Sleeping With The Enemy

Signing with an agency is a little bit like having a pimp. Actually, it's a lot like having a pimp, especially if you need the agent more than the agent needs you. Managing that relationship so that you get the most out of it is just as important as signing with the agent in the first place.

I'm preparing another one of my little mini-series, so please bear with me because I need to pull together a couple of things (like my short and that guest room which is now covered in plastic and primer). I think it will be in 3 parts. The first one will be about the function of the agent/manager, the second one will be about how to get an agent/manager, and the third one will be about what to do once you have signed (or been hip-pocketed which is not necessarily a bad or good thing as long as you run your writing career like the Fortune 50 business it is).

I'm also planning posts on pacing (in a cut as opposed to on the page, but I'll talk about that a bit, as well), common story terms used in development and in those screenwriting books (like whatever the hell "rising action" is supposed to help you do), effective character introductions, and what to look for when you are screen-testing actors. If anyone is interested, I've been toying with creating a section that would have different approaches for drafting screenplays to help people with different writing styles learn the form. I've been flipping through a bunch of screenwriting books and I have to say, the actual how-to portions pale in comparison to the amount of "it-oughta-look-like." Sort of like someone trying to show you how to build a car by taking you for a joyride, then laying all the pieces out on a big tarp and yelling "Go!"

The dog is stalking me, so I have to get my ass in gear and head to the dog park before it gets ugly. He keeps jumping up on my leg and trying to kiss me. And he's not a lovey dovey kind of dog so it's creeping me out.

BTW, do not EVER buy dog food made from fish. For obvious reasons. Yuck.

Specs, Specs, Specs and more Specs

It's summer, folks. Town is officially on vacation. There are still folks doing business here and there, movies are still coming out and all that, but the hardcore work of purchasing and developing movies has slowed waaaaaaay down. This means you need to be writing your ass off and getting your spec polished up for the first weekend after Labor Day which is one of the best spec weeks of the year. Folks are eager to read, they know they are going to get some time off for the Jewish High Holidays in the fall, and they need to justify their existence.

I am getting my producing projects ready for financiers. My plan is to submit to casting directors this month, get a good cast list together, visit agents starting in August (folks are bored and more prone to speculation), and then send the script in for attachments and start doing the rounds of financiers and distributors by September with my little package. I'm out to a casting director right now, but since I know I'm not ready to send it out anywhere I haven't pushed yet.

The important thing to remember during this packaging process is that "Town" is a moving target. I want the best actor for the piece who also isn't in actor-jail. Meaning, I don't need to get Johnny Depp to sign on to raise the $6-8 million I need for my film, but if I sign on Skeet Ulrich I probably will have to make the movie for $500,000. If you chase after someone just because you imagine (or are told) that a particular studio has them at the top of their casting "wish list" than you will end up making somebody else's movie and not your own. There is a time to draw the line, but short of someone who hasn't made a decent movie in 2 decades, or who audiences actively shy away from, a solid actor in a part that works for them is the best of all worlds.

I'm going to be doing some advance work with execs at distributors like Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent and Focus, introducing them to the work of my filmmaker (the short I blogged about last week). I call this "seeding" and do it no more than 3 months in advance of submitting. I like to give people at least 8 weeks to read and 4-6 weeks to watch something. As an exec, I aspired to get my turnaround down to 3 weeks, but reality and exhausation would push low-priority stuff to the back of the pile. The good thing is that there are two piles: one for tapes/dvds and one for scripts. I'd usually watch a short or two and read my scripts, then once or twice a week I'd watch an indie feature at least through the end of the first act. I also had a roomie who was a VP at another studio and a close friend who was a VP at a third studio and the average between the three of us was about 3 months to completely put a submission to bed.

Keep pushing. If you have a spec that's nearing the end of its life and you aren't hip deep in the next project you are behind the curve. If you are producing a spec that's going out, make sure you've got 18 months worth of savings or a good day job cuz you probably won't get paid before then in the best case scenario, if you are directing and you are attached to a spec that's about to go out be as social as possible, and if you have an actor attached to the project chat them and be friendly -- the strength of that relationship is what will get you through the making of the film.

In more personal news, I painted my bathroom this weekend and am going to paint the guest room today. I know, I should have finished the rewrite on my short script so I could send it out.... *Sigh* I ordered the Final Draft 7.1.2 udpate for myself and they had to mail it to me, and I couldn't find my latest copy of my script, and the formatting EXPLODED and I had to retype the damn thing and my dog HAD to go to the dog park, and...and...and.... Not buying it either, huh? OK, my new thing is to set a page amount per day for myself, no more Mrs. Nice Guy! Happy writing every body. If anyone wants to send a word of encouragement my way, or just one swift kick, it would be welcome!

Swapping Favors

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

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

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

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

You Got ?'s, I Got Comments....

My dog is driving me nuts this morning so I'm not going to put up a long post. Just a few responses that I thought other folks might get some value out of as well. Feel free to have at it with your own free advice in the comments section...

I have a question for you. How can I find individuals with shorts that the may want produced?

Anyone who writes or wants to direct has a short or an idea for a short. If you want to produce one, first decide exactly what you mean by that -- do you plan to fund it? Is your idea to take someone else's money and manage it? Do you want to do a no-budget short to test your nerve and problem solving skills? Once you know this, then put an ad out on craigslist and your local film school/college, make the rounds of community theater groups and talk to folks who are involved in filmmaking in your area. You ought to scare up way more submissions than you ever thought you'd find. Then you figure out what your criteria are for the type of filmmaker you want to work with, what your agenda is with the short film (e.g. to gain experience, to go film festivals, as a platform to convince financiers you can handle a project, to meet new filmmakers, etc.) and where you can sign up for some meditation classes so you don't go crazy before you finish the film.

I was wondering if you could explain what made your friend's short film and his screenplay so good. What about his work piqued the interest of managers and agents? How did it stand out from the plethora of shorts and scripts floating around?

OK, this actually probably merits a long post, but I don't have time -- my dog is howling at the front door as I type this. Jerk. Anyway, the long and short of this answer is that the work shows that the filmmaker is in tune with the internal emotional motivators of his characters, is able to express that in the writing, and the visuals tell the emotional story. He's also an excellent musician, so the music in the short film was way above average which helped.

More Notes Talk

I am back home after a marathon 8-hour notes session with the writer/director of my producing project. We acted out each and every scene in the film (and let me tell you, I am NO actor) and talked about all the stuff I blog about here. One thing that came up over and over and over was subtext. At some points in this draft of the script, he has actors saying things that are rightfully meant to serve as subtext inside the screenplay.

In early drafts of your work, that's OK, if you have a good reader, somebody who knows that eventually those bits of the subconscious will be stuffed right back where they belong. It's important that at some point, however, you go back through (like we did today) and re-read the script looking for action, blocking, and business that reveal character, clarify motive, establish stakes and set up behavior that will pay off later in the script. It's OK if it takes you many passes to get to this point. The early drafts are meant for you to spew every idea that you have about the story, every idea for every scene, follow your characters in every direction you need to in order to find the STORY. Once that is done, then edit, polish and revise until you have something that represents the best version you are capable of writing. That kind of work is unmistakable. A great example of the interplay between text and subtext is that famous french toast scene in KRAMER V. KRAMER. I won't detail it here (unless someone emails me desperate for it), but it's worth watching it to refresh your memory.

On a related note, the writer-director held a screening of his latest short. It played really well to the 60+ folks who showed up for it, he got some strong interest from a couple of managers (and about 10 agents showed up thanks to a friend of his who is repped at one of the Big Three agencies). Long story short, on the strength of this short and his writing sample (the script that we are working on) it looks like he might get the rights to do a remake -- all of which means yours truly may well get another producing project.

My own short is going pretty well. I finished my first draft of the script and now I'm going back through it and fleshing out some of the character conflicts and seeing how my "pre-visualizations" impact the way I'm telling the story. The next step is to give it to a few writer friends and one actor friend, then I'll give it to the producer I want to work with and once I have the draft polished, I'll send it off to my reps for safe-keeping and in case they can find me some work with it (doubtful, but they should have anything that might get me some work, right?) .

And my book project has ground to a halt once again. I got passed on by a friend of mine, but at least he called and offered to take me out to lunch.... Never turn down free sushi... I think I read that somewhere.... ;-)