just another online spittoon
10 December 2007
07 December 2007
STRIKE: something we can do?
In yesterday's post I reffed an essay in the Huffington Post where columnist Robert J. Elisberg suggested that perhaps the charge of "collusion" might be fairly and accurately applied to the behavior of the AMPTP—Elisberg suggested (fairly and effectively, IMO) that the fact we see all the companies in a single industry acting as one monolithic force to actively aggressively drive down worker pay and benefits is not just anti-worker, it's anti-American.
One of the (many) cool things about being an American is that we still retain the right to complain to our elected leaders in Congress. And with the Internet, that's easier than ever.
Yesterday I sent the note below to my US Representative as well as my two Senators.
You can do the same.
Just copy the text below (or come up with your own note, you WRITERS...) and then go to the Rally Congress website, enter your ZIP code to find your reps, and then paste in your note. It's free, it's painless, it's totally non-fat, and it's your Constitutional right as an American.
If you're frustrated by the slowride tactics of the AMPTP, here's your chance to help possibly light a fire under their asses. The one thing the studios have never had to do is open up their books for independent analysis. All it takes is for COngress to suggest that perhaps they need to step in and get involved, and suddenly we'll see movement on this labor negotiation.
You have a voice. Even if the AMPTP members don't care to read your words, your representatives in Congress—whom you vote for or possibly vote against... (ahem)—very well might.
So complain. It's the American way.
.
.
.
B
One of the (many) cool things about being an American is that we still retain the right to complain to our elected leaders in Congress. And with the Internet, that's easier than ever.
Yesterday I sent the note below to my US Representative as well as my two Senators.
You can do the same.
Just copy the text below (or come up with your own note, you WRITERS...) and then go to the Rally Congress website, enter your ZIP code to find your reps, and then paste in your note. It's free, it's painless, it's totally non-fat, and it's your Constitutional right as an American.
I am a screenwriter living in [CITY NAME].
Currently, I am unable to even TRY and ply my trade due to the ongoing labor dispute between the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) and the WGA (Writers Guild of America).
What galls me is that any labor organization is forced to negotiate for fair terms not with any one company or corporation, but with AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY COLLUDING TO LIMIT THE RIGHTS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE WORKERS IN THAT INDUSTRY.
The AMPTP is an umbrella organization which negotiates rights and terms for ALL companies involved in the production of motion pictures and television. Writers such as myself have no choice -- no options at all -- but to work for companies allied in this organization. There is NO other industry in the free world -- NOT ONE -- where such conditions are tolerated and deemed acceptable by governments, yet these studios, often subsidiaries of insanely well-connected and powerful multi-nationals, are given free reign to work together to drive down my pay, my rights, my opportunities.
I am not some militant whacko with an extreme political agenda. I am, rather, just an American worker fighting for the chance to make a workable wage in the field of my own choosing -- that whole "pursuit of Happiness" thing.
Please look into this situation and see just how hideously un-American things have become. Tens of thousands of American workers are presently unable to earn a paycheck due to the combined efforts of a handful of huge corporations reaping incredible rewards while claiming they are unable to share these rewards with the very workers who make them possible.
Companies and citizens alike deserve the chance to enjoy the benefits of the free market, but what these multi-national media conglomerates now enjoy is NOT a Free Market -- it is collusion, and it is not just illegal. It is morally WRONG.
Thank you.
If you're frustrated by the slowride tactics of the AMPTP, here's your chance to help possibly light a fire under their asses. The one thing the studios have never had to do is open up their books for independent analysis. All it takes is for COngress to suggest that perhaps they need to step in and get involved, and suddenly we'll see movement on this labor negotiation.
You have a voice. Even if the AMPTP members don't care to read your words, your representatives in Congress—whom you vote for or possibly vote against... (ahem)—very well might.
So complain. It's the American way.
.
.
.
B
06 December 2007
A Question Worth Considering
Robert J. Elisberg, a columnist with the Huffington Post, asks an innocent yet thunderously critical question in his recent column:
"Why is it the AMPTP who is negotiating with the Writers Guild of America???"
Go. Read that. Now.
And then maybe hop on over and drop an email to your local congressman.
Maybe you can ask your congressional rep one simple question:
Why is it the AMPTP who is negotiating with the Writers Guild of America?
.
.
.
B
"Why is it the AMPTP who is negotiating with the Writers Guild of America???"
Go. Read that. Now.
And then maybe hop on over and drop an email to your local congressman.
Maybe you can ask your congressional rep one simple question:
Why is it the AMPTP who is negotiating with the Writers Guild of America?
.
.
.
B
03 December 2007
Nicholl Week -- Day the Third
Tuesday broke bright and glorious, another of those damnably nice SoCal days which seem so wonderful for the first day or three but which soon start to drive me batty with their Stepford Weather obsequious artificial perfection. I mean, come on... yeah, it’s a great to see a clear sunny day with temps around 70 degrees, and a light breeze, and no significant chance of rain, but how much of that can a person really stand?
Back home in coastal Texas, if you don’t like the weather, just give it a few hours—it’ll change. You might wake to 40 degrees and crisp clear air, and by dinnertime you’re sweating through your shirt with temps in the low 80s and nine thousand percent humidity making the air thick enough to chew like tobacco. Winds that come from one direction, change their mind, back up, then make a left turn and hit the gas. Thunderstorms that scare people into believing the End Of Days is well and truly upon us but which give way in an hour to an insanely beautiful afternoon. Scorching heat. Blistering cold. Hail the size of pre-schoolers. Squall lines that hit like a freight train and leave trees and shingles scattered like confetti after a parade. Lightning storms that would send Zeus himself scurrying for cover. Hurricanes and tornadoes and drought, oh my.
And that’s just a typical Monday.
Well, maybe it’s not all that. But dammit every time I’m in LA I wake up and have that Groundhog Day sensation that I am suddenly living the same day over and over and over.
I piddle around on the computer, jot some notes (some of which you’ve already read now in this post...), then shower and prep to hump it back to the Academy Citadel on Vine Street for a day full of meetings and panels. I find a month-old CLIF bar in my bag left from Austin Film Festival, so that raspberry flavored wad of paving material serves as breakfast. I hook up with King and Mango and we again head cross country through the wilds of Hollywood.
As part of the Nicholl Experience, the Academy schedules a series of panelists and speakers to come in and give some Q&A on a variety of issues of interest to screenwriters teetering on the brink of relevance. Given that all of us Finalists have been getting dozens of requests for scripts and meetings, these panels are a potential goldmine of useful information, especially for anyone who has not already managed a Hollywood working visit before.
Our first meeting is with a trio of former agents now working as managers and independent producers: Diane Cairns, Julie Chasman, and Dan Halsted. All are interesting folks with useful info, and as will be the case throughout the week, discussions of The Strike dominate the meeting. Not surprisingly, these folks all believe that we should be submitting our Nicholl scripts to pretty much any reputable production company or producer who inquires. They contend that we are non-members and therefore not bound by the rules for WGA members in this dispute. Based upon the wary glances around the room by the other Finalists, I get the impression that this is not a course most of us are wiling to try. I know that for my own purposes I will not submit to anyone except agents and managers who have demonstrated some willingness to not attach as producers—I see no reason to even possibly risk any confusion and complication if some of my material winds up on the desk of a struck company.
After this first panel, again the Nicholl folks provide us with a nice spread there in the room, so we chow down on loads of sushi and pot-stickers and cookies as the next crew of guests files in.
Now, it’s not like I am some mega-schmoozer, but after four years of concerted effort to develop some network of friends and contacts in the industry, I actually do know a few people. Not a lot, but a few. Including some previous Nicholl Fellows and Finalists.
The next trio of speakers are all Nicholl Fellows from previous years: T J Lynch, Ron Moscovitz, and Rebecca Sonnenshine. When they enter the room, we all give that “casual greeting where we are all trying to not seem like total strangers even though we are” thing, except when Ron comes in, we smile and point at one another, and he comes over and shakes hands and does that man-hug thing which frankly still confuses me. We chat for a moment and I notice that some folks are looking at us with that “”wait-- what the hell is this about?” sort of stares.
I’ve known Ron for two years, since the time I met him at the Austin Film Festival when he was naught but a Nicholl Finalist and not yet a hardcore pipe-swingin’ Fellow. I was actually standing with him in the Driskill Bar when he got a call and turned white and said “thanks” and then had to excuse himself to go to his room and scream I AM A GOLDEN GOD! and then call his parents and co-writer and such to tell them that he had just freakin’ won the Nicholl Fellowship. We’ve stayed in touch, and we’ve played around on a few of the same web haunts and playrooms, but for pesky reasons I’ve always been unable to hook up with him during my four or five LA trips.
And now, he is brought in to lecture me by the Academy. Funny old world.
Ron and TJ and Rebecca give is the inside story of the Nicholl—how it really impacts the start of a career, what weight and value it really carries in street terms in working Hollywood—and afterwards we all have wildly different takes on what we heard, what we learned. Some folks came away slightly depressed, surprised that a Nicholl trophy didn’t somehow translate directly into more industry success. Others had very different ideas—that the trio had actually made some nice progress into a career. I was somewhere in the middle, possibly as I was already familiar with their stories. I later made the comment that the Nicholl is a very cool thing but ultimately irrelevant if you don’t do the same work as if you’d not won. That it can open some doors, but it remains the duty of the writer to walk tall through those doors and then do something on the other side.
Ron, TJ and Rebecca give us a solid 90 minutes, then we break for a few minutes as we set up for the final group of the day: producers Gary Foster and Peter Samuelson. Both of these guys boast some significant credits, and both come off as folks genuinely interested in doing interesting quality work rather than just cranking out sausage at a factory. Both lament the changes in the industry in the past decade as the folks who have a balanced interest between the art and commerce of movie making have been overrun by the MBA crowd who see the movie business as just one more widget factory: minimize cost, improve efficiency, streamline production, advertise efficiently, and then coast to sustained 12% annualized growth with minimal risk.
Except of course, movies are not widgets. They are living breathing animals, and in that regard the movie business remains in many ways more like high stakes horse racing and breeding: you can study bloodlines and pedigrees and get the “right” people on your team and do all the right things... and still wind up with a loser come race day. These MBA types do not like this. They want to squeeze money from the industry like the aforementioned sausage from a grinder: dump in the meat, turn the crank, and out oozes a consistent stream of semi-chewed meat, ready for easy sale and consumption.
Samuelson tells a long (too long to bother repeating here) story about the ending of ARLINGTON ROAD. Eventually, the final movie as released used the ending originally written and not the more upbeat ending the studio “experts” demanded. ”What’s ridiculous is that there’s a 3,000 year heritage of storytelling—from Homer on down through the ages to people like you. You’re the storytellers, and you understand how and why you do things, yet we get to the top of the heap here and suddenly a bunch of money-counters decide that they suddenly understand human emotions and responses better than the storytellers do! It’s madness!”
Again, it’s an interesting set of guest speakers in that it provokes a panoply of responses and reactions in our group. Some find it vaguely discouraging that things have changed, yet others (myself included) are inspired that there are still a great many talented and powerful people who deeply value and appreciate the importance of the “Story” kernel to the process.
Again we stay long enough to make Greg Beal start to get anxious, and then most of us wander back to the Renaissance to figure out what to do with the evening. Given that we’ve spent the day—from 9 am until almost 4—inside the Academy conference room, we’re all eager to see some sky and breathe some un-conditioned air, so 7 or 8 of us claim a pair of tables at a Starbucks at Highland Mall and just hang out for another 90 minutes or so, digesting the days events and starting to relax around each other a little more as personalities start to become more clearly defined and understood.
Finally the locals head off to fight the LA traffic, Mango starts to feel the effects of jet-lag from his flight in from Tokyo, Amy starts to get creaky from some cague flu-like symptoms, and Andrew P has to go find his girlfriend somewhere, so Sidney and Cecilia and I wind up wandering around looking for dining options. We wind up at an Italian place on the third tier of the Highland mall complex, overlooking the huge Elephant Pedestal and the Cranberry Bog.
It’s (yet another) perfect SoCal evening, and since each of us is sitting atop a thick envelope of Academy per diem cash, the wine is flowing and the pasta is just spiffy. We laugh and tell lies and confess secrets and have a truly beautiful time, thrilled to be in the company of a few members of that small crowd of people who can truly understand just how totally surreal and exciting and terrifying this particular moment can be for a writer: suddenly, we realize, we no longer have the luxury of easy excuses any more. It’s now time to either put up or shut up. We’ve all been given a day pass into some long-forbidden wonderland, and we now have at least one clear opportunity to Make Something Impossible Happen.
Each of us is giggling at the attention our little projects have been getting. Each of us is deeply honored by this attention and proud of the work that got us here. And each of us is wondering what the hell happens next.
We linger on the patio til almost 11 pm, then briefly toy with the idea of finding a better bar, but the wine and the writerly laziness conspire to push us back to the pathetic miserable hellhole that is the Renaissance Hotel Bar (seriously: just put a trio of barstools around a cellphone kiosk in any American mall and you will instantly create more atmosphere than what this cold soulless place ever boasted). We suck back a round or two of overpriced beer just to buy us some more giggle time together, but then slumber calls us each our separate way, and another golden day thus ends, late and alcohol-soaked.
(to be continued....)
.
.
.
B
Back home in coastal Texas, if you don’t like the weather, just give it a few hours—it’ll change. You might wake to 40 degrees and crisp clear air, and by dinnertime you’re sweating through your shirt with temps in the low 80s and nine thousand percent humidity making the air thick enough to chew like tobacco. Winds that come from one direction, change their mind, back up, then make a left turn and hit the gas. Thunderstorms that scare people into believing the End Of Days is well and truly upon us but which give way in an hour to an insanely beautiful afternoon. Scorching heat. Blistering cold. Hail the size of pre-schoolers. Squall lines that hit like a freight train and leave trees and shingles scattered like confetti after a parade. Lightning storms that would send Zeus himself scurrying for cover. Hurricanes and tornadoes and drought, oh my.
And that’s just a typical Monday.
Well, maybe it’s not all that. But dammit every time I’m in LA I wake up and have that Groundhog Day sensation that I am suddenly living the same day over and over and over.
I piddle around on the computer, jot some notes (some of which you’ve already read now in this post...), then shower and prep to hump it back to the Academy Citadel on Vine Street for a day full of meetings and panels. I find a month-old CLIF bar in my bag left from Austin Film Festival, so that raspberry flavored wad of paving material serves as breakfast. I hook up with King and Mango and we again head cross country through the wilds of Hollywood.
As part of the Nicholl Experience, the Academy schedules a series of panelists and speakers to come in and give some Q&A on a variety of issues of interest to screenwriters teetering on the brink of relevance. Given that all of us Finalists have been getting dozens of requests for scripts and meetings, these panels are a potential goldmine of useful information, especially for anyone who has not already managed a Hollywood working visit before.
Our first meeting is with a trio of former agents now working as managers and independent producers: Diane Cairns, Julie Chasman, and Dan Halsted. All are interesting folks with useful info, and as will be the case throughout the week, discussions of The Strike dominate the meeting. Not surprisingly, these folks all believe that we should be submitting our Nicholl scripts to pretty much any reputable production company or producer who inquires. They contend that we are non-members and therefore not bound by the rules for WGA members in this dispute. Based upon the wary glances around the room by the other Finalists, I get the impression that this is not a course most of us are wiling to try. I know that for my own purposes I will not submit to anyone except agents and managers who have demonstrated some willingness to not attach as producers—I see no reason to even possibly risk any confusion and complication if some of my material winds up on the desk of a struck company.
After this first panel, again the Nicholl folks provide us with a nice spread there in the room, so we chow down on loads of sushi and pot-stickers and cookies as the next crew of guests files in.
Now, it’s not like I am some mega-schmoozer, but after four years of concerted effort to develop some network of friends and contacts in the industry, I actually do know a few people. Not a lot, but a few. Including some previous Nicholl Fellows and Finalists.
The next trio of speakers are all Nicholl Fellows from previous years: T J Lynch, Ron Moscovitz, and Rebecca Sonnenshine. When they enter the room, we all give that “casual greeting where we are all trying to not seem like total strangers even though we are” thing, except when Ron comes in, we smile and point at one another, and he comes over and shakes hands and does that man-hug thing which frankly still confuses me. We chat for a moment and I notice that some folks are looking at us with that “”wait-- what the hell is this about?” sort of stares.
I’ve known Ron for two years, since the time I met him at the Austin Film Festival when he was naught but a Nicholl Finalist and not yet a hardcore pipe-swingin’ Fellow. I was actually standing with him in the Driskill Bar when he got a call and turned white and said “thanks” and then had to excuse himself to go to his room and scream I AM A GOLDEN GOD! and then call his parents and co-writer and such to tell them that he had just freakin’ won the Nicholl Fellowship. We’ve stayed in touch, and we’ve played around on a few of the same web haunts and playrooms, but for pesky reasons I’ve always been unable to hook up with him during my four or five LA trips.
And now, he is brought in to lecture me by the Academy. Funny old world.
Ron and TJ and Rebecca give is the inside story of the Nicholl—how it really impacts the start of a career, what weight and value it really carries in street terms in working Hollywood—and afterwards we all have wildly different takes on what we heard, what we learned. Some folks came away slightly depressed, surprised that a Nicholl trophy didn’t somehow translate directly into more industry success. Others had very different ideas—that the trio had actually made some nice progress into a career. I was somewhere in the middle, possibly as I was already familiar with their stories. I later made the comment that the Nicholl is a very cool thing but ultimately irrelevant if you don’t do the same work as if you’d not won. That it can open some doors, but it remains the duty of the writer to walk tall through those doors and then do something on the other side.
Ron, TJ and Rebecca give us a solid 90 minutes, then we break for a few minutes as we set up for the final group of the day: producers Gary Foster and Peter Samuelson. Both of these guys boast some significant credits, and both come off as folks genuinely interested in doing interesting quality work rather than just cranking out sausage at a factory. Both lament the changes in the industry in the past decade as the folks who have a balanced interest between the art and commerce of movie making have been overrun by the MBA crowd who see the movie business as just one more widget factory: minimize cost, improve efficiency, streamline production, advertise efficiently, and then coast to sustained 12% annualized growth with minimal risk.
Except of course, movies are not widgets. They are living breathing animals, and in that regard the movie business remains in many ways more like high stakes horse racing and breeding: you can study bloodlines and pedigrees and get the “right” people on your team and do all the right things... and still wind up with a loser come race day. These MBA types do not like this. They want to squeeze money from the industry like the aforementioned sausage from a grinder: dump in the meat, turn the crank, and out oozes a consistent stream of semi-chewed meat, ready for easy sale and consumption.
Samuelson tells a long (too long to bother repeating here) story about the ending of ARLINGTON ROAD. Eventually, the final movie as released used the ending originally written and not the more upbeat ending the studio “experts” demanded. ”What’s ridiculous is that there’s a 3,000 year heritage of storytelling—from Homer on down through the ages to people like you. You’re the storytellers, and you understand how and why you do things, yet we get to the top of the heap here and suddenly a bunch of money-counters decide that they suddenly understand human emotions and responses better than the storytellers do! It’s madness!”
Again, it’s an interesting set of guest speakers in that it provokes a panoply of responses and reactions in our group. Some find it vaguely discouraging that things have changed, yet others (myself included) are inspired that there are still a great many talented and powerful people who deeply value and appreciate the importance of the “Story” kernel to the process.
Again we stay long enough to make Greg Beal start to get anxious, and then most of us wander back to the Renaissance to figure out what to do with the evening. Given that we’ve spent the day—from 9 am until almost 4—inside the Academy conference room, we’re all eager to see some sky and breathe some un-conditioned air, so 7 or 8 of us claim a pair of tables at a Starbucks at Highland Mall and just hang out for another 90 minutes or so, digesting the days events and starting to relax around each other a little more as personalities start to become more clearly defined and understood.
Finally the locals head off to fight the LA traffic, Mango starts to feel the effects of jet-lag from his flight in from Tokyo, Amy starts to get creaky from some cague flu-like symptoms, and Andrew P has to go find his girlfriend somewhere, so Sidney and Cecilia and I wind up wandering around looking for dining options. We wind up at an Italian place on the third tier of the Highland mall complex, overlooking the huge Elephant Pedestal and the Cranberry Bog.
It’s (yet another) perfect SoCal evening, and since each of us is sitting atop a thick envelope of Academy per diem cash, the wine is flowing and the pasta is just spiffy. We laugh and tell lies and confess secrets and have a truly beautiful time, thrilled to be in the company of a few members of that small crowd of people who can truly understand just how totally surreal and exciting and terrifying this particular moment can be for a writer: suddenly, we realize, we no longer have the luxury of easy excuses any more. It’s now time to either put up or shut up. We’ve all been given a day pass into some long-forbidden wonderland, and we now have at least one clear opportunity to Make Something Impossible Happen.
Each of us is giggling at the attention our little projects have been getting. Each of us is deeply honored by this attention and proud of the work that got us here. And each of us is wondering what the hell happens next.
We linger on the patio til almost 11 pm, then briefly toy with the idea of finding a better bar, but the wine and the writerly laziness conspire to push us back to the pathetic miserable hellhole that is the Renaissance Hotel Bar (seriously: just put a trio of barstools around a cellphone kiosk in any American mall and you will instantly create more atmosphere than what this cold soulless place ever boasted). We suck back a round or two of overpriced beer just to buy us some more giggle time together, but then slumber calls us each our separate way, and another golden day thus ends, late and alcohol-soaked.
(to be continued....)
.
.
.
B
02 December 2007
If not, WHY not?
In case you'd not heard, there's a little strike thing going on out in Hollywood.
I offer that bit of "news" because in the last few days I have been genuinely stunned to see a lot of aspriring screenwriters re-posting weeks-old strike news and information with the sort of shortness of breath usually seen only in recent arrivals to a cause. They are sharing links to update sites that have been running for weeks, repeating factoids which have been well-known for months, lamenting about situations which have been lamentable for years.
Here's the thing, kids: I'm not going to sort and cull into "those who know" versus "those who don't" and then try to offer some sort of judgment. The facts of the matter are simple: if you have any serious desire, intention, or hope to become a working professional screenwriter for features or TV (or that fangled newly "inter-net" I hear the cool kids whispering about...), then it behooves you (look it up) to freakin' get with the program.
There is a battle raging out there, and if you do not know the players, know the terrain, and understand the interests and goals of both sides, then you are a child playing in the middle of a busy street.
Do you check Nikki Fenke's Deadline Hollywood site at least once per day (more is better)? If not, why not.
Do you read the posts from United Hollywood every day? If not, why not?
Have you checked out the amazing "Speechless" video series done by name actors to show support and solidarity for the WGA strike? If not, why not?
Have you researched online to get the real news of the strike from independent and less-biased sources than the networks... who are the major entities being struck? Are you aware, for example, that thousands of writers have been picketing for weeks around major studios in LA nd New York? That entire city blocks have been brought to a standstill by huge rallies featuring speakers from all major labor unions? That political leaders and candidates on both sides of the political divide are increasingly concerned and interested with the way the writers are being screwed over here? If not, why not?
Have you been soaking up the various viewpoints offered from within the screenwriting camp from a slew of intelligent (and often brazen) folks posting in the comments areas to posts on Craig Mazin's Artful Writer site? If not, why not?
Do you understand that the numbers being presented by the AMPTP ("the Alliance"), the organized studio and network force, are intentionally skewed to make it seem as if "screenwriters" are some monolithic block of overpaid wealthy rich guys driving Lambos to the strike sites? Do you know th truth about how many writers are unemployed at any given moment? How little the typical screenwriter makes in any given year? How life-and-death critical those residuals and health care benefits are? If not, why not?
If you are reading this, chances are very good that you either are a professional screenwriter, are working to become one, or know one or more a close personal level.
Talk to them. Ask what's really going on. Learn why this fight must be fought, and must be fought here and now. Discover the truth of the events and circumstances which have brought us to this point. Think about what's really at stake, and what the future would look like if the proposals and preferences of the Alliance were to take root in not only the screenwriting industry, but then were used as a model top break unions in all industries in this country.
As I said, there's a battle raging right now, and the outcome of this battle will define the terrain of the world in which screenwriters will be working for the next generation. If you have any interest in that field, or in the people involved in that field, you need to get informed, get engaged, and get involved.
But you already knew that, right? If not, why not?
.
.
.
B
I offer that bit of "news" because in the last few days I have been genuinely stunned to see a lot of aspriring screenwriters re-posting weeks-old strike news and information with the sort of shortness of breath usually seen only in recent arrivals to a cause. They are sharing links to update sites that have been running for weeks, repeating factoids which have been well-known for months, lamenting about situations which have been lamentable for years.
Here's the thing, kids: I'm not going to sort and cull into "those who know" versus "those who don't" and then try to offer some sort of judgment. The facts of the matter are simple: if you have any serious desire, intention, or hope to become a working professional screenwriter for features or TV (or that fangled newly "inter-net" I hear the cool kids whispering about...), then it behooves you (look it up) to freakin' get with the program.
There is a battle raging out there, and if you do not know the players, know the terrain, and understand the interests and goals of both sides, then you are a child playing in the middle of a busy street.
Do you check Nikki Fenke's Deadline Hollywood site at least once per day (more is better)? If not, why not.
Do you read the posts from United Hollywood every day? If not, why not?
Have you checked out the amazing "Speechless" video series done by name actors to show support and solidarity for the WGA strike? If not, why not?
Have you researched online to get the real news of the strike from independent and less-biased sources than the networks... who are the major entities being struck? Are you aware, for example, that thousands of writers have been picketing for weeks around major studios in LA nd New York? That entire city blocks have been brought to a standstill by huge rallies featuring speakers from all major labor unions? That political leaders and candidates on both sides of the political divide are increasingly concerned and interested with the way the writers are being screwed over here? If not, why not?
Have you been soaking up the various viewpoints offered from within the screenwriting camp from a slew of intelligent (and often brazen) folks posting in the comments areas to posts on Craig Mazin's Artful Writer site? If not, why not?
Do you understand that the numbers being presented by the AMPTP ("the Alliance"), the organized studio and network force, are intentionally skewed to make it seem as if "screenwriters" are some monolithic block of overpaid wealthy rich guys driving Lambos to the strike sites? Do you know th truth about how many writers are unemployed at any given moment? How little the typical screenwriter makes in any given year? How life-and-death critical those residuals and health care benefits are? If not, why not?
If you are reading this, chances are very good that you either are a professional screenwriter, are working to become one, or know one or more a close personal level.
Talk to them. Ask what's really going on. Learn why this fight must be fought, and must be fought here and now. Discover the truth of the events and circumstances which have brought us to this point. Think about what's really at stake, and what the future would look like if the proposals and preferences of the Alliance were to take root in not only the screenwriting industry, but then were used as a model top break unions in all industries in this country.
As I said, there's a battle raging right now, and the outcome of this battle will define the terrain of the world in which screenwriters will be working for the next generation. If you have any interest in that field, or in the people involved in that field, you need to get informed, get engaged, and get involved.
But you already knew that, right? If not, why not?
.
.
.
B
29 November 2007
Nicholl Week -- Day the Second (part 2)
Wandering back to the Renaissance, I get a call from The Wife back home in Texas. She is giggling about a call I just received on the home number, a call from some LA-based... “producer.” I won’t go into any great detail about this guy as I am sure he is a warm and wonderful human being who treats animals nicely and helps little old ladies do their shopping, but he struck The Wife as such a smarmy Hollywood cliché that she claims she had to physically bite her knuckle and hold the phone away from her mouth to not be heard giggling and guffawing as this guy gave his pitch to get his hands on my script. She says she gave him my cell number and that he’d likely be calling, so stand ready. She gives me his callback number and I decide to cut him off at the pass, responding first.
I check the time and see that it’s now straight up 1 pm, the thick part of the Hollywood working lunch hour, so I figure this is as good a time as any to call and hope for a machine to pick up rather than a human.
”Hi, this is Brett. I just got word you were trying to get in touch with me regarding my script for QUEEN OF THE SKY. I’m flattered by the interest, and I know my agent would love to talk to you at your convenience. His number is ...” blah blah blah.
I never hear back from this guy for the rest of the week, but in talking to the other Finalists it becomes quickly apparent that this guy is calling everyone, and just because we are ugly evil vindictive shallow people of poor character and shabby upbringing, his calls become something of a touchstone or running joke to the rest of us as we compare the latest contacts from him. (Curiously, I was unique among the group in never hearing back from the guy, and I suppose my use of the word “agent” was enough to spook him away...)
Across Hollywood Boulevard and through the oddball assortment of characters there: tourists, homeless folks, LA bimbos, guys dressed as The Hulk or Santa Clause for no clear reason.
I wander through the shopping arcade and past the fountain-and-reflecting pool area which has been turned into a cranberry bog for some sort of commercial filming. There are two guys dressed in waders and plaid shirts, just as in the Ocean Spray commercials, knee deep in the pool which is now covered by a floating layer of cranberries. A four man camera crew works to get just the proper shot and lighting.
At the Victoria’s Secret store, a cordon of bored security guys mark a wide perimeter as a small herd of over-tall over-blonde over-hawt over-slutty 20-year-old bimbettes prance around in lingerie and 5 inch heels (as women are so prone to do). I pause to watch for a few seconds, and I make eye contact with one of the bored security guards. I give him the hands up shrug to ask ”what the fuck, dude?” and he answers with the exhausted head shake and eye roll which says “who the fuck knows, bro. Who the fuck knows.”
”Welcome to Hollywood, luv,” I think to myself as I step into the elevator and head up.
-=-=-
A nap, a shower, and a writing session later I hook up down in The Worst Bar In The World with Sidney (King) and Dave (Mango), two fellow Finalists also staying at the Renaissance. King and Mango both are winners of Nicholl Fellowships, so on the one hand I’d like to go all Khmer Rouge on them and leave them dead in a ditch (I have a violent vengeful fantasy life), but on the other they are really great guys and fun to hang out with, so the Killing Fields thing never really happens. We have a drink and decide to hump it on foot to the Academy offices where we Finalists are meeting as a group for the first time in order to get to know each other and to meet Greg Beal and his staff and to get the lowdown on what is expected and anticipated to happen this week, plus to get fed and get handed our per diem money.
One of the (many) advantages I seem to have over many of the other Finalists is my familiarity with this whole Nicholl thing. I’ve been lucky enough to have very good friends as Finalists for several years now, so I’ve heard their stories and talked to them over beers and plied them with pentathol to get the skinny. SO I know, for example, that part of the first night’s fun is Greg Beal rather unceremoniously walking around the room and tossing out envelopes of cash to the finalists, with the amount inside roughly tied to your expected minimum expenses during the week. And, yes, I’m just cheap and white trash enough to look forward to that moment as much as if not more than the awards photo op or the awards dinner.
Cecelia and Amy, fellow Finalists and co-authors of Amelia Erheart and the Baloney Rainbow Highway, opt for a cab to the meeting, but Mango, King and I head off cross country on foot, down Hollywood Boulevard toward Vine Street.
And friends and neighbors, if you’ve never walked down Hollywood Boulevard at or after dusk, you may have strange visions in your head of what that stroll might be like, and I am here to tell you that your visions are likely wrong. Yes, there are block after block of randomly organized brass stars set into the pavement on the “Walk of Fame,” and yes there are lots of fancy expensive cars sliding past on the boulevard, but what there ain’t is a lack of much anything you couldn’t find in the run down part of any major urban area. In other words, there is nothing “Hollywood” about Hollywood: it’s a dirty dingy and very seedy part of town where street-folks seem to live wherever they decide to lay down. We step over a half dozen prone or lounging folks dressed in greasy layers of cast-off clothing pulled from dumpsters and trashcans, pass a dozen low-rent tattoo parlors and finance companies, plus of course this is still Los Angeles so of course we also pass the obligatory three Starbucks and two location shoots in progress.
We turn right down Vine and push on into territory even less glamorous and impressive. Eventually we reach the Academy offices, located in a building that looks like it was designed and built to withstand a siege by Vandals and Ostrogoths. From the sidewalk we can look up to a wide wall of glass lit from within: a eight-foot tall golden Oscar™ statue is clearly visible, as is a six-foot tall Greg Beal™, sipping a coke and waving down at us.
We head to the front door of the building and are met by a uniformed guard at a desk, who explains we cannot enter the building through this lobby entrance but must instead of around to the freight entrance in the rear parking lot. The guard then waves another couple through the door and greets them with a cordiality very much absent in his dealings with us Nicholl schlubs.
We pad around the corner, past the Circle K and past the 8 foot cyclone fence topped by concertina wire, and through the electric gate into the parking lot where we find a ramp to a rear door. We enter, are waved into a small security office where we sign our names, describe our purpose and are handed ID tags to hang around our necks. We then get an escort down a long gray concrete hallway which surely was purchased war surplus from a NORAD missile silo, and emerge into the same front-of-the-building lobby to which we were denied entrance three minutes previous. The same security guard who was all glum and business now trots over, smiling and cheerful, and calls an elevator for us, wishing us a good evening. “And congrats on the Nicholl -- that’s huge!”
The doors slide shut as Dave and Sidney and I trade confused looks.
In the second floor board room we finally meet the entire 2007 Nicholl class as a group. Dave and Sidney and I all end up at the far end of the table, grouped together. When we all grab a beer from a bucket of iced longnecks and notice that we three are the only people in the room imbibing thusly, we shrug and clink bottles in salute.
Greg, a truly cool guy who looks like that college prof who always seem slightly more concerned and exasperated about your grades that you are, gives the welcome, explains kinda sorta what’s going on, and then has us engage in a ritual that will be repeated enough times to become a tiresome cliché over the course of the next few days: ”Let’s go around the table and do some introductions. Give your name, where you’re from, and the title of your script.” Finally, someone gets tired of looking at and smelling the buffet of catered food arrayed on the table nearby, and we all leap to pile our plates. As we sit and relax and get to know one another a little better, Greg circles the table, casually tossing out envelopes scribbled with our names. None of us wants to seem overly interested, and I start to laugh as I realize nobody wants to be seen checking their envelope to see just how much cash we are getting.
As I’ve noted before, one of the truly surprising yet cool parts of this experience is the fact that I found myself genuinely enjoying the company and conversation with every one of the other finalists. I’ve been in groups of randomly assembled writers before where there are one or two or nine whom you just want to beat with a canoe paddle, but with this group I get none of that. Maybe it’s because there is a baseline level of competence and talent required just to be at this table, or maybe it’s because we’re all equally freaked by the situation and are thus eager to claim whatever sense of community and companionship we can in this strange time, or, hell, maybe it’s the open bar, free food, and envelopes of cash making everyone just a little more friendly and accommodating. All I know is that soon it’s past 9:30 PM and Greg is starting to get that antsy ”OK, PLEASE go home now” look and tone.
Except we’re all having too much fun, and none of us is quite ready to call it a night. So, standing around in the hallway, we quickly decide to meet at The Cat & Fiddle, a popular and convenient pub over on Sunset, halfway back to our hotel. Most all of the finalists show up. Some locals—Mike and Julian—have obligations elsewhere and say their goodbyes at the Academy building, but the rest of us pile into cars and head to the Cat. Andrew Pritzker hauls me and Dave to the pub, and we find a table on the vine-draped huge patio and set up shop. The other finalists soon gather with us, and we spend a few more hours sipping beer and talking about how we got here and how weird it is to look up and see that we did get here.
I’ve tried explaining it to The Wife before: the weird sense of need that we writers sometimes get to find others like us and share some of the terror and heartbreak of this largely solitary pursuit. We spend so many hours and days and weeks alone with a keyboard and a screen, that we start to get that Omega Man sense of being the last man on Earth, so when we find ourselves in the rare company of other writers—folks who understand exactly what this feeling is like—we tend to want to suck as much from that experience as is possible. We keep tossing wood on the fire, not wanting that little gathering to end, as we know it might well be a long time before we again have such opportunity to commiserate.
The local LA contingent of our crew—Lisa Gold, Nick Sherman, Andrew Shearer, John Marlow—all peel off well before the end of the night. Andrew P is an out of towner at the Renaissance, but he has LA friends he needs to meet, so he leaves as well. Eventually, Dave and Sidney and I again find ourselves at a table in the wee hours, empty beers everywhere and replacements on the way, and then the waitress shoos us into the streets sometime around 1:30 am., whereupon we look up and see the Renaissance looming just a few blocks over. Except we’re still not entirely ready to surrender to that little death known as sleep, so we find a late-night diner on Highland and slide into a booth to burn some more of our little envelopes of cash.
More frank and honest talk among strangers as we talk about the weird mix of allure and repulsion Hollywood presents to each of us. Screenwriting is a strange business in that there’s pretty much only one place where the business really happens, and so there’s an understood requirement that, to be a real part of the business, you have to put in at least some time in Hollywood, yet at the same time a great many people chasing that dream make no bones about the fact that they detest—loathe, abhor, become sickened by the thought of—the idea of having to live in or near Hollywood. This is not to suggest that Hollywood is pure evil, or that any who tolerate or even enjoy life there are somehow wrong or weird or confused. It’s just that life there is so very very different and alien, that for many the differences are sever and numerous enough to convince you that you’d just not be happy here long term.
But we all agree that we could stomach it long enough to get paid great heaping gobs of money.
We toast our 3 am milkshakes to that plan, over-tip egregiously cuz we’re all fat-cat high-rollers living on the Academy dime, and shuffle into the night, heading back toward our over-cool hotel home for the week.
(to be continued....)
.
.
.
B
I check the time and see that it’s now straight up 1 pm, the thick part of the Hollywood working lunch hour, so I figure this is as good a time as any to call and hope for a machine to pick up rather than a human.
”Hi, this is Brett. I just got word you were trying to get in touch with me regarding my script for QUEEN OF THE SKY. I’m flattered by the interest, and I know my agent would love to talk to you at your convenience. His number is ...” blah blah blah.
I never hear back from this guy for the rest of the week, but in talking to the other Finalists it becomes quickly apparent that this guy is calling everyone, and just because we are ugly evil vindictive shallow people of poor character and shabby upbringing, his calls become something of a touchstone or running joke to the rest of us as we compare the latest contacts from him. (Curiously, I was unique among the group in never hearing back from the guy, and I suppose my use of the word “agent” was enough to spook him away...)
Across Hollywood Boulevard and through the oddball assortment of characters there: tourists, homeless folks, LA bimbos, guys dressed as The Hulk or Santa Clause for no clear reason.
I wander through the shopping arcade and past the fountain-and-reflecting pool area which has been turned into a cranberry bog for some sort of commercial filming. There are two guys dressed in waders and plaid shirts, just as in the Ocean Spray commercials, knee deep in the pool which is now covered by a floating layer of cranberries. A four man camera crew works to get just the proper shot and lighting.
At the Victoria’s Secret store, a cordon of bored security guys mark a wide perimeter as a small herd of over-tall over-blonde over-hawt over-slutty 20-year-old bimbettes prance around in lingerie and 5 inch heels (as women are so prone to do). I pause to watch for a few seconds, and I make eye contact with one of the bored security guards. I give him the hands up shrug to ask ”what the fuck, dude?” and he answers with the exhausted head shake and eye roll which says “who the fuck knows, bro. Who the fuck knows.”
”Welcome to Hollywood, luv,” I think to myself as I step into the elevator and head up.
-=-=-
A nap, a shower, and a writing session later I hook up down in The Worst Bar In The World with Sidney (King) and Dave (Mango), two fellow Finalists also staying at the Renaissance. King and Mango both are winners of Nicholl Fellowships, so on the one hand I’d like to go all Khmer Rouge on them and leave them dead in a ditch (I have a violent vengeful fantasy life), but on the other they are really great guys and fun to hang out with, so the Killing Fields thing never really happens. We have a drink and decide to hump it on foot to the Academy offices where we Finalists are meeting as a group for the first time in order to get to know each other and to meet Greg Beal and his staff and to get the lowdown on what is expected and anticipated to happen this week, plus to get fed and get handed our per diem money.
One of the (many) advantages I seem to have over many of the other Finalists is my familiarity with this whole Nicholl thing. I’ve been lucky enough to have very good friends as Finalists for several years now, so I’ve heard their stories and talked to them over beers and plied them with pentathol to get the skinny. SO I know, for example, that part of the first night’s fun is Greg Beal rather unceremoniously walking around the room and tossing out envelopes of cash to the finalists, with the amount inside roughly tied to your expected minimum expenses during the week. And, yes, I’m just cheap and white trash enough to look forward to that moment as much as if not more than the awards photo op or the awards dinner.
Cecelia and Amy, fellow Finalists and co-authors of Amelia Erheart and the Baloney Rainbow Highway, opt for a cab to the meeting, but Mango, King and I head off cross country on foot, down Hollywood Boulevard toward Vine Street.
And friends and neighbors, if you’ve never walked down Hollywood Boulevard at or after dusk, you may have strange visions in your head of what that stroll might be like, and I am here to tell you that your visions are likely wrong. Yes, there are block after block of randomly organized brass stars set into the pavement on the “Walk of Fame,” and yes there are lots of fancy expensive cars sliding past on the boulevard, but what there ain’t is a lack of much anything you couldn’t find in the run down part of any major urban area. In other words, there is nothing “Hollywood” about Hollywood: it’s a dirty dingy and very seedy part of town where street-folks seem to live wherever they decide to lay down. We step over a half dozen prone or lounging folks dressed in greasy layers of cast-off clothing pulled from dumpsters and trashcans, pass a dozen low-rent tattoo parlors and finance companies, plus of course this is still Los Angeles so of course we also pass the obligatory three Starbucks and two location shoots in progress.
We turn right down Vine and push on into territory even less glamorous and impressive. Eventually we reach the Academy offices, located in a building that looks like it was designed and built to withstand a siege by Vandals and Ostrogoths. From the sidewalk we can look up to a wide wall of glass lit from within: a eight-foot tall golden Oscar™ statue is clearly visible, as is a six-foot tall Greg Beal™, sipping a coke and waving down at us.
We head to the front door of the building and are met by a uniformed guard at a desk, who explains we cannot enter the building through this lobby entrance but must instead of around to the freight entrance in the rear parking lot. The guard then waves another couple through the door and greets them with a cordiality very much absent in his dealings with us Nicholl schlubs.
We pad around the corner, past the Circle K and past the 8 foot cyclone fence topped by concertina wire, and through the electric gate into the parking lot where we find a ramp to a rear door. We enter, are waved into a small security office where we sign our names, describe our purpose and are handed ID tags to hang around our necks. We then get an escort down a long gray concrete hallway which surely was purchased war surplus from a NORAD missile silo, and emerge into the same front-of-the-building lobby to which we were denied entrance three minutes previous. The same security guard who was all glum and business now trots over, smiling and cheerful, and calls an elevator for us, wishing us a good evening. “And congrats on the Nicholl -- that’s huge!”
The doors slide shut as Dave and Sidney and I trade confused looks.
In the second floor board room we finally meet the entire 2007 Nicholl class as a group. Dave and Sidney and I all end up at the far end of the table, grouped together. When we all grab a beer from a bucket of iced longnecks and notice that we three are the only people in the room imbibing thusly, we shrug and clink bottles in salute.
Greg, a truly cool guy who looks like that college prof who always seem slightly more concerned and exasperated about your grades that you are, gives the welcome, explains kinda sorta what’s going on, and then has us engage in a ritual that will be repeated enough times to become a tiresome cliché over the course of the next few days: ”Let’s go around the table and do some introductions. Give your name, where you’re from, and the title of your script.” Finally, someone gets tired of looking at and smelling the buffet of catered food arrayed on the table nearby, and we all leap to pile our plates. As we sit and relax and get to know one another a little better, Greg circles the table, casually tossing out envelopes scribbled with our names. None of us wants to seem overly interested, and I start to laugh as I realize nobody wants to be seen checking their envelope to see just how much cash we are getting.
As I’ve noted before, one of the truly surprising yet cool parts of this experience is the fact that I found myself genuinely enjoying the company and conversation with every one of the other finalists. I’ve been in groups of randomly assembled writers before where there are one or two or nine whom you just want to beat with a canoe paddle, but with this group I get none of that. Maybe it’s because there is a baseline level of competence and talent required just to be at this table, or maybe it’s because we’re all equally freaked by the situation and are thus eager to claim whatever sense of community and companionship we can in this strange time, or, hell, maybe it’s the open bar, free food, and envelopes of cash making everyone just a little more friendly and accommodating. All I know is that soon it’s past 9:30 PM and Greg is starting to get that antsy ”OK, PLEASE go home now” look and tone.
Except we’re all having too much fun, and none of us is quite ready to call it a night. So, standing around in the hallway, we quickly decide to meet at The Cat & Fiddle, a popular and convenient pub over on Sunset, halfway back to our hotel. Most all of the finalists show up. Some locals—Mike and Julian—have obligations elsewhere and say their goodbyes at the Academy building, but the rest of us pile into cars and head to the Cat. Andrew Pritzker hauls me and Dave to the pub, and we find a table on the vine-draped huge patio and set up shop. The other finalists soon gather with us, and we spend a few more hours sipping beer and talking about how we got here and how weird it is to look up and see that we did get here.
I’ve tried explaining it to The Wife before: the weird sense of need that we writers sometimes get to find others like us and share some of the terror and heartbreak of this largely solitary pursuit. We spend so many hours and days and weeks alone with a keyboard and a screen, that we start to get that Omega Man sense of being the last man on Earth, so when we find ourselves in the rare company of other writers—folks who understand exactly what this feeling is like—we tend to want to suck as much from that experience as is possible. We keep tossing wood on the fire, not wanting that little gathering to end, as we know it might well be a long time before we again have such opportunity to commiserate.
The local LA contingent of our crew—Lisa Gold, Nick Sherman, Andrew Shearer, John Marlow—all peel off well before the end of the night. Andrew P is an out of towner at the Renaissance, but he has LA friends he needs to meet, so he leaves as well. Eventually, Dave and Sidney and I again find ourselves at a table in the wee hours, empty beers everywhere and replacements on the way, and then the waitress shoos us into the streets sometime around 1:30 am., whereupon we look up and see the Renaissance looming just a few blocks over. Except we’re still not entirely ready to surrender to that little death known as sleep, so we find a late-night diner on Highland and slide into a booth to burn some more of our little envelopes of cash.
More frank and honest talk among strangers as we talk about the weird mix of allure and repulsion Hollywood presents to each of us. Screenwriting is a strange business in that there’s pretty much only one place where the business really happens, and so there’s an understood requirement that, to be a real part of the business, you have to put in at least some time in Hollywood, yet at the same time a great many people chasing that dream make no bones about the fact that they detest—loathe, abhor, become sickened by the thought of—the idea of having to live in or near Hollywood. This is not to suggest that Hollywood is pure evil, or that any who tolerate or even enjoy life there are somehow wrong or weird or confused. It’s just that life there is so very very different and alien, that for many the differences are sever and numerous enough to convince you that you’d just not be happy here long term.
But we all agree that we could stomach it long enough to get paid great heaping gobs of money.
We toast our 3 am milkshakes to that plan, over-tip egregiously cuz we’re all fat-cat high-rollers living on the Academy dime, and shuffle into the night, heading back toward our over-cool hotel home for the week.
(to be continued....)
.
.
.
B
25 November 2007
Nicholl Week -- Day the Second (part 1)
Monday was cool. I slept late. And by late I mean “past 8 AM.” I woke, showered, then worked some email and did some light writing on the laptop in the room -- nothing major, but it’s an old tradition for me that when I am on any sort of writing related road trip, by God I WILL do some sort of writing every day.
After 90 or so minutes of screwing around on a keyboard, it’s time to walk the four or five blocks to meet my agent, Brant Rose, for the first time in meatspace (real world, for you non-hip folks). Now, the fact that I have any agent remains a giggle-inducing fact for me, but that this agent is one whom I have long known about and respected and admired and had numerous peers lust after unsuccessfully... well, it is yet one more amazing point in all this Nicholl-related craziness.
Brant Rose Agency is located in Crossroads Of The World, this oddly LA-ish enclave of buildings from the 1930s that is described as America’s first try at a shopping mall. Over the decades the odd little village of cottages and storefronts and Bavarian chalets has been a center for retail, for songwriters, for rock music folks, for porn producers, and now seems to be mounting a baby renaissance for agents and managers and other small-shop movie folks.
I meet Sally, the cool-talking English assistant/receptionist whom I’ve spoken to a dozen times and somehow she doesn’t look exactly as I imagined, but to be honest I have no idea what I imagined. She escorts me down the hall to the small lounge area meeting room where I plop down on a sofa and stare up at a huge vintage poster for the 1968 Jane Fonda wacko classic, BARBARELLA.
As I sit and stare up at Jane’s spectacular boobs, I nod approvingly and think "Yup, I signed with the right agent.”
A moment or two later Toochis Morin, Brant’s partner in the firm, comes in and we meet for the first time. Now, Toochis and I have played and goofed on the phone enough that we have something like a playfully flirtatious proto-friendship going already, so we immediately drop into the same old very silly bantering that we’ve already come to expect. I piss and moan and grumble about the strike, and she does her best to buoy my playfully black mood, and at some point we start drifting toward actual serious client-rep talk as she explains "well, our job is to read your stuff and get you the right meetings based off what we read.”
I take that as a perfect moment to pull a completed spec from my bag and drop it on the small coffeetable separating us. "Well, with that happy thought in mind..."
**PLOP**
Toochis looks at the script, looks at me. I smile, as I have a vague understanding of her confusion: when brant’s office first approached me, they of course requested my Nicholl finalists script, QUEEN OF THE SKY, and when they started getting more serious/curious about taking me on, we talked about some other scripts in my bag, and they seemed to spark to some ideas and actually requested some comedy scripts (which they say were a big part of their decision to bring me on as a client), but unbeknownst to them I held back one cool idea which was already a completed script.
Why? Oh, I dunno. Mostly because I’m a goofy wingnut who likes to surprise people and keep them off-balance. This “secret script” is a goofy campy low budget creature feature comedy I came up with first as a stupid joke and then realized was a great concept for a low budget movie idea, so I’ve been quietly banging away on it for the past few months as a sort of sideline to more serious stuff. The title is great, and the tagline is absolutely killer (and no I am not publicly divulging either right now, so deal with it, sucker...). My pkan was to walk in and surprise Brant and Toochis with a great affordable commercial genre comedy that could be converted into an “easy” (heh) sale.
Toochis blinks, looks at the script, picks it up, reads the title, smiles widely. I hit her with the tagline. She looks at me with shock, then starts to howl with laughter.
”Brant! Get in here!”
Brant wraps up a call and comes in quickly, waves a greeting and takes the script from Toochis.
”Read the title, then hit him with the tagline, Brett.”
He reads, I hit, he looks up and starts laughing loudly. They look at each other and start chattering and laughing. Sally comes running into see what the fuss is about. Brant hands her the script.
"Read the title.”
She reads it aloud and smiles.
Brant points at me as a signal. I again drop the painfully sophomoric tagline. Sally looks up like someone goosed her ass. She starts to scream in laughter.
”Is it any good?” Toochis asks. I explain that it is, and that it’s somewhere between TREMORS and PREDATOR in the goofy campy scale.
Things go well from there.
We spend the next two hours talking about this new thing, which then leads me to ask ”so what made you guys offer to rep me so quickly? Other folks from our Nicholl class are having meetings but I’ve not heard anyone being offered a deal. What the hell did I do differently? I’d love to know so that maybe I can try to keep doing it.”
”You came in with a clear entrepreneurial sense of drive and purpose,” Brant explains. ”Great ideas are pretty much a dime a dozen in this town, but it’s exciting when you run into someone who can execute them and who understands how to monetize and market them. You won us over in that first conversation. You get it.” he lifts the new spec as some sort of evidence to support that claim.
”Well, OK. Whatever. So what next?”
We talk about QUEEN OF THE SKY and immediately the discussion turns to casting the lead role of Lilya. Given the WGA strike, there’s no point in even talking about sending the material to studios or producers, but it might be possible and useful to try and attract the strong support of a solid young “name” actress: if we can get some top-drawer 20-something cutie to fall in love with the piece, that might give us enough added momentum to then (eventually) snag the attention and interest of a director or producer of commercial relevance.
We brainstorm ideas for casting the lead roles, and I start to get a strange feeling when it hits me that every name I mention gets scribbled into notes, and often Brant and Toochis swap a comment or two about the reps for these actresses. It hits me that they are talking about sending my pile of pages to actual, you know, actresses. the kind who are in movies.
”Uh... you guys are seriously talking about sending my stuff to these people?”
They both look at me like I farted.
”Uh, yeah, Brett. That’s kinda what we do.”
“Oh. Cool.”
Suddenly it hits me even harder: this is all becoming freaky real.
We then go on to talk about some of the other ideas and specs I’ve mentioned and shown them, and we agree that we can and should use this strike time to go over some of these to ensure that when the white flag again gets waved to resume racing, that we are all fully ready to hit with full force and effect. We talk about how the process will eventually (hopefully) play out, and what I need to stand ready to do when the call finally comes in, and I say ”just get me in the fuckin’ room so I can make money for us all.”
Brant gets a call and says he’ll be back. Toochis and I chatter on. We touch upon the new script again, and it turns out that she and I share some goofy favorite movies in our past. Eventually I toss up my ahnds and ask ”So what do I do next? Gimme a task. A project. A chore. Something.”
”Did I give you the ‘Twenty Ideas In A Week’ assignment yet?”
I glower and shake ‘no.’
”We like all our new clients to go home and give us twenty ideas for movies within one week. We like to see them flex their creativity muscles on a timetable.”
I pull a thumbdrive from around my neck, slide it across the table.
”The Word file is titled ‘SCRIPT IDEAS.’ I think it’s up to 42 entries right now, but it’s always in flux so I might be low or high by one or two.”
Toochis looks at the drive, then shoots me a smile.
”You know how to make your agents very very happy -- you know that?”
We giggle and play around for a few more minutes, then Sally comes in and ruins the fun by reminding all that we each have various other things going at 1 pm, so we say our goodbyes and continue the giggling nonsense until I finally wander off into the midday glare, wandering down flower-draped back alleys toward the gleaming tower of my hotel just a few blocks away.
(to be continued....)
.
.
.
B
After 90 or so minutes of screwing around on a keyboard, it’s time to walk the four or five blocks to meet my agent, Brant Rose, for the first time in meatspace (real world, for you non-hip folks). Now, the fact that I have any agent remains a giggle-inducing fact for me, but that this agent is one whom I have long known about and respected and admired and had numerous peers lust after unsuccessfully... well, it is yet one more amazing point in all this Nicholl-related craziness.
Brant Rose Agency is located in Crossroads Of The World, this oddly LA-ish enclave of buildings from the 1930s that is described as America’s first try at a shopping mall. Over the decades the odd little village of cottages and storefronts and Bavarian chalets has been a center for retail, for songwriters, for rock music folks, for porn producers, and now seems to be mounting a baby renaissance for agents and managers and other small-shop movie folks.
I meet Sally, the cool-talking English assistant/receptionist whom I’ve spoken to a dozen times and somehow she doesn’t look exactly as I imagined, but to be honest I have no idea what I imagined. She escorts me down the hall to the small lounge area meeting room where I plop down on a sofa and stare up at a huge vintage poster for the 1968 Jane Fonda wacko classic, BARBARELLA.
As I sit and stare up at Jane’s spectacular boobs, I nod approvingly and think "Yup, I signed with the right agent.”
A moment or two later Toochis Morin, Brant’s partner in the firm, comes in and we meet for the first time. Now, Toochis and I have played and goofed on the phone enough that we have something like a playfully flirtatious proto-friendship going already, so we immediately drop into the same old very silly bantering that we’ve already come to expect. I piss and moan and grumble about the strike, and she does her best to buoy my playfully black mood, and at some point we start drifting toward actual serious client-rep talk as she explains "well, our job is to read your stuff and get you the right meetings based off what we read.”
I take that as a perfect moment to pull a completed spec from my bag and drop it on the small coffeetable separating us. "Well, with that happy thought in mind..."
**PLOP**
Toochis looks at the script, looks at me. I smile, as I have a vague understanding of her confusion: when brant’s office first approached me, they of course requested my Nicholl finalists script, QUEEN OF THE SKY, and when they started getting more serious/curious about taking me on, we talked about some other scripts in my bag, and they seemed to spark to some ideas and actually requested some comedy scripts (which they say were a big part of their decision to bring me on as a client), but unbeknownst to them I held back one cool idea which was already a completed script.
Why? Oh, I dunno. Mostly because I’m a goofy wingnut who likes to surprise people and keep them off-balance. This “secret script” is a goofy campy low budget creature feature comedy I came up with first as a stupid joke and then realized was a great concept for a low budget movie idea, so I’ve been quietly banging away on it for the past few months as a sort of sideline to more serious stuff. The title is great, and the tagline is absolutely killer (and no I am not publicly divulging either right now, so deal with it, sucker...). My pkan was to walk in and surprise Brant and Toochis with a great affordable commercial genre comedy that could be converted into an “easy” (heh) sale.
Toochis blinks, looks at the script, picks it up, reads the title, smiles widely. I hit her with the tagline. She looks at me with shock, then starts to howl with laughter.
”Brant! Get in here!”
Brant wraps up a call and comes in quickly, waves a greeting and takes the script from Toochis.
”Read the title, then hit him with the tagline, Brett.”
He reads, I hit, he looks up and starts laughing loudly. They look at each other and start chattering and laughing. Sally comes running into see what the fuss is about. Brant hands her the script.
"Read the title.”
She reads it aloud and smiles.
Brant points at me as a signal. I again drop the painfully sophomoric tagline. Sally looks up like someone goosed her ass. She starts to scream in laughter.
”Is it any good?” Toochis asks. I explain that it is, and that it’s somewhere between TREMORS and PREDATOR in the goofy campy scale.
Things go well from there.
We spend the next two hours talking about this new thing, which then leads me to ask ”so what made you guys offer to rep me so quickly? Other folks from our Nicholl class are having meetings but I’ve not heard anyone being offered a deal. What the hell did I do differently? I’d love to know so that maybe I can try to keep doing it.”
”You came in with a clear entrepreneurial sense of drive and purpose,” Brant explains. ”Great ideas are pretty much a dime a dozen in this town, but it’s exciting when you run into someone who can execute them and who understands how to monetize and market them. You won us over in that first conversation. You get it.” he lifts the new spec as some sort of evidence to support that claim.
”Well, OK. Whatever. So what next?”
We talk about QUEEN OF THE SKY and immediately the discussion turns to casting the lead role of Lilya. Given the WGA strike, there’s no point in even talking about sending the material to studios or producers, but it might be possible and useful to try and attract the strong support of a solid young “name” actress: if we can get some top-drawer 20-something cutie to fall in love with the piece, that might give us enough added momentum to then (eventually) snag the attention and interest of a director or producer of commercial relevance.
We brainstorm ideas for casting the lead roles, and I start to get a strange feeling when it hits me that every name I mention gets scribbled into notes, and often Brant and Toochis swap a comment or two about the reps for these actresses. It hits me that they are talking about sending my pile of pages to actual, you know, actresses. the kind who are in movies.
”Uh... you guys are seriously talking about sending my stuff to these people?”
They both look at me like I farted.
”Uh, yeah, Brett. That’s kinda what we do.”
“Oh. Cool.”
Suddenly it hits me even harder: this is all becoming freaky real.
We then go on to talk about some of the other ideas and specs I’ve mentioned and shown them, and we agree that we can and should use this strike time to go over some of these to ensure that when the white flag again gets waved to resume racing, that we are all fully ready to hit with full force and effect. We talk about how the process will eventually (hopefully) play out, and what I need to stand ready to do when the call finally comes in, and I say ”just get me in the fuckin’ room so I can make money for us all.”
Brant gets a call and says he’ll be back. Toochis and I chatter on. We touch upon the new script again, and it turns out that she and I share some goofy favorite movies in our past. Eventually I toss up my ahnds and ask ”So what do I do next? Gimme a task. A project. A chore. Something.”
”Did I give you the ‘Twenty Ideas In A Week’ assignment yet?”
I glower and shake ‘no.’
”We like all our new clients to go home and give us twenty ideas for movies within one week. We like to see them flex their creativity muscles on a timetable.”
I pull a thumbdrive from around my neck, slide it across the table.
”The Word file is titled ‘SCRIPT IDEAS.’ I think it’s up to 42 entries right now, but it’s always in flux so I might be low or high by one or two.”
Toochis looks at the drive, then shoots me a smile.
”You know how to make your agents very very happy -- you know that?”
We giggle and play around for a few more minutes, then Sally comes in and ruins the fun by reminding all that we each have various other things going at 1 pm, so we say our goodbyes and continue the giggling nonsense until I finally wander off into the midday glare, wandering down flower-draped back alleys toward the gleaming tower of my hotel just a few blocks away.
(to be continued....)
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24 November 2007
Nicholl Week 2007 -- Day the First
Rather than bore the 13 people out there who seem to read this damned fool blog by waxing loquacious for 5000 words about every moment of my Nicholl week, I’ll instead make a token futile stab at brevity.
First point: if you are an aspiring screenwriter and you have not entered the Nicholl before or were not planning on entering again this coming year, smack your silly self and get something entry-ready. I do not care what you have heard or read from the so-called “experts” on sites such as Zoetrope and Triggerstreet and elsewhere, the Nicholl is not some goofy artsy-fartsy poetry contest which only wants quiet little “inspiring youth overcomes adversity to triumph quietly” stories. Sure, FINDING FORRESTER and AKEELA AND THE BEE were Nicholl winners, but in this year’s crop of ten finalists there were big FX-heavy sci-fi adventures, period romances, dark scary horror stories, and even one impossible to produce period war movie romance epic lacking a solid mae lead and sporting a third act where the main character falls off the stage entirely.
In other words, the Nicholl is about good writing and not about anything so mundane as "filmable on a budget by an indie crew.”
I arrived Sunday and was immediately impressed by the accommodations. The Renaissance Hollywood Hotel is a gorgeous and slickly modern 20-story affair in the middle of downtown Hollywood, overlooking the Kodak Theater and within easy walking distance of pretty much every Hollywood landmark you can imagine. As part of the Nicholl finalist package, I was put up for a week in the place, and every time I came back into my room I had to smile as I looked out to the Pacific gleaming in the far distance and the lights of Hollywood glittering at my feet. I also laughed every time I had the valet bring around my rental, the fire engine red Chevy compact. Wedged between obsidian black Bentleys and chrome and white Hummers, my ride would not have looked more out of place if it had been covered in pink fur.
Sunday night was cool, as good pal Shawna Benson, swung by to drag me to dinner. We would up at some really yummy Greek place over in Larchmont, then wandered back to Down a few beers at the Pig&Whistle on Hollywood Blvd. Shawna is one of dozens of insanely cool LA pals I’ve somehow made via online farting around. She’s a talented writer in her own right, and will likely have ridiculous success of her own to report in the coming months (but I’ll leave that to her to report...). We swap silly chat messages online several nights a week, and we’ve played around for two years at the Austin Film Festival, so we’re familiar and comfortable, and it’s great to have a good buddy to pal around with on my first night in town.
After our beers, we wandered around the Renaissance, laughing at the accommodations I’d blundered into, when I get a cell message alerting me that some other finalists have hooked up at a restaurant in the adjoining shopping arcade, so we hike over to look for a trio of folks who look like Nicholl Finalists.
Having a few former Nicholl finalists and fellows in my extended peer group, I’d been advised by all those folks to try and get to know your fellow finalists as well as possible as early as possible, as this will provide you with some support group in LA for this weird week of meetings and attention, plus it will let you all share intelligence and information and thereby tip each other off to possible slimeballs and scammers trying to get their hooks into your scripts and careers. For that reason, I’d set up some online discussion between the twelve finalists for the 2007 fellowships, and we already had the beginnings of some relations when we hit town.
Still, there is always that moment of potential awkwardness when first meeting peers who are on some level competitors. Yeas, the final judging for the fellowships had already been done, and we all knew who the big winners were and who the big looozers would be, so it wasn;t as dog-eat-dog as it could have been, but still... there was an undeniable element of caution and reluctance to offer too much too soon whenever a new name was added to the mix. Well, except of course by me. My natural inclination when meeting people in such settings is to come on like a fire hose, soaking pretty much everything within earshot with contempt and sarcasm and abuse and scorn. Playfully, of course, but still in a way that often leaves newcomers either rattled or downright terrified.
Shawna chuckled as she watched this dynamic unfold yet again. We met Sidney King, Dave Mango, and Lisa Gold, and I immediately liked them all but also amused myself somewhat at their expense as I did that thing where I come on as something between Hunter Thompson and Foghorn Leghorn. We all decide that California Pizza Kitchen just does not have the requisite coolness to host the conversation at hand, so we adjourn back to the hotel bar of the Renaissance. Shawna elbows me as we wander back next door: “I think you’re scaring them.”
“Moi?”
Shawna decides to bail at 11 as she has to work the next day, so we do our goodbye hugs in the circle driveway as Bimmers and Benzes swirl around us with nary a Chevy in sight.
The Renaissance hotel bar might be the worst hotel bar I’ve ever been in. I suppose I ought not be surprised, as it likely is not intended as a destination but rather as merely a gathering point for Beautiful People then leaving for Beautiful Places where they can drink Beautiful Drinks and have Beautiful Chatter. This place is tucked off to the side of the main entrance, open air and with the ambience of the central concourse of any major airport. There’s an impressive array of bottled liquor on the long back wall behind the bar, but I notice only two beers on tap: Budweiser and some boutique hefeweizen. Now, call me a bar snob, but in my experience, the quality of a bar can pretty much always be determined by the number of different beers on tap. (More is better). Two is the worst ever showing I’ve seen in a bar, and especially for one where money flows like water.
Still, I soldiered on, and drank hefeweizen and then bottled Bass as Lisa and Sidney and Dave and I chattered and got to know each other better. I noted to myself even at this first meeting that I was somewhat surprised and disappointed to enjoy their company so much. It would have been far more convenient to find someone to appoint scapegoat for the week, the object of my unspoken derision and disgust for me having NOT won the 30-grand in fellowship money. Instead, I find that I genuinely like these people and enjoy talking with them until the cute but useless barchick tells us they’ve closed for the evening. At 12:10 am.
Worst. Bar. Ever.
(to be continued...)
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“The Biggest Loozer™” B
First point: if you are an aspiring screenwriter and you have not entered the Nicholl before or were not planning on entering again this coming year, smack your silly self and get something entry-ready. I do not care what you have heard or read from the so-called “experts” on sites such as Zoetrope and Triggerstreet and elsewhere, the Nicholl is not some goofy artsy-fartsy poetry contest which only wants quiet little “inspiring youth overcomes adversity to triumph quietly” stories. Sure, FINDING FORRESTER and AKEELA AND THE BEE were Nicholl winners, but in this year’s crop of ten finalists there were big FX-heavy sci-fi adventures, period romances, dark scary horror stories, and even one impossible to produce period war movie romance epic lacking a solid mae lead and sporting a third act where the main character falls off the stage entirely.
In other words, the Nicholl is about good writing and not about anything so mundane as "filmable on a budget by an indie crew.”
I arrived Sunday and was immediately impressed by the accommodations. The Renaissance Hollywood Hotel is a gorgeous and slickly modern 20-story affair in the middle of downtown Hollywood, overlooking the Kodak Theater and within easy walking distance of pretty much every Hollywood landmark you can imagine. As part of the Nicholl finalist package, I was put up for a week in the place, and every time I came back into my room I had to smile as I looked out to the Pacific gleaming in the far distance and the lights of Hollywood glittering at my feet. I also laughed every time I had the valet bring around my rental, the fire engine red Chevy compact. Wedged between obsidian black Bentleys and chrome and white Hummers, my ride would not have looked more out of place if it had been covered in pink fur.
Sunday night was cool, as good pal Shawna Benson, swung by to drag me to dinner. We would up at some really yummy Greek place over in Larchmont, then wandered back to Down a few beers at the Pig&Whistle on Hollywood Blvd. Shawna is one of dozens of insanely cool LA pals I’ve somehow made via online farting around. She’s a talented writer in her own right, and will likely have ridiculous success of her own to report in the coming months (but I’ll leave that to her to report...). We swap silly chat messages online several nights a week, and we’ve played around for two years at the Austin Film Festival, so we’re familiar and comfortable, and it’s great to have a good buddy to pal around with on my first night in town.
After our beers, we wandered around the Renaissance, laughing at the accommodations I’d blundered into, when I get a cell message alerting me that some other finalists have hooked up at a restaurant in the adjoining shopping arcade, so we hike over to look for a trio of folks who look like Nicholl Finalists.
Having a few former Nicholl finalists and fellows in my extended peer group, I’d been advised by all those folks to try and get to know your fellow finalists as well as possible as early as possible, as this will provide you with some support group in LA for this weird week of meetings and attention, plus it will let you all share intelligence and information and thereby tip each other off to possible slimeballs and scammers trying to get their hooks into your scripts and careers. For that reason, I’d set up some online discussion between the twelve finalists for the 2007 fellowships, and we already had the beginnings of some relations when we hit town.
Still, there is always that moment of potential awkwardness when first meeting peers who are on some level competitors. Yeas, the final judging for the fellowships had already been done, and we all knew who the big winners were and who the big looozers would be, so it wasn;t as dog-eat-dog as it could have been, but still... there was an undeniable element of caution and reluctance to offer too much too soon whenever a new name was added to the mix. Well, except of course by me. My natural inclination when meeting people in such settings is to come on like a fire hose, soaking pretty much everything within earshot with contempt and sarcasm and abuse and scorn. Playfully, of course, but still in a way that often leaves newcomers either rattled or downright terrified.
Shawna chuckled as she watched this dynamic unfold yet again. We met Sidney King, Dave Mango, and Lisa Gold, and I immediately liked them all but also amused myself somewhat at their expense as I did that thing where I come on as something between Hunter Thompson and Foghorn Leghorn. We all decide that California Pizza Kitchen just does not have the requisite coolness to host the conversation at hand, so we adjourn back to the hotel bar of the Renaissance. Shawna elbows me as we wander back next door: “I think you’re scaring them.”
“Moi?”
Shawna decides to bail at 11 as she has to work the next day, so we do our goodbye hugs in the circle driveway as Bimmers and Benzes swirl around us with nary a Chevy in sight.
The Renaissance hotel bar might be the worst hotel bar I’ve ever been in. I suppose I ought not be surprised, as it likely is not intended as a destination but rather as merely a gathering point for Beautiful People then leaving for Beautiful Places where they can drink Beautiful Drinks and have Beautiful Chatter. This place is tucked off to the side of the main entrance, open air and with the ambience of the central concourse of any major airport. There’s an impressive array of bottled liquor on the long back wall behind the bar, but I notice only two beers on tap: Budweiser and some boutique hefeweizen. Now, call me a bar snob, but in my experience, the quality of a bar can pretty much always be determined by the number of different beers on tap. (More is better). Two is the worst ever showing I’ve seen in a bar, and especially for one where money flows like water.
Still, I soldiered on, and drank hefeweizen and then bottled Bass as Lisa and Sidney and Dave and I chattered and got to know each other better. I noted to myself even at this first meeting that I was somewhat surprised and disappointed to enjoy their company so much. It would have been far more convenient to find someone to appoint scapegoat for the week, the object of my unspoken derision and disgust for me having NOT won the 30-grand in fellowship money. Instead, I find that I genuinely like these people and enjoy talking with them until the cute but useless barchick tells us they’ve closed for the evening. At 12:10 am.
Worst. Bar. Ever.
(to be continued...)
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“The Biggest Loozer™” B
22 November 2007
17 November 2007
back to life... back to reality
Well, the song is over.
Nicholl Week 2007 is come and gone, and I am now back home from a six-day run of funkiness in Hollywood, Topanga, Venice and Beverly Hills.
I have a ton of stuff to process and digest and contextualize and chew upon like cud as I try to make sense of it all. I saw a lot of strange things, and met a lot of great people and a load of great new friends (as hard as I tried, I could never bring myself to dislike or hate or even envy the writers of the five fellowship-winning scripts), and again came away from a week in LA with a weirdly mixed bag of thoughts and feelings.
I made a remark to someone at dinner this week: the honor of the Nicholl finals is, ultimately, irrelevant. It does not guarantee anything, nor does it deliver much anything except for one open door. It falls to the writer to step through that door into a wild new room and then make something of whatever opportunities can be found on that other side.
I'm totally exhausted in every sense of the word, and I'd do it all again right now if they'd give me the chance.
More soon. backlog of bloggery to be dealt with as I can.
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back under the S in TEXAS B
Nicholl Week 2007 is come and gone, and I am now back home from a six-day run of funkiness in Hollywood, Topanga, Venice and Beverly Hills.
I have a ton of stuff to process and digest and contextualize and chew upon like cud as I try to make sense of it all. I saw a lot of strange things, and met a lot of great people and a load of great new friends (as hard as I tried, I could never bring myself to dislike or hate or even envy the writers of the five fellowship-winning scripts), and again came away from a week in LA with a weirdly mixed bag of thoughts and feelings.
I made a remark to someone at dinner this week: the honor of the Nicholl finals is, ultimately, irrelevant. It does not guarantee anything, nor does it deliver much anything except for one open door. It falls to the writer to step through that door into a wild new room and then make something of whatever opportunities can be found on that other side.
I'm totally exhausted in every sense of the word, and I'd do it all again right now if they'd give me the chance.
More soon. backlog of bloggery to be dealt with as I can.
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back under the S in TEXAS B
09 November 2007
Petition the AMPTP
Someone set up a1 cool little page over at Petition Online where you can sign up in support of the Writers Guild in their ongoing effort to get a fair and equitable deal with the AMPTP (the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).
I signed up (#13240!) and I encourage all fans of quality movies and TV to do the same. It's not likely to do much, but anything that we can do to demonstrate the existence for strong support for the writer's side in this strike has got to be a good thing.
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To: AMPTP
We, the undersigned, fully support the strike of
the Writers Guild of America, and agree with the
WGA's stated goals of obtaining just and fair
compensation regarding revenues generated
through "new media".
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
SIGN HERE!
I signed up (#13240!) and I encourage all fans of quality movies and TV to do the same. It's not likely to do much, but anything that we can do to demonstrate the existence for strong support for the writer's side in this strike has got to be a good thing.
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08 November 2007
*CHIRP*
So i was again too late to bed, and was to much enjoying my too brief slumber when I'm wakened around 4:20 am by an annoying electronic "CHIRP" which seems to repeat every minute or so.
One of the smoke alarms apparently has a battery running down, so it's doing that damned annoying thing where it beeps and chirps to remind you that there is no reason for concern.
What a great idea.
So I plod around the kitchen and find the last of the replacement 9v batteries and install it and fall back into bed and roll over hoping to grab another 90 minutes of rest when...
*CHIRP*
A different smoke alarm chirps now. I wander through the house, trying to find which one it is, and this takes a while as the damned things only beep every minute or so when they are running down, and we have EIGHT smoke alarms (one in every bedroom, one at both ends of the upstairs hallway, one in the downstairs hallway), and it takes me six tries before I find the offending chirper, and given that we now have no more batteries I have to just disconnect that one and pull the dying battery to try and silence it, and as I am doing so I hear *CHIRP* again downstairs, so I dash down the stairs and trace this newest chirping harpie (harping chirpie?) and find that I'll need the stepladder to reach this one, so at 4:45 am I am dragging in the ladder from the garage top tear this fucking thing off the wall, and literally as I disconnect the wire I hear *CHIRP* from upstairs and I check every other alarm and find none of them making that *CHIRP* even though I keep HEARING that *CHIRP* sound, and around 5:05 am I find that the *CHIRP* is coming from that FIRST alarm which is disconnected and has the battery removed, and I am wondering what kind of capacitor is in there to carry a charge like that for a half hour of repeated *CHIRP* when I hear another *CHIRP* from downstairs and by now I am 37% mad and hurl myself down the stairs again and rush to check the previously removed alarm but find the *CHIRP* again comes from a DIFFERENT alarm -- the third to join in the fun so far -- and then ANOTHER one (upstairs again), and at this point I say FUCK IT (aloud) and turn on the coffeepot and decide my suck-assed day has now officially begun.
'Thanks, God."
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B
One of the smoke alarms apparently has a battery running down, so it's doing that damned annoying thing where it beeps and chirps to remind you that there is no reason for concern.
What a great idea.
So I plod around the kitchen and find the last of the replacement 9v batteries and install it and fall back into bed and roll over hoping to grab another 90 minutes of rest when...
*CHIRP*
A different smoke alarm chirps now. I wander through the house, trying to find which one it is, and this takes a while as the damned things only beep every minute or so when they are running down, and we have EIGHT smoke alarms (one in every bedroom, one at both ends of the upstairs hallway, one in the downstairs hallway), and it takes me six tries before I find the offending chirper, and given that we now have no more batteries I have to just disconnect that one and pull the dying battery to try and silence it, and as I am doing so I hear *CHIRP* again downstairs, so I dash down the stairs and trace this newest chirping harpie (harping chirpie?) and find that I'll need the stepladder to reach this one, so at 4:45 am I am dragging in the ladder from the garage top tear this fucking thing off the wall, and literally as I disconnect the wire I hear *CHIRP* from upstairs and I check every other alarm and find none of them making that *CHIRP* even though I keep HEARING that *CHIRP* sound, and around 5:05 am I find that the *CHIRP* is coming from that FIRST alarm which is disconnected and has the battery removed, and I am wondering what kind of capacitor is in there to carry a charge like that for a half hour of repeated *CHIRP* when I hear another *CHIRP* from downstairs and by now I am 37% mad and hurl myself down the stairs again and rush to check the previously removed alarm but find the *CHIRP* again comes from a DIFFERENT alarm -- the third to join in the fun so far -- and then ANOTHER one (upstairs again), and at this point I say FUCK IT (aloud) and turn on the coffeepot and decide my suck-assed day has now officially begun.
'Thanks, God."
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06 November 2007
WGA STRIKE -- Why We Fight
I continue to have "civilian" friends ask me "so why are the writers on strike?"
Here ya go:
This is a hugely important issue which affects a uniquely American industry -- "the movies." For now, it can't be easily outsourced to India or Mexico or China, and if we as viewers and fans of good movies and TV want that to remain true, we have to make sure that it's possible for an American writer to make a survivable wage creating product for this industry.
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Here ya go:
This is a hugely important issue which affects a uniquely American industry -- "the movies." For now, it can't be easily outsourced to India or Mexico or China, and if we as viewers and fans of good movies and TV want that to remain true, we have to make sure that it's possible for an American writer to make a survivable wage creating product for this industry.
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05 November 2007
IT'S ON
Effective 12:01 AM on Monday 5 November, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) stands in strike of the Association of Motion Picture and television producers (AMPTP).
The majority of folks reading this blog are part of the screenwriting world, so they understand well what's going on and why, but there are many other civilians" out there who probably wonder what the hell this is all about.
Bottom line: money.
Currently, when a movie is sold in DVD form, the writers earn residuals at the rate of .0362 percent. In other words, for every DVD sold, the writers—the people who wrote the words spoken and came up with that story and the characters and the descriptions of every moment on that screen—get approximately four cents.
Four cents. The company that puts the shrink-wrap on the clamshell case makes more than the writers who created every character, line, and visual in that movie.
But it gets better: what do the studios propose to pay from now on for internet residuals?
Zero.
It's hard to sustain a career on those kinds of earnings.
So there is now a strike, which means that no professional writers are allowed to work on any new TV or film projects until a new collective bargaining agreement has been signed.
If you are a screenwriter (pro or aspiring), stay informed and abreast of what's going on out in Hollywood. These next few weeks will determine the landscape of your working life for the next twenty years.
if you are just a fan of TV and movies, please do some research and see what's going on and why. this is not a case of some overcompensated Hollywood writers whining about their second million dollars for some awful movie. This is about the thousands of creative folks whose ability to have a life and career is being threatened by CEOs now paying themselves bonuses of 50 and 80 million dollars even as they claim "there's not enough money to pay you guys, too!"
Go check the websites for the major networks and the major studios and see for yourself how big a push they are putting behind direct online distribution and sales of the creative products conceived by writers, and then be sure to note all the advertising on those sites and consider if that ad space was donated to the studios, and then consider the fact that there is zero production cost in making a million copies of an episode of LOST or FANTASTIC FOUR to be sold for download at 5 or 10 or 15 bucks a pop.
I want to write movies. More than anything else in my life, that's what I want to do.
I just don't think I should be expected to do this as an act of charity.
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04 November 2007
tagged: a musical meme
So Shawna tagged me with a meme from Rhys, and I'm supposed to do something somehow relating to a song or something:
This is an odd one for me, as I dunno that I even understand what's being requested. Am I to list some song which consistently motivates me to write? or one which somehow fits my current mood? Or one that somehow fits some specific project?
Actually, there's a song that's in high rotation in my iTunes list which fits all three requirements: it always makes me smile and start bouncing in a happy "let's do some shit" sort of mood, it fits my current mood (kamikaze-like determination), and it fits a specific project I have been fiddling with in the background (an 80s-ra college comedy).
So, with all that in mind, I give you Bon and Angus and all the boys, along with surely the greatest bagpipe line in hard rockin' history:
Yeah, call me childish, but there's just something too damned irrepressibly cool about that old AC/DC song, and it nicely sums up the chase for screenwriting gold:
Fuckin ay, man.
And now, I hereby oh-ficially tag
• Emily, of Whiteboard Markers
• Jamie, of Please Check Your Dignity at the Door
• Ryan, of Holy Embers of Dreams
• Pooks, of Planet Pooks
• Adam, of One Slack Martian
.
.
.
B
So here is your assignment for today, dear readers. Find a song that inspires you to write something, whether it gives you an idea for a script or just puts you into a better frame of mind. AND/OR (don't you love choices) peek into the lyrics and find a stanza that sums up the theme of whatever script you're working on. It's quite uncanny how the two circumstances go together.
If possible, post a video of the song to really get people into the mood. (Yep, I'm aware of the irony of using Internet clips during the pissing contest. I like irony as much as bitchiness.)
Then, send the assignment (by e-mail or posting to one of their blog entries) to 5 other writers to do.
This is an odd one for me, as I dunno that I even understand what's being requested. Am I to list some song which consistently motivates me to write? or one which somehow fits my current mood? Or one that somehow fits some specific project?
Actually, there's a song that's in high rotation in my iTunes list which fits all three requirements: it always makes me smile and start bouncing in a happy "let's do some shit" sort of mood, it fits my current mood (kamikaze-like determination), and it fits a specific project I have been fiddling with in the background (an 80s-ra college comedy).
So, with all that in mind, I give you Bon and Angus and all the boys, along with surely the greatest bagpipe line in hard rockin' history:
Yeah, call me childish, but there's just something too damned irrepressibly cool about that old AC/DC song, and it nicely sums up the chase for screenwriting gold:
"Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to a show
Stop in all the byways
Playin' rock 'n' roll
Gettin' robbed
Gettin' stoned
Gettin' beat up
Broken boned
Gettin' had
Gettin' took
I tell you folks
It's harder than it looks
It's a long way... to the top... if ya wanna rock and roll!"
Fuckin ay, man.
And now, I hereby oh-ficially tag
• Emily, of Whiteboard Markers
• Jamie, of Please Check Your Dignity at the Door
• Ryan, of Holy Embers of Dreams
• Pooks, of Planet Pooks
• Adam, of One Slack Martian
.
.
.
B
01 November 2007
NO SOUP FOR YOU!
So, I am *not* a Nicholl Fellowship winner this year. It's official-- Greg Beal called and delivered the news with typical grace and diplomacy.
Somewhere out there are five (or maybe 6-- partners screw up the headcount) writers now bouncing off the walls at having received the coolest news they're likely going to get for a week or three.
Congrats to them all.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a cat to kick....
.
.
.
B
Somewhere out there are five (or maybe 6-- partners screw up the headcount) writers now bouncing off the walls at having received the coolest news they're likely going to get for a week or three.
Congrats to them all.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a cat to kick....
.
.
.
B
26 October 2007
Top 10 Things For Screenwriters To Do During the Looming WGA Strike
10. Picket at a place with good coffee, shaded patio, free wifi access, and validated parking.
9. Put finishing touches on that big-screen ALF spec
8. Go shopping for new sweatpants and ironic t-shirts
7. Order the assistant to polish the heads of your Acco #5s
6. Meet for a 2:30 coffee date with writer friends and commiserate that your managers just don't work hard enough
5. Clean your trackballs
4. Answer reader mail on your website, www.jessicabieldiscussesplatowhilenaked.com
3. Hang out at the Apple Store and look cool with the other short fat bald white guys
2. Memorize the menu at Pollo Loco in prep for the big job interview
and the number one thing for screenwriters to do during the looming WGA strike...
1. HALO and porn
.
.
.
home office B
9. Put finishing touches on that big-screen ALF spec
8. Go shopping for new sweatpants and ironic t-shirts
7. Order the assistant to polish the heads of your Acco #5s
6. Meet for a 2:30 coffee date with writer friends and commiserate that your managers just don't work hard enough
5. Clean your trackballs
4. Answer reader mail on your website, www.jessicabieldiscussesplatowhilenaked.com
3. Hang out at the Apple Store and look cool with the other short fat bald white guys
2. Memorize the menu at Pollo Loco in prep for the big job interview
and the number one thing for screenwriters to do during the looming WGA strike...
1. HALO and porn
.
.
.
home office B
25 October 2007
REPPED
The Brant Rose Agency?
[Barney Fife sniff] Yup, yup... they're my new agents.
O frabjous day!
Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
Yeah, I'll most definitely make more noise on this topic soon and often.
.
.
.
B (chortling)
PS-- HOOWAAAAAAAH!
[Barney Fife sniff] Yup, yup... they're my new agents.
O frabjous day!
Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
Yeah, I'll most definitely make more noise on this topic soon and often.
.
.
.
B (chortling)
PS-- HOOWAAAAAAAH!
22 October 2007
what a revolting development
I'll not not be so arrogant to say those who know me will understand what I mean here, but I could. And maybe should.
A few weeks ago when I first got word about the Nicholl nonsense, I had... "a relative" ask me "so, do you have a press release ready?"
'Press release? Nah, the Nicholl people handle all the press. It's covered," I explained.
"No, not the official release—the one about you personally. Specifically."
Here's the thing: at that moment I realized i don't want this to be about me personally, specifically.
For reasons I'll not bore by going into, I've always been very uncomfortable with direct personal praise and attention. Praise my work, my achievements, but don;t praise me personally, as that's just an ego thing and I hate that feeling of "oh, I'm so fantastic and wonderful!
Cuz I'm not. I'm a mess, with more crap in my brain than most folks would believe, and a lifetime of odd mistakes and missteps that is more tangled and mangled than the Basra-Baghdad Highway in the final week of Gulf War I.
But this relative didn't share my opinion on this matter, so they took it upon themselves to FWD some news of the Nicholl Finalist thing to the local newspaper in the small town where I grew up and went to school. While I was away at the Austin Film festival last week, I get a phone message from a reporter in that town—they wanted to do a story, "local boy makes good," etc.
I ducked the call. Did not return it. Ignored it. It's not something I asked for, wanted, or care about, I reasoned, so why bother working to make it happen?
The reporter has called a few more times since then, apparently eager to get a story, and today she caught me on the phone. She seemed first surprised and then confused that I was reluctant to play along—"don;t you know how cool this is for the town?"
"No not really," I answered, honestly if not charmingly. "To me it's a non-story about a guy who lived in town 25 years ago and has never really looked back with any special fondness for that time."
The reporter argued that the story was important to help show our high school kids that dreams can come true—that nothing is impossible, to which I responded that it was never my dream to be a Nicholl Finalist, and that until I option or sell a screenplay, I've not really achieved that dream, so what's the point here?
The debate went on for a minute or two before I finally said to hell with it and said "send me the questions and I'll see which, if any, I can force myself to address. And understand that I reserve the right to ignore that questionnaire utterly and completely."
She seemed to accept that so I have a press interview looming.
As I said—a revolting development.
.
.
.
I vant to be alone B
A few weeks ago when I first got word about the Nicholl nonsense, I had... "a relative" ask me "so, do you have a press release ready?"
'Press release? Nah, the Nicholl people handle all the press. It's covered," I explained.
"No, not the official release—the one about you personally. Specifically."
Here's the thing: at that moment I realized i don't want this to be about me personally, specifically.
For reasons I'll not bore by going into, I've always been very uncomfortable with direct personal praise and attention. Praise my work, my achievements, but don;t praise me personally, as that's just an ego thing and I hate that feeling of "oh, I'm so fantastic and wonderful!
Cuz I'm not. I'm a mess, with more crap in my brain than most folks would believe, and a lifetime of odd mistakes and missteps that is more tangled and mangled than the Basra-Baghdad Highway in the final week of Gulf War I.
But this relative didn't share my opinion on this matter, so they took it upon themselves to FWD some news of the Nicholl Finalist thing to the local newspaper in the small town where I grew up and went to school. While I was away at the Austin Film festival last week, I get a phone message from a reporter in that town—they wanted to do a story, "local boy makes good," etc.
I ducked the call. Did not return it. Ignored it. It's not something I asked for, wanted, or care about, I reasoned, so why bother working to make it happen?
The reporter has called a few more times since then, apparently eager to get a story, and today she caught me on the phone. She seemed first surprised and then confused that I was reluctant to play along—"don;t you know how cool this is for the town?"
"No not really," I answered, honestly if not charmingly. "To me it's a non-story about a guy who lived in town 25 years ago and has never really looked back with any special fondness for that time."
The reporter argued that the story was important to help show our high school kids that dreams can come true—that nothing is impossible, to which I responded that it was never my dream to be a Nicholl Finalist, and that until I option or sell a screenplay, I've not really achieved that dream, so what's the point here?
The debate went on for a minute or two before I finally said to hell with it and said "send me the questions and I'll see which, if any, I can force myself to address. And understand that I reserve the right to ignore that questionnaire utterly and completely."
She seemed to accept that so I have a press interview looming.
As I said—a revolting development.
.
.
.
I vant to be alone B
19 October 2007
the new stuff is coming soon
I promise.
But for now I am scrambling to get caught up on hundreds of emails and calls from various folks, all contacts stemming from the ongoing Nicholl Fellowships Nonsense. I keep hoping that I'll soon have some truly amazing news to report, but for now it all remains just a great heaving pile of encouraging and interesting news.
Might be's... maybe's ...
Also, I have a great many thoughts on the Austin Film Festival, but who knows if/when I'll have clear chance to address those notions.
Oy.
.
.
.
B
But for now I am scrambling to get caught up on hundreds of emails and calls from various folks, all contacts stemming from the ongoing Nicholl Fellowships Nonsense. I keep hoping that I'll soon have some truly amazing news to report, but for now it all remains just a great heaving pile of encouraging and interesting news.
Might be's... maybe's ...
Also, I have a great many thoughts on the Austin Film Festival, but who knows if/when I'll have clear chance to address those notions.
Oy.
.
.
.
B
09 October 2007
You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas
[For those who don't know, that's a line from Davy Crockett offered as a response to his district when he lost his bid for election to Congress in Tennessee. And yes, we here in Texas do dearly love that line.]
It's been a weird weird couple of weeks round the old hovel. So weird in fact that I've scarcely made mention of the looming Austin Film Festival. It's Tuesday morning, and tomorrow is Arrival Day, that day before the first panel of the fest, the day upon which many of the pilgrims start to trickle into the Driskill Hotel Bar and start to look for familiar faces.
Ordinarily I'd be nipple-deep in prep for the affair, in both the logistical and psychic senses: getting my mind into the proper frame to network like a beast, to run without sleep for days at a stretch, to endure the rigors of too much beer and too little food and too much fun and not nearly enough time. But this is not a normal year. Where normally I go to Austin hoping and praying to score some great new contacts and connections—people with whom I might possibly maybe spark the beginnings of a professional-personal relationship which might in time lead to some useful access for my writing output—this year...well, things are just different.
The totally unexpected Nicholls Finalist news has created this whacky situation where I am fielding (and sometimes fending off) loads of contacts from Hollywood folks somewhat desperately trying to get to ME, which feels kinda like the antelope waking to find that the lions and hyenas are fleeing in terror from him one surprising Thursday.
"Huh," Mr. Antelope might say. "Now ain't THAT peculiar..."
Well, yeah. Yeah it is.
I've been so busy with these Nicholls contacts—and prepping the seven-pound pile of supporting documents like letters and resumes and such required by the fine folks over at Nicholls World HQ—plus the usual two scoops of bullshit which passes for my "normal" life) that I've barely had time to look up.
This is not meant to seem like a complaint. It isn't. This whole episode has been bizarrely humbling and sobering, as I still have a hard time believing absolutely that it's not a very complicated and very cold-blooded joke, but it's also already been great fun, as I get to look at the Caller ID and see incoming calls from big name agencies and big name studios and big name pizza chains ("ok... how do I get to your house...?").
But tomorrow is AUSTIN, and I've not begin to prep or pack. The laptop needs loading. Bookmarks need transfer to the laptop's browser. Important addresses need to be backed up. Scripts need to be archived to CD, transferred to the laptop. Profiles need to be studied, credits memorized, faces committed to memory. Documents, schedules, and confirmations printed and stowed for travel. Phone numbers checked into cellphone memory.
It feels like it's the day before Christmas and I only just now started my shopping.
So much to do. So little time.
.
.
.
mad scrambling B
It's been a weird weird couple of weeks round the old hovel. So weird in fact that I've scarcely made mention of the looming Austin Film Festival. It's Tuesday morning, and tomorrow is Arrival Day, that day before the first panel of the fest, the day upon which many of the pilgrims start to trickle into the Driskill Hotel Bar and start to look for familiar faces.
Ordinarily I'd be nipple-deep in prep for the affair, in both the logistical and psychic senses: getting my mind into the proper frame to network like a beast, to run without sleep for days at a stretch, to endure the rigors of too much beer and too little food and too much fun and not nearly enough time. But this is not a normal year. Where normally I go to Austin hoping and praying to score some great new contacts and connections—people with whom I might possibly maybe spark the beginnings of a professional-personal relationship which might in time lead to some useful access for my writing output—this year...well, things are just different.
The totally unexpected Nicholls Finalist news has created this whacky situation where I am fielding (and sometimes fending off) loads of contacts from Hollywood folks somewhat desperately trying to get to ME, which feels kinda like the antelope waking to find that the lions and hyenas are fleeing in terror from him one surprising Thursday.
"Huh," Mr. Antelope might say. "Now ain't THAT peculiar..."
Well, yeah. Yeah it is.
I've been so busy with these Nicholls contacts—and prepping the seven-pound pile of supporting documents like letters and resumes and such required by the fine folks over at Nicholls World HQ—plus the usual two scoops of bullshit which passes for my "normal" life) that I've barely had time to look up.
This is not meant to seem like a complaint. It isn't. This whole episode has been bizarrely humbling and sobering, as I still have a hard time believing absolutely that it's not a very complicated and very cold-blooded joke, but it's also already been great fun, as I get to look at the Caller ID and see incoming calls from big name agencies and big name studios and big name pizza chains ("ok... how do I get to your house...?").
But tomorrow is AUSTIN, and I've not begin to prep or pack. The laptop needs loading. Bookmarks need transfer to the laptop's browser. Important addresses need to be backed up. Scripts need to be archived to CD, transferred to the laptop. Profiles need to be studied, credits memorized, faces committed to memory. Documents, schedules, and confirmations printed and stowed for travel. Phone numbers checked into cellphone memory.
It feels like it's the day before Christmas and I only just now started my shopping.
So much to do. So little time.
.
.
.
mad scrambling B
08 October 2007
talking about talking about talking about me
One of the odd developments in this still-unfolding Nicholls Fellowship thing is the weird pile of supporting docs and information the Academy (and yes I was grinning as I typed the words "the Academy") wants from all us Finalists:
Right now, I have all but that damned bio completed, and that one is driving me nuts. Every time I try to start, I am overwhelmed by the sound of Steve Martin's voice in the opening to THE JERK—"I was born the son of poor black sharecroppers..."—and then I get bored and go eat a handful of CheezIts and stare at the backyard.
I am perfectly fine to talk about myself... but only on my own terms. So long as I am allowed to make light of things and make the tragic seem laughable and the laughable seem tragic and the triumphant seem moronic and vice versa, and so long as I know that the audience is understanding the ridiculous joke of it all, then all is well and I can have fun.
But ask me to stand up straight and seem serious about a subject so totally undeserving of such stick-up-the-butt seriousness—me thinking seriously about me and then seriously reflecting upon that seriousness seriously—and my first and deepest instinct is to drop trou and behave badly.
Time for more CheezIts.
.
.
.
bored by serious discussion of serious self-reflection B
• personal letter (3 pages or less) telling something about yourself and your writing inspirations and aspirations
• a resumé (and given that I've been self-employed and/or SAHD for something like 17 years now, I gave that useless document all the respect and seriousness it deserves, which is to say "just slightly less than none")
• a list of non-journalism writing and/or film credits (I listed some writing stuff, but the bulk of my writing these past 17 years was contract copywriting and way too boring to rate specific itemized mention)
• a list of completed screenplays (which looked more impressive than I expected)
• a short one paragraph or perhaps half-page bio statement
Right now, I have all but that damned bio completed, and that one is driving me nuts. Every time I try to start, I am overwhelmed by the sound of Steve Martin's voice in the opening to THE JERK—"I was born the son of poor black sharecroppers..."—and then I get bored and go eat a handful of CheezIts and stare at the backyard.
I am perfectly fine to talk about myself... but only on my own terms. So long as I am allowed to make light of things and make the tragic seem laughable and the laughable seem tragic and the triumphant seem moronic and vice versa, and so long as I know that the audience is understanding the ridiculous joke of it all, then all is well and I can have fun.
But ask me to stand up straight and seem serious about a subject so totally undeserving of such stick-up-the-butt seriousness—me thinking seriously about me and then seriously reflecting upon that seriousness seriously—and my first and deepest instinct is to drop trou and behave badly.
Time for more CheezIts.
.
.
.
bored by serious discussion of serious self-reflection B
04 October 2007
it has begun
Academy Announces Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship Finalists for 2007
HOOOWAAAAAAAH!
.
.
.
grinnin idjit B
HOOOWAAAAAAAH!
.
.
.
grinnin idjit B
01 October 2007
Damn you, Greg Beal
[written late on a Thursday, 28 Sept 2007, but not posted at that time for reasons which will likely become clear enough as you read]
It had been an altogether typical Thursday: the kids had come home from school, we'd all scurried to get snacked and hydrated in prep for the crazy Thursday schedule where Child #1 has dance rehearsal from 5-8, while Child #2 has 4th grade tackle football practice from 5:30-8 (where I assist as QB coach and Special Teams Coordinator), while Child #3 has first grade flag football practice from 6:30–7:30, while child #4 has also still to be accounted for. The Wife hauled #3 kid to flag practice, I'd headed off to tackle practice with #2, and then The Wife had run #1 to dance with #4 riding shotgun, then back to watch the last half of #3's practice. She had #3 and #4 in the tub when I got home with #2 around 8:10 pm, and I was trying to get him geared down and into the shower as The Wife wrestled the two younger kids out of their bubble bath. #1 son had just been dropped off by his carpool ride home, and I was heading back upstairs when the phone rang.
I checked caller ID, and paused for a moment: "Acad of Mot Pic..." calling from the 310 area code.
"Huh," I think, and answer.
"Brett? Hey, Greg Beal here."
Most folks know Greg simply as "that name on the bottom of all those yearly 'dink' letters from the Nicholl fellowships," the hugely prestigious screenwriting competition run by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (aka, "the Oscars people"), but I recognize Greg's voice as he and I have played around together a few times annually for the last few years at the Austin Film Festival.
"Hey, Mr. Beal, wassup?"
"Well, I guess you know why I am calling."
[Let's pause for a moment as I make one thing perfectly clear: I most absolutely did not know why he was calling. Yes, I knew that this was right around the time when Nicholl finalists would be notified, and I knew that the 2007 final dink letters were going out to the semi-finalists who did not make the final round of 10, and I knew just as surely that my entry—QUEEN OF THE SKY— would be drawing its own little dink letter any day now. I knew this roughly as surely as I knew the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. I had been stunned to advance to the semi-final round and had spent the ensuing few weeks using that happy oversight on the part of the Nicholl folks to help flog my script to anyone in Hollywood who might seem willing to be impressed, and I knew that this added leverage was a ticking clock, and that midnight would soon chime and both I and my little pile of pages would soon revert to pumpkin status.
My point is simply this: I was not going to advance. I knew this. So Greg Beal calling me must surely be related to something else. Perhaps he wanted to say "hey, congrats on a good showing, pal," or "can you give me a lift from the Austin airport in a few weeks."]
"No, Greg, I'm not at all sure I do."
"Oh. Well, you know that little screenwriting contest I am involved with? You know how we have ten finalists that we announce around October 1 every year? Well, you're one of them."
There's a very uncharacteristic two or three second silence from my end of the line.
"Ya know, Greg, it's not very cool to call me and fuck around like this," I say, and he chuckles even though (again, deadly serious) i was not joking. The idea that he was calling to tell me this—and that it might be the truth—was at that moment totally inconceivable.
"No, I am very happy to inform you that you and your script are one of this year's finalist for the Nicholl Fellowships."
There then followed another pause, and then Greg chuckled. "And I have to tell you that it amuses me to no end to finally hear you incapable of making any sort of smart-assed comment."
Uh... yeah. Well... OK...
Again he chuckles.
Now, by this time The Wife is wondering where the hell I've disappeared to, as she was expecting and needing my help in getting kids out of the tubs and into clothes and headed towards bed. "What are you doing down there?" she yells from the daughter's bedroom.
"Uh... hang on... it's... uh.. hang on..."
The woman clearly knows me well enough to notice something weird in my voice, so she trots down the stairs and peeks around the corner and mouths "is everything OK?"
I wave off her concern, mouth "yeah, I'm fine" and give her an OK sign with my fingers, but as I listen to Greg try and give me some details, all I hear is a sound like rushing water barely covering the sound of my own heart thumping somewhere in the back of my throat.
I think I voice some sort of acknowledgment and understanding of whatever Greg is trying to tell me about the timing of announcements and events that will now flow from this news, and I recall him chuckling and saying "but don't worry—we've learned to repeat all of this in an email as these phone calls tend to be remembered as a weird blurry rush..."
"Uh... yeah... OK. Uh-huh..."
He laughed again. He seemed to be finding this call very amusing.
"Oh, and by the way, I need you to not say anything about this to anyone until all the letters have been sent out and we've made the formal announcement on Monday."
"Monday? I have to sit here and not tell anyone about this til MONDAY!?! You... bastard!"
"Well, you can tell your wife—I heard her yelling to you when we started this call. But don't post anything about it online or tell any of your online writing friends. We want all the new to come from our office on this announcement."
K, fine Whatever.
We blabber for another minute or two—he even asks me a few odd questions relating to the story in my script— and then he again says "again, congratulations, Brett. very well done."
And then we hang up.
And I sit there looking at my screen and I see the bookmarks to a dozen discussion boards and chat rooms and mailing lists where this silly damned contest is one of the common points of discussion and interest, and I realize that it's a week until Christmas and some crazy uncle has just come in unannounced and left a really huge heavy gift for me under the tree, and all I can do for the next week is stare at it and go mad.
I'm sitting here, my hands under my legs (probably a subconscious effort to keep my fingers from "accidentally" typing some sort of news to someone somewhere) and I'm rocking like Rain Man and grinning and feeling my pulse race, and wondering "oh sweet Jesus what have I got myself into now...", and I can't say a word to anyone.
So, damn you, Greg Beal.
And I will hug you when I see you in Austin.
.
.
.
confused but not entirely displeased B
It had been an altogether typical Thursday: the kids had come home from school, we'd all scurried to get snacked and hydrated in prep for the crazy Thursday schedule where Child #1 has dance rehearsal from 5-8, while Child #2 has 4th grade tackle football practice from 5:30-8 (where I assist as QB coach and Special Teams Coordinator), while Child #3 has first grade flag football practice from 6:30–7:30, while child #4 has also still to be accounted for. The Wife hauled #3 kid to flag practice, I'd headed off to tackle practice with #2, and then The Wife had run #1 to dance with #4 riding shotgun, then back to watch the last half of #3's practice. She had #3 and #4 in the tub when I got home with #2 around 8:10 pm, and I was trying to get him geared down and into the shower as The Wife wrestled the two younger kids out of their bubble bath. #1 son had just been dropped off by his carpool ride home, and I was heading back upstairs when the phone rang.
I checked caller ID, and paused for a moment: "Acad of Mot Pic..." calling from the 310 area code.
"Huh," I think, and answer.
"Brett? Hey, Greg Beal here."
Most folks know Greg simply as "that name on the bottom of all those yearly 'dink' letters from the Nicholl fellowships," the hugely prestigious screenwriting competition run by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (aka, "the Oscars people"), but I recognize Greg's voice as he and I have played around together a few times annually for the last few years at the Austin Film Festival.
"Hey, Mr. Beal, wassup?"
"Well, I guess you know why I am calling."
[Let's pause for a moment as I make one thing perfectly clear: I most absolutely did not know why he was calling. Yes, I knew that this was right around the time when Nicholl finalists would be notified, and I knew that the 2007 final dink letters were going out to the semi-finalists who did not make the final round of 10, and I knew just as surely that my entry—QUEEN OF THE SKY— would be drawing its own little dink letter any day now. I knew this roughly as surely as I knew the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. I had been stunned to advance to the semi-final round and had spent the ensuing few weeks using that happy oversight on the part of the Nicholl folks to help flog my script to anyone in Hollywood who might seem willing to be impressed, and I knew that this added leverage was a ticking clock, and that midnight would soon chime and both I and my little pile of pages would soon revert to pumpkin status.
My point is simply this: I was not going to advance. I knew this. So Greg Beal calling me must surely be related to something else. Perhaps he wanted to say "hey, congrats on a good showing, pal," or "can you give me a lift from the Austin airport in a few weeks."]
"No, Greg, I'm not at all sure I do."
"Oh. Well, you know that little screenwriting contest I am involved with? You know how we have ten finalists that we announce around October 1 every year? Well, you're one of them."
There's a very uncharacteristic two or three second silence from my end of the line.
"Ya know, Greg, it's not very cool to call me and fuck around like this," I say, and he chuckles even though (again, deadly serious) i was not joking. The idea that he was calling to tell me this—and that it might be the truth—was at that moment totally inconceivable.
"No, I am very happy to inform you that you and your script are one of this year's finalist for the Nicholl Fellowships."
There then followed another pause, and then Greg chuckled. "And I have to tell you that it amuses me to no end to finally hear you incapable of making any sort of smart-assed comment."
Uh... yeah. Well... OK...
Again he chuckles.
Now, by this time The Wife is wondering where the hell I've disappeared to, as she was expecting and needing my help in getting kids out of the tubs and into clothes and headed towards bed. "What are you doing down there?" she yells from the daughter's bedroom.
"Uh... hang on... it's... uh.. hang on..."
The woman clearly knows me well enough to notice something weird in my voice, so she trots down the stairs and peeks around the corner and mouths "is everything OK?"
I wave off her concern, mouth "yeah, I'm fine" and give her an OK sign with my fingers, but as I listen to Greg try and give me some details, all I hear is a sound like rushing water barely covering the sound of my own heart thumping somewhere in the back of my throat.
I think I voice some sort of acknowledgment and understanding of whatever Greg is trying to tell me about the timing of announcements and events that will now flow from this news, and I recall him chuckling and saying "but don't worry—we've learned to repeat all of this in an email as these phone calls tend to be remembered as a weird blurry rush..."
"Uh... yeah... OK. Uh-huh..."
He laughed again. He seemed to be finding this call very amusing.
"Oh, and by the way, I need you to not say anything about this to anyone until all the letters have been sent out and we've made the formal announcement on Monday."
"Monday? I have to sit here and not tell anyone about this til MONDAY!?! You... bastard!"
"Well, you can tell your wife—I heard her yelling to you when we started this call. But don't post anything about it online or tell any of your online writing friends. We want all the new to come from our office on this announcement."
K, fine Whatever.
We blabber for another minute or two—he even asks me a few odd questions relating to the story in my script— and then he again says "again, congratulations, Brett. very well done."
And then we hang up.
And I sit there looking at my screen and I see the bookmarks to a dozen discussion boards and chat rooms and mailing lists where this silly damned contest is one of the common points of discussion and interest, and I realize that it's a week until Christmas and some crazy uncle has just come in unannounced and left a really huge heavy gift for me under the tree, and all I can do for the next week is stare at it and go mad.
I'm sitting here, my hands under my legs (probably a subconscious effort to keep my fingers from "accidentally" typing some sort of news to someone somewhere) and I'm rocking like Rain Man and grinning and feeling my pulse race, and wondering "oh sweet Jesus what have I got myself into now...", and I can't say a word to anyone.
So, damn you, Greg Beal.
And I will hug you when I see you in Austin.
.
.
.
confused but not entirely displeased B
25 September 2007
Looks like it's going to be one of those weeks...
It's not that I like to complain (though I do like it), but why does this week already feel like one of those where (assuming I survive at all) I'll emerge on teh far side, look back, and just shake my head and be glad to be past that sucky run of days.
Last week was nice. I could stand another week like last week. Phone calls to managers and agents and producer types all went better than expected. QUEEN OF THE SKY (aka "LILYA") managed to get in to be read by a nice handful of people, any of whom could be the spark that lights the fuse to potentially send this rocket into the sky.
Projects pitched to possible allies and producers all were met with warm eager receptions.
Impossible schedule obligations and permutations were met head on and overcome with grace and aplomb.
My first turn at CubMaster went off smoothly and efficiently (and the kids all had a great time handling boas and milk snakes from "The Snake Man").
My son's football fourth grade football team won its game 41-0.
It was a good week.
But this is this week, and this week I get handed less enjoyable stuff to deal with. I'll not go into inane detail, but in the opast week we've had a dishwasher go out, a tire go bad, three toilets back up, a cat get locked in a closet and try to tunnel her way out through the carpet (and make it only so far as the slab), and now I find that my dog—an adopted pound puppy—requires reconstructive knee surgery costing an estimated three thousand dollars.
(The vet was not at all amused by my response: "Doc, the dog only cost me 30 bucks NEW!")
On the bright side, I'm still not yet dinked from the Nicholl, my kids still rock, my wife remains the most tolerant annd forgiving human not boasting sainthood, and beer remains good and good for you.
We'll take what blessings we can rationalize, sometimes.
.
.
.
B
Last week was nice. I could stand another week like last week. Phone calls to managers and agents and producer types all went better than expected. QUEEN OF THE SKY (aka "LILYA") managed to get in to be read by a nice handful of people, any of whom could be the spark that lights the fuse to potentially send this rocket into the sky.
Projects pitched to possible allies and producers all were met with warm eager receptions.
Impossible schedule obligations and permutations were met head on and overcome with grace and aplomb.
My first turn at CubMaster went off smoothly and efficiently (and the kids all had a great time handling boas and milk snakes from "The Snake Man").
My son's football fourth grade football team won its game 41-0.
It was a good week.
But this is this week, and this week I get handed less enjoyable stuff to deal with. I'll not go into inane detail, but in the opast week we've had a dishwasher go out, a tire go bad, three toilets back up, a cat get locked in a closet and try to tunnel her way out through the carpet (and make it only so far as the slab), and now I find that my dog—an adopted pound puppy—requires reconstructive knee surgery costing an estimated three thousand dollars.
(The vet was not at all amused by my response: "Doc, the dog only cost me 30 bucks NEW!")
On the bright side, I'm still not yet dinked from the Nicholl, my kids still rock, my wife remains the most tolerant annd forgiving human not boasting sainthood, and beer remains good and good for you.
We'll take what blessings we can rationalize, sometimes.
.
.
.
B
18 September 2007
poetry is just clarity in textual form
She plays castanets—
She works without a net...
...I like her better when she walks away.
She turns me on like a pickup truck...
...I like her better when she walks away.
I like the sun shining through her dress...
...I like her better when she walks away.
I like her hair in a tangled mess...
...I like her better when she walks away...
(taken from "Castanets," written by Alejandro Escovedo, performed (and damned well, thank you) by Reckless Kelly on the CD Reckless Kelly Was Here)
.
.
.
dovetonsils B
14 September 2007
i did a weird thing
I wasn't going to take part, but when a goofy idea popped into my head this week, I decided I'd go ahead and crank out a short (8 pages) to send in as part of an oddball little contest/effort/thing being run by some other aspiring writers and producers and directors and such over in "The Artful Forums" of Craig Mazin's little online treefort.
It's an absolutely ridiculous thing, and plays more like an odd skit than a real movie, but hey -- fun is fun, and writing is writing, and if this damned thing gets picked and produced and burned onto a DVD, I'll at least be able to say "hey-- SOMEBODY out there likes me. Kinda. A little."
Onwards.
.
.
.
B
It's an absolutely ridiculous thing, and plays more like an odd skit than a real movie, but hey -- fun is fun, and writing is writing, and if this damned thing gets picked and produced and burned onto a DVD, I'll at least be able to say "hey-- SOMEBODY out there likes me. Kinda. A little."
Onwards.
.
.
.
B
11 September 2007
by the mass, our hearts are in the trim
Things continue apace 'round the old hacienda. The Wife and I found four unclaimed minutes the other night and sat down together to compare and triple-check the schedules and day-planners which both steer and document the sordid slow-motion car wrecks known as our respective lives, and as we worked through the final week of October we both looked up with surprise and alarm.
"We seem to have nothing happening on Friday, October 26."
We blinked at each other, then again checked the schedules.
"That has to be a screw-up. We've must've forgotten something."
As it turns out, it's an actual hole in the schedule, an event so rare and bizarre these days that it hits us like a solar eclipse must have hit the earliest cavemen to look up to the sky with any awareness. This shit just does not happen in our lives: our daily schedule for the next run of months always looks like the flight log for O'Hare Airport.
Last night, for example, I had to get my daughter to her dance class from 4:30-5:30, The Wife woke (she worked the night shift that evening before) showered and met me at the dance class at 5 pm so that I could then get home in time to eat and feed the rest of the crew and then get to my 6 pm Leadership Meeting for Cub Scouts. The Wife brought the daughter home from dance, made sure eldest son was packed and ready to be picked up for Boy Scouts starting at 7 pm, and the The Wife left for work as the neighborhood teen babysitter chick came over to watch TV with my younger ones. I got home at 8:30, checked homework and bathing, got the younger crew in bed as son returned from Scouts, then I helped him with homework and got him into bed, then I dove into the 28 emails which had arrived since I had walked away from the computer that afternoon, plus tried to prep for a conference call from LA coming in at midnight local time. Took the call, scribbled notes, and then researched some producer leads and contacts til 1:30 am when it was time to call it a day.
That's what passes for a "slow Monday" 'round here these days. Most days we have more kid activities running in those evening hours. Example-- tonight I have three overlapping events (two different kids at two different locations for football practice while I am at a Little League board meeting, electing new officers).
Now, some people like to sit on their asses and judge from afar, saying "well, you need to learn to say 'no' sometime." I understand what they mean, but I also understand what I mean when I say fuck that in response. In my mind, laziness is as much a learned (and reinforced habit) as it is anything, and it becomes a lot easier to do the allegedly impossible at precisely the moment you fully and totally commit to just doing it.
By any rational measure, "screenwriting" as a career goal is an almost impossible task. The odds are long, the best opportunities few and often camouflaged, and the encouragement rare and fleeting. At any given moment one could do an objective analysis and legitimately decide that the entire pursuit is pointless and doomed. In fact, the entire situation is so hopeless that only the truly demented have the stomach to endure the trek.
Which is precisely why I launch myself into impossible duties and insane loads of activities. That screwy intensity — that relentless ferocious dedication to doing that glorious thing which everyone else was too damned frightened or lazy even to dream — is the only way I've found to making the impossible come true.
-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-
Raising a child so that he grows into a good man is, in our modern world, a sadly quixotic endeavor if you remain content only to sit back listening to the naysayers and stick to the smooth well-marked trails. To actually teach those lessons which matter — lessons about honor and respect and duty and courage and dedication and charity and commitment and dignity and hope and love — requires a sustained level of total commitment to purpose which too often is demeaned and dismissed out of hand as "impossible."
Nothing is impossible until you refuse to try.
.
.
.
rah rah B
"We seem to have nothing happening on Friday, October 26."
We blinked at each other, then again checked the schedules.
"That has to be a screw-up. We've must've forgotten something."
As it turns out, it's an actual hole in the schedule, an event so rare and bizarre these days that it hits us like a solar eclipse must have hit the earliest cavemen to look up to the sky with any awareness. This shit just does not happen in our lives: our daily schedule for the next run of months always looks like the flight log for O'Hare Airport.
Last night, for example, I had to get my daughter to her dance class from 4:30-5:30, The Wife woke (she worked the night shift that evening before) showered and met me at the dance class at 5 pm so that I could then get home in time to eat and feed the rest of the crew and then get to my 6 pm Leadership Meeting for Cub Scouts. The Wife brought the daughter home from dance, made sure eldest son was packed and ready to be picked up for Boy Scouts starting at 7 pm, and the The Wife left for work as the neighborhood teen babysitter chick came over to watch TV with my younger ones. I got home at 8:30, checked homework and bathing, got the younger crew in bed as son returned from Scouts, then I helped him with homework and got him into bed, then I dove into the 28 emails which had arrived since I had walked away from the computer that afternoon, plus tried to prep for a conference call from LA coming in at midnight local time. Took the call, scribbled notes, and then researched some producer leads and contacts til 1:30 am when it was time to call it a day.
That's what passes for a "slow Monday" 'round here these days. Most days we have more kid activities running in those evening hours. Example-- tonight I have three overlapping events (two different kids at two different locations for football practice while I am at a Little League board meeting, electing new officers).
Now, some people like to sit on their asses and judge from afar, saying "well, you need to learn to say 'no' sometime." I understand what they mean, but I also understand what I mean when I say fuck that in response. In my mind, laziness is as much a learned (and reinforced habit) as it is anything, and it becomes a lot easier to do the allegedly impossible at precisely the moment you fully and totally commit to just doing it.
By any rational measure, "screenwriting" as a career goal is an almost impossible task. The odds are long, the best opportunities few and often camouflaged, and the encouragement rare and fleeting. At any given moment one could do an objective analysis and legitimately decide that the entire pursuit is pointless and doomed. In fact, the entire situation is so hopeless that only the truly demented have the stomach to endure the trek.
Which is precisely why I launch myself into impossible duties and insane loads of activities. That screwy intensity — that relentless ferocious dedication to doing that glorious thing which everyone else was too damned frightened or lazy even to dream — is the only way I've found to making the impossible come true.
-=-=-=-
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules,
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do
is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world
are the ones who do.
-=-=-=-
Raising a child so that he grows into a good man is, in our modern world, a sadly quixotic endeavor if you remain content only to sit back listening to the naysayers and stick to the smooth well-marked trails. To actually teach those lessons which matter — lessons about honor and respect and duty and courage and dedication and charity and commitment and dignity and hope and love — requires a sustained level of total commitment to purpose which too often is demeaned and dismissed out of hand as "impossible."
Nothing is impossible until you refuse to try.
.
.
.
rah rah B
02 September 2007
AFF 2007: once more into the breach
Time is a funny thing.
For long stretches it can drag by so slowly that it sometimes even seems running backwards, and then you look up and realize that great honking gobs of the stuff have surged by without you paying the slightest heed.
September is upon us, dear friends, and that means I am suddenly in countdown mode for that annual pilgrimage to the Driskill Hotel for that annual pagan celebration of loquacious non-sobriety known as The Screenwriting Conference at The Austin Film Festival.
Any even casual readers of this blog likely understand the feelings I hold for this event: it is, in my non-humble and totally biased point of view, simply the finest networking event of its kind anywhere. Dozens of A-list screenwriters and producers and agents and managers (as well as a some number of well-dressed slimeballs and braying ass-hats) gather in Austin annually in October to open The Austin Film Festival, a week-long celebration of moviemaking and movie watching.
What makes this AFF event so special—so valuable to aspiring screenwriters—is that this is one of the very few such events which is focused specifically on the craft and business of screenwriting. There are plenty of film festivals—every even medium sized town seems to have one these days—but the AFF event caters to the specific and twisted interests of us folks who consider a day spent staring at arcanely formatted 12-point Courier "a good thing."
Panels where we get to listen as big-name pros offer advice and insight and encouragement and gentle remonstrance for lapses in taste, judgment, and dedication... the rare and thrilling experience of briefly being part of a community of peers rather than the most isolated and ill-understood outcast in the neighborhood... the opportunity to network and socialize with talented folks whom you recognize as names in the credits of your favorite movies... and (among my favorites) beer, beer, glorious wonderful heavenly beer.
Do not underestimate the importance of this last element. There are, as I said, any number of other festivals out there, but there is something about the vibe in Austin that helps create an environment where these reclusive writers not only willingly gather, but congregate and socialize for extended period. For four bizarre wonderful days, the Driskill Hotel Lounge becomes the communal living room for the oddest gathering, with non-name newbies sitting around and having a beer and a normal conversation with some guy who penned the #5 biggest box office success of all time. A housewife with three kids back in Biloxi laughing and talking "theme" with a twice-honored Oscar nominee. A struggling writer from small-town nowhere chatting intensely with the legendary writer behind at least three of his all-time favorite movies.
For the four days of the conference, "Hollywood" suddenly no longer seems some mystical distant Neverland existing only in dreams and fantasies. Instead, it's a real place of real people—people with names and voices and faces and senses of humor and personalities.
And phone numbers. And email addresses. And cellphone numbers.
When done well and properly, a trip to the AFF Conference can be every bit as rewarding in terms of networking and professional development as might be three months of time spent pounding the pavement in Hollywood. In fact, loads of aspiring writers from Hollywood come to Austin for this event as they understand that a "nobody" (and I use that term with absolute respect, as it self-applies) can never hope to get even 1/50th the access in Hollywood as they might rate in Austin. At the festival, everyone is relaxed and glad to help and listen and socialize, and suddenly almost all the normal walls and restrictions to access are taken down.
But even beyond that, The Austin Film Festival is a sort of reunion—a "gathering of the tribes," as I call it—as friends and peers gather for that four days a year where they can all be in one physical place, sharing one physical existence. I have friends—and I mean dear friends, ones I rate among my best—whom I see only during these magical four days. Whose total days of shared time together we can measure as multiples of four days represented by this annual event. We meet at the Driskill, we smile, we hug and shake hands and laugh at all that has transpired since the last time we so-gathered, and then we rush to squeeze a year's worth of friendship into those next 96 hours before it's time once again to take flight and migrate back to wherever our "Normal Lives" run their course and we are forced to try and make do with friendship by email and online wave at a distance.
Few like to talk about it, but working to screenwriting success is often a lonely and soul-crushing pursuit, as we spend our nights chasing a goal which none of our real life friends, neighbors, and peers can even believe, much less understand. If we told these people that we were secret agents or treasure hunters or wizards I doubt they'd be much more befuddled by our work. We spend the year as the slightly odd guy who acts overly excited when he says "oh, I finished a rewrite today!" We're the spouses who have to make do with a politely indulgent and distracted "that's nice dear" when we announce with pride that we "wrote three really good pages today!" We're the odd birds who clock the seasons by such odd calendar landmarks as "deadline for the Nicholl Fellowships submission" and "hiring season for TV" and "Oscar nominations."
But for those four days in Austin... for that span of days we are not unusual. We are not alone. We are neither dreamers nor eccentrics nor quaintly a-social recluses burdened by caffeine burn and bloodshot eyes and writer's cramp and hearts made tired and heavy by too many dreams delayed or denied by circumstance and geography.
Instead, we are briefly, simply, and wonderfully with our kind.
Make what preparations are right and proper, brothers and sisters, and stand ready to sound the advance.
The time grows near.
.
.
.
Austin-tacious B
For long stretches it can drag by so slowly that it sometimes even seems running backwards, and then you look up and realize that great honking gobs of the stuff have surged by without you paying the slightest heed.
September is upon us, dear friends, and that means I am suddenly in countdown mode for that annual pilgrimage to the Driskill Hotel for that annual pagan celebration of loquacious non-sobriety known as The Screenwriting Conference at The Austin Film Festival.
Any even casual readers of this blog likely understand the feelings I hold for this event: it is, in my non-humble and totally biased point of view, simply the finest networking event of its kind anywhere. Dozens of A-list screenwriters and producers and agents and managers (as well as a some number of well-dressed slimeballs and braying ass-hats) gather in Austin annually in October to open The Austin Film Festival, a week-long celebration of moviemaking and movie watching.
What makes this AFF event so special—so valuable to aspiring screenwriters—is that this is one of the very few such events which is focused specifically on the craft and business of screenwriting. There are plenty of film festivals—every even medium sized town seems to have one these days—but the AFF event caters to the specific and twisted interests of us folks who consider a day spent staring at arcanely formatted 12-point Courier "a good thing."
Panels where we get to listen as big-name pros offer advice and insight and encouragement and gentle remonstrance for lapses in taste, judgment, and dedication... the rare and thrilling experience of briefly being part of a community of peers rather than the most isolated and ill-understood outcast in the neighborhood... the opportunity to network and socialize with talented folks whom you recognize as names in the credits of your favorite movies... and (among my favorites) beer, beer, glorious wonderful heavenly beer.Do not underestimate the importance of this last element. There are, as I said, any number of other festivals out there, but there is something about the vibe in Austin that helps create an environment where these reclusive writers not only willingly gather, but congregate and socialize for extended period. For four bizarre wonderful days, the Driskill Hotel Lounge becomes the communal living room for the oddest gathering, with non-name newbies sitting around and having a beer and a normal conversation with some guy who penned the #5 biggest box office success of all time. A housewife with three kids back in Biloxi laughing and talking "theme" with a twice-honored Oscar nominee. A struggling writer from small-town nowhere chatting intensely with the legendary writer behind at least three of his all-time favorite movies.
For the four days of the conference, "Hollywood" suddenly no longer seems some mystical distant Neverland existing only in dreams and fantasies. Instead, it's a real place of real people—people with names and voices and faces and senses of humor and personalities.
And phone numbers. And email addresses. And cellphone numbers.
When done well and properly, a trip to the AFF Conference can be every bit as rewarding in terms of networking and professional development as might be three months of time spent pounding the pavement in Hollywood. In fact, loads of aspiring writers from Hollywood come to Austin for this event as they understand that a "nobody" (and I use that term with absolute respect, as it self-applies) can never hope to get even 1/50th the access in Hollywood as they might rate in Austin. At the festival, everyone is relaxed and glad to help and listen and socialize, and suddenly almost all the normal walls and restrictions to access are taken down.
But even beyond that, The Austin Film Festival is a sort of reunion—a "gathering of the tribes," as I call it—as friends and peers gather for that four days a year where they can all be in one physical place, sharing one physical existence. I have friends—and I mean dear friends, ones I rate among my best—whom I see only during these magical four days. Whose total days of shared time together we can measure as multiples of four days represented by this annual event. We meet at the Driskill, we smile, we hug and shake hands and laugh at all that has transpired since the last time we so-gathered, and then we rush to squeeze a year's worth of friendship into those next 96 hours before it's time once again to take flight and migrate back to wherever our "Normal Lives" run their course and we are forced to try and make do with friendship by email and online wave at a distance.
Few like to talk about it, but working to screenwriting success is often a lonely and soul-crushing pursuit, as we spend our nights chasing a goal which none of our real life friends, neighbors, and peers can even believe, much less understand. If we told these people that we were secret agents or treasure hunters or wizards I doubt they'd be much more befuddled by our work. We spend the year as the slightly odd guy who acts overly excited when he says "oh, I finished a rewrite today!" We're the spouses who have to make do with a politely indulgent and distracted "that's nice dear" when we announce with pride that we "wrote three really good pages today!" We're the odd birds who clock the seasons by such odd calendar landmarks as "deadline for the Nicholl Fellowships submission" and "hiring season for TV" and "Oscar nominations."
But for those four days in Austin... for that span of days we are not unusual. We are not alone. We are neither dreamers nor eccentrics nor quaintly a-social recluses burdened by caffeine burn and bloodshot eyes and writer's cramp and hearts made tired and heavy by too many dreams delayed or denied by circumstance and geography.
Instead, we are briefly, simply, and wonderfully with our kind.
Make what preparations are right and proper, brothers and sisters, and stand ready to sound the advance.
The time grows near.
.
.
.
Austin-tacious B
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