hollywood has a little piece on it, and the LAT ran a longer one earlier today. It sucks when your boss talks to the paper before you clean out your office, but based on the level of chatter leading up to today, Gail had been hearing Brad's heavy footfalls outside of her office for at least a month.

What does this mean for people looking to bust in? Nothing. Business as usual. Gail hadn't really made too big an impact on the overall deals at the studio, so the tastemakers on the lot, i.e. the folks with big overalls who command most of the studio money, won't shuffle too much (yet anywho), and the downstream feeders, i.e. indie producers and talent with no overall deals, still have to wait in line to get heard.

Executive change is death to a studio's reputation. It makes it difficult for agencies to know what to bring to a studio and it can wreck havoc on films in development and production as folks hustle to figure out who they can get a "yes" from, and how long it will take to get one. This is why most contracts above the Sr. VP level are multi-years, as in 3-5, and President-level contracts are usually 4-5. All with generous bonuses, of course. Brad Grey is a man about town, so Gail's release won't affect business too badly, and there are several very senior level executives at the studio with strong agency and talent relationships to keep continuity.

For anybody left, it's Executive Death Match time.

If I can break out the time I'll do a little post on the overall deals. Every 18 months or so I update this chart I keep of who has deals where, and if I can cobble it together, which writers have blind deals and "steps" (I'll explain that later, too) at which studios. It's a habit from when I was working as a producer and it can come in handy when you read the trades.

** Two seconds after I posted this, DHD posts this:

I can report exclusively this afternoon that exiting Gail Berman, who won't be getting a production deal at Paramount, won't be replaced, either. That means there'll no longer be a president of Paramount Pictures -- that job is eliminated. Here's why: I'm told boss Brad Grey doesn't think there needs to be one after the Dreamworks acquisition since Berman's slate was permanently reduced to only 6 to 8 pictures a year now. Everything will stay with same with the existing personnel, so there are no plans to up anyone's titles or responsibilities. Instead, Grey will act as ultimate referee of the four creative hubs now reporting to him: Paramount, with 6 to 8 pics, Dreamworks with another 6 to 8 pics, Nickelodeon/MTV with 2 to 4 pics, and Vantage with another 10 pics. Over the years, lots of chairmen/CEOs in the entertainment world have run companies like this. (I hear that Brad Grey's model is the way legendary Warner Communications mogul Steve Ross ran his many music divisions.

This is in keeping with the number super-senior-level executives concentrated on that lot, many of whom would/could/should/will be running studios in their own right. This may calm the waters over there for a while, but anyone running a studio or major production company elsewhere around town ought to be on the lookout because whenever you concentrate a lot of executives with the kind knife-handling abilities of the ones at Par for any length of time there will inevitably be a killing.

New In Print

2007-01-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

A woman I respect and admire has a book coming out. RED RIVER is the story of five generations of men in Lalita Tademy's family. For those you who don't follow the book world, Lalita's first book, CANE RIVER, was an Oprah Book Club selection and was No. 4 on the NY Times Bestseller list for 2001.

I'm a little late to the party on her book tour, but I encourage you all to purchase the book and go listen to her read if you have a chance. She's a wonderful speaker, very knowledgeable about the time period, and the book is great, too. I'm linking to the Calendar of appearances but please poke around the site for information about Lita and the books she's written.

Dumping

2007-01-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

I was over at Could You Describe The Ruckus? (thanks for the visit!) and read Patrick's post about bad movies, Da Worst. It got me thinking about what a cynical world international film finance is. When I was working as an executive and producer, one of my main functions, the bane of my existence really, was searching for financiers for the projects that I was putting together. The majority of my projects were set-up at major studios, but I had a number of films that were passion projects. To get these done I met with some of the shadiest motherfuckers on planet Earth. And I do mean to use the profanity here. I'm talking about the kind of folks (100% men, may be coincidental, probably not) who not only hang out with porn stars, but actually charter jets to fly them in for "parties" with backers.

For these guys, film finance is an entre to that crazy thing called the VIP-list. Their "slate" is more like an internet money scam. Some of them (who shall remain unnamed on this blog but if you click here you'll get an eyeful) pull together films as fast as possible, dumping money into anything with a recognizable name. The money to be made is pretty staggering since many of the financiers take credits and then collect fees from a few places along the feeding trough. They get a producing fee, "hard" costs (their overhead expenses for things with receipts like desks, phone calls and travel) and "soft" costs (anything else you can amortize like depreciable assets, loan interests and consultants' fees). Oh, yeah, and then there's backend.

If you have a passion project with some sort of marketable element (like Ed Norton's new movie The Painted Veil), financiers like this can be a great way to get a movie made (I'm sure Ed's financiers were not shady, I'm just using his film as an example).

Or, if you just happen to be the man standing next to the man, standing next to the man (h/t to the late comedian Robin Harris) you might get a movie made for the hell of it. These are the crappy movies that show up on late-night cable, or only get released for half a day, then are sent off to parts foreign to die a crapulent death. These films were made for dumping.

If anybody has a fairy-tale story of financing-come-true please share. Make it a happy new year here in Diva-land -- everybody's dreams can come true! I have a friend who found that proverbial group of dentists from the Mid-West to invest in his film, which he then spent three years schlepping around from distributor to distributor until he recouped all the cash. The dentists loved it, they impressed their friends with their stories about Hollywood, took their wives out to a premiere and had a movie poster with their names on it next to a recognizable face. Win-win. One guy had even invested as a gift to his wife for her birthday! I love that guy. God bless him and his Sugar Daddy soul.

Dirt?

2007-01-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm watching DIRT, the new Courtney Cox show on FX. I have a fondness for the network and despite the bad reviews was ready to give the show a chance... until a cat turned to its owner and started talking. A scruffy, animatronic, tatty puppet cat. I get the guy has some kind of mental illness, but I'm hoping the second half picks up cuz.... Anyway, let me know what you all think.

Dramatic Action

2006-12-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

I've been working really hard the last few months to craft plots with a lot of dramatic action, so I thought I'd share with you all and hopefully learn a few things from the collective intelligence I've been hearing so much about. This part is Writing 101, so please bear with me if you are, like, waaaaay past this in your work. :-)

Dramatic action describes the story beats that relate the plot. This is different from things that establish factual things about the character (e.g. he's married), or things that establish motivation or need (e.g. Reese's story in The Terminator confessing his reason for traveling through time). Dramatic action primarily concerns itself with conflict, specifically, conflict that generates action, i.e. plot.

For instance, in television, dramatic action is generally compressed (e.g. those short teasers in L&O that set up the crime), expressed in dialogue (like when characters talk about how angry so-and-so's off-screen behaviour makes them -- Aaron Sorkin is the master of this type of drama as I have yet to see anything actually happen during one of his shows), or elided (as in two characters prepare for the "Big Raid," then we cut to the aftermath of the raid).

In contrast, film stories are comprised of the most dramatic action you can find, bits that exemplify the protagonist's emotional journey. I'll go back to my favorite film LA CONFIDENTIAL for an example here. The open of the film establishes the main players and the film's themes through a jail riot (the Bloody Christmas scandal). From here on, the viewer can anticipate Exley's bulldog response when he discovers the inconsistencies in the Nite Owl murders and that he will be uncompromising in his pursuit of the truth, no matter the cost, as well as each of the other core cast members' emotional responses to the rising tide of shit that is at the heart of the film.

Dramatic action invests the viewer in the emotional journey of the story. It is the most difficult thing to master, and typically, the most dynamically evolving tool in the craft arsenal. It requires an attention to human psychology and a sense of spectacle. The writers who tend to make the biggest splash in the spec world are those who have an inherent sense of dramatic action -- not just what story to tell, but also the best way to show the story as they are telling it. These writers are adept at creating a voyeur out of the viewer (mmm, my literary criticism theory slip is showing here, sorry).

So, in short, I'm struggling to find some decent dramatic action to tell the story I'm writing. I like things that are visual, require the core cast to take dramatic action that will serve to reveal their motivations and strengths/weaknesses, and since I'm shoring up the bottom of the second act, I find that I've been going back into the first act to remove information that is revealed too soon, and planting "mini-beats" that foreshadow the big plot turn I have planned for my little people.

I'd love to hear alternate/opposing view points to all of the above, and, of course, anyone who wants to share their wisdom is welcome to do so. Toodles.

P.S. The pic is from the NY TIMES' excellent article on photojournalist Enrique Metinides, a Mexican photog who specialized in death, gore and other sensational images. I'm putting the coffee table book on my wish list today!

Merry X-mas

2006-12-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

I'm busy busy busy and apologize for not being as prolific as Will. :-) After the 11+ hour flight back from the UK, I've been doing yoga, fasting (all that cheese, ugh), and spending time with the dog. He's real sweet and has been following me all over the house since I got back. He spent the two weeks being spoiled by my mom and has learned a really great new trick -- whining at the back door at 2 AM to be let out for a moonlight romp in the garden. Yay! Thanks, Mom! I really appreciate being awakened EVERY NIGHT by the dog! More together time! :-)~

I flew up to San Francisco for my novel-writing group and am finally back in LA for the next week and a half before I head out to San Diego for a wedding and possible trip to TJ (or Tijuana if you aren't from SoCal). At this point, I'm looking forward to January which has only got one trip planned so far, and February in which I will be home all month.

The new screenplay is turning out nicely. I've got work to do on the third act before I'll feel comfortable handing it out, but hope to get that done this week. My other screenplay is still awaiting notes from a friend -- he called to let me know he's started reading for an A+ list director, but will read my script on his plane ride home. I love it. I'm very happy he's getting this big break -- he has long wanted to work as a producer and paid his dues in some of the worst offices in town. Real terrible places where people get things thrown at their heads and are made to do humiliating personal chores that are best left undetailed (also, I don't want any scary lawyer-types emailing me). Anywho, he has an excellent eye for structure and the script that I've asked him to help me with is one that I wrote in two separate bursts two years apart, so it's uneven and reflects how much I changed vis a vis the subject matter. I'm hoping he'll throw me a lifeline when he gets back.

In the new year I'm going to blog the other half of that managers post from November, and also I wanted to blog a little bit about negotiating contracts. The request line is open, as always. I'll blog as much as I can over the next couple of weeks, but like the rest of Hollywood, I'm pretty much shut down until after Sundance.

Petition Time!!

2006-12-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, last night in the UK. I've had a great time hanging out with my friend and her family. Haven't done any tourist type things, but I've had a ton of cheese, all raw milk, 'natch, eaten bangers and mash made with Duchy of Cornwall sausages, had toasted tea cake, clotted cream ice cream, and many other things I can't even get into before this becomes Deep End Dining.

Dix and Denis have been waxing poetic about DAYBREAK, which as some of you may know, I've been circling since the producers flashed Taye's nicely toned biceps at me. Damn, I'm simple. Anyway, Denis had a great post up on the 6th and Dix did a solid one the day before. Please check them out. Then, I heard a vicious rumor over at Callaghan's blog that the show is being put on hiatus/moved/cancelled, of course I had to follow up on this immediately.

From what I understand, the remaining eps will be available via internet, so at least those of us who hung in there can find out what the end is. Let's petition the powers that be to stop the madness. At least play out the storyline. I agree with Dix about the idea of a Maxi-Series aka Telenovela format. It hasn't been imported into US TV yet, but I think the time is just about here. Daybreak could be that test case!!! C'mon ABC, don't screw the viewers!! We need the chocolatey goodness that is Taye Diggs.... :-)

Mincemeat and Stilton

2006-12-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

So, Day 9 in the UK and I'm finally waking up before noon. For someone who is used to waking up at sunrise, the last week has really kicked my butt, especially because sunset here is around 4:30-5pm.

I haven't traveled around too much, the friend I'm visiting has alternately had car trouble, baby trouble and stomach trouble, but I have managed to eat a few cheeses, some mincemeat pies (taste great with Blue Stilton!), these really great sausages made by The Black Farmer (apparently the only one in England, he even has a TV show wherein he trains and selects two apprentice farmers from a group of inner-city black youths), digestives, genuine lamb stew (with the fatty bits on, ugh, but the stew was delicious), tons of coffee, tea and every bit of bread I've come across, a crazy fruit from Israel called a Sharon fruit ("The sweetest persimmon in the world!), Cornish pasty (Steak and Stilton!), fish and chips, HP sauce, and at some point this week, I'm supposed to be headed to the town of Cheddar. Oh yeah, baby. I can't wait. After reading this list, it looks like it was a stroke of luck that I've had to walk everywhere....

Had to nix the trip to France since the dollar is doing so poorly (I knew I should've exchanged money the week before I left!!) it will literally cost me about 30% more than I've budgeted. I guess I'll have to do that as a separate trip. Darn. :-)

Anyway, in writing news, I'm pushing through on the drama I started a few weeks ago. I've been writing ahead, then reaching back and tweaking the first act as I refine the concept. I've been trying to use this SAVE THE CAT! software, but my brain rejects some of the terminology he uses (not because I don't believe in his structural outline, I just learned it under different names). It does look promising for anyone who outlines and plots with story cards and the demo version I have allows me to save and print to PDF for the outline I've started. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

One book that has been a tremendous resource for this is Linda Seger's classic MAKING A GOOD SCREENPLAY GREAT. I'm not afraid to reference a writing book, especially for craft information. No one can write your story for you, but there are definitely some nifty tricks to keep in mind along the journey. I haven't read any of her other books, so I can't recommend them. Please feel free to suggest away in the comments section.

In fact, I meant to ask folks to recommend their favorite craft books. I'll start a separate post with links to all the books on my shelf. Please include reference books as well, if you don't mind. I would never dream of asking anyone for their obscure reference materials, (you know, the one you found in a discard bin that is a first-person narrative outlining some completely mind-blowing life experience/job/time period/lifestyle), that would make me feel guilty and like a hustler -- I hate when writers steal my reference materials and write something better than me. :-)~

Anyway, it's nighttime here, and I'm trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour. My fingers are blue from the cold, even though the heat has been turned up to indulge the Southern Californian. I feel too guilty to complain, thank God I have my laptop to heat up my legs, my nose is colder than the dog's.

And the short film has been pushed AGAIN. The rock star DP isn't available until February cuz... he's a Rock Star DP. But, because it's been so long, the cool actor the director is enamored of (okay, it's really me, I'm enamored of him) has become available once again and is still interested. One good thing is that I have a lead on a location that will let me hang a rig (and an operator) out of a window and simulate flames and smoke. Heh, heh, heh. My own short film is waiting patiently for me to rewrite it. I went a wee bit astray starting this feature spec because I just woke up one day with 50 full-blown pages in my head and couldn't turn away from that (right, right?? I need validation here, people!). I am supposed to be rewriting the pilot, updating my SHIELD spec, speccing another current (prob RESCUE ME) and submitting all of this to the Agent and manager type folks I've been teasing for the last few months. Ugh. Back to the grindstone. I'm giving this drama another week's worth of work, and then returning to my "to-do" list of work. Promise.

It's the Cheese!

2006-11-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

I'm awake. I've been sleeping in 4-hour cycles every 8-hours since I arrived, so I might be a wee bit cranky. I apologize in advance. So far, I've eaten at a pub -- with teenagers, hmm, didn't realize the drinking age here was 16 -- walked around this little village outside of Reading (where I'm staying), eaten fish and chips, had a nice long chat with a bartender about why pudding isn't a pastry, and almost caused a car accident by screaming when my friend turned into what I thought was oncoming traffic, er, forgot about the whole left-side driving business (did I mention I haven't been sleeping very well?). Since I'm from SoCal, I've been wearing three layers at all times, sleeping with two hot water bottles, wool socks, a fleece pullover on top of my fleece pajamas, and wearing gloves everywhere but to dinner. Oh, yeah, and drinking lots and lots of tea.

Tomorrow I'm going into another small village to get some writing done, then, will be following up on a rumor about some farm-fresh cheese. Since the dollar is at a 20-month low, I'm not spending too much just yet. I'm saving up for my trip to London this weekend, and Paris next week.

The village I'm staying in reminds me of the town I grew up in -- lots of rain, fresh bread, and all the beef you can shake a stick at. :-) My friend's baby is 22-months old and has a British accent that is so darn cute, I keep stealing kisses and begging him for "cuddles." Still haven't mastered the money (well, that's true in the US, so I don't feel too bad), but I have to admit I can't understand everything folks are saying to me. Where I'm staying the accent is relatively mild, but the rhythm sounds like a scratched CD to me. Funny how it can be easier to communicate with someone in a completely foreign language than another dialect of your native one, huh? I gotta find a way to incorporate that into my screenplay....

OK, I'm off to bed. Gotta start brushing up on my tourist French for the public humiliation next week. Anybody got any suggestions for villages in France I can visit on my way to/from London -Paris? I'm determined to eat French cheese and bread in France if it costs me $150. :-)

Happy Belated Anniversary!

2006-11-22T16:26:00.001-08:00

Last week marked my one year anniversary blogging. Thank you to everyone who visits on a regular basis, and to everyone who posts comments (it's better than getting snail mail!).

I've really enjoyed this experience and hope to find more and better topics to post about in the upcoming year.

I'm off to Europe and San Francisco for the next few weeks, trying to clear my head so I can finish some things up in time for TV season. If I can master the whole Internet cafe thing, I'll post about what I'm up to.

TV shows I'm following:

HEROES -- Against my will I enjoyed this week's show. My resistance is entirely related to the plot hinging on the cheerleader, when there are other, much more intriguing story lines. And what's up with the short chick's mutation being the power of persuasion? I mean, honestly, I get it's some kind of mind control, but the way it was played out, she just seemed really really convincing (like Bill Clinton with a pixie cut). Let's hope the Hottie Brothers get it together soon.

BSG -- Loved last week's show, but it felt like it was missing a subplot, and I'm not sure I believe Adama would believe he was personally responsible for provoking the Cylons. Anyway, hope they give Tahmoh some screen time in this week's boxing episode. :-)

Grey's -- I'm still watching, but not as avidly as last season. I guess I'm hoping they start taking the medicine seriously again. I always enjoyed the personal drama, but felt like it was made more realistic by the grounding in the medicine. Tough balance, but I'm hanging in there hoping the show finds it again.

Ugly Betty -- Needs to get funny again. Telenovelas always have a melodramatic story point in the middle of the season, but I feel like the strength of this show really is in the fish-out-of-water comedy of Betty in the magazine world, now that they seemed determined to make her the Magic Chicana who sees things clearly and can solve any problem, I'm getting nervous.

Dexter -- Who did not already guess that the sister's boyfriend was the Ice Truck Killer??? The show is still very good, and I love that they took his character to the next level, and hope that the flashbacks into his life reveal some good shit. Can't wait for the rest of the episodes.

DAYBREAK -- So, I dug last week's show. Was really excited about Taye Diggs, happy he found something that will position him with a different audience (males 18-25, as opposed to the over-25 females his last show targeted), and am looking forward to tonight's epi. This will really determine for me if the show's premise has enough room to allow for a full season (let alone multiple seasons).

THE UNIT -- I watch this show every week even though the dialogue is sometimes uneven (I imagine that's what happens when Shawn Ryan and David Mamet pass scripts back and forth).

I'm taping everything while I travel and when I return, plan to throw up the blackout curtains and burn my retinas out catching up.

What are you guys watching?

Digging You Taye Diggs

2006-11-15T22:59:00.000-08:00

I'm digging DAYBREAK. I was worried that it would be terrible, that it would take the premise and mangle it, or worse, be a ham-fisted attempt at reimagining the concept.

Thank goodness I was wrong!! I'm excited about next week. I'm a little worried that my head won't be able to hang on to all of the alternate reality details, I'm loving that Hopper's body reflects the events as if they happened in linear time, and hopefully that they will keep the production values as high as they were tonight. ABC is doing a great job with this big act-outs. I barely had time to pop some corn for the second hour of the premiere and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss a minute. Pretty unusual for me since I have a dvr, but I didn't want to miss the "flow" of the story. I'm going to roll it back now and watch the bottom half of the first half hour -- I wasn't paying attention because I was skeptical!

Let's hope Deja Vu is as good, but in a totally different way. Coincidentally it's a Bruckheimer film whose film deal is at Disney which is also ABC... or is it? Hmm...

Dig Deep

2006-11-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

I have a manager friend who I've been recieving notes from over the last few years. He's read pretty much everything I've written so far, has always been supportive and insightful and he gives me usable, on-point notes. We were talking last night about the state of the business, how difficult it can be to get things done, and what the world of writing assignments looks like right now.

Writing assignments, for those who aren't familiar with the term, are when studios or financiers look to replace the writer of a project they own. Sometimes a writer is replaced because their deal is complete (I could do a post on writer deals if anyone is interested), sometimes a writer is fired from a movie with steps remaining in their deal, sometimes the idea was birthed internally at a staff meeting, sometimes it is based on a pre-existing property (i.e. book, movie, video game, etc.). The key here is that you are going to get paid to do the "assignment." When an assignment becomes available it is referred to as "open." Thus, open writing, open directing, is how jobs are often referred to, especially by agents, managers and execs, as in, "What do you have open in comedy?"

As studios move away from development and studio slates carry more and more films financed with outside money, the open assignment pool shrinks. This sucks for new writers, because after your first big spec, you want to make some of that assignment loot -- it's oh-so-sweet. The moral of my story: study your craft and always remain open to independent filmmaking. Making good movies is the only thing that matters.

Why Management?

2006-11-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Finally, by popular demand Part 1 of the Managers post!

This post covers much of the same ground as John Roger’s entertaining post about the different roles his manager and agent play in his career.

As I mentioned before in the agents post, the agency world is about making deals. Projects are talked about like trading cards, and agents spend the majority of their working day, supporting and advancing the agency’s agenda. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I’m in no way disparaging the work of agents in the process of getting movies made.

For a manager, it is about making careers. Typically management agencies are also production companies. This arose out of the transitioning of several agents out of the agency world in the early 90’s as those agencies became more and more deal driven. I was just a wee little hottie (not yet a full-on Diva) back then, but over the course of about 5 years a slew of agents were forced out, jumped out, or otherwise ended up at these start-up management production companies. They scooped up actors, directors and soon-to-be hot young writers left and right and then commenced to “build” each one of these “talents” (and I mean those quote marks) into “brands.”

Managers are typically looking for clients who have raw talent, dramatic ideas, good work habits, and fast turnaround. This isn’t very different criteria than what an agent is looking for, managers are (usually) just willing to work with folks in earlier stages of their careers, and will spend time on less developed ideas. The biggest difference between a manager and an agent, is that a manager will take you around town to meet with executives, producers and directors when there isn’t really a job at stake.

Having a manager is increasingly important in Hollywood today because of the fragmentation taking place in the business. As has been pointed out in a number of places, the industry is moving towards a more "entrepreneurial" model of filmmaking. In my opinion, this move from the patronage system of the early movie studio model, to the free market financing that's starting to take place is a sort of balkanization, if you will, pitting artists against one another for the resources to make films.

All that to say, management can act like your own production company, providing in-house development, strategic planning and production capabilities. For most folks who want a career that lasts longer than 10 years, this is vitally important.

Housekeeping

2006-11-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

OK, so, I hope I didn't screw with anybody's day by labeling all these posts without a warning. If so, *smack*! That's me tossing you a kiss.

I have nothing to say for myself. Borat is number one at the box office, comedies rule, and for a drama writer an ill-wind is blowing....

I'm sharpening up the pages on the pilot for the next few days. The drama feature spec I've been working on has been writing itself for the past week in odd bits and snatches, so I'm going to give it another week before I find out if I'm just nuts or if the pages are actually working as well as I think they are.

Groundhog Day All Over Again

2006-11-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

I keep seeing previews for this new ABC show DAYBREAK. Am I completely trapped in my childhood or is this GROUNDHOG DAY all over again? I don't remember the exact time that Bill Murray's character woke up at, but it was suspiciously close to the time they keep showing in that preview. I just don't understand how that can be taken seriously by anyone old enough to have enjoyed the original. Same thing with the new Denzel Washington movie DEJA VU. Isn't that 7 DAYS (which was TIME COP)?

I'm still going to see both of them, of course. I love science fiction premises and let me tell you, I'll watch every cyborg movie out there and then some. I guess I'm just wary and hoping that they each find a new take on the idea of revisiting the past, that the stories and characters tread some new emotional territory and that they are just plain good. I'm tired of watching sci fi premises created without respect for what makes sci fi so great -- it's ability to imagine a brave new world and explore the good and evil in it.

A friend of mine from high school recently contacted me. I went to a performing arts highschool and was a nut (let's not talk about the ballet shoes I insisted on wearing nearly every day my freshman year, or why I decided leotards, mini-skirts and a headwrap with hoop earrings were appropriate attire). Anyway, we were talking about The Six Million Dollar Man and how much we loved the show. He had a car accident a few years ago that was pretty terrible. Being an optimist, he, of course, mainly remembers how the equipment used to piece him together was straight out of that show. I guess that's what makes me such a geek. I do think the job of an artist is to imagine the future.

In other news, I had coffee with a senior producer on a current TV show. He gave me some great pointers on what to do this time around when I hire an agent (I was repped a couple of years ago, but didn't get staffed, so I moved to the Bay Area...), what types of pitfalls to avoid in my spec writing, and offered to read my current spec (as opposed to the pilot spec) when I've finished them. The pilot spec I'll have to find someone else to read because it turns out he is writing something in the same arena. Oh, well, I did pitch myself for a staff job if his script goes to pilot in January..... :-)

****** BREAKING NEWS ********

They just KILLED my favorite character on LOST. WTF??!!! i'M SOOOO DEPRESSED NOW.

Ugh, OK, I'm going to drown my sorrows in DEXTER, luckily I haven't watched last Sunday's episode yet.

Interesting Example

2006-10-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

I have no idea who this guy is but I found this very interesting. He basically annotates the opening page(s) of a screenplay. There are more styles of writing than one can shake a stick at, but this one is as good as any. Enjoy.

I've been writing up a storm. I reoutlined the original story for the spec pilot and have been writing new backstory on each of the relationships. Instead of the individual bios which I normally do, I've been writing "histories" of the individual relationships, the dynamics and how they drive one another. This feels much more productive to me for some reason.

Also, Monday night I sat down and wrote the first 60 pages of a story I've been thinking about since July. I'm really digging these pages so I'm going to write the rest of the outlined pages tonight and let it rest while I start back in on the pilot. This is my year to finish things and I'm on a roll!

Next year will be my year to revise them. :-) I'm also catching up with my HEROES, DEXTER, and BSG viewing.

I encourage folks to write spec features not just for sale, but also because this is how you get representation, get work and it is one of your only chances for folks to see the work that you do, what your point of view is, and what you bring to the form. Spec screenplays are also the main way that screenwriting and films evolve. During my brief stint in Hollywood, the scripts that I remember -- PULP FICTION, SEVEN, AMERICAN BEAUTY, SIXTH SENSE, TRAINING DAY -- were all written on spec. I have definitely read some great assignment work, but most of the truly great material was written by a solitary writer, at home. Spec material, if it is solid, will get you "read" at the junior and middle levels which is how you make your name and get on "writer lists." This is how you get meetings. Once you get meetings the rest is up to you.

Weekend Blackout and Holiday Greetings

2006-10-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm traveling to the Bay Area this weekend for my novel writing group. While there I do not anticipate being able to post to the blog (not like I'm all fastidious to begin with) so please grouse amongst yourselves. And Bianca: I swear to you I'm going to post that manager series. I just haven't had the time to re-read it and make sure I'm making sense (a big problem these days).

In other news, remember way back in February when I mentioned holiday cards? I know you've all been networking your tails off with one another inside and outside the industry. Well, this is your chance to get in someone's brain in a non-threatening way. One of the few things you can do that's business but feels purely social.

True to my word, I'm gearing up for the holidays myself. My christmas cards are designed, I'm finishing up the mailing list (very short this year, but a few key names) then that goes to the printer -- I normally try to hand-letter them in this insane italic script I learned back in the 4th grade (very hippy dippy school system, don't ask), but I'm beating back the OCD this year and just doing either preprinted stickers (eek, how Targét can I get?) or biting the bullet and dropping precious $$ on pre-printing.... We'll see. This option is much cheaper than in years past.... Anyway, I'll let you know how it all turns out. I hope that everyone out there is sending out their holiday greeting cards. This is the perfect time to remind folks that you exist and make sure they have a way to contact you.

A few tips:

DO NOT MAKE THIS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. A simple: "happy holidays" with a handwritten gentle reminder of the last time you met/saw one another "great to see you at that screenwriting conference/Britney's party, let's stay in touch in the new year" and then drop your contact info at the bottom (the pre-printing makes this seem more professional).

Name
Address (optional)
Email
Contact number

Most offices are sort of automated as far as contact info goes, so there is a pretty good chance you'll be added to the rolodex using this method, and as any insider who has ever rolled a call will tell you, being in the rolodex vastly increases your chances of making the call sheet or (gasp) getting through. Make sure you name drop in a way that isn't obnoxious, but that will catch the eye of an overworked 2nd assistant who is the one who decides if your card makes it in the right pile. And don't send holiday cards to someone you haven't actually met. Fan cards to talent, OK, unsolicited holiday cards to agents and execs... a little creepy.

And thanks to Scott the Reader for the link and the coveted spot on his blog roll. You are a true gentleman.

I'm Famous...Kind Of

2006-10-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

Scott the Reader posted this in response to my Coverage post. I feel famous -- his blog gets waaaay more traffic than my little diary here.

And there must be something in the water, cuz UNKNOWN SCREENWRITER also recently posted about this, although from a different angle and he links to this solid little piece that lays out the bare bones of exactly what a reader's job is.

OK, back to the salt mines.... After I finish watching A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, of course. ;-) Talk about logic holes!!

Draft Numero Dos

2006-10-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the second draft of my spec pilot right now. I'm really pushing because last week I met a writer from a one-hour drama show (I actually know him from just being in Hollywood and going to parties, but we've never worked together), and he agreed to read my spec. He's shooting his episode right now, so I've got 10 days to get myself together and put my best foot forward. I feel very confident about this pilot, perhaps foolishly, but I've only done one full draft of it and it is popping. I'm working on backstory for all of my characters and trying to lay to rest all of the logic/plot questions brought up in my notes session last week.

All of which brings me to this question: What do you guys do to stay focused? I have wicked ADHD and I normally drink about 10 cups of coffee per day when I'm under the gun like this. I'm trying new and different things this year so I thought I'd reach out to you all. I never pulled an all-nighter in college, but I think I may have to break my perfect record if I don't drink up. This is one of those damned if I do, damned if I don't situations since the coffee makes me so dang jittery I'm walking around with a dry mouth, wide eyes, and a paranoid mentality. :-)

Also, I hope you all have been paying attention to all these articles about digital/web-movie making. I've been preaching this to everyone I've ever met with -- and you can ask any filmmaker, actor or aspirant who has ever taken a talent meeting with me -- get some $$$ and make a movie yourself, and then post a comment here so we can all go and see it.

Notes Coming Out My Ears

2006-10-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

First up, thanks to Will for the link on your blog and the advice -- I'm putting it to use already! I reoutlined the feature spec and found some good holes, so I think if I can figure out a more concrete objective for my protagonist, one that is thematically linked to his internal conflict, then I'm golden.... Until the next draft anyhow. :)

In other news, Saturday I went to a get together and ran into a few television writers. Last year, a friend got me into a table read-thru and the writers' room during a taping day and I was able to watch them solve a few last minute problems and break a story that played later in the season. Very cool stuff. It was nice to see those folks and catch up with them and feel like an insider while they dished.

My experience working as an executive doesn't really help me in situations like that, not directly, anyway. No one cares which directors I've worked for, or what credits I have, or what studio was paying my car allowance. These are writers who are, generally speaking, well-paid, they are at the top of their game industry-wise, and for the most part, only looking up. I mean nothing to them. I do have basic social skills from giving and taking pitches for the last ten years, so I didn't embarrass myself or nothing.

Then, tonight, this manager I've been chatting with called me about the spec pilot. He liked it, feels like it will get me work (yippee!) and gave me notes. Ugh. Nothing crazy, I don't need to reconceive the pilot, or the structure, just deepen some things that I had sketched in, make a bit more of a meal out of the basic character conflicts/objectives, and clarify some plot points. So, tonight I'm typing up what he and I talked about (after this post...), then tomorrow morning I'm off to Starbucks for a few hours to see what I can get done. I want to get the pilot out to a couple of drama writers I met at the party who've agreed to read it and give me pointers. I want a nice polished piece before I hand it over to the agent. Then, I have to write a current sample. This never ends, does it? Luckily, I'm hyperactive.

Chris: I've been asking around, but I don't really talk to the production company contacts I used to have, and studios use union readers. I'll keep you posted if I hear of anything. My suggestion to you is to dust off your resume, put the non-Hollywood stuff at the bottom, and at the top put a section that details your writing related/story training stuff. E.g. Robert McKee's story structure class, that part-time MFA in Screenwriting you've pursued, or the festivals you placed in -- I can write a longer post about what folks look for in a reader if you want, but there's an excellent book called READING FOR A LIVING that I highly recommend. It is dated, but for the most part that job hasn't changed since it was invented. Once you've got the resume reconfigured, go ahead and start sending it out along with a copy of sample coverage. Sample coverage should be for a script that is out in the world, but unproduced. For example, THE TRUMAN SHOW was the first script that I did coverage on (How old am I?! Yikes!). At that time, it was well-known as a solid, but flawed screenplay, something that everyone agreed should be made, but no one could seem to pull it together. That is, of course, until Jim Carrey came along.

I was never able to get work as a reader because I'm far to literal to write summary, fortunately for me I was able to hustle my way into an executive job. I always looked for readers who had some formal training, either in screenwriting or literary analysis. I didn't like to use readers who read for too many folks, but always wanted readers who had experience. My main criteria were: good grammar (cuz I need all the help I can get), objective analysis (meaning, I didn't want a reader who felt that their job was to pass or recommend material to me, but rather someone who understood dramatic structure well enough to know if a screenplay worked and why or why not), and consistency (both in terms of their taste in material and their work habits). I employed about 5-7 readers in addition to reading myself and aside from my core group, used about 2-3 readers on a rotating basis. Every production company is different, and generally it is the story editor who hires the reader, so directing your queries to that person, or his/her assistant is a safe bet.

Good luck with all of that, I don't think the reader route is for everyone, and certainly don't think it's the only (or the best) way to learn story structure. Actually making the scripts you've written is the most effective teacher, especially if you can find filmmakers who meet or exceed your own skill level. That's my advice, anywho, worth what you payed for it minus depreciation.... :-)

Coverage Tips [UPDATED -- I forgot to label it!]

2006-10-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've posted a little bit about this before, but thought I'd expand.

The only coverage that matters is bad coverage. Sure, folks will tell you that a Recommend can get you work, get you a meeting, and agent, blah blah blah, but let me tell you from experience -- I've blown off positive coverage with no ill effects, but every bit of bad coverage I've received on a project has dogged my footsteps.

What is coverage, exactly? It's a two to four-page report generated by a (usually freelance) "reader" which summarizes and evaluates a manuscript. It typically comes with a cover page that gives an at-a-glance "snapshot" of the project: logline, brief description of the story, and a grid that provides a short-hand for the reader's evaluation of the major elements of a script. Usually, the scores are on a five point scale and cover Characters, Plot, Dialogue, and Story Structure. Then, there's that little box that matters most: OVERALL.

Readers frequently have a disproportionate amount of power in the industry. Sometimes it is justified (I worked with some crackerjack union guys when I was at the studio, folks with a deep understanding of story), often it isn't. While there are shops where the head of the studio is a literate, well-read cineaste, and there are also those where the boss doesn't even read coverage and instead each movie depends on the exec's pitching skills and the effectiveness of the lobby from its agents and managers. The only way to get through all of this is by mastering your craft, keeping your eye on the marketplace, and networking, aka the good old fashioned way.

There are ways to "write with the reader" in mind that won't compromise the artistic integrity of the script, but these things are best thought of after you've put the piece through your own rigorous artistic machine, not before. That said, let's go through a few:

1. Professional formatting.

I cannot tell you how often I've heard of folks tossing a script because it came in a 3-ring binder. That is about as asnine as putting a script in one in the first place. And two wrongs don't make a right. Because you can't count on getting a reader with a sense of work ethic, please show yours by submitting screenplays secured with 2 brads, one in the top hole and one in the bottom hole -- and go the extra mile to get "industry standard brads" i.e. ACCO Solid Brass Fasteners, 1 1/4 inch No. 5. Hollywood is a rigid, image conscious place. The nail that stands up gets hammered down. Remember that.

2. To paraphrase Cameron Crowe (stealing from Billy Wilder, I think), write the script as if you're writing a letter to a friend.

I say this in regards to the descriptive action, of course. I do not recommend you do this on the first, or even fourth pass. Wait until you are ready to send the script out, then, carefully, go through it and keep in mind that someone is reading this. Does your description invite the reader into your story? Are you clear and unambiguous in your choices? Can someone reading the script enjoy the time s/he spends with you and your story? Shane Black has made a career out of this, and is worth studying. I recommend reading only the descriptive text to test flow. This is also another candidate for the little black box method, and if you have a friend who loves you, perhaps you can provide enough beer and pizza to get them to do the reading for you and you can sit back and listen. Or you can use the Final Draft voice box, but I wouldn't recommend it -- no poetry.... Still, any port in a storm.

3. Plug Logic Holes.

Readers love to find logic problems with a script. If you have done a solid job with characterization and the tone feels right, these types of problems will be forgiven, but there are readers out there who rejoice in finding flaws in a screenplay's structure and will allow these flaws to dominate their analyses of a screenplay. Find as many logic-minded folks as you possibly can and get them to comb through the screenplay. Address their problems. Even if it kills you and upsets the delicate dramatic balance you've crafted. Even if it costs you a laugh. Don't get nutty and throw the baby out with the bathwater, but at the very least, tip your hat to the logic-fascists.

4. Keep your tongue out of your cheek and don't wink at anybody.

While you want the script to be reader-friendly, don't go overboard and put on a show just for the reader. I'm sure Scott the Reader has a few things to say about this, I dug round the archive but don't have the time to find a good post to link. Anyway, executives, producers, directors and readers hate it when writers "break the fourth wall" and ruin the flow of a screenplay by facing camera and doing a softshoe.

All of this sort of assumes you've exercised basic craft and found a story that's compelling. Again, that OVERALL box is a killer, but if you can get high marks in the other areas a story is evaluated for -- i.e. Characters, Plot, Dialogue, Story Structure -- you may get passed to the next level... underpaid story editor.

Good luck and toss questions where you think they'll do the most damage. :-)

Back to the Beginning

2006-10-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hey, everybody! I turned in the script last week to the indie director. They couldn't read the first copy (software incompatibility issues), so I had to wait another day and a half to hear from them after I sent the second copy (thank goodness for word RTF files). I've been a bundle of nerves and Tums waiting to hear from them, and sorry to say, not the best company for my poor little Stinky Cheese puppy dog.

Anyway, last night, I finally heard from the local producer. The director read the script Monday night and she cried at the ending. And not because it was awful. :-) So after rushing out to buy myself a pint of Haagen Das chocolate peanut butter ice cream and then eating it, of course, I've been waiting for her notes.

This project is a beast. A 130-page script that I had to basically rewrite from page one. I managed to cut 18 pages out, but the director wants to add to a storyline I'd been trying to minimize, so I know the next pass is going to require a rethink of the dramatic structure. It's all good, though. I'm trying to keep it out of my head until I actually get the notes back, so I'm turning to another draft of the spec feature I drafted in August. It's slow-going....

Anyway, I decided not to pursue the job opp. I'm going to kick networking into high-gear instead and try to meet as any showrunners as I can over the next few months. I haven't done that because I didn't have any current samples worth passing around, but I will by the end of December.

P.S. Scott the Reader is trying to get a Koffee Klatch going. Join him! Screenwriters UNITE!!

P.P.S. The pic is from Natalie Dee.

Another Job Call

2006-10-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Every six months or so, I get a call to see if I would be interested in "meeting" about a job. I don't take every one of these that floats down the river, but if I think the person who is inquiring is interesting, or if it would just be rude for me to turn it down, I'll go in. I'm 99% committed to my artistic poverty and the whole notion of writing until I sell something, but there is that little niggle of doubt that haunts me. When I get calls like the one I got this morning, that doubt trebles in urgency and the next thing I know, my eyelid is twitching again....

This morning an agency friend called to ask me if I wanted to go in and meet with a client who just got a boatload of financing and a distribution deal with a pretty substantial marketing committment behind it. As you may or may not know, having money to make a movie, getting a movie into theaters, and spending money to let folks know the movie is made and out there, are each entirely separate things and have to be approached as such. So, this place sounds like it could be set up pretty nicely. In my previous incarnation as baby shark in Gucci pumps, I would have shown up with double-shot soy lattes for everyone, but, with my goals in sight (the writing is getting much much better), I'm not as interested in the dance as I would have been this time last year.

The irony here, of course, is that the dance is just that, a dance. I call her, she invites me to meet and it's on from there. Here's a little Hollywood for you:

an office meeting -- she's not that serious, but if I can tapdance well enough she might tease me;

a coffee date -- she's not that serious, but she doesn't want to insult me so she's playing the "we're close enough to not need to do the whole formal thing with one another," tap dancing required;

a breakfast/lunch date -- she's serious, but I'm still too junior for her to beg, a softshoe is in order;

a dinner -- she's serious, real serious, if I play my cards right I might pry out enough money to buy a real house somewhere near the beach, no dancing, but a nice rhythmic swaying would be prudent;

a dinner at Mr. Chow's -- how serious am I about this job? They'll double whatever I ask, but they will own me.

If I were looking for an exec/producing for hire gig, this one wouldn't be it. I'd shoot for something at a studio-based production company, something at a branded entertainment deal (meaning they already have a name for themselves, so you're pushing product) because when you've been dead as long as I have, you gotta find a way to make what's old look new (Chris Rock has a funny blue riff on this that I won't repeat here), and the best way to do that is following a mandate and filling a slate -- the assembly line assures that you won't wont for submissions, and the brand guarantees that you have a wide mouth ready to swallow whatever you're serving.

To build a new company, from the ground up, with all the pressures independent financing brings (e.g. the slate has to hit the ground running, there's little time for development because the money is coming from individual institutions, not some corporate board with a thousand other ways to monetize your failures), is a huge endeavor. I've participated in a few of those and they're startups, and have the same advantages and disadvantages of every start up.

Anyway, I might get sucked into the meeting out of guilt and loyalty. But I won't like it. I'd rather be home, writing.

And Another Excellent Bargain

2006-10-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

My friend who has donated her services for a charity auction has just informed me that her book agent, Richard Abate at ICM-NY, has also donated his. This is a grand opportunity to get feedback from someone who normally wouldn't even see your query letters. Take advantage, please! And pass it along to anyone you know with a book manuscript. The auction's not been highly publicized, so I think whoever submits for this one will get an excellent "deal."

A Good Cause

2006-10-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

A friend is auctioning off her services. She's an excellent reader and excellent analyst. Please consider donating to what promises to be a good cause. I'm a big softie and reading through the website moved me enough to post this here. Please spread the link, bid and/or donate as you are able.

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In other, more frivolous news, I'm watching Ugly Betty again. Already had two big belly laughs and the show is only halfway done. I'm not digging the arch-nemesis, or that dumb Fashion TV bit they keep overplaying, but the freaking fight between the sister and Gina Gambaro was the best ever. Also funny -- the line, "You can take my bunny, but you can't take my spirit." I saw it coming a mile away by that girl really sold it.

My biggest question: why are they Mexican? In New York? Queens, no less?

Oh Yeah, Baby

2006-10-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

I dig it.

Count Me In

2006-10-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

I was over at one of my favorite new blogs: Unknown Screenwriter, and he has a (meme? thread?) from Red Right Hand. My DSL has been down since Saturday, so I'm straggling in with the first page in the short I held the read-thru for last month. I hope you guys like it....

P.S. This is the Unpolished Turd... er, version.

Ugly Betty

2006-09-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Halfway through the show and I already love it. I was ready to hate it, but I think they got this one exactly right. I almost fell out when they played the blurry vision POV after she hit the glass like a damn country pigeon in the Big City. Still thinking about how I can use that one.... The guy she's working for isn't enough 0f a bad guy to justify this emotional arc with her, but still, really love it.

The Rules

2006-09-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been pretty busy. In addition to preparing my book for the next 100 pages of writing (e.g. re-reading the 100 pages I have, outlining, journaling, setting up a writing schedule, repeating affirmations to myself that I don't suck and I don't need to get another development job), a producer friend called me about an indie rewrite job. Originally, this was supposed to come together at the end of August, when I had no pressure for my book pages, but, of course, being indie filmmakers they didn't have the money.

This time I held out for a couple grand because I knew it was taking me away from working on the book and finishing my tv samples (I'm waiting for feedback on the pilot and working on outlines for RESCUE ME and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA to see which one works best), so I thought I'd leave it up to the fates to determine if I should put that aside.

Aside from the validation I feel cashing a check that says "for screenwriting services" in the memo line, I have set up some criteria for how I price my services and the reasons I'll take a non-union, indie job.

The number one rule is: Who is making the film? Obviously I don't expect Stephen Spielberg to call me up and ask me to do some work on a "little experimental thing he and the Toms (Cruise and Hanks, 'natch)" are brewing up. However, I do like to feel like the folks I'm working with are actually going to make the movie. Afterall, a writer is just a dreamer until somebody actually produces the work.

Rule number 2 is: How much turnaround time do I have? I prefer to work under tight turnarounds. It sounds nutty, but in my spec work I'm taking my time, making sure that I get things right, but I'm used to the pace of major feature film production where the only obstacle to getting something done is money. I've worked on films where the pages were being printed in a trailer on set and photocopied in small batches to make sure the critical folks got it in time for shooting. There's something about sitting with professionals who are there to make it work, people, and actually making it work. Also, there are fewer politics (usually) simply because there's no time for manuvering.

Rule number 3: How much work do I have to do? Now this isn't about the number pages that need to be re-written, this is more about how clear are the filmmakers about what they want to have done. Do they have specific scenes that need to be adjusted? Do they know how those adjustments will go? Are they adding or omitting specific elements? Or, is it one of those general pleas to "make it better," and off you go. Having worked as a development exec, I don't do development work for free. There's a fine line on a rewrite job between work a writer ought to be doing, and work that ought to be done in order to hire a writer. Of course I'm capable of figuring out what's wrong with a script, writing that up, then deconstructing it into a writing plan for myself and then actually executing the work, but that's a helluva lot of work for one person. I make it clear that I will be charging more for that work because I am meticulous and detail-oriented and persistent.

Rule number 4: Will I get credit? On non-WGA films, this is entirely negotiable. I'm sure it would suck if I had a film I'd originated and someone else ended up with a writing credit, but I also know that if I put time into it, my deal would reflect that. I definitely protect my writing services much better than I do my producing ones! If it's not possible for me to get a credit, I take whatever figure I'd had in my head after sorting through the above and add about 25%.

Rule number 5: Can I actually deliver? Now, you'll notice this is the last rule here. My philosophy is that it's hard as shit to get work in this town (even indie work), so I'd rather kick the tires and start the engine before deciding to back out of a deal than pass because I couldn't handle it. I do believe that if you are a solid craftsman (nothing to do with art, at this point), you can analyze the style of a screenplay or genre and figure out the basic tick-tock that makes it work -- that doesn't mean you'll make it a work of art, but at the indie level any film looking for a new writer just needs some basic mechanical work.

In truth, each of these is a weighted rule and that weight is constantly changing (in this case, when I said I'd do the job I had more time, now that I'm pressed for time I wish I'd asked for more $$ and more specific notes). Still, a deal is a deal and the check did clear....

Anyway, I'm hoping to post more regularly now. I feel like I was supposed to post something I wrote a while ago and have forgotten about.... I'll have to look around the old hard drive and see what's gathering dust.

Read-Thrus Rock!

2006-09-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

Last night went much much better than I thought it would. It also ran over by about 2 hours, and if one of my actors hadn't had a 5 AM call we'd still be there fighting over the beat work right now. To every single one of them I have to give a big hats off. They all had sharp eyes, good instincts, and real committment to helping me get the work on its feet.

I have no idea when this piece is going to be shot. The director has up and moved across the country, the boat is sitting in the harbor just waiting, and the weather is a few weeks away from turning. But, for my purposes, I'm tightening up the turn at the bottom of the script, then passing the script off to the producer and moving on to greener passengers. My goal is to let things settle a bit before I start polishing. I came home last night and spent about an hour typing up my notes, writing thank you notes, and reviewing parts of the tape. I'm going to bed early, and when I get up tomorrow I'll pound out the revisions.

What I'd been hoping for is a little back and forth with the actors, an opportunity to find out where they were going emotionally to get to the place that I wanted them to end up, the good underbelly of filmmaking that as a writer you only experience by yourself. What I ended up with was far more than that. To anyone out there staging your own reading, I highly recommend you find actors who have done extensive stage work, who've done vocal training, movement training, and scene analysis workshops -- it makes everything so much easier. If you can also take at least one workshop/class in each of these subjects you'll be ahead of the curve.

We spent the majority of our time talking about the characters, their backstory, the beats that the actors felt didn't have enough underpining for them to build on top of, I found three missing beats, and a few beats that were out of order. I think the best thing that came out of the evening was a big shot to my confidence. Oh yeah, Diva rocks! Now if I can just get my feature to this place I might finally make this into a paying gig! LOL. Hopefully things will settle down enough for me to do that -- I hope all of you are doing well out there.

BIANCA: The book's subject isn't top-secret, I'm just not coherent enough about it to really lay the plot out. Basically, it's about a young woman coming to terms with her childhood. The particulars involve a beat-to-hell Volkswagon Fox, a bunch of baby dolls and a Korean hooker. That's all I can say for certain. Ask me again in December (my self-imposed deadline to get the first draft completed).

Get Geeked

2006-09-17T12:59:00.003-07:00

I'm working on my sides for the read-thru but thought I'd post this link for all you 007 fans out there. I've been reserving judgment about Daniel Craig as Bond because I do think he's hot (in a blue-collar, dirty kind of way) and my favorite Bond films were the ones with Sean Connery and lots of ass-kicking. I think they nailed it.

CASINO ROYALE -- let me know what you think.

P.S. There is no legitimate reason my prep work would take me to the internet. Again, this is exactly why I normally work at Starbucks!

Hey There, Stranger....

2006-09-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'm still alive. Congrats to Will for the gig. Think of me when you're toiling away and now I'm green with envy!

I'm gathering all of my bits and pieces for Sunday. I had a couple of actors flake and had my lead actor go all crazy with me yesterday:

Me: So, I'm calling to confirm the reading on Sunday at 8:30p

Actor: Is that when it is? (beat) I've been waiting for you to call and give me a date. For a week.

Me: Can you not do it?

Actor: Oh, no, I'm free, but you said you were going to call me, and then I didn't hear from you....

Me: Well, if you remember, about a week and a half ago I told you we were definitely doing it on Sunday the 17th probably at 7p, but that I had to confirm with another actor and the theater before I could confirm with you. (beat) So, this is me confirming.

Head 'em off at the pass I always say. This guy was already complaining to the producer that I hadn't told him every little detail about the read-thru, so I knew he was waiting with some kind of scolding. Meanwhile, he's been promising me actors and that he'd help find the stage, etc., only to turn around once I've secured things to say "Oh, well, I would've done it but since you have something for certain...." I hate when people do that.

Anywho, for anyone who's never done one of these, I'll lay out my plans for the next few days. I'm happy to break the entire process down and provide examples of some of the materials below if anybody needs a flashlight through the woods.

So far, I've pulled together maps and directions, assembled my cast, secured the theater we'll be using, picked up a tripod and photocopied a stack of scripts. I emailed out an agenda with a map, the script, an agenda and my "hopes and dreams" idea of how the read-thru will run.

Today I'll place a personal call to everyone involved in the reading, pick up the the video camera and tape so that I can do a dry run of the recording and see if I need to beg, borrow or steal a microphone(s).

Then tomorrow I'll break the script down in pieces and put together my binder for the run-thru (phone numbers of everyone involved in case anyone is running late, extra copies of the scenes separated into different "sides", blank paper, tape flags, pens, pencils and a couple of colored pens and highlighters in different colors).

On Sunday, I'll get cash (in case someone needs to get bailed out of jail, (and I'm only partially kidding here)), buy some soda (coke/diet coke/sprite), bottled water, ice, grapes, pretzels and some cookies, meet up with my friend early to set up the read-thru area and a "holding" area for folks who aren't doing scenework, then settle in and wait for people to show up.

The read-thru itself is going to (hopefully) run like this:

8:15p-8:30p -- ARRIVALS

8:30p -- Cold read-thru

8:45-9:15p -- Scenework: Scenes 1-3

9:15-9:30p -- Scenework: Scenes 4-9

9:30p-9:45p -- Scenework: Scenes 9-11

9:45p-10:00 -- final read-thru

The piece is actually only 9 pages, so I think it will take about an hour, but with the crazy lead actor, and another actor I've never even met (who is used to doing stage work), I'm anticipating any kind of craziness if these two don't like one another.

I made sure everyone knows the session is being taped for my personal use so no one is shocked by the camcorder, and now, all I can do is work my plan and watch things unfold.

Last weekend, I went up to the Bay Area for my novel writing group and had a great time. Everyone is so on point in terms of just getting the pages out there. It's really inspiring, and the books were good too. I'm due to turn in 100 pages in November, so I'm sweating every night. I'd put the book aside to get my samples finished and since I'm still working in rough, I'm having nightmares about ex-boyfriends showing up recently divorced, giant bbq's at which I'm cooking everyone's food using my pages for fuel (they impart such a nice smoky mesquite flavor to the ribs...), and my dog growing a beard and sitting in a rocker waiting for me to finish something.

Anyway, back to the salt mines. This week I rewrote one chapter of my book (the dreaded Chapter 5 which has been kicking my ass since I started it). Came up with an act-break fix for my tv spec pilot, wrote a partial treatment for an indie film idea I've been kicking around for a while, and read a book (LICK CREEK by Brad Kessler which I can neither recommend nor trash, just wish I had back the 8 hours I put in). What have you guys been up to? :-)

How Not to Keep a Job

2006-09-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hey you guys, I'm bearing down on my read-thru, tightening up the script, casting the actors (really just passing the script out to friends and saying "Gotcha!"), and putting together logistical details like maps and ice chests. Posting will be exceptionally light for the next week as I try not to fall out from stress.

Anecdotally, I spoke with a friend of mine who had to fire her director today. She is shooting a short film and he wasn't stepping up to the plate. The director provides leadership through the production phase of shooting. Not bringing story boards, not actively pursuing your crew (especially the department heads), running late for meetings -- all of this is rock star behaviour which typically doesn't mesh well with low budget/no budget indie films and it sucks for everybody who is working their fingers to the bone.

And completely randomly: there are now officially 4-digit hits per month! I'm almost done with the two projects I'm writing (TV spec pilot and a feature spec) and when I'm done I'm going to finish the re-do on the template. I want to put up some blog links to those of you who frequent the blog, so please let me know if you want me to link you up!

There Can Be Only One

2006-09-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

If you've been following the corporate struggles over at Viacom (and I know you have, right?), this morning's news was a long an area of speculation.

Tom Freston is OUT at Viacom. Leaving Les Moonves as the head of CBS and Paramount. Talk about evil plans coming true! Now we'll see some Executive Deathmatch as Brad Grey, Gail Berman (mostly on the outs according to to scuttlebut), and whoever the hell else is still alive over there, scramble to prove that the movies they've released, purchased and packaged over the last two-three years are going to start raking in the loot for the studio. With their share price hovering in the mid-30's they've got to pull up on the yoke before they crash and burn. Media moguls care about two things: prestige and money. That means Oscars, Globes and Box Office, none of which have been Paramount's strong suits in the last few years.

I predict there will be sharp turn into genre films: think horror, romantic comedies, movies geared at tweens, action films (like FAST AND THE FURIOUS), and big fat comedies (like 40-YEAR OLD VIRGIN), and definitely definitely definitely tentpoles franchise films. That means middle of the market dramas (like COACH CARTER) probably won't be made there for a while. If you write genre films this is the time to put it in high-gear and get ready to pound the pavement to find an agent with an in over on Melrose....

The Il-LUSION-ist

2006-09-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

I went to the Arclight this evening and saw Ed Norton's new movie, THE ILLUSIONIST. I was entertained. But, I can't say it was the best movie I've seen this year. The character work was interesting, the set design was amazing, Jessica Biels looked hot (not enough for me, but I'm sure there are those of you out there who will gladly pay $14.50 to see her), and Ed Norton had some crazy facial hair all down his neck.

The most annoying thing for me were the visual affectations used throughout the film. Dick Pope shot the film (and I've enjoyed other films he's shot) and it uses this "irising" effect that's meant to emulate early hand-cranked cinematography. They also introduced a flicker, and some soft focus on the edges. I got a raging headache about 20 minutes into the film, but I'm interested to hear what other folks experienced. I might have thought the film was better if I could've tolerated the viz fx.

One of the Reasons I Got Out

2006-09-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

I recently came across a very angry filmmaker I never worked with when I was a producer and an executive. He's doing much better for himself than he was when I was passing on his scripts, turning down his dinner invitations, and in general avoiding him. He's not rich, but he got his movie made, he got distribution, and hopefully, someday soon, he'll realize that this is all that matters. In the meantime, I'm avoiding his angry little behind like the Plague.

A lot of people take their rejections personally. And it's hard not to take rejection personally when someone is telling you that your dreams aren't what they are looking for, not good enough, or not commercial. This is one of the reasons why I got out. I hate being the bearer of bad news. Not just because it's emotionally painful to tell someone you can't help make their dreams come true, but also because I'd rather just get it out of the way and leave no room for backpedaling -- which can seem impersonal to some people. Well, guess what? A "good" pass is impersonal. It has nothing to do with you, who you are, or, hopefully, your future potential submissions to the person who passed.

When you are a female executive, male filmmakers (and agents, directors, actors, etc.) think they can hustle you by showering you with attention, flattery and a little romance. It works pretty frequently because, as an executive, you're typically working 80 hours a week and you never get to leave town. Whenever you see a crappy movie that should've died at birth, there's a romance somewhere in the background. I'm not one of those folks. I rarely work, or even really discuss work, with the guys that I date. I might have a general discussion about movies, or story, but I've never been one of those people who fantasize about being part of a "Hollywood Power Couple." Consequently, the men I dated who did work in the industry were not folks I ever planned to work with -- occasionally to their consternation.

I guess the point of this post is that if you discover that you are one of the folks I never worked with when I was at The Studio, YOU are one of the reasons I got out. Kindly cross to the other side of the street and carry on.

The Film Diva

Coming Around the Mountain...

BREAKING INTO HOLLYWOOD PT 1: SAMPLES

Writing... pitching... Happy Holidays!

Still Alive and Kicking... barely

RIP Paul Newman

Isaac Hayes has passed on...

Live From Abbey Road

Foreign Markets

Howdy, Strangers!

Story Ideas

Love You Jack!!

The Craft of Development

Home for the Holidays

Long Time, No Post

The Incredible Ron Rifkin

WGA STRIKES!

A Little Update

No Good Deed....

Many New Developments

MAX ROACH IS GONE

Again with the Random Musings...

STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!!

Adaptation

RANDOM MUSINGS

TALK TO ME

PSYCH!!

California Dreamin'....

Tetris Japanese Style

Book Trailers

Parkour, anyone?

First Cut

MANAGER-AGENT ARTICLE

Buzzell's Men In Black

**UPDATED*** KID NATION LINK

KID NATION and The Network Upfronts

PILOT VIEWING SEASON HAS BEGUN

DAYS THREE, FOUR AND FIVE IN THE... CARD

Day One

I See Kinos...

The Diva and the 3-Ton Truck

No Gaffer? No problem!!

Tiny Bubbles

Some Changes Around Here

Agency Pitches

Maui-tude

It's Pilot Season!!!!!

Thank You, Mr. Whitaker!!

Reno 911: MIAMI and HOT FUZZ

Being There with the Christian Right

Funny Funny Funny

LAT: Server Unavailable

Daybreak Online!!

Richard Abate Is at Endeavor

Fund Your Film: Grant Money

What About the Writers????

Another Heroes Post (UPDATED)

Another Heroes Post

Executive Death Match

Production

Battles To Be Fought

Hugh Laurie

Bon Mots

Bill Burr

"Experience Strategies"

**UPDATED** Berman Out, No Surprise

New In Print

Dumping

Dirt?

Dramatic Action

Merry X-mas

Petition Time!!

Mincemeat and Stilton

It's the Cheese!

Happy Belated Anniversary!

Digging You Taye Diggs

Dig Deep

Why Management?

Housekeeping

Groundhog Day All Over Again

UPDATED* KID NATION LINK

UPDATED Berman Out, No Surprise