deepstructure

x-good

2011-06-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

and we wonder why hollywood keeps putting out crap movies. well wonder no more. one look at the stats on this page and you'll understand.

click on this and dispair:

excessive

2011-06-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

i know this is really nothing new - but i was struck by this experience this morning and felt the need to rant.

after link-jumping i ended up seeing a link for 'the five bands to see at bonnaroo'. i'm always curious to keep up with music trends and i'd never heard of the bonnaroo festival in tennessee, so i clicked to check out the "article."

i know websites use advertising to make money and i know they've long been using the trick of splitting up content over multiple pages to be able to present more page views and potentially make more ad revenue - but i've never seen it so blatantly done (and if that's simply because i'm not visiting the right sites im happy to remain ignorant).

but this is time magazine. take a look at this page the link brought me to (this is the entire page, including the below the fold area):

the highlighted portion is the actual text of the article with the information you're looking for. however this first page does nothing except regurgitate what you already know from the headline - so essentially it's useless. in fact, the last sentence in that second paragraph is:

"Here are five Bonnaroo shows you don't want to miss"

wtf? so to even start to get the information promised by the headline on the page ("Five Bands to See At Bonnaroo"), you have to click through to the next page. meaning this first page, with it's two paragraphs of text representing perhaps 10% of it's real estate, is completely useless.

this page literally is nothing more than an excuse to present a ridiculous amount of ads and self-promotion copy. the 'tags' section below the headline takes up almost as much (and more prominently placed), space than the body of the article.

absolutely amazing.

and the end result? i wrote this blog post instead and never even bothered to click through to actually find the information. so everyone loses.

2011-06-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed the new X-Men movie, so it saddens (though doesn't surprise), me that it only did fair business in it's opening weekend.

Still, I hope it's quality and approach to this type of material is noticed and appreciated. My friend Michael said it much more eloquently in this excerpt of his review of the film (scroll down for the review):

"By making a character-driven film Matthew Vaughn has created a new high-water mark for non-gritty superhero storytelling. Instead of focusing on the effects and the action, the people become real and we can engage at a deeper and more interesting level than before. That’s not to say that the effects and action aren’t themselves fantastic, but the spectacle was always in service of the story and the story in service of the characters. I hope to see more spectacle films, especially ensemble superhero films (*cough*AVENGERS*cough*) follow his lead."

stuck in time

2011-05-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

just listened to huey lewis and the news 'stuck with you' - and it occurred to me how things you wouldn't even think about will date something.

the song is about all the things in life that bind a couple together - like a shared address, friends and, according to the song, "the same phone number."

how quaint.

i've lived with a few different girlfriends and i think the last time we actually shared a phone number (aka "landline"), was in the 90s.

of course, what's probably more dating is that i was listening to a song that was a hit in 1986.

well said - about DRM

2011-02-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

1.) DRM does not prevent a digital file from being copied

Moving on

2) It is impossible to prevent a digital file from being copied by its intended recipient. Not impractical, not difficult, but impossible

3) It is possible to make it difficult for the intended recipient of a digital file to copy it. However, that is offset by the fact that since distributing digital files is cost free, all it takes is one recipient willing to put in the effort to unlock the digital file. Contrast this with physical goods where every copy requires effort.

3) Therefore digital goods are not physical goods, and efforts to make them act like physical goods are simply going to engender giggles.

as found here.

too damn long, amongst other things

2010-09-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

haha, my thoughts exactly:

hijinksensue - pirates of the caribbean 3: at wits end.

xkcd agrees with me

2010-08-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

somehow i missed a bunch of xkcd strips and just discovered them when a friend linked to one on facebook. it's wonderful when you find a bunch of "new" material you've never seen from a favorite artist.

in going through them i came across this one:

all of russel's strips have mouseover text. according to that he feels the same way I do.

Sick of green

2010-03-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

came across the following curious admission from richard zanuck in an article about 'alice in wonderland':

To create his 3D version of Lewis Carroll’s hallucinatory classic Burton is shooting his actors in front of green screens rather than on real sets, then using the latest digital technology to insert sets, props, backgrounds and even some characters into the frame in post-production – the colour green chosen as it is so far removed from skin tone. [...]

The green itself is a bilious shade, bordering on the fluorescent. The film’s Oscar-winning producer, Richard Zanuck, says that sickness and lethargy have been a constant problem among cast and crew. Burton has even had special lavender lenses fitted into his glasses to combat the effect.

'The novelty of the green wears off very quickly,’ Depp says in his trailer later, the Hatter’s make-up now gone. 'It’s exhausting, actually. I mean, I like an obstacle – I don’t mind having to spew dialogue while having to step over dolly track while some guy is holding a card and I’m talking to a piece of tape. But the green beats you up. You’re kind of befuddled at the end of the day.’

i find this interesting because green screen films having been shooting for years, including movies shot entirely against a green screen stage (such as 'sin city'), and i've never heard of this problem before.

2010-03-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

my friend ben hansford has finally released another episode of his tron reboot series. fun!

i am not a writer

2010-01-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

just read this interview with nicholas meyer (he of the even-numbered star trek films). in it he describes himself this way:

It’s very rare that I get an original idea that I really like, although occasionally I do get one that’s a doozy. I’ve discovered that I’m a born recycler, not just of paper and garbage. I like working material like it’s a Rubik’s cube – reworking, rethinking, redoing. It’s what you owe to a great novel, story or play. It’s also interesting what you can do with a bad one where you owe much less. Handel was once accused of stealing someone’s tune and his answer was, “It’s true; he did not know what to do with it; I showed him.”

i really identify with this identification. one of my struggles has been that as much as i want to be the most original and inventive creator/writer/whatever, i don't seem to be. my skill set seems most powerfully applied when i have raw material to start with. i can't enumerate how many times i've watched a film, read a book, heard a band - and thought of how the experience, the realization of that piece of work could have been enhanced, improved or just downright fixed. it's entirely possible that i'm just a legend in my own mind, but it's a least more pleasing to think i might just be more of an innovator versus an inventor.

along those lines i discovered a draft of an older post i had intended to put up about my process as identifying as a writer and failing. as some kind of context to the above, here it is:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i've finally given up on identifying myself as a writer. and i must say my immediate reaction upon consciously making this choice was one of relief.

i've written all my life, both non-fiction and fiction. i've wanted to tell stories all my life. but writing fiction - specifically screenplays as i've done little short story writing and no novels - has always been very difficult, painful and not a process i would ever describe as one i enjoyed.

of course i understand that this is the experience of many writers and by no means do i wish to belittle that.

but there have been some interesting discoveries i've made about myself as a result of this choice. for one, i already feel more free and creative. my style of creativity doesn't seem to work well with the linear, specific, detailed manner it takes to be a writer. writing something is all about details and specifics. i've always been a wholistic big-view non-linear lateral thinking type.

i can be a specific detail-driven thinker, but i find it incredibly difficult to do that - to think from a critical perspective, and also be creative. i found my writing always tended towards the more realistic and concrete - and yet what im interested in is fantastic and non-literal. i love science fiction and action-adventure. i do want some verisimilitude in my entertainment, just enough to help my suspension of disbelief, but not as much as the wire (although having seen only the first three episodes of that show i can't yet say i don't like it).

it's been very freeing to return to simply conceive of ideas, to let my mind loose and not worry specifically about plots or character arcs. to think more about cool ideas or interesting situations. that's more my style.

and so i learned a second thing: that ultimately i don't care about story, plot or character. all the discussions on the internet that i've either participated in or observed about these things are uninteresting - except as they lead to one thing: an entertaining experience.

originally as i discussed with my friend sean, when i made the disassociation with being a writer, i was surprised to find myself discovering an affinity with those directors that seem more concerned with a cool way of realizing a scene than the story. i found myself fantasizing about angles, set pieces and color. more abstract constructions. it's easy to get seduced by those pretty things.

but following that allure i realized that im not interested in story or acts or even structure. im only interested in creating a fun experience. a ride. i want a film to draw me in, transport me to somewhere new and fascinating, and take me on a ride. it's that simple. if story does that, if plot or character or act breaks do that, then im all for them. but if they don't, or worse yet, get in the way, then i have no need or desire for them. the end result of an entertaining ride of some sort is the only guide. so if a film can give me that without a real story - with simply a chase or a fascinating setting - then that's valid. sure, it won't pass any screenwriting vetting or win any story awards - but i don't care.

making the fight a game

2009-12-29T14:49:00.000-08:00

just read this article about good guys bringing down a bot-net. i was struck by this section:

In 2009, Stewart outlined a proposal to create volunteer groups dedicated to making botnets unprofitable to run. But few security professionals could commit to such a time-consuming volunteer activity.
"It takes time and resources and money to do this day after day," Stewart says. Other, under-the-radar strikes at various botnets and criminal organizations have occurred, he says, but these laudable efforts are "not going to stop the business model of the spammer."
Mushtaq, Stewart, and other security pros agree that federal law enforcement needs to step in with full-time coordination efforts.

i have no idea what's involved task-wise for these suggested volunteer groups, but i wonder if, much like what google has done for image tagging or what recaptcha is doing for ocr, some kind of gameplay could be designed to do whatever tasks are necessary for this. i feel this is a highly unexplored/untapped source of problem-solving power: using one necessary or game-like task to solve another.

Assume everyone has A.D.D

2009-12-22T17:34:00.000-08:00

hahaha - love it! just came across this article on the 11 laws of story-telling (via stu maschwitz's twitter feed) and what's the 1st rule?

1. Assume everyone has A.D.D.

There has never been a greater truism in Hollywood. While I am guilty of playing dime store psychologist, one does not need a PhD in Clinical Psychology to conclude that audiences (that means us) tend to have short attention spans.

yes & yess!

number 2 is brilliant advice as well. especially this part:

When you are finished with your script, give the first ten pages to a group of friends or family you trust. Then ask each of them one simple question: “Do you want to read more?” If the overwhelming response is in the affirmative, you are on the right road to writing a memorable screenplay.

now i need to read the rest of the article. carry on.

intentions are different

2009-11-22T01:39:00.000-08:00

from an interview with cormac mccarthy on writing long books:

"If you think you're going to write something like "The Brothers Karamazov" or "Moby-Dick," go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don't care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different."

this succinctly summarizes the problem with the way many people view the way our modern society, especially the younger demographic part of it, imbibes information and entertainment. we are fundamentally different creatures today. notice this important part of the quote:

"I don't care...how smart the readers are."

it's not about being stupid or smart. our "brains are different." it's not that kids suffer from attention deficit disorder or aren't literate or can't concentrate. it's that they think differently. their world is different. actually our world is different; they're just responding to it more accurately and with more efficacy.

a related discussion on the increase in cuts in films can be found in a previous blog post of mine: montage.

blade runner - the deep cut

2009-11-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

i've completed my addi-compliant edit of blade runner. given that it shortens the film to 1 hour and 8 minutes (without credits), that my moniker is 'deepstructure,' and that we've already had the 'director's cut' and the 'final cut,' i'm calling it the 'deep cut'. tricksy, i know.

for quite some time now i've been coming out of watching a film thinking to myself, "that could have been at least 1/2 hour shorter and i wouldn't have noticed," as so many films seem to have a lot of padding. i've long wanted to take one of these feature films and re-edit it to remove the scenes or shots i felt were superfluous.

since being laid off in june, i've had some time on my hands so i began looking around for a good candidate. once i decided to do this i suddenly couldn't remember any of the films i'd thought that about. but then it hit me - blade runner. my biggest complaint with the film has always been it's pacing. i've always thought the director, ridley scott, seemed far more focused on the background and the environment than the story or the characters. and given that's it's a futuristic version of the 40's noir films, i felt it should be a bit tighter and more story driven (then again i think that about most films).

i don't believe im the only one who feels this. many folks i've talked to about the film have tried to watch it more than once, only to fall asleep during it. and according to it's wikipedia entry:

"Blade Runner initially polarized critics. some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in North American theaters."

this isn't a simple chopping out of a few scenes (the 'final cut' version which i used clocks in at 1 hour and 50 minutes without credits). i rearranged scenes to make more narrative sense, replaced and added score material and did some rebuild sound-design. however, aside from one brief cross-dissolve i didn't alter the shots visually or do any color or vfx work on the film. i tried as much as possible to only use the source material of the 'final cut' version.

obviously maintaining continuity with the sound is much more difficult than with picture. if i remove a shot or two, you've no reference other than your memory if the new sequence works. but the associated audio may not line up at all. the soundtrack is syncronized with the current sequence of images and it can be hard to separate out the sound elements associated with the visuals you've eliminated. but fortunately the ear can be more easily fooled than the eye most of the time. i had two allies here: the score and the cross-fade audio function in final cut. it's amazing how powerful a simple cross-fade is in bridging two shots and the blade runner score is more atmospheric and abstract than melodic, making for seamless cross-fade merging when i lift out a shot or scene.

unfortunately i had no way of ripping a blu-ray dvd of the film, so i worked with standard def material. however, having made a dvd of my edit and played it back on my 50" hd plamsa tv, i can assure you it still looks amazing. the encoding on the 'final cut' dvd is very good.

i'm planning on having a screening or two of the film. if you live in the los angeles area and are interested in seeing it, drop me an email or leave a comment here. if you're not in the area and interested in seeing it, let me know and i can either send you a dvd or a link to a quicktime download. at 1 hour and 8 minutes what do you have to lose? it's not a huge time investment. anymore. :)

check out a clip of the new beginning of the film below or watch the full-sized version on youtube:

some changes you may notice:
1) removed "main titles" score and replaced it with "end titles" score.
2) removed opening credits (they've been moved to the end of the film)
3) removed opening scrawl and date card
4) shortened city-scape sequence
5) quicker intro into the leon VK sequence.

**update: i've created a torrent for the full film. it's 1.7gb.

**update 2: you can read reviews by the fanedit community here:
fanedit.org/7880

faking depth of field

2009-10-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

i recently listened to this fxguide podcast of an interview with peter doyle, chief color scientist for the lord of the rings and harry potter films, where he discusses the grading techniques for the latest harry potter film, 'harry and the half blood prince'. i found this section quite fascinating. i've transcribed it here as the audio can be a bit difficult to listen to. it occurs at the 10:30 mark.

fxguide: this film has a reduced color palette with a lovely tonality to it. what was your approach in that reduced color palette? was that the intent from the outset with wardrobe and set design?

peter doyle: well bruno, the dp, was very keen to investigate some very specific color motifs. and the sort of general principle was to shoot with wide lenses typically from about 16-20mm. so basically have the angle of view of a wide lens but the depth of field of a long lens. so in fact, in all shots of the film we rebuilt the depth of focus.

fxguide: oh really?

peter doyle: it's probably not that apparent. it's not something necessarily you'd react to instantly. but if you look at the film you'll see that the foreground to background focus ratios is completely different and that most of the background is softened as opposed to blurred. in the process that will change the color and the saturation because as we all know as you blur an image you kind of reduce the dynamic range.

so by going into the film that way, in terms of just saying, well lets kinda mix the lenses that we're used to. because the grammar of cinema that we're kinda used to, if we see a wide shot we're kinda used to it being completely in focus, and if we see a long shot we're used to seeing the background out of focus and you could say that's almost a cue of what the shots are, because particularly now with modern lenses (bruno went with the torque s4's), their distortion is quite minimal between the short and the long. but the depth of focus is mathematically how the lenses are, you can't change that.

so mixing that around we ended up with a very interesting concept: and that's rather than changing the color and density of the film by in fact changing the density, we thought it would be far more attractive to let the contrast and the density and the color be changed based on the depth of focus.

because the thing is this is a cast driven film in terms of there's an ensemble. they almost always have three kids on screen and it's widescreen. that tends to dictate shooting things reasonably in focus. but if you look any of the shots you find the background typically far more difused and out of focus than in fact they are as captured by the lens. so that made for a very interesting concept because it meant we could grade for the foreground knowing that the background would in fact have a significantly reduced contrast.

fxguide: on a shot that had a virtual background - where you couldn't get mattes, did you have team of roto supporting you? how did you manage so well to define the foreground from the midground and the background?

peter doyle: we basically rotoscoped it. it's no secret these films take their time to grade. but no, its just myself and second colorist. we basically sit there and rotoscope it. you don't necessarily need the articulated mattes that you need to separate and do a true comp. we're talking far more generic kinds of shapes. it'd be more like the old days of working in a darkroom where you're dodging and burning. because the thing is, if you actually did a super-tight articulated matte it would actually draw attention to itself. the depth of focus we were doing was based far more on a plane of focus if you will.

it wasn't necessarily just drawing around the actor, it would be finding a vanishing point in the shot or finding some piece of set construction and drawing that. if you walk on set or walk around with the set painters they are in fact doing the same thing. if you ever walk on a set and look at a backdrop obviously it's completely shocking to see how little detail there actually is in there. but that's the whole trick of set painting and set design. in a bizarre way we're just taking that a little further. stuart our production designer and bruno would sit here and we'd define what should or should not be out of focus.

they rebuilt the focus in *every* shot?? holy shit.

i didn't notice this effect when watching the film, so im interested in viewing it again. on the one hand this sounds like a bunch of creative tinkering designed to be interesting but ultimately not terribly useful or impactful. or it could be a practical way to overcome the limitations of lens technology and allow for a storytelling technique that hasn't previously been practical. since i was bored out of my mind for much of the film im not sure it's the latter, but i'll reserve judgement until i view it again.

if nothing else, this may be a technique that, although not necessary for an entire film, could be useful in certain situations - specifically when you want a wide-angle view but don't want deep depth of field. im interested to see if there's an emotional tie-in to violating that aspect of the visual language we've come to understand.

i'd wanted to do something similar with 'an exercise in vigilance,' but determined that it would be way to much work. however i didn't take the approach peter details here with finding a vanishing point. im not exactly sure how defining a plane works, especially when the plane only encompasses your actor(s). but perhaps the difference is simply working on a baselight with a 2k image in a viewing theater and having the luxury of taking six months to do your grading.

7D

2009-09-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

there's been a lot of talk about the canon 7d and how it's a game changer at $1700. especially when married with something like magic bullet looks for color-correction. but we've been waiting for some good footage to evaluate it. here's one good example that shows you certainly can shoot most indie films with it:

the raw footage:

Dublin's People: Canon 7d 24p from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

a corrected version:

"Dublin People" by Philip Bloom. Colored by Me from PrepShootPost on Vimeo.

another example from prepshootpost using a 7d + magic bullet mojo:

Perya Colored from PrepShootPost on Vimeo.

game on.

**update via stu maschwitz: pics of a decked out 7d

absence

2009-08-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

flickr photo by: ivan makarov

obviously i haven't posted much to this blog lately. my use of twitter and facebook seems to have made this space obsolete. which is interesting since this is obviously a long form type of medium. are my thoughts getting more fractured? less deeply structured? or am i spending so much time conversing and interacting with others on other levels via those two social applications that i don't feel the need to shout into the darkness here?

i became unemployed june 5th and it feels like that also has something to do with it. without the daily structure a job forces on you, i haven't found the time/space for this type of communication.

it's not that i haven't been doing creative work - i have, though unfortunately i can't share publicly what i've been working on. at least not the actual footage. i shot and edited 10 pages of a script for a director's test. which is funny because in writing that last sentence i realized one of my first jobs in the industry was as a p.a. on a one-day director's test for hart bochner (he was the snarky corporate guy in 'die hard' who tries to give up john mccain). we shot a couple of scenes in a quickly built dorm hallway and room. he got the job. directing PCU. win.

my director test involved not one, but two directors. they're the writers for the feature project being considered and have never directed anything before. this was a test to determine how they'd do; how'd they'd work with a dp (myself), with actors, with a time constraint and a lot of pages to cover. the scenes involved four locations in and around a large house (exterior front, living room, kitchen and bedroom). we shot with two small photography lights and a dvx-100 completely hand-held. the inside length of my right thumb was numb for a couple of days from all the shooting.

i was surprised at the quality of the color representation of the dvx-100. and shooting in the squeezed anamorphic mode you get a nice oblong image (although still at standard def). the attached shotgun mic also did a fine job of picking up dialog, as long as the actors were facing the camera at the time.

the footage cut together well and i was pleasantly surprised at how good it all looks, from a lighting and coverage standpoint, considering we shot 10 pages with three actors in about 6.5 hours! the two directors (friends of mine), were excellent to work with, collaborative, invested and willing to learn at every turn. im sure they'll do well with this project if it goes through. i hope it does. im apparently going to be editing it, which would make it would be my first feature editing job since 'the firing squad'.

acai slim/acai burn

2009-08-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

i foolishly fell for the marketing gimmick on this product (a fat-burning weight-loss product). you'll see it all over the net if you search for acai burn or slim. their shady dealings led me to create this page warning others of the trap:

http://deepstructure.googlepages.com/acaislim-fineprint

if you have a website and would like to link to the page to help increase it's google page rank, please do. i'd like for people who are seeking information about the product to find this page. i searched and didn't find anything warning of the hidden fees and charges associated with buying this product.

procedurals continued

2009-06-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

commenter todd left a lengthy entry on my previous post, 'why procedurals don't work in movies', and i thought it better to create a follow-up post rather than leave another lengthy response. here's todd's comment:

Hey Christopher,
Came across your blog as a result of finding your comments to another blogger about your impressions of Chris Soth's Million Dollar Screenwriting.

(I felt the same "snakeoil" vibe from his site as you did and it turned me off as well.)

Then I found this entry from you on procedurals. What intrigued me were the comments/feedback you said you'd received on your script in various forms adding up to not getting involved with the characters.

I've been having the same response to a screenplay of mine that's been always a bridesmaid but never a bride in screenplay contests. Mine is something of a hybrid with two intertwined story lines... one a psychological thriller game of cat and mouse enveloped in the context of a procedural.

The response I get from most people is that the central idea is very appealing, cool and even quite original. But the feedback inevitably boils down to making the cops in my procedural timeline more "human" more like "buddies". But their not "buddies". It's not a buddy cop picture. They're cops. They're the people who embody the mechanisms by which society attempts to regulate itself.

It seems to me that the feedback I'm getting--and perhaps this was the case with your project as well-- isn't about problems in the story I'm telling per se, (since everyone seems to love it) so much as it is an expression of their instinctive desire/preference for a different kind of story. A desire for something with that "comfort" element Anonymous mentioned even though that element has no place in the genre (mixed as it is) in which I'm working.

I felt when you were talking about the feedback you were getting that I was "listening" in to a mirror.

I guess I was intrigued by your title (and conclusion?) "procedurals" don't work.

Is it really that they don't work? Or is it simply that by choosing to work in that genre we have to accept that they only work for a niche audience? And that finding members of that audience is exceedingly difficult.

Psychological thrillers for example, often take us on a character's journey, have us empathize with them, root for them, only to often reveal at the end that we were being fooled, the character was the bad guy all along (or is the person they were searching for, or is already dead or it's all a hoax... I'm thinking of thrillers like Jagged Edge or What Lies Beneath or The Game). Inevitably, some people love these movies, some hate them.

I'd like to suggest that those who hate them (assuming the movie isn't simply technically "bad" in some way), feel that way because they want the "comfort" experience (the one Anonymous talked about) in their stories. They feel ripped off when they don't get it, tricked that the character they've been rooting for was the killer all along.

The flipside, of course, are those who love the feeling of being fooled and thus enjoy these movies. (I know I'm off on thrillers here but bear with me.)

I've come to believe that while some prefer their stories as an emotional experience (Rom/Coms, Drama, Action, Hero's Journey), there are other people, whose tastes are no less valid, who cherish the intellectual experience over the emotional (Interest in the situational, Didactic, "puzzle"-movie, Procedural or Psychological Thriller. People who may well prefer fast, clever Farce to emotive, character-driven Comedy).

These latter folk are "good losers". If you fool them well they'll thank you for it because of the intellectual payoff they get from having their blindspots revealed.

BUT... I'm also convinced these folk are in the vast minority and that their population may be shrinking.

If these assertions are true, I put the following to you...

Do you think it's really the case that "procedurals" or other genres that appeal to the intellect (more than to the emotive) don't work?

Or is it simply that they don't sell in our particular cultural context, where the majority prefer/require more "heart-plucking" than thought provoking?

and my response:

i mostly agree with you todd. i did basically equate "doesn't work" with "not appealing to the majority". but i also don't believe we can talk down to the general audience and say they just want comfort. i think there's an element of truth to making your characters more accessible.

people don't go to the movies like they read a story in the newspaper. just giving the facts isn't enough. it does seem, for better or worse, that the medium itself dictates that to some to degree we need a personal connection to the story.

and i think the best procedurals and twist-endings utilize that element. they draw you in. sure some don't enjoy that. but i think even less enjoy a dry procedural with no personal element they can hook into. i could have dismissed those who "didn't get" my story, but i feel they have a valid complaint - nothing wrong with getting more involved with these guys.

"They're the people who embody the mechanisms by which society attempts to regulate itself."

but they're human beings, with lives and concerns and all kinds of messy stuff that isn't just about the case they're working on. and not including at least some of that can feel antiseptic.

"Do you think it's really the case that "procedurals" or other genres that appeal to the intellect (more than to the emotive) don't work?"

no. i do think they simply appeal to a smaller subset of the main demographic. but i also feel that can't be used as an excuse, because another truth about these types of stories is that one of their pitfalls can be not including enough emotion. more intellect than emotion isn't bad, but there's a threshold ratio in there somewhere that's too skewed toward intellect.

story-telling at it's heart (an emotional term right there), is an emotional process, not an intellectual one. i believe it arose out of love and caring, a desire to communicate more effectively with another. in one form it can be simply to entertain, to allay fears of the dark; in another, to be a more effective way to communicate necessary information - a fable. either way, it's interpersonal communication, human beings sharing. so some of that needs to be present in any recitation, or it just won't connect.

frontloading wonderment

2009-06-04T17:29:00.001-07:00

how's that for a statistically improbable phrase?

this advice from rob weir on how to create an interesting and engaging lecture could be cut and pasted into a screenwriting manual:

"Lecturing is not genetically determined like eye color or a receding hairline. The most common reason for bad lecturing isn’t phobia; it’s that professors don’t value the craft enough to hone their skills."
"Step one to improving your lecture skills is to purge yourself of bad communication habits, but the rest of lecturing is a formula."
You should be interesting...but the point is not to show how clever or erudite you are...Being clear is far more important than being impressive."
"Distill your intentions to essential points."
"A time-tested way of engaging students is using a hook. Unveil a teaser, pose a question, tell a story, be provocative…Frontloading wonderment helps keep an audience."
"It’s better to say a lot about a little than a little about a lot."

h/t kottke.org

copyright is dead. long live copyright.

2009-04-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

oh come on wga

2009-03-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

i've never really liked unions (especially after having a bad experience with them when working for a grocery store). it's not that i disagree with them in principle - companies are prone to exploit workers in some industries - but the reality of many of them is that they place ridiculous and overly-expensive restrictions on business and individuals and can be very corrupt.

despite this i marched in support of the wga writers and blogged in support of them.

and then they turn around and do this:

"On the MSN.com edition of “Motherhood” (since discontinued), short segments about funny, frazzled mothers were inspired by the real-life stories that viewers submitted via an Internet forum. ABC, similarly, asked for story submissions on its Web site (itm.abc.go.com) and said that they “might just become inspiration for a story by the writers.”
But ABC’s call for ideas from moms drew the attention of the Writers Guild of America, which said this type of request for submissions was “not permissible” under its contract with the network. This week ABC abruptly removed the language about “inspiration” from its Web site, effectively saying that the writers may not be listening to viewers’ ideas, after all.
The last-minute changes are a telling demonstration of the differences between the Web video world — a mostly low-budget, short-form medium — and the traditional television industry."

really? what's wrong with getting ideas from the general public? ideas aren't copyrightable. does the wga really think it's writers aren't constantly getting ideas from the public around them? this is ridiculous and indicative of the type of inflexibility unions are famous for.

why procedurals don't work in movies

2009-03-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

i've spent the last year and a half writing a procedural thriller. most of the feedback i've received focuses on the fact that we never get invested enough in the characters.

the message came in different forms. some said i hadn't developed my characters enough, some said they weren't sympathetic enough, etc. but as i examined the problem of telling a procedural mystery story, i discovered something: there's a fundamental difference between procedural structure (especially as seen in most television procedurals), and the basic hollywood structure for a modern film.

we've all heard the mckee/campbell journey myth model for our three act stories. introduce a protagonist, protagonist gets into trouble, protagonist triumphs and ends up better than where they started. if graphed it would look like this:

(courtesy of austin kleon's excerpt of kurt vonnegut's 'palm sunday')

where “G” stands for good fortune, “I” stands for ill fortune, “B” stands for the beginning of a story and “E” stands for its end.

a key point of this model is jeopardy and sympathy (it's usually hard to have one without the other). the "arc" works because we identify with and care about the character undergoing these changes.

and that's where the procedural model breaks down.

procedurals aren't about the characters really. law & order is an excellent example of this. the show was specifically created by dick wolf to not be a drama about the personal lives of law enforcement folk. from a 1991 entertainment weekly article about the second season of the show:

Also unique are the scripts, which Wolf insists must never cut away from the policemen or the prosecutors. ''On other shows, you can always cut away to another story when you have an awkward moment,'' he says. ''On this one you can't, and you can't cut to a car chase or action scene-we hope to get through five years without our guys ever firing their guns.'' Notably absent from the scripts are the subplots that other shows use to humanize their characters. Law & Order's cops and lawyers have no romances, no coffee breaks, no days off, no personal crises: When they're on-screen, they're on duty, necessitating tough adjustments for the cast. ''Oh, it drove me crazy,'' says Moriarty (Holocaust, Pale Rider). ''It makes Stone into a workaholic. It's taken 22 episodes to reveal that I have a daughter and an ex- wife, and I had to fight for it. But,'' he adds, smiling, ''they have already trained me not to want too much of a personal life.''

mind you, we're talking about the most successful procedural ever and the longest running show currently on television.

so obviously not learning too much about your procedural characters can work. on television. but i believe it's fundamentally different for films for one specific reason: we expect our main characters in film to get into trouble.

this rarely happens in procedurals. in fact, i think that's why they work so well on television. television is primarily about comfort and safety. it's about tuning in weekly to get your dose of the familiar. the characters you love (even if you don't know that much about them), the places you've come to know; the bar in cheers, the offices of countless characters, the standing set. of course we want something fresh and different every week - but only a little. everything else should feel comfortably familiar.

procedurals do this incredibly well. you get your familiar cast and setting, but each week a new wrinkle: a new case with new victims and new clues to puzzle. but there's no jeopardy involved for the main characters. their greatest issue is that they might not solve the case, that another interchangeable victim-of-the-week might not survive or that the jury might find against them. so we're safe along with them. no worries that we'll be chewing our fingernails wondering if these people we love will perish.

unless of course it's sweeps. then someone gets into trouble. or if it's law & order, may actually get killed off.

but this type of safety doesn't work for film. we need our main characters, the ones we're identifying with, to experience jeopardy, to be in harm's way and survive, even if that harm and survival is metaphorical. it's a fundamentally different paradigm.

to use the above graph as reference, in film that graph represents our lead character, our hero, the person we're identifying with; in television it represents the victims. our prosecutors, our police detectives, our ghost whisperer, our medical staff? they're going to be fine.

obviously procedural elements or a procedural setting can work for a story told on the big screen, but invariably they need to include a personal element to the crime. there have been great procedural films (se7en, in the heat of the night, la confidential, etc.), but they all have personal stories entwined in the cases being investigated (indeed in a film like 'in the heat of the night', the procedural plot exists solely to examine the personal stories of the characters).

playing with numbers

2009-03-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

baseline studiosystems is a provider of film and television data. although their regular services are expensive and designed for studios, they have a free newsletter you can subscribe to which contains interesting information about the film industry. i've been a subscriber since last year and one featurette of the newletter is the weekly comps, where a comparison is made between three films sharing a general characteristic, be it all having music video directors or set around weddings.

i've put together a spreadsheet (links to downloadable excel file) with the numbers i've collected so far (numbers are in millions):

(click for pic of entire spreadsheet)

the newsletter gives the release date, max screens, budget, p&a, us gross, international gross and us video numbers. my spreadsheet then calculates amount spent on p&a as a percentage of the budget, cost (budget + p&a), revenue (us/intl gross + us video), and net (revenue - cost).

there's nothing scientific about this. their criteria for picking films and the small sample size effectively eliminate any real relationship analysis and obviously there are other hidden costs and revenues, but it's still fun. they have access to p&a and us video numbers which makes tracking the profitability of the films more accurate than simply looking at the theatrical numbers on boxofficemojo or imdb. still the overall totals are interesting:

total films tracked: 27
total profitable films: 17
percentage of profitable films: 63%
total revenue all films: $2.66 billion
total cost all films (includes p&a): $1.18 billion
total profit all films: $1.48 billion
total percentage profit: 125%
total us theatrical revenue: $979.5 million or 37% of total revenue
total intl theatrical revenue: $779.11 or 29% of total revenue
total us video revenue: $899.3 million or 34% of total revenue

what's amazing is how much is spent on p&a. of the $698 million spent on production budgets, almost 70% again was spent on marketing ($482 million). some films spent more advertising the film than they did making it.

note: you'll notice red squares next to 'zodiac'. this is because the numbers given in the latest newsletter for it were wrong. they gave the numbers for the very much lower-budgeted 'the zodiac,' which was not directed by a former music video director (david fincher directed 'zodiac'). i supplemented this with the boxofficemojo figures for 'zodiac' and i'm hoping ryan williams will update his numbers so i can include the p&a and us video numbers. there's a good chance that once those factor in 'zodiac' will either have broken even or lost money.

FTX

2009-02-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

"my name is shyam and this is a story about friendship."

ftx - it stands for french toast and hugs (technically i believe the oh's in oxoxox represent the hugs, but who's that picky?).

my friend shyam yadav started it. it's simply a fun thing he does. he works in visual effects as a plate coordinator - meaning on the set, not in post. so he travels around the world to work on films and when he does, he likes to show up somewhere and give out free french toast and hugs. it's an amazingly simple and wonderful thing that i've been privileged to be a part of three times, the latest in downtown los angeles where we fed around 400 people one saturday morning.

shyam was interviewed today on kcrw, a well-known local college station, during the 'good food' show. you can listen to the interview here. it's only a few minutes long and in the kcrw player you can easily jump to his section via tabs on the timeline.

you can read more about shyam and his unusual obsession on the ftx website.

“of course we’re friends kid, in fact we’re best friends. you’re brown like me and every buddy knows brown is the color of love."

ballistica

2009-02-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

my friend sean posted about one of his experiences writing on a low-budget action film. the full story is much more entertaining and he should really blog about more of it, but even this sliver is a good read.

they're just not that into diversity

2009-01-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

today i saw the billboard version of this on the way to work. and it disgusted me.

i mean really. an all-white cast? wtf? you're telling me in this day and age you can't find room in your ensemble movie for anyone who isn't white? there are nine roles represented on this poster alone; not one of those could have been portrayed by a non-white actor? this is a movie set in baltimore for cryin' out loud.

billy mernit, the bard of all things rom-com, recently lamented the absence of rom-coms with black americans:

Where is The Great African-American Romantic Comedy? I've found myself wondering, or even the best of the near-greats? When I went looking for a Top 10 Black Romantic Comedies, I emerged from an afternoon in cyberspace more perplexed and vexed than victorious. Obligatory disclaimer aside (not being black, I'm not the most qualified, etc.) I could only settle on a rough half dozen or so clearly top-notch American movies that feature black men and women in funny love. Which makes a rom-com lover wonder.
Maybe it's the last frontier of this territory. Are we still so not past the culture's racial divide, that the predominant white audience hasn't yet begun to accept a Black Mr. Right, let alone one who wins a Black Dream Ms.?

or an asian mr and mrs, or spanish, or middle-eastern, etc.

i can't be the only person who's astounded that a movie about everyday people in a modern city would not feature any person of color. living in los angeles this is ridiculous to consider. perhaps it makes sense in some suburban or rural spaces, but in any major city in america it's a bit ridiculous that one of these white characters doesn't have some prominent non-white folks in their lives.

do you really want the only diversity in your casting to be reflected in a credit list like this?

Chihiro Fujii ... Tokyo Girl #1
Sachiko Ishida ... Tokyo Girl #2
Délé ... African Woman #1
Eunice Nyarazdo ... African Woman #2
Anita Yombo ... African Woman #3

in some ways i can empathize: there are a total of 9 actors (including myself), in my short film, all of whom are male and only one of whom isn't white. however, the filmmakers behind 'hjntiy' had a distinct advantage - money. they had more of it and were spending some on their actors.

we tried very hard to be diverse in our casting. our biggest problem was that very few non-whites responded to the casting call. after that, it became simply who the best actors were. one example: the lead role of janus came down to two actors, one white, one african-american. if physical presence and voice had been the only factors, the african-american gentleman would have had it; but he wasn't comfortable enough in the part and wasn't able to make adjustments. he had definite potential and with his good looks and size will probably make a formidable actor. but on that day he just wasn't ready.

bottom of the barrel

2009-01-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

flickr photo by: pboyd04

in the past few days i've heard of two things that have made me shake my head in wonder at the paucity of new ideas (nothing is entirely new, but lately it seems much is on the less-than-terribly-original end of the spectrum):

on new year's eve while sharing a drink with our friend, we learned that andrew lloyd weber is working on a new musical; a sequel to 'the phantom of the opera'.
and today tripping across the nets i came upon ''something good 08', a slightly remixed reissue of 'something good' by utah saints. i think the video is fun, but the song was done and is being released by...utah saints.

after all this time are these artists so out of ideas that they can do nothing but rehash their past successes? even so blatantly as the just reissuing your 16 year-old hit song slighty remixed?

we're in an age of more remakes and non-original material than ever before - recycling seems to be the mantra of entertainment as well as environmentalists.

i'm curious to know if we've seen this before - is this a unique time in history? with the technology available to us to not only preserve past media but remix and reuse it easily, is this the natural progression of expression and tools? perhaps this is just an inevitable step, much like how nascent technologies simply ape their predecessors before they discover their true potential.

perhaps the incessant remix, remake, reuse, homage and ripoffs are all part of the sorting out of this stage of development. the childhood sandbox where future artists and engineers learn the basics by just playing around with malleable material.

“a nation without dregs and malcontents, is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.” - eric hoffer

if the vigilance had continued...

2008-12-31T00:03:00.000-08:00

the new a&e series, the beast, sounds like the feature version of my short film, 'an exercise in vigilance'. according to this review, it's looks promising:

"The Beast is similar in many aspects to THE SHIELD in its elements but is much higher brow. The acting is better the writing is more crisp and the storyline is not transparent. You dont really know what is going on, who is crooked, who is not but you definitely find yourself wanting to know more."

supporting wikipedia

2008-12-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

my latest donation cause is wikipedia. not only do i use the site constantly, i also believe in their goal which they so eloquently state as:

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

that is definitely something worth supporting.

so i encourage you, if you're a user of the site or believe in the free dissemination of information and knowledge as far and wide as possible, to also contribute.

getting facts straight while the sky is falling

2008-12-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

back in june, mark gill of film independent gave a keynote speech, in which he explained how difficult the current climate is for independent film. it's spread around the internet like wildfire and has even been quoted in the los angeles times.

there's been a lot of discussion about the points he raised, but i was surprised by a fact he mentioned about the most popular film on netflix:

We also know there's an opening for quality based on data from the good folks at Netflix. Yes, they rent plenty of tentpole movie dvds, just like everyone else. But they also have the most accurate collaborative filtering technology I've seen. Type in 50 movies you like, and Netflix will tell you--with remarkable accuracy--what other films you will like.

This is how a relatively obscure film from 1974 became the most popular picture among Netflix's six million subscribers: because it's really good. The movie, by the way, is "The Conversation."

so i wrote netflix and asked them if this was accurate and how it was determined. here's what steve swasey of netflix's public relations had to say:

Christopher,

"Crash" is the #1 rented film of all time at Netflix. Below I’ve pasted the Top 100 list off my Netflix account.

“The Conversation” is not on the Top 100 list.

Netflix has 8.7 million members, not 6 million.

Mark Gill may be citing a New York Times article by David Leonhardt from a few years ago in which David wrote that Netflix gives life to hidden movies like “The Conversation.” But I don’t really know.

david seems to be on the right track. i found the article. here's the relevant section:

The company's servers also sift through the one billion ratings in its system to tell you which movies that you might like, based on which ones you have already liked.

The result is a vast movie meritocracy that gives a film a second or third life simply because — get this — it's good. Last year, "The Conversation" (average rating: four stars) was the 13th-most-watched movie from the early 1970's on Netflix.

so not exactly the most popular movie on netflix. at all.

makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of mark's facts, and the relevance of the conclusions he draws from them.

why isn't this going on in LA?

2008-12-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

from the comments on this hd for indies article about the death of the independent film business model, comes this about living room theaters:

Hey Mike,

Interesting the timing of your rant… I am tinkering with the wording about what IS an “indie” film to you? Is it a movie where the money comes from private investors and/or somewhere besides a studio’s resources? Is it a movie made outside the boundaries of executives who dictate how a movie should and will be made? If you define what IS indie to you, you might find a path to profitability for “indie” projects a little easier.

To touch on a couple of points, and share my thoughts on how “indie” filmmakers can potentially make money: Sean, you mentioned Ballast and I have some personal experience with the “release” of this film and where Lance Hammer (the filmmaker) could have done better for himself.

Originally Lance signed a “distribution” deal with IFC after Sundance. He became unhappy with that arrangement for various reasons and decided to self-distribute. He worked with experienced distribution exec MJ Peckos who once was with First Look and Tartan.

I had randomly met someone who personally knew Lance at “the Conversation” down in Berkeley in October. He thought the theater that I work with (Living Room Theaters) here in Portland would be perfect for Lance’s film and said I should see if we could book it. Living Room’s programming department pursued the film and we were told, “Lance is only interested in playing 35MM.” Living Room Theaters is a new concept that is 100% digital-only and built from the ground up to support foreign/independent films and their filmmakers. Ballast ended up booking at the Hollywood Theater on the other side of town (another “indie” venue) and it did not gross well enough to hold. That was the end to Ballast’s Portland theatrical run.

To bring this back full circle… Sean, you specifically mention how you saw ‘fuzz’ in the projection which was caused by FILM PROJECTION that Lance insisted on having for his film. The viewing environment and your experience seeing Ballast was marred by the venue. This is where the vast majority of “indie” filmmakers screw themselves by limiting the revenue potential on “their” movie because of some personal quest for specific fulfillment. Another movie - “Manda Bala” by Jason Kohn suffered the same theatrical fate. If these films had played at Living Room (digitally), I guarantee they would have played longer, grossed more, and made more money for the distributor/filmmakers.

All of the “mini-majors” (Focus, Fox Searchlight, Paramount Vantage) that Mike mentions are using the very same marketing methodology for all of their releases as the majors which is why they are so insanely expensive to market/distribute. It’s also why they are all going out of business. Their methods are more akin to a science project for every film.

Here in Portland, we have found ZERO correlation between newspaper print ads and box office ticket sales for limited releases, yet EVERY SINGLE distributor INSISTS on doing them. This is a LARGE amount of money coming directly out of what the distributors could be making as PROFIT for EVERY film they distribute - in EVERY city. Instead they are throwing it away on an antiquated belief that there is effectiveness in them.

A while back, a local bi-weekly newspaper mistakenly ran the wrong ad (for a film that wasn’t playing) for Living Room. We braced ourselves for the pissed off customers who would arrive to find that movie not playing. NOT A SINGLE PERSON in the entire week showed up expecting to see the film.

Good “profitable” runs at Living Room can go for 8 or more weeks, and if more filmmakers would seek out venues like Living Room throughout the country, they would find ways to profitability. Theatrical runs feed reviews which help feed awareness which drives further marketability.

I could go on and on… I whole heartedly disagree with you Mike that there isn’t a business model for “independent” films - but then again, we might not be defining “independent” the same way.

Steve Herring
Drink Me Pictures and Living Room Theaters
Portland, OR

after looking at the site for living room theaters i really wondered why something like that doesn't exist here. i'd love to have an option like this nearby. the closest theater to us to play these types of films is usually 18 miles away in hollywood (the sunset 5).

i also found it fascinating that there was NO correlation for newspaper ads. i've often thought this (as i haven't looked at a newspaper for film times in probably 10 years), but it's amazing to see it confirmed so strongly.

i'm...a doer?

2008-11-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

according to this new blog analyzer, i'm no longer an INTP type.

The analysis indicates that the author of http://deep-structure.blogspot.com is of the type:

ESTP - The Doers

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

not completely surprising tho. i've always been someone who threw themselves into activity, but in the past few years it's become my main focus as i pursue my filmmaking career.

of course, this could also be complete malarkey.

heaven

2008-11-20T17:20:00.001-08:00

as a music-maker myself, this reminded me of a time i took a year off and did something similar. it was an amazing time and one i hope to repeat one day. from an interview with electronic artist efdemin:

What are the perfect conditions for you to produce an album?

The most important thing is that I don’t travel. Working on my last album I usually hung out the whole day with friends, listening to music, drinking coffee, taking walks through the city, and then, late in the evening, I would start to make music and stay in the studio until eight o’clock in the morning. I repeated that routine pretty much for two months. It was great.

why we watch

2008-11-20T01:41:00.000-08:00

i found this latimes article about the falling ratings of reality shows fascinating. apparently reality-based shows are being hard hit:

New York-based ad firm Horizon Media today delivered an analysis of Nielsen Media Research data for broadcast series during the first two months of the TV season, compared with the same period last year. The verdict? Established reality-competition and game shows, including "Dancing With the Stars," "Survivor" and "Deal or No Deal," are suffering a slump almost as bad as the larger economy's

no one knows exactly why, but the article surmises that many shows are old and have run their course, and others have been over-exposed, airing to often. they also offer this explanation:

And what about that economy? Well, hard times may not have any direct effect on what people choose to watch. But there's little doubt that during times of upheaval, viewers' tastes can shift. For example, the deep recession of the early 1980s may have created a fertile environment for the success of nighttime soaps about the treacheries of the rich and infamous, such as "Dynasty" and "Dallas."

this may be closer to the answer. with an election, a war and an economic collapse, there's been plenty of reality tv to go around - much of it far more compelling than any "reality" programming concocted by the networks. so perhaps having being satiated on real reality, folks are less interested in manufactured reality and more interested again in escapist faire.

getting short

2008-11-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

flickr photo by: beatboxbadhabit

i've posted about this before, but with web video becoming a more viable medium everyday, it's more and more on my mind. and apparently i'm not the only one (go figure). today scott at cinematech has a post which includes this:

Fred Seibert of nextnewnetworks said that all of the new format possibilities available to content creators can be confusing. 'There's some real comfort in knowing that you need to make a show that's 30 minutes long or 60 minutes long, or a movie that's two hours long." But those formats won't necessarily be the most appealing to Web viewers. "Shorter has turned out to be better, and shorter creates certain disciplines," he said, adding that it's still possible to create short content that is simply short and bad... not short and good.

if you've been to a short-film festival you know the truth of that last statement.

dialogue

2008-11-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

flickr photo by: danielmayrit

if you've never perused the 'overheard in new york' blog you're missing out on a great resource. it's full of wonderful exchanges, some of which i swear will be in my next script. like this one:

Guy #1: Yeah, she's hot and a violent kisser, but her twin sister is so needy.
Guy #2: Needy how?
Guy #1: She's all like, "But we share everything!"
Guy #2: Fuck you, dude. Fuck you.

words to work by...

2008-11-08T20:02:00.001-08:00

stu maschwitz has a new post up. for many most of the verbiage isn't relevant, being that it's ostensibly about feature-sets in cameras. but his point is that if the features don't make the accquisition of images you need for your film easier, then the fact that (with a lot of work), they can sometimes produce amazing images not before possible in prosumer cameras is irrelevant.

he makes a list of trade-offs to consider and it struck me that the last four are applicable to the entire create process:

Your story is told using the images you create, not the ones you intended to create.
You're not done editing until you've watched your film with an audience of people who don't care about your feelings.
Your film is still too long.
Your next film will be better. How's it coming?

mixed emotions

2008-11-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

i am both incredibly elated that we've elected barack obama as our president and deeply saddened and angry that it seems proposition 8 in california will pass.

it further disturbs me that los angeles, the city i was born in and call home, is one of the counties that (so far) is voting for it.

what's wrong with us?

now is the time

2008-10-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

xkcd does it again. inspired by this comic i decided to look my own death up. according to this table, i'll die in 36 years when im 77. somewhere around 2044. so at least i'll outlive the cast of star wars.

this isn't news to me. i've long been aware that the average american male lifespan is about 75-77 years and that there's a good probability that i've already been alive longer than i will remain so, but it does sharpen the focus a bit. it reinforces the idea that if i want to do anything, now is the time. because we're only running out of it.

just say no to drm

2008-10-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

so true...

which is why i buy non-drm mp3s from amazon.

music hack

2008-10-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

chris brown has a hit song called 'forever'. it was originally developed for a wrigley's doublemint gum commercial (they paid for the recording session), but the song was so good they decided to also release it as a single. i love the music, but the lyrics feature the phrase, "double your pleasure, double your fun", a former slogan for the product.

that just bugs me, so i decided to do something about it. here's the original chorus with the phrase:

and here's my improved version:

the whole song (the phrase is repeated in three separate sections), was completed in about 30 minutes using nothing but a paid-for mp3 downloaded from amazon.com and the cut-n-paste functions in a free trial version of goldwave, a digital audio editor.

viva la hack.

there's no crying

2008-09-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

whenever i begin to despair about being creative it always helps to remember that i'm not alone. knowing you're not the only one facing a creative struggle always seems to help, but even more powerful is knowing that those who have been professionals for years fight the same battles.

internationally acclaimed photographer joe mcnally makes it clear that doing great work is hard and takes repeated attempts:

"I’ve shot a lot more bad pictures than I’ll ever shoot good ones. I’m quite comfortable admitting this. I have always been compelled by my time behind the camera, my love of actually shooting, no matter if I win, lose, or draw. And boy do I lose a bunch of the time. Every shooter does. The ones who tell you they are always knockin’ on heaven’s door when they take a camera in hand are bullshittin’ ya blind.

We all shoot bad stuff, good stuff, in between stuff. It’s the stuff of the photographic life. Failure is part of it. No shame there. If we knock it back all the time, or feel like we do so, then we’re not trying. As I always say, if the feeling of been there, done that, nothin’ new here, I’ve seen it all, let’s move along overtakes us, then its time to hang the cameras up."

art of the title sequence

2008-09-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

i appreciate a creative title sequence as much as the next person, but over the past few years i've come to the conclusion that there's really no need for them. or at least, that 98% of the ones i've seen are useless. i see no reason to sit through a parade of names that i may only end up cursing by the end of the movie. i'll praise you *after* i've seen your work, not before.

the whole thing reeks of the culture of self-aggrandizement that permeates hollywood. where else do you have to sit through minutes of names listing those responsible for what you're about to experience? not at most sporting events, concerts or theatrical performances.

but a title sequence that sets the tone of the movie, gets the audience prepared and even gives some information to the audience in a concise manner, those are at least easier to justify. but those are also rare.

regardless, www.artofthetitle.com is an excellent resource for viewing and discussing opening title sequences. they host clips of many titles, including the seminal 'se7en,' opening, which blew me away when i first saw it. the site also works as a serendipity generator. i've added two films to my netflix queue that i discovered there.

some highlights:

we're here to help

sky fighters

to kill a mockingbird

music + face = emotions

2008-09-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

this cognitive daily article details an experiment designed to measure the affect music has on interpreting the emotion of an actor in a film. four different types of music (happy, sad, scary, angry), were played before and after the image of a neutral expression on an actor's face.

the results are interesting, especially that "angry" music didn't seem to have any definitive affect at all, even as an indicator of anger. either the music picked didn't accurately represent the emotion or (more likely), there isn't a universal musical interpretation for it. this doesn't surprise me. i'm a musician and a student of film scores, but i'd have a hard time describing a musical device that represented anger. does the 'psycho' score represent norman's anger or his victim's fear?

however the most interesting statement to me didn't pertain to the experiment. it was this anecdote at the beginning of the article describing how influential music in films has become (emphasis mine):

Music is such an important aspect of film that when a group of students was asked to rate the emotions evoked by music in six film excerpts, only a third of them noticed that all the film clips had no music. This was on a multiple choice test, where the first choice was "No music was played."

that means a full two-thirds of the watchers at least once didn't notice the absence of a score. they remembered the scene with music. or at least couldn't remember it not being there.

before you laugh, do you remember the music underscoring the storm plane crash sequence or the entire stranded-on-a-deserted-island sequence of 'cast away'? you shouldn't. because there wasn't any (per imdb):

Alan Silvestri wrote 24 minutes of score (including over seven minutes for the final credits) for a 143-minute film. Aside from the Russian chorus and the Elvis song from the beginning, there is not one single note of written musical score in the film until Noland leaves the island (1 hour and 43 minutes into the movie). Only then does the musical score come in: an oboe, piano and strings are all that Silvestri uses. Every musical cue is a variation on the same melody, which is heard in full at the end.

flickr photo by user: *christopher*

ucla extension writer's faire

2008-09-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

last sunday i attended the writer's faire, designed to promote the ucla extension writing program. the faire is for writer's of all types as you can see from the program grid. the entire thing is free and open to the public. it's definitely worth attending if you live in los angeles. and since it was on a sunday, from 10a-3p (panel discussions from 11-12:30p and 1:30-3p), there was very little traffic getting to and from.

i only attended the panel discussions ('from pen to page,' 'writing funny,' 'creating compelling characters,' and 'the business of screenwriting'). although the panels themselves aren't terribly informative, they do provide a wonderful opportunity to audition the course instructors, as all of the presenters teach extension classes. some of the standouts were antwone fisher, wendi niad and victoria wisdom.

although all three were very practical in their advice and entertaining to listen to, victoria wisdom was the most impressive with a contagious energy and a no-bullshit, all-business, straight to the point style. after two soporific presentations by the male members of her panel, she woke everyone up with a cheerful hello and engaged the audience with questions and a rapid-fire delivery.

overall i was both heartened and saddened by one aspect of the experience: diversity. the audience was immensely diverse; women and men of all ages and races. but of the 12 panelists most were males and the majority of them were white (including all four presenters on the comedy panel). obviously we still have a way to go.

here are my rather rough notes from each seminar:

11a-11:40a. 'from pen to page: the art of storytelling'
presenter: steven wolfson
commentary: steven was an energetic and emphatic speaker. although he currently works as a screenwriter, his real love seems to be writing for theater.

recommended reading:
david ball - backwards and forwards

on writing in general:
- we're all trying to do something that most people in the world don't do (writing).
- well remembered advice he received: embrace what you're afraid to write. because that's what you'll end up writing.
- his "cosmology" theory of writing:
starts with "little big bang" - the original idea - everyone has these
- do not confuse premise with narrative.
- make sure your original idea is powerful enough to carry you through the process, write it down on an index card and keep it nearby

steps to story:
- step 1: the idea must have a human connection and it must inherently have conflict
- step 2: find the characters: "everything emanates from the bright hot sun of character"; write their daily routine - you'll learn lot about them. you can do this before you start - but you can also do this whenever you're stuck. interview your characters - ask them where they want to go. but characters aren't enough, a problem with a lot of independent film is that they have no story - same with conventional film - too many visual fx, not enough story.
- step 3: find the want: stories are about the "superwant". we live in a constant state of wanting, but that's not interesting enough. it's about the wants we want more than anything else.
- step 4: ACTION: stories are about characters who want something and take action to get it. because they have superwants. two types of action: 1) physical action, 2) verbal action (dialogue)
- step 5: define your conflict; the emotional glue, what keeps an audience interested, is conflict. which comes in two forms: 1) person vs person - the vast majority fall into this type. one character in conflict with another. often the greatest struggle a character has is with themselves. 2) person vs self/environment? (he never got to the second point, ran out of time); characters fall into conflict because they externalize what they are internally feeling.

11:50-12:30p. 'writing funny: techniques for comedic feature film and television writing'
presenter: sheldon bull, keith giglio, phil kellard (chair), chris webb
commentary: ironically the first thing phil did was ask the rest of the panel if you could teach funny - and the answer was unequivocally "no". their best advice was to take your quirks and idiosyncrasies and celebrate them, use them.

recommended reading for tv writing:
writing for dough by bill idelson.

general ideas:
- everyone steals from everyone; so start out by watching and reading funny
- "the funny comes last" - write it as a drama first. then take off the self-edit button.
- can't be both writer and editor. write first, worry about the editing later, the "is this ok?" shouldn't be a part of your inital writing. don't worry about that until later.
- characters are what make sitcoms
- comedy is there on the page. it's either funny or not. it's not like action where it may depend on how it's directed.
- you can tell in the first 10 pages if the writer is any good and if they're funny
- writers are people who:
1) don't give up
2) and are willing to change
- funny story by giglio:
closed deal with agent on a friday evening on the phone at work, literally while his boss was standing there telling him he had something he needed him to do. keith stood up and said, "no i don't," and quit. went home and cut up his suit with scissors. then he discovered that they don't pay you right away. had to take the train in on monday (sans suit), and ask for his job back (they gave it to him).
worked for city of los angeles.
- sacrifice:
chris said he reads stuff all the time in his class by people that could be professional writers but don't get there because they aren't willing to sacrifice and do the work
keith told how he used to get to work and hour early and stay an hour late to write on the computers at work. this while he had a baby on the way and working 40 hours/week. but he managed to write two scripts during that time that sold.
- chris recommended writing with a partner if you write comedy

audience question: how do you get read?
- do something to get noticed; contests, short film, (everyone in hollywood wants to be first to be second - once you have someone else that likes you then everyone else will fall in)
- you have to pour as much creativity into getting noticed as your writing
more than likely you will get you your first job
- don't worry about agentseveryone sheldon knew got their first job and then got an agent.
- the internet is the greatest commercial for yourself you can do

film recommends:
sullivan's travels; anything by preston sturges or howard hawks for comedy pacing

audience question: what's the rated R comedy format?
- basically the fool's quest, the inappropriate goal. a kid wanting to get laid, etc.

- on seeing the same idea as yours:
- keith said: "variety - 5 mins to read, 5 years to get over." you'll always read about films getting bought or greenlit that are the same as the idea you're working on. don't worry so much about it. either put it away for awile or trust that yours is different or good enough that it doesn't matter.

1:30-2:10p. 'creating compelling characters for the screen'
presenter: ernie contreras, claudia grazioso (chair), luciano saber, victoria wisdom
commentary: this was the most structured session, mainly because claudia came prepared with an outline to kick things off and then had the other panelists give a brief introduction and their ideas about creating characters. also the most dynamic speaker of the day was featured here, victoria wisdom.

ernie:
create backstory - characters need to be fully developed.
the layers of character are:
- physiological - appearance, physical interaction
- sociological - family, social status, point of origin
- psychological - the product of the first two
none of this has to be revealed on the screen; it's for you and for your characters to be fully developed within your story; adds to credibility onscreen

luciano:
started out as an actor and knows how important a well developed character is for actors
- your writing needs to do more than just describe the action, the action needs to be motivated by the internal emotional world of the actor.

victoria:
very focused on results; she represented christopher mcquarrie.
anyone can make it:
- mcquarrie was working a minimum wage job when he wrote 'usual suspects'.
- jeff davis, who created 'criminal minds' (a series victoria sold), had never written televison and only one screenplay.
about character:
- hero must have dichotmy, must appear one way but be another (have internal conflict).
- hero must have what appears to be a fatal flaw, and they must appear to fail in the story. but they get up.
- 'lars and the real girl' - extreme case of protagonist obstacle/fatal flaw
bad guy characters:
- she loves 'in the line of fire'. bad guys are often fallen good guys.
- "your film is only as good as your bad guy" - hitchcock.
- the achilles heel of the hero will be exploited by the bad guy
market-focused:
- you need to be invested in the market place.
- biggest genres are action, comedies, thrillers, drama. in that order. why? because of demographics (16-24 year old males biggest demo, followed by 18-34 year old men and women - thus comedies are second genre).
most important things to remember about characters:
- character must be accessible, be able to be identified with
- how is my character a contradiction?
- what are their obstacles?
- is my bad guy as strong as my good guy?
- characters are going to hit a brick wall at 100mph or this isn't interesting; so what's that wall and what's the strength in the character that allows them to get over the wall? florian henckel von donnersmarck, the writer of the 'the lives of others,' started with the stasi character (the bad guy), and kept asking, 'what happens next?' we need to keep wanting to know the answer to that question.

2:20-3:00p. 'the business of screenwriting'
presenter: wendi niad, antwone fisher, ron suppa (chair)
commentary: this was one of the most fun sessions, not only because all the panelists were straight to the point and honest, but because antwone fisher, with his casually uttered frank truths about the business, was hysterical.

ron:
breaking in:
- all the panelists broke in to the business; none of them knew people ("we aren't related to spielberg")
- related a story about george lucas; he was asked "how do you break in?" he answered, "somehow"
- it's a business of relationships; get as many contacts as you can
- try to meet people and have the goods when you do
- you have to act like you're already in - this town can smell desperation; if you need them, they don't need you - they want someone they need (goes back to the note about meetings)
three important things:
1) writing has to be good
2) can't be shy
3) meetings are never about you; it's about them; how can working with you
advance their career - they're always thinking of that. you have to sell yourself
to them as someone that can help them in that way; diablo cody - half of her success had to be selling her own story

agents:
- aren't necessary in features (more important in tv)
- he only had a lawyer for many years
- managers are a better way to go; and they can find you an agent or lawyer when you need one. they can be your business alter ego.
protecting your script:
- wga it, etc.
- watch who you give it to; remember whenever you give a script to someone, they'll shop it to everyone they know. so when you get it back, the next person you take it to may have already seen it
- don't worry too much about protecting your script. agents/managers/ent. lawyers won't steal from you.

misc:
- getting into the wga requires simply writing and selling to a signatory company; until then you can write for anyone
- selling a script is like selling a car; if they drive it off a cliff after they buy it, its not your problem; move on to the next one.
never stop working for your material, but always write more
- your scripts have be a little risky; a little different
- the business isn't as mysterious as it might seem
- only sold two specs but had over 24 jobs based on specs; specs are what get you writing jobs; even more important in tv
- read a LOT of scripts - you can't write them if you're not famiiar with them

wendi: writer at comedy store - comedians are the most depressed people she's ever worked with, quickly got out of that

on the diff between managers and agents:
- managers develop talent, are long-term goal oriented; she'll work with talent for 5 years or more
- agents look for the next deal and are only concerned with the bottom line
- she left icm because she discovered sean levy from a 20 minute film; thought he was the next john hughes and wanted to work with him

spec scripts:
- 9 out 10 don't sell
- they work best for making fans of your work and creating relationships and job opportunities; her policy is, get a meeting and don't leave until you get an assignment. if they like your work, keep them talking until they remember "oh there's this project that needs a writer..."
- the most important thing a spec script does is go out - not that it sells
- for agents - if it doesn't sell, it's over. for managers it's just the beginning.
query letters:
- 1/2 is substance
- 1/2 is how you present it

antwone: born in prison - mom, teenager; published poet; currently writing training day 2

on breaking in:
- wasn't planning on working in the industry at all; it's the magic of living in los angeles. was a prison guard for 3 years after navy. heard sony was hiring security guards (got job - had to downsize his life). then found out all the guards had been to film school. didn't get the guard job to be a writer, just thought it would be cool to be around movies, but eventually you become part of the team just being on the lot
- it's like being a trojan horse. you have to start by being in los angeles.
he had to go unlock a door for sidney poiter. it's a magical place to be.
- in the navy they said when you get on a ship, walk around and see what you want to do and persue that, so that you can present that and those relationships (with the guys who do it), when you want to apply for the job - same with hollywood
- had only worked at sony for a couple of months when he told his story to someone. though everyone liked it, to his surprise no one encouraged him to write it. so he stole a screenplay to study and wrote everything on legal pad.
eventually todd black read the script, liked it but said it was nowhere near ready, gave him an office and told him to quit his guard job and work full time on the script. 5 months later they'd sold it
- since then written 16 projects for the studios - his own screenplay was his only original
- make relationships with actors - which is hard because they're crazy
- make relationships with other writers who will help you through hard times and help you keep connected

on agents and managers:
- he's never gotten a job through an agent. he creates relationships.
- not a lot of writers have a personality - you have to make yourself one. you need to be "good in a room"
- you have to stand out - the people you meet with meet people all day, that's their job, so somehow you have to stand out without coming on too strong
- mangers work harder for their clients
- agents are like pimps (they just take the money when you get the work); manager are like hustlers (they're out there with you helping you take the money)
- he recommends an ent. lawyer and a manager; find ent. lawyer that likes you and you can create a personal relationship
- never go to lunch with your agent - that's the end of your relationship
- agents are like the girl you like that doesn't like you and then they like you when you don't like them anymore
- show you appreciate your lawyer and manager beyond the money; his manager gets a bunch of adidas shoes when they make a sale because antwone knows he likes those shoes

fail

2008-09-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

i've submitted an entry to the failblog. it's currently in the voting stage (and seems to be doing well), so it should end up on the blog eventually.

these signs are posted all over a new apartment complex just down the street from our apartment. i couldn't believe it when i noticed them. they're on the walls of the building facing the sidewalk and on the lampposts. it's obvious what they meant to say, but there really is no other way to read this:

daydream believer

2008-09-03T18:19:00.000-07:00

flickr photo by: andi♥

i've always believed in our need for down time, as epitomized by bertrand russell:

"time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

so i'm delighted to see we're finally seeing science back this up. in fact in this recent boston globe article on daydreaming they're going one step further. not only is the time not wasted, it's necessary:

In recent years...scientists have begun to see the act of daydreaming very differently. They've demonstrated that daydreaming is a fundamental feature of the human mind - so fundamental, in fact, that it's often referred to as our "default" mode of thought.

...Every time we slip effortlessly into a daydream, a distinct pattern of brain areas is activated, which is known as the default network. Studies show that this network is most engaged when people are performing tasks that require little conscious attention, such as routine driving on the highway or reading a tedious text. Although such mental trances are often seen as a sign of lethargy - we are staring haplessly into space - the cortex is actually very active during this default state, as numerous brain regions interact. Instead of responding to the outside world, the brain starts to contemplate its internal landscape. This is when new and creative connections are made between seemingly unrelated ideas.

if that last statement leads you to think that daydreaming might stimulate creativity, you'd be on the right track:

Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections.

...In a forthcoming paper, Schooler's lab has shown that people who engage in more daydreaming score higher on experimental measures of creativity, which require people to make a set of unusual connections.

flickr photo by: carf

"when I became a man, I put away childish things" might describe the passage into adulthood, especially in the western world, but it now seems applicable to children:

Teresa Belton, a research associate at East Anglia University in England, first got interested in daydreaming while reading a collection of stories written by children in elementary school. Although Belton encouraged the students to write about whatever they wanted, she was startled by just how uninspired most of the stories were.
"The tales tended to be very tedious and unimaginative," Belton says, "as if the children were stuck with this very restricted way of thinking. Even when they were encouraged to think creatively, they didn't really know how."

probably because like adults, they aren't practicing enough:

"The capacity to daydream enables a person to fill empty time with an enjoyable activity that can be carried on anywhere," Belton says. "But that's a skill that requires real practice. Too many kids never get the practice."

however it's not just any kind of practice that's required. as a former teacher of mine used to proclaim, "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect". if you practice something poorly you'll only be perfect at doing it wrong. apparently it's likewise with daydreaming. if want to use it as a tool for developing your creativity, you'd better stay focused:

However, not all daydreams seem to inspire creativity. In his experiments, Schooler distinguishes between two types of daydreaming. The first type consists of people who notice they are daydreaming only when asked by the researcher....The second type, in contrast, occurs when subjects catch themselves daydreaming during the experiment, without needing to be questioned. Schooler and colleagues found that individuals who are unaware of their own daydreaming while it's happening don't seem to exhibit increased creativity.

so the next time you're caught gazing off into space, tell 'em you're working.

"When you don't use a muscle, that muscle really isn't doing much of anything," says Dr. Marcus Raichle, a neurologist and radiologist at Washington University who was one of the first scientists to locate the default network in the brain. "But when your brain is supposedly doing nothing and daydreaming, it's really doing a tremendous amount. We call it the 'resting state,' but the brain isn't resting at all."

flickr photo by: digiart2001

h/t: mindhacks.com

wga top 100 scripts

2008-09-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

i recently discovered that the wga has put together a top 101 scripts list.

101 Greatest Screenplays compiles the finest achievements in film writing, as voted upon by professional film and television writers. In the summer of 2005, ballots were sent out asking WGA members to list up to ten of their favorite produced screenplays. Any film, past or present, English-language or otherwise, was eligible. The resulting list is like a travelogue of the greatest films of the century, with all decades from the 1930s on represented among the rankings.

it seems whenever lists like this are generated they show a time lag bias. for instance just looking at the top 30:

there's only one film from this millennium ( 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind' - 2004)
only six of the thirty films fall within the past 20 years
we're a majority of the way through the 2000's and so far only one film qualifies
the age discrepancy is more pronounced the higher the ranking. you have to get down to #16 before you find a film made within the last thirty years.

the decade breakdown is:

30s: 2 (6.6%)
40s: 5 (16.6%)
50s: 5 (16.6%)
60s: 6 (20.0%)
70s: 5 (16.6%)
80s: 1 (3.3%)
90s: 5 (16.6%)
00s: 1 (3.3%)

it's no surprise that the 80s are under-represented. a bit surprising that the 70s, often considered a golden-age of filmmaking, weren't more dominant. perhaps the films were great but the scripts not as much a factor.

i was surprised how high (#14) 'laurence of arabia' ranked. although it's known as an epic film, i always assumed that was due to the expansive visual canvas of the film and peter o'toole's rather over the top performance, not it's screenplay.

the top 30 films are:

1. casablanca (1942)
2. godfather (1972)
3. chinatown (1974)
4. citizen kane (1941)
5. all about eve (1950)
6. annie hall (1977)
7. sunset blvd (1950)
8. network (1976)
9. some like it hot (1959)
10. the godfather: part ii (1974)
11. butch cassidy and the sundance kid (1969)
12. dr. strangelove (1964)
13. the graduate (1967)
14. lawrence of arabia (1962)
15. the apartment (1960)
16. pulp fiction (1994)
17. tootsie (1982)
18. on the waterfront (1954)
19. to kill a mockingbird (1962)
20. it's a wonderful life (1946)
21. north by northwest (1959)
22. the shawshank redemption (1994)
23. gone with the wind (1939)
24. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (2004)
25. the wizard of oz (1939)
26. double indemnity (1944)
27. groundhog day (1993)
28. shakespeare in love (1998)
29. sullivan's travels (1941)
30. unforgiven (1992)

of course given terry's rule*, i wonder whether these wga writers voted based on the script or the movie that resulted from it.

*for those of you not interested in reading the article, the rule is: you can't tell anything about the screenplay of a film until you've actually read the screenplay.

everything i need to know about screenwriting...

2008-08-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

...i learned from a novel.

that's not true, but after reading this passage from 'karoo', a novel about a self-destructive, self-described 'hack' who doctors screenplays, it could be:

"My job for the most part involves cutting the fat and adding jokes. I'm handy at both. I get rid of subsidiary characters, dreams, and flash-backs. I cut the scenes in which our hero or heroine visits his or her mother or his or her favorite high school teacher. I get rid of aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. I have cut entire childhood sequences from the lives of characters and have left them up there on the screen without a mother or father or past of any kind.

I keep my eye on the story line, the plot, and I eliminate everyone and everything that doesn't contribute to it. I simplify the human condition of the characters and complicate the world in which they live."

of course, steve tesich knows of what he writes. he was an oscar-winning screenwriter as well as a novelist.

cry on

2008-08-16T04:07:00.000-07:00

danny stack, a british screenwriter (no relation), recently held a contest that required telling your best story of a movie that made you cry. some of the stories (left in the comments on the post), are quite moving perhaps not surprising since the contest was for a ticket to a screenwriting seminar.

(photo by flickr user: koroshiya)

it's good to know i'm not the only guy who tears up at the drop of a hat. the stereotypical tearjerker moments don't get me - but a person overcoming the odds, a team pulling together, a person finally getting recognized for who they are? that kills me.

there were two winners, but this recollection from one (kevin lahane), sounds just like one of those moments (i haven't seen the film):

"...there is a little moment at the end when Bowfinger (Martin), is at the premiere of his movie. He has battled all the odds and he somehow managed it, and Frank Oz does this little push in on Bowfinger's face and the look of innocent awe just choked me up. It was capped off with the final hoorah for our hero when the Fed-Ex guy, who for years had passed Bowfinger's house bringing important deal memos to important people day in day out, came to deliver a deal to Bowfinger. It's just beautifully heartwarming and would give regular folk a lump in their throat while they're grinning along with the characters...but for me, well it had me buckled."

packed format

2008-08-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

the series of observations on format continues. i recently came across j.d. zeik's script for 'ronin'. it's quite the rule-breaker. very dense description, camera direction and lots of un-shootable stuff. on the other hand, a more friendly read if you're not used to screenplay format. you can read the entire script online, but here's it's opening:


 A BLOOD RED SCREEN - A JAPANESE DRUM starts to play, 
 softly, but tinged with a desperate edge, growing 
 louder, joined by other DRUMS as a BLACK LEGEND 
 scrolls up: In feudal Japan, the warrior class of 
 Samurai were sworn to protect their liege lords 
 with their lives.  Those Samurai whose liege  
 was killed suffered a great shame, and they were 
 forced to wander the land, looking for work as 
 hired swords or bandits.  These masterless 
 warriors were no longer referred to as Samurai, 
 they were known by another name: Such men were 
 called Ronin. The words hang on the screen and 
 we hold for a BEAT, and then the DRUMS are cut 
 off by - A SILENCED GUN SHOT: Thwpfft...

 FADE IN ON:

 INT. A MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL - NIGHT

 It's dark, and so it takes us a minute to 
 realize we're MOVING UP STONE SPIRALING STAIRS, 
 up up up in what we now see is a medieval 
 cathedral.  And as we continue MOVING UP some-
 thing TRICKLES DOWN INTO FRAME - BLOOD.  Running 
 thin, then thicker, as we CONTINUE TO MOVE UP 
 the stairs and find - A BODY, sprawled awkwardly 
 across the stones, arms and legs akimbo, not so 
 much Christ-like as victim-like.  In one hand the 
 Body holds a GUN he never had a chance to use.  
 In the other - A DARK SHAPE, we can't quite tell 
 what it is.  FOOTSTEPS sound from above and - THE 
 KILLER walks into frame, silenced pistol dangling 
 at his side.  We don't know him, and it's going to 
 be a while before we see him again, but mark his 
 face because we'll see him again.  The Killer now 
 picks up the dark shape in the Body's hand, and 
 we see it's - A BRIEFCASE.  The Killer cuffs the 
 Briefcase to his wrist and turns to - TWO MEN 
 standing behind him: subordinates.  The Killer 
 shows them the Briefcase.

                      KILLER
           God loves me.

 THE BODY suddenly twitches -- this guy is not quite 
 dead.  The Killer raises his silenced pistol.

                      KILLER
               (to his victim)
           But I don't think he's too fond of you...

 SLAM CUT TO:

 EXT. A BACK STREET - PARIS - NIGHT

 A PHONE RINGS, replacing the sound of the silenced 
 gun shot we expected to hear.

 Rain-slicked cobblestones gleam in a twinkling of
 streetlight.

 EXT. A PHONE BOOTH AT THE END OF THE STREET

 The source of the ringing.  We start to PUSH SLOWLY 
 IN one the phone booth, and as we do we hear the 
 VOICE of an UGLY AMERICAN.

                      UGLY AMERICAN (V.O.)
           What is this?

 CUT TO:

 INT. A DRIVE BAR IN PARIS - NIGHT

 A SOCCER MATCH is in progress on a TV which sits 
 above the bar in this smokey, dim dive.

                      UGLY AMERICAN (O.S.)
           This is not football...

 And now we're PULLING BACK DOWN THE LENGTH OF THE 
 BAR.  We see THREE MEN sitting seperately at the 
 bar, paying no attention to each other.  One of 
 these men watches the game with real interest.  
 The Ugly American talks on from off screen.

                      UGLY AMERICAN (O.S.)
               (continuing)
           ...Football is three hundred pound guys,
           they run way too fucking fast, they got
           helmets made of kevlar they use to spear
           the quarterback into the next life.

 SLAM CUT TO:

 EXT. THE STREET OUTSIDE

 The phone is still ringing, louder now, and we're 
 MOVING TOWARDS it while looking THROUGH AN UNSEEN 
 PAIR OF EYES, and even as we drink this in we're 
 back in -

 INT. THE BAR

 AT THE END OF THE BAR - LARRY, the Ugly American.  
 He's got an obvious attitude, all of it bad.  But 
 there's something about the guy -- he's not all 
 bluster, and he has the look of a seasoned tough 
 guy who knows how to get rough and tumble. He's 
 big, and yeah he's got a gut, but the rest of 
 him looks solid.  

                      LARRY
               (talking to the air)
           You wanna know what football is?  It's
           hitting the other guy dirty and then
           spitting in his face when he's down.
           Football is all things American, and
           American is A-Number-One the absolute
           fucking best there is.  That's what
           football is...
               (he points to the TV)
           ...And that's not football.

 The one man at the bar who's been watching the gam 
 turns slowly and gives Larry a long look.  This is 
 VINCENT: French, hard boiled and solid.  Charming 
 when he wants to be, which isn't all that often.  
 He gives Larry a long look and then speaks -

                      VINCENT
               (to Larry in perfect English)
           Football -- American football -- is a
           game for faggots.

 A BEAT.  The other two men at the bar, who seem 
 like tough customers themselves, pretend not to 
 watch too closely, but they're interested: what's 
 Larry going to say?  For a moment it seems as if 
 he's pissed, but then suddenly a smile breaks out 
 on his face and he laughs heartily at Vincent's 
 remark.  Vincent joins in, as do the others.  
 In particular - THE BARTENDER looks relieved -- 
 he's tough enough to toss a bar drunk, but these 
 guys are in a different league.  The Bartender 
 laughs with the others, happy to have avoided a 
 confrontation as we go back to -

 EXT. THE STREET OUTSIDE
 We're almost ON TOP OF the phone booth, the 
 phone is still ringing as a HAND reaches INTO 
 FRAME and snatches the phone from its cradle.

finally someone said it

2008-08-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

there's an adage of my own creation that i've always whipped out whenever a conversation i'm part of gets even close to the subject of making a movie.

"it's not making a movie that's hard, it's finding a movie to make."

i've always congratulated myself on the pithy and insightful nature of this statement. i think i sound very wise and intelligent when i say it.

but at least for me, it's true. it's why i've made so few films over the years (well, that and perhaps an abject fear of failure and ridicule). it's really difficult to find an idea or material that inspires me to create a film out of it. like the wise men say, you've got to aim for perfection - and if you're doing that at the story finding stage you'll spend a long time searching for something worthy of making.

so it's always surprised me that i've never found anyone else saying the same thing. until now.

since i'm a big fan of 'this american life,' it's doubly satisfying to me that it's ira glass who's saying it in this brilliant piece about storytelling:

there are also three other parts of this interview:

session #1

session #3

session #4

the blood is still warm

2008-08-09T02:17:00.000-07:00

cue golden earring: "it's two a.m..."

and i just finished the 5th draft of 'borrowed heaven'.

i've been working on it like crazy for the past four weeks. i had given myself the end of last month as a deadline to finish it, but wasn't able to do it. i've been working my lunch hours, every evening after work and all my weekends.

it feels really good to have finished this draft, not just for the sense of accomplishment, but also because i feel like i finally got the script where i want it. this draft feels like a great improvement over the previous one.

it seems fortuitous that i came across this quote from m. night shyamalan today on wordplayer:

"It wasn't until about the fifth draft that I really began to figure it out. It was then that I realized he's dead."

of course, i hope the final part of that quote isn't predictive:

It took me five more drafts to execute it right."

hard times

2008-08-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

flickr photo by: erockappel

since it's in the air...

working in the visual effects industry, especially for a small company, i get the chance to meet industry heavyweights (mostly directors), when they come in to review the shots we're working on. some i get to talk to quite a bit, some not much at all. some aren't too friendly, some are cool.

but this past week we began work on a new film and i've had the chance to exchange a few brief words with the writer/director who, of all the persons to walk through our company doors he's the one who evokes the fondest memories (and that list includes al pacino, arnold schwarzenegger and tom hanks).

you'll know his work. he wrote 'leviathan', 'another 48 hours' and 'the fugitive'. we're working on his new film, 'blood done sign my name,' an adaptation of the same titled book, which tells the true story of the murder of a young black man in north carolina by the white father of the author's childhood friend.

but it's his first screenplay that just after high school had me and my friends up late into the night talking about making movies. along with steven de souza, jeb stuart wrote 'die hard'.

and yes, he's a one of the cool ones.

after a recent review session there was some discussion about how an explosion we're enhancing should be handled. jeb was saying it shouldn't take you out of the film, that it shouldn't suddenly feel like a different type of movie. the editor threw in, "not like 'mr & mrs smith'", to which the post-supervisor corrected, "not like 'die hard'!" and jeb laughed.

i'm glad she said it, because that's exactly what i was thinking.

(you can read more about the 'blood done sign my name' story and stuart's connection to it in these north carolina newsobserver articles):

'Tyson's 'Blood' to be filmed in N.C.'

'Minister of history'

'Movie about racial killing wrapping up filming'

'Blood Done Sign My Name' back in NC'

amen

2008-08-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

i recently stumbled across scott myers blog, which is full of interesting information and advice about screenwriting. he's kind of insane as he's only been posting since may but is averaging 120 posts a month.

in reading just a sample i came across these wonderful quotes:

(on what is the most difficult part of the screenplay to write): "The ending. The beginning is a cinch. The world is full of great openings, not so many great third acts."

-- philip dunne (from the 'backstory' series edited by patrick mcgilligan)

and...

"A story starts at the beginning, it develops, it works itself out, and it works up to its finale. The great essence of construction is to know your end before your beginning; to know exactly what you're working up to; and then to work up to that end. To just start off and wander on the way isn't any good whatever... because you're wallowing."

-- charles bennett (the man who knew too much, voyage to the bottom of the aea, the 39 steps)

feeling the heat

2008-07-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

'in the heat of the night' was quite instructional for me. not only did it teach me that i can enjoy slow films, but it was enlightening about the dynamics of a buddy-cop film. shane black crystallized the buddy-cop film with lethal weapon, but the formula wasn't new, as evidenced by this film.

in watching the film i realized that, although every scene is motivated by the next stage in the plot, and each scene centers around a plot element, the real dynamic of the scenes and the film comes from the contentious relationship between the two "buddies", the southern white town sheriff and the black northern detective who's passing through and forced to help work a murder.

since i'm working on a buddy script at the moment (or at least a detective story involving two detectives thrown together to work on a murder case), i was struck by this realization. i've made no secret of the fact that i'm a much better plot than character writer and i realized this was what my script was missing - that strong polarized dynamic between two very different characters forced to work together.

although i have two characters who are very different from each other and have very different goals, those differences were lost in the drive of the main plot, the logistics of solving a case. understandable since the reason organizations like the military and the police force work is because everyone becomes subject to the system, the methodology of operation, and different personalities can effectively work together because they both invest in the process, whether it's detective work or taking an enemy stronghold.

but working together effectively isn't enough for interesting drama - which was made clear watching this well crafted film. i realized i hadn't exploited the wonderful setup i'd created. like 'heat' i've got two very different characters forced to work together on a murder (though they're not nearly as adversarial as tibbs and gillespie - hard to beat racism in the fifties for tension). i've been complimented on my dialog, on it's realism, it's smartness. but that was icing on the plot cake. i was missing the real character conflict layer of the cake. icing and one layer ain't bad, but no one's gonna be asking for your recipe. or something like that.

so i'm working on draft five, this time with an eye towards the conflict between my two main characters; their different ideas about the case, their different goals and outlooks on life. and of course taking the opportunity to tighten the plot and give it even more drive, since i can never resist that.

i'm finding the process difficult. for me, when you're writing something other than strictly what's driving the plot, it's easy to get lost or end up writing stuff that may be funny or interesting, but ultimately has nothing to do with the overall film. it's backstory or simply people interacting.

it's fertile ground but makes for a long process, since first i write whatever comes to mind, then go back through and edit heavily. this process usually repeats multiple times as i hone down to what's really necessary. in some ways it's like starting all over again. hopefully at the end of it all i have something better, and not just different. so far i believe i do.

google + lionsgate - the media mashups begin

2008-07-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

it's not the first and it won't be the last, but it's arguably a major step into the future of media when google and lionsgate get in bed together.

"Instead of playing defense against the myriad fans who illegally upload hundreds of clips from Lionsgate films such as "Saw" and "Dirty Dancing" on YouTube, Google and Lionsgate hope to turn piracy into profitability [...]

Starting in September, Tinseltown's largest indie studio will be able to monetize those film clips using Google's AdSense service: Sharing, uploading and "mashing up" those clips will be encouraged, because Lionsgate will profit from Google ads sold against them."

the article uses a wonderful analogy to contrast this new lionsgate strategy with viacom (who demanded that google hand over youtube data proving use of their intellectual property):

"In short, Viacom hopes to put the horse back in the barn. [Google CEO] Mr. Schmidt wants to sell ads on the horse as it runs through town."

the digital content horse has escaped the Draconian Rule Makers and is prancing free through the vast intertube fields. you can either make a doomed attempt to round it up or make lemonade and use it as a mobile billboard.

the article also references seth macfarlane's deal with google. macfarlane makes an observation that's almost cliche now, but has yet to be solved (emphasis mine):

"Initially, I was thinking in terms of writing a TV pilot, breaking it up into little segments and releasing it that way on the internet," he said, "But the more I talked to [Google], the more I realized I'm shoehorning the needs of one medium into the needs of another. I need to start from the ground up, looking at this as programming for this medium, not for television, not for anything else but the internet.

This thing is sort of a grand experiment, and I don't know exactly when it's going to become apparent if it's a success or a failure, but it'll be sometime later this year."

so perhaps we'll finally see a real attempt at content created specifically for new media.

as a side note, i didn't know seth macfarlane was supposed to be on american flight 11 that flew into the world trade center on 9/11. due to his agent telling him the wrong gate time and a hangover from the previous nights festivities, he arrived at 7:30a for a 7:45a flight and wasn't able to board. strange to think how this blog post, the google deal and innumerable other changes and events wouldn't have occurred if he'd been on time. (via wikipedia)

(h/t: cinematech)

reconsidering ADDI

2008-07-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

i've recently watched two films that have made me reconsider my addi-compliant idea. that was originally done in jest, but there was an element of truth to it. i'd assumed the reason i didn't much care for slow-paced films was simply their plodding pace. this included most older films which naturally tend to move more slowly (though there are exceptions - i once tried watching 'his girl friday,' and couldn't get through it despite it's famous rapid-fire dialog and quick pacing).

the two films that challenged this idea are 'the assasination of jesse james by the coward robert ford' and 'in the heat of the night'. both films are slow-paced; one purposefully (the assasination of jesse james), and one probably just naturally paced for the time (heat of the night was the best picture winner of 1967).

both films kept my attention despite their slow pace. the assasination of jesse james was especially surprising. it's laboriously slow, yet almost every scene is riveting. casey affleck's wonderful performance as robert ford doesn't hurt, but it's primary strength is that you're constantly engaged. there's conflict and uncertainty in every scene and you're consistently invested in discovering how things play out.

obviously having interesting and strongly defined characters at odds is crucial, and i've always known that simply moving quickly wasn't enough (thus the "I" in ADDI). 'his girl friday' is an excellent example; although the dialog is quick and the staging lively, ultimately it's much ado about nothing. still, it was a revelation to me that the key was so simple: give every player in every scene a clear objective. i was surprised how much you could draw out the emotional beats of a scene and keep it engaging.

i know i'm acutely sensitive to the forward drive of a film's plot and have little regard for films that don't feature it (one reason why most comedies don't interest me). this realization deepens my understanding of what's missing from films that don't hold my interest. another piece of the infinite puzzle falls into place.

the creative process

2008-07-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

i do a form of programming for a living (tcsh script language and just started python). i never thought of myself as a programmer-type, whatever that is, because although im very logical, im not at all linear (i tested as INTP on the myers-briggs indicator years ago). but i enjoy the idea of coding and programming, especially as expressed in cyberpunk like 'neuromancer.'

flickr photo by david asch.

one of the blogs i read is 'dadhacker' and this recent post was interesting to me not because i have any idea what scrum is or does, but because his description of his creative process, in this case coding solutions to software problems, sounds very much like my creative process for screenwriting:

"...I’ve been mucking about with interfaces and playing with some sample code, or staring into space and taking notes and drawing boxes in my notebooks. Drawing cartoons, if things are really fuzzy..."

i especially like this quote in the footnote:

[1] A miracle is when you have a bunch of contingency plans, and A through maybe E didn’t work, then you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that F is going to get to you G which will, by gum, work. But you won’t get to this realization until you pay the dues."

diversity

2008-07-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

flickr photo by: chrisjfry

posts by two wired magazine toppers have reminded me of something i love about living in this day and age: diversity. it's a small sign, but both of them recently posted on the increasing diversity in baby names.

kevin kelly, a co-founder and resident senior maverick of the magazine keeps an excellent blog where he recently posted about global branding and googleunique names. global brand names are names that:

"...work in as many languages and regions of the world as possible. These names are kind of esperanto names. Names without language specific sounds. Names that can be easily pronounced by Japanese, Russian, Spanish, French and English speakers for instance. Names that don't have negative connotations in certain cultures. They are usually short. Punchy. Almost nicknames. They may often seem generic. But they are easy to say and remember. They work just about anywhere on the planet. They are similar to brand names. Names like Leo. Maya. Tasi. Kip."

googleunique names are exactly what you might think, names that:

"...are invented names, or name combinations, which will yield singular results in a Google search. In other words, when you search for the child's name, your child is the only result."

chris anderson posted on his long-tail blog about the trend toward more diversity in and the dilution of the market-share for the top baby names:

"The diversity in U.S. baby names has exploded since the 1950s. Back then, a quarter of all boys and girls got one of the top 10 baby names, according to Laura Wattenberg, author of "The Baby Name Wizard" (Broadway, 2005). In recent times, the top 10 names account for only one tenth of all baby names, Wattenberg writes."

i love this. as i mentioned before, i enjoy the international influence on our entertainment and look forward to the potential synergy of the globalization of communication and media distribution. i've always wanted to live in the future, and the longer i live the closer that future gets as the rate of interconnection and change speeds up.

the trick now? to have my stories and story-telling reflect these changes. i tend to keep my character descriptions sparse to allow the greatest flexibility in casting, but more than that is required. my stories still feel pinned to my middle-class whiteboy from the city background. although i live in los angeles and get nervous when im in a completely white neighborhood, i still think my worldview is too narrow and ethnocentric and i work hard to evolve beyond it. but i find that difficult to do as a writer.

the first thing one wants to do when faced with the prospect of creating a story is to fall back on what you know, what's familiar. it's the reason we have so much copycat behavior and use of cliches in stories. writing something original is difficult and takes a certain bravery, a willingness to fail, not be understood or simply not be very good.

so it's not surprising that even once you've managed to take the plunge into that dangerous territory, that you limit your exploration to the world you already know well - your background, characters you understand. it can be difficult enough to write well about what we know, let alone try to incorporate changes happening currently in the world around us.

but it's important that we do. if nothing else, the marketplace is demanding more universality. if your story, like the global branded name, can appeal to a wider audience, it has more chance of selling. that doesn't mean disney-fying your story, but it does mean attempting to place your stories and characters in the more diverse contexts that many of us are already experiencing.

[update] on a related note: nikki finke at dhd recently posted about an abc memo from evp howard davine. the memo begins as follows:

"As I'm sure you're all aware, foreign formats have increased in popularity as the basis for US television development and production."

deleted scenes

2008-06-27T00:30:00.001-07:00

i'm currently doing yet another draft of my 'borrowed heaven' screenplay and after an hour of writing tonight, while procrastinating instead of diving into a major roadblock, i noticed that my deleted scenes folder was up to 40 scenes. i added one to the pile tonight (and already anticipate adding at least one more).

flickr photo by: mattwright

curious, i decided to see how many actual pages of deleted scenes i had en total. mind you, these aren't previous versions of re-written scenes. these are partial or entire scenes, some half a page, some 5-6 pages, that were once in the screenplay and have been excised.

so i cut and pasted all the pages into one complete final draft screenplay file (like i said, i was procrastinating). and the grand total (so far)?

73.5 pages.

a bit shocking to find i'd edited out almost an entire screenplays worth of pages.

la fantasy

2008-06-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

stumbled on this video while searching for philip glass' 'opening' piece. i was struck by how un-l.a. it looked, even while obviously being los angeles:

looking for the mouse

2008-05-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

in april clay shirky, an nyu communications professor and the author of 'here comes everybody', a book about the social organization created by new media tools, gave a talk at the web 2.0 expo. he's posted a transcript on the book's blog and it's a fascinating read.

you may be asking yourself why you need to read the stylings of a computer expert, but he has some amazing ideas about entertainment, especially television, that if true will directly affect those of us interested in being part of creating entertainment in the future.

"...a British historian argu(ed) that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation...And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today. Things like public libraries and museums, increasingly broad education for children, elected leaders--a lot of things we like--didn't happen until having all of those people together stopped seeming like a crisis and started seeming like an asset.

It wasn't until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society."

this is an astonishing idea. the most important technology is that which allows to handle what's going on around us. it could even be something that allows us to slip into oblivion on a regular basis.

shirky goes on to note:

"If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century...I'd say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV."

flickr photo by: autowich

shirky argues that watching television has masked a cognitive surplus created by all that free time:

"Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat."

in america alone we watch two hundred billion hours of television every year; 100 million hours every weekend, just watching ads! that's cognitive time that could be spent doing other things. and now people are more often than ever choosing to use that time differently.

but shirky's best idea is encapsulated in this paragraph:

"This is something that people in the media world don't understand. Media in the 20th century was run as a single race--consumption. How much can we produce? How much can you consume? Can we produce more and you'll consume more? And the answer to that question has generally been yes. But media is actually a triathlon, it's three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share."

he's defined the mediasphere as a three-parter, not two, and not simply a push and consume model. the question is, what's the percentage going to be? if the past is any indication, many people will choose to passively consume their entertainment, but then again, the past is useless for predicting the future since the technology and environment we're in, and going to have and be in, are totally unpredictable. so the portion of the entertainment market given over to mass media production may dwindle considerably, and the user-generated/shared content portion may be significant.

the title of this post refers to a section of the essay in which shirky describes how he found a story to illustrate the change he forsees:

"I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."

Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."

that's a stimulating thought. perhaps there will always be (at least within my lifetime), an audience for simply watching a story unfold, but a good portion of the next generations are going to want something more. something that engages them and allows them to interact. perhaps it's that holy grail of convergence between video gaming and watching a film. but whatever it is, it's going to be a huge part of the coming entertainment sphere. why do you think spielberg is designing games?

remakes

2008-04-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

kevin lehane has complied a pretty amazing list of remakes released since 2002. it's rather astounding.

"20 in 2002, 14 in 2003, 14 in 2004, 15 in 2005, 25 in 2006, 13 in 2007..."

female leads

2008-04-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

interesting post about female roles in top grossing features by xkcd.

"There were about 110 movies with a male lead and 5 with a female lead. Of the second-billed females, nearly all are written as love interests of the first-billed man. There were over sixty movies in the sample with two male stars top-billed. The only movies with two top-billed female roles, on the other hand, were 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'Scary Movie 4'."

the post is short and sweet, but the comments include some interesting information, such as:

the Bechdel-Wallace test
which requires that a movie:
1) has two named female characters
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.

and:

a concept called "the final girl"
(via wikipedia): a horror film trope that specifically refers to the last person (usually a woman or girl) alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story.

logorific

2008-04-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

submitting to scott's friend forced me to come up with a log line for 'borrowed heaven', which after much thought and some helpful editing by the girlfriend has resulted in:

thrust into a high-profile case where one victim of a double-homicide is their captain's wife, two detectives uncover corruption in the force and a long-running conspiracy, leading each of them to suspect the other is more involved than they've let on.

what happens next - a history of american screenwriting

2008-04-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

i read this book after reading john august's recommendation of it (at least i thought so, but i can't find the post on his site so i may be mistaken). regardless, whoever it was who originally recommended it, i can't say that i second the recommendation.

in a nutshell here are my criticisms: the majority of the book (up to about pg 333 of 485), is spent pre-1960; the writing is scattered in time and focus (often delving into stories about production or non-screenwriter hollywood yarns); sentence structures are often complex and difficult to easily decipher; and much of the material (especially about the later period i was more interested in), is better covered in other books.

there's a lot of time spent on the early years and the red scare. ironically the wga seems almost a side-note, mentioned almost peripherally (perhaps because that was essentially how it functioned during those years).

i came away from the book without much better understanding of screenwriting from a historical perspective, or even how it's changed. the information is in there, but it's not very well presented and hidden in a confusing sea of random facts about individuals, productions and hollywood in general that sometimes don't seem related at all.

more than once as i slogged through the book i considered not finishing it and the only thing that kept me going was the thought of at least getting to an era where i knew the movies and the names involved. that probably contributes to my disappointment with the book overall and heightened my perception of that time period getting short shrift in the book.

however given all that, there were some interesting tidbits.

1) discussing the relationship between orson wells and herman mankiewicz:

screenwriters mourn their entire careers over their failure to meet that one director, that one empowered, inventive, and most of all sensitive filmmaker who could understand the writer's most profound ambitions and serve as a spur and a goad, a best creative pal, to bring them out. so too, on their part, directors wish for that one writer who could put down on paper for others, make a narrative out of the magnificent, never-seen-before images that flash through their consciousness in their half-sleep, what gordon craig called his "left-handed ideas". this rarely happens. for all the talk of collaboration in filmmaking, the metaphor is most often battle...success, if it comes, derives from a random coupling, an ad hoc agreement on goals and intentions plus extraordinary luck.

this was surprising, as although it's something that's long pre-occupied me, i've never heard any professional writer or director ever voice it so directly.

2) about ben hecht writing the original scarface for howard hughes; hayward, a young agent, had to convince hecht to take the job:

i finally persuaded him by asking him how much he'd take to write this guy a script. ben wanted a thousand bucks a day. "paid to me in cash, at 5 p.m., and brought to me here at the house!"

hughes agrees and hayward begins dropping off the money daily and checking in on hecht:

at the end of the first day hayward picked up ten hundred-dollar bills...and dropped them off at hecht's house. "there he was, typing away. i laid the ten hundreds on his desk; he handed me one for my commmision, and kept right on typing away! i said ' ben - please - slow down'" despite his protests hecht maintained this pace, a newsman with a deadline. hayward suspected hecht thought the project was some vanity pipedream, that he'd grab as much hughes money as he could. the afternoon of the ninth day hayward stopped by to make his delivery and found hecht enjoying a cocktail. the script stood finished.

3) describing how technically proficient silent films had become, norman relates this example of f.w. murnau's production for sunrise:

sunrise is a silent that still amazes today, a monument to how far studios had come in the way movies could look, a culmination of years of perfecting lenses, lighting, bold and ingenious production designs...so precise were his visuals that he built sets for given camera angles; if he covered a bedroom scene with nine shots, he'd have nine bedrooms - or pieces of bedrooms - constructed, each favoring - using false perspective, sloping floors, and leaning furniture - the given shot.

4) preston sturges is the father of the screenwriting royalty deal:

here sturges held an advantage over other screenwriters - he'd been a businessman of sorts...he pointed out to lasky that there was no hollywood precedent for paying a large amount for an original screenplay and suggested he offer him a percentage of the gross instead...in their final agreement sturges got 3.5 percent of the first $500,000 of the gross, 5 percent of the next $500,000, and 7 percent for anything over a million, plus a $17,500 advance, a screenwriting royalty deal, the first in hollywood history. also, for a period, the last.

5) casablanca was only supposed to be a programmer and went through numerous iterations of the script (not to mention a few different writers). they started filming with only half a script and bickered over how to end it (it sounds very reminiscent of the tribulations of 'the bourne ultimatum'):

nobody liked the screenplay. bogart thought his character was weak; paul henreid thought his part too small...bergman, classically trained, was frustrated, with no idea how to play llsa. lacking the benefit of the last sixty pages; she kept grilling people on the set, "does bogey get me - or does paul?" the writers couldn't help her, not knowing themselves...and so the cluster-hump went, new script pages every day, pages changing during the day, the actors unable to memorize their lines, actors hired for two weeks sitting idle for months beacuse nobody was sure they wouldn't be needed again...nobody could agree how the picture would end.

6) how actors in the 60s welded the power. as an example, the duke:

duke was stretched out on a couch...and he said,"okay, mel tell me the story". and with a trembling voice, mel tells him the story. and the duke says, "okay." and he says to mike, "get sinatra in palm springs." he gets frank on the phone and says, "frank, listen, mel's here. he has a terrific story about mickey marcus and you can play a part." and frank says, "whatever you want, duke. i've got a brand-new jet plane. it'll be a chance for me to fly it to israel"...then duke says to mel, "the guy to play marcus is kirk douglas...get him on the phone." mel says, "it's four in the morning in denmark." duke says, wake him up, it doesn't matter"...kirk picks up the phone...and duke says, "listen, mel's here with a thing and you're going to play marcus and i'm going to play a general and frank's going to do such and such"...and then wayne calls marvin mirsch at united artists. "we've got frank sinatra, kirk douglas, john wayne, in an action-adventure story, it's terrific"...they say, "okay, it's a deal". and that's how the picture went together...six months later, we find ourselves in israel.

there's more, but it takes some perseverance to find. you can see even from the excerpts above that his writing style is full of commas and a bit idiosyncratic, which made it rough going. but if you enjoy historical accounts there's plenty here, especially regarding the blacklist and the humble beginnings of hollywood.

4th stage

2008-04-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

the fourth draft of 'borrowed heaven' is now complete. i've sent it out to some fresh readers who've never read any draft to get some feedback (so far so good). i'm going to take this week off and then see how it reads. i know there's polish i want to add, but otherwise i think it's very close to being done. at least in the ready-to-be-sent-around kinda done.

feels good because in many ways this is the first script i've really slug it out with. i've been writing almost continuously on it since september and overall it's the culmination of almost four years of work (off and on - i first conceived of it december 2004).

im also really proud of it, which is unusual. most of my previous work has been exercises. my past two short films were done mostly to see if they would come out the way i expected. proof of concepts of the process. they were written very specifically to be shootable. i wasn't reaching at all. and they came out pretty much as i thought - no better, no worse.

but this idea i really liked and wanted it to be the kind of story i've always wanted to see. i don't know that it's as fantastic as i would like, the fantasy of the story hasn't quite been matched, but i think it's good and does what i wanted it to.

i also feel like my writing ability has vastly improved with writing this. i've learned a lot and proved to myself that i can do it and do it well. so if nothing, it's been worth it for that.

i guess it's like they say - it's about enjoying the ride. if can enjoy the writing process as much as the final result, it's a win/win situation, right? nothing wrong with that.

now i just have to figure out what to do with all my spare time this week. ha!

google image labeler

2008-03-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

im fascinated by technology, especially when it's used smartly. did you know the captchas that we enter on blogs and other websites to prove we're human are doing double-duty as solves for machine text reading problems?

the captcha technology was developed by luis von ahn, the same man behind 'matchin,' the engine that drives google's image labeler.

if you've never played image labeler before, it's very simple. you're partnered up with someone else on the internet and for two minutes you're both shown images. you both enter tags you think are relevant for the image (you can't see what your partner is entering), until you hit on the same one. if that happens, the matched term is displayed, you're awarded points and then a new image appears and the fun continues.

it's an addictive little exercise, but i what i've found most interesting is the wrap-up. after your two minutes is up, however many pictures you managed to get through are displayed on a page, along with the choices your partner entered for them. often more interesting than the choice you both landed on are the other terms your partner thought described the picture. it's a fascinating window into how your annoymous partner was thinking.

for example, one picture was of a young woman smiling with a flower behind her ear. my partners descriptors were:

smile, sexy, hot, flower

mine were:

woman, girl, model, hawaii, flower

it gives you some perspective on how differently others can perceive things - especially images. it struck home for me, because much of what we try to do as writers and filmmakers is imagine how others will perceive our work in order to measure how successful we're being in getting what we want across.

looking at these terms it's no wonder we all have such varied reactions to our entertainment. obviously we have common ground (the image labeling game is based on that assumption), but when faced with a picture of a beautiful smiling woman, it might be surprising to find that the shared observation is the flower in her hair.

15 quotes

2008-03-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

i've been tagged by tavis so here ya go (note: one of these has two possible answers):

1) "~~why is there a watermelon there?" "i'll tell you later.~~" - good dog 'buckeroo bonzai'

2) "~~where are you taking this...thing?~~" - emily 'star wars: ep. IV'

3) "~~let me explain. no, there is too much - let me sum up.~~" - tavis 'the princess bride'

4) "you still owe me ten bucks and i never said anything!" "you want it now??"

5) "why don't you put her in charge??"

6) "i hate you!" "good. that is a perfect place to start."

7) "i don't believe in it anyway." "what?" "england" "just a conspiracy of cartographers then?"

8) "now...where was i?"

9) "~~they have weapons." "so what?" "fuck!~~" - annonymous 'critters'

10) "~~i'm not fat." "well not at present, but i can see you're really pushing maximum density.~~" - tavis 'the breakfast club'

11) "today my jurisdiction ends here."

12) "~~shoot the glass!~~" - emily 'die hard'

13) "~~get some rest pam. you look tired.~~" - emily 'bourne supremacy/ultimatum'

14) "but we didn't steal everything he had!" "we didn't have time."

15) "~~i aim to misbehave.~~" - emily 'serenity'

i tag emily.

update: tavis has already knocked down a couple - which is two more than i got on his, dammit.

update2: and of course emily the action/whedon fanatic got the 'die hard' and 'serenity' lines (my licence plate is M2 MSBHV).

update3: good dog knocks down #1, with help from an enlightened co-worker.

update4: annonymous gets #9, one of the more obscure ones and one of the funniest moments i ever experienced in a theater (don't ask why i was seeing it in a theater in the first place). must say that including the year after the title suspiciously looks like they cheated.

god i love this...

2008-03-06T16:12:00.001-08:00

this is even better than the home depot ones:

update: the video is from an improveverywhere mission.

who is improveverywhere? from their home page "about us" description:

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.

never forget

2008-02-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

we should all be so lucky to have the problem of losing perspective from our helicopter and hamptons home, but joel spotsky's inc magazine article 'how hard could it be?' details conditions that can happen at all levels of endeavor:

"Forgetting how hard it is to be in the trenches every day is an easy trap to fall into. After several years of working days, nights, and weekends to build a company, after scrimping and saving and making a desk out of a door and two filing cabinets, business owners often forget that the employees they hired are not co-founders: They're employees. When you give them a door for a desk or ask them to work on weekends, they're not going to see it in the same way as you..."

"...Similarly, once a company gets off the ground, and a founder has a little bit of money in his pocket, he must keep in mind what it was like to be on a salary. No matter how well you pay your employees, their perspective on money will always be different than yours. You can't throw money around and expect them not to notice."

i believe the same ideas are applicable to film production. at any level.

if we're lucky enough to be above the line talent on a significantly budgeted production, we can't forget what it's like for those toiling away below. but even if we're the creative force behind a super-indie project, we can't expect those we convince to work for nothing or next to it to feel the same. we might be all right with working 20 hour days and pouring ourselves into a production, but we can't fault others for not sharing that passion.

over it

2008-02-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

last night i watched the first two episodes of 'dexter'. i really enjoyed them, which is unusual since often the first episodes of anything aren't that great and im not a fan of most television to begin with. but dexter is such an interesting and complex character that he's fascinating right from the get-go. there was some on-the-nose awkward exposition in some of the early scenes, especially the flashbacks, but it was quick and got across the information across you needed.

another surprise was the fact that i liked it despite the use of two techniques i usually abhor, not because they're inherently bad but because they're so often done poorly: flashback and voice-over. the flashbacks are utilitarian and thankfully short, but the voice-over is excellent. it always provides additional information and often provides fun juxtaposition between what he's saying to someone and what he's actually thinking. at one point i even found myself anticipating it because i so wanted to know what he was thinking in a particular scene.

it's a nice contrast from the inane and useless voice-overs of 'the sarah connor chronicles'.

LACMA's young directors night

2008-02-26T22:52:00.000-08:00

i just found out that 'an exercise in vigilance' has been accepted into lacma's young directors night. i don't know much about this event, but it's now in it's seventh year and sounds fun if nothing else. a night of short films from local directors and a chance to mingle with industry and public alike at a cocktail reception following the q&a.

the acceptance email was very complimentary:

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your short film An Exercise in Vigilance has been selected for LACMA Muse’s Seventh Annual Young Directors Night. Among hundreds of submission, An Exercise in Vigilance shined through as an excellent case of fresh filmmaking and we are proud to showcase it as part of our program.

Young Directors Night takes place Saturday, March 29, 2008 and we are hoping you are available and interested in participating. This year’s format changes from previous renditions as we shift from simply a showcase to a competition. We are in the process of assembling a Host Committee to act as a panel of judges that, along with the audience vote, will determine the winner of the newly minted “Art of Film” award, celebrating best in show.

Please let us know if you will be able to attend the event. It will begin at 5 pm with the screenings, which will be followed by a Q&A among the host committee, directors, and audience. After the program in the theater concludes, a reception and award ceremony will occur in LACMA’s Central Court featuring appetizers, cocktails, and live entertainment.
Congratulations again on making such an exceptional film.

my best of 2007

2008-02-24T02:42:00.001-08:00

since it's oscar day i thought i'd throw down what i thought were the best films of last year. im not big on making lists or calling out one film over another, but there were a few notable films last year that i want to highlight:

1) the bourne ultimatium - first film in a v-e-r-y long time that i've seen twice in the theater. loved it. a non-stop intelligent actioner with brisk pacing, seriously solid acting and a beautiful look. and this time i was completely onboard with the shooting style. i can't tell if greengrass and company simply figured out how to do it right this time or if i've just acclimated (the camera movement in supremacy bugged the hell out of me at times). hands down the BEST one-on-one hand-to-hand fight scene i've ever seen in my life. bar none. second year in a row that paul greengrass has directed my favorite film of the year.

2) gone baby gone - astonishingly good. incredible realistic feel, casey affleck is amazing. surprisingly assured direction from his brother ben. keeps you interested and engaged. wonderfully cast with mostly local talent from boston (especially for the bit parts and extras). a richness of down-and-out characters that i haven't seen on screen for a long time. well paced and uncompromising. ben was better with this than in anything he's done in front of the camera.

3) charlie wilson's war - a fun romp through a serious and true subject. rich characters and snappy aaron sorkin dialog. phillip seymour hoffman is fantastic as the gruff seasoned CIA operative with a temper. laughed a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the film. smart, flawed and funny characters you enjoy spending time with pulling off an amazing true feat with a sobering message.

i haven't seen many of the nominated films. i haven't seen 'no country for old men' or 'there will be blood'. neither immediately appeals to me, but i'll catch them eventually. and although i enjoyed it, im very surprised by the accolades being showered on 'michael clayton.' i also enjoyed 'juno,' but was disappointed that as it got closer to it's finish it got less brave and different and more cute and sweet. it ended a lot like a john hughes movie, and that's not a good thing for me.

congrats!

2008-02-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

just wanted to say congrats to my friend michael lander. his film 'peacock' was announced on the front page of variety today. couldn't happen to a better guy.

3rd stage

2008-02-13T21:14:00.001-08:00

last night i finished the 3rd draft of 'borrowed heaven.' it's amazing how far this script has come since the first draft. i'm sending it out again to some friends, but it's definitely getting very close to being where i want it.

it's funny though. no matter how many times you think you've perfected a section, a quick read before you send it out and suddenly you're editing again. i've heard it said* that it's time to stop re-writing when you're only making it different, not better. i don't think i'm at that stage yet, but it's good to draw a line in the sand, get some fresh eyes to view the work and then start the next draft.

*update - found the quote (in a creative screenwriting e-newsletter):

"for me it's when i realize that my drafts are not making it better, but only different." - william broyles jr. (castaway, apollo 13, jarhead) on when a script is done.

the future doesn't matter?

2008-02-11T20:15:00.000-08:00

in a recent post i complained about the lackluster state of current sci-fi. now kevin kelly, the editor of wired, gives his explanation for why sci-fi is dead in an essay titled 'the future doesn't matter':

"But then something weird happened in the first few years of this decade. The pace of change became so fast that it outpaced contemplation. The future became harder to predict, and exhausting to keep track of. With a long, colorful history of failed predictions, it occurred to almost everyone at once that very little of what we imagined our own futures to be would really happen. So why bother?

A few science fiction authors seemed to given up on the future. Neal Stephenson now writes historical fiction, and William Gibson set his latest book (Spook Country) in the present. He says the current times are much weirder than he could ever make up."

flickr photo by user: wonderlane. remixed by deepstructure.

kelly makes some good points, but i disagree with one: sci-fi isn't just about predicting the future - it's about imagining it. it's about what we want the future to be, not just what we think it will be. and much of the best sci-fi has nothing to do with the near future. take star wars for instance, arguably the most popular example of sci-fi ever and each episode famously opens, "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

openings

2008-02-05T08:23:00.000-08:00

aaron has a new post up about rewriting the opening of his script and since i had a similar situation but with a different outcome, i thought i'd post my experience also.

i recently sent the second draft of my script out to two people to evaluate. both are writers who had never heard of or read the idea before, so i figured i'd get unbiased detailed feedback. one of the persons was scott the reader, the other a friend.

both had detailed, intelligent feeedback, both recommended i change the way the script opens and both gave the same basic suggestion for how to do so. they gave good reasons for their suggestions and pointed out weaknesses in the script that would be fixed by the change.

but i didn't make the change. although it was the right observation, it was the wrong solution. i respect both of their opinions and they were correct in pointing out what was missing, but i believe doing what they suggested was not only too-easy a solution, it would drastically change the tone and style of the story.

i discussed this in depth with mikey, the other reader and his response to my explanation for not making the change was encouraging. he also made an excellent point - that now i have a guide for what i need to accomplish without making that change:

"I think it's really cool that in the face two people both spotting the possibility that there is this kind of magic bullet/8 birds with one stone mechanical solution to some script problems, that you deep down know that changing the opening in that way would change the heart and the vision of the story in a detrimental way. I love that and I think your intuition is right. I think the reason why that tickles me is because I personally have similar preferences for things like limiting point of view to the protagonist...and sometimes I've found it hard to justify why I've made the decision to limit the audience to an inferior position and not show what the villian is up to for instance. All I ever come up with is "because I like stories that do that."

But I think you've justified it perfectly. That change...[would] throw in a scene that violates the rules and style of the rest of the story...suddenly takes it out of the realm of detective procedural. It shifts the focus and even the begging questions...So yeah it would make the script something that it's not. But I hope that knowing that there is a one step solution that would hypothetically fix mechanical issues and energy issues and sympathy issues, you now have a guide or map of the kinds of work you'll need to do on those scenes to bring them up to similar energy and sympathy without just a magic bullet, but with the real elbow grease of writing."

it's always possible that im being guilty of not "killing my babies," but sometimes you have to stick to your guns and believe in your choices. as i wrote back to mikey:

"never be afraid to do something with your script that you just want to do. obviously it helps to be able to justify everything we do, but a lot of what i think makes a script good is how different and idiosyncratic it is - and that part of writing a script can only come by being true to what it is we're interested in."

photo by flickr user: dunechaser

violating format

2008-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

as part of my continuing series of observations of script format, i present the opening page of another oscar nominated screenplay, 'michael clayton':

(click to biggify)

the rules

2008-02-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

currently lighting up the innertubes, courtesy of cory doctorow and boing boing, are the 10 rules of immaculate heart college art department from sister corrita kent.

number eight struck a chord with me:

8. don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. they’re different processes.

this is definitely a lesson i've needed to learn (and re-learn). far too often i fall into the common trap of endlessly rewriting what i've already written instead of pushing ahead. because it's easier to refine what you already have.

and why is this?

i think it's because you're making it better. the editing process is about taking something and improving it - rewriting what isn't clear, purging what's unnecessary. and thats more comfortable than creating raw material that might, in the cold light of a new day, be a mess.

it's hard to type out words if you're constantly worried that someone will read them and think they're terrible. but if somehow you're able to believe that either a) no one will ever laugh or negatively criticize your writing, or b) that before anyone who might criticize your writing sees it, someone you trust will review it to make sure you're only putting your best foot forward, then it becomes a lot easier to create that raw material.

since i'll never write words that flow effortlessly and drop golden goodness into the mind of the reader, i have option b, myself: that big brother editor version of me who i know will sit down and read what i've written, strip out the excess, point out the potholes and gently remind me that i can do better. i have permission to not be perfect the first time out.

i was observing yesterday to a friend that if nothing else, the gift the process of writing this current script has given me is just that. the process. it's no longer a grand production to make myself sit down and write everyday for an hour or so. i have even found myself looking forward to it, knowing i'll be able to make some progress. although it doesn't make writing any easier, it makes the process of begining to write easier. i look at it more as opportunity than burden now. and a large part of that has been the slow and gradual process of releasing myself from the fear of writing badly.

don't create and analyze at the same time. amen.

chaos = quality?

2008-01-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

i've often wondered about stress and conflict in the creative process. you've probably heard the adages about working better under pressure or with a deadline. however, given that 'borne ultimatium' is my favorite film of 2007 (making paul greengrass the director of my favorite film of the year two years running), i was surprised to find out how chaotic the filmmaking process for 'ultimatium' was. during an entertainment weekly interview, matt damon describes the chaos of the bourne shoots, most especially the last one. some highlights:

Making the latest chapter, The Bourne Ultimatum, wasn't any easier. For starters, the script was being written on the fly (when there even was a script) while the crew was hopscotching across three continents. ''There was an aimlessness to the process,'' says Damon. ''It was miserable."

So you didn't have a finished script when you were shooting this. That's generally not the way to make a film...
No, not a good one [laughs]. You have to suspend that Yankee sensibility that this is costing money. When I'm on a movie set, in the back of my head is this ticker rattling off thousands of dollars every second. You have to just turn that off. There were days when we would find ourselves in the middle of a scene and realize ''This isn't in the movie!'' The great thing is, when Bourne scenes don't work, they really don't work. I did so many awful scenes that never made it into the film.

And the suits at Universal are just sitting back in L.A. thinking it's all going smoothly?
No, they know. But they're just like, ''You guys gotta figure this out.'' This movie was 140 shooting days, which is the longest movie I've ever been on. There wasn't a single day where we didn't have new pages!

Was it that vague when you signed on to do it?
I did the whole movie that way. In any given scene I didn't know where I'd just come from or where I was going. Which, as an actor, you kind of need!

this is astounding. not only that you'd enter production this way (although no doubt the studio's release slate forced it), but most surprisingly that it would result in such a good movie.

blending out

2008-01-25T01:03:00.000-08:00

over at cinematech, scott brings up a point i'd recently pondered but hadn't yet seen reflected in the media: that with this explosion in visual media spurred by the democratization of media-making tools, it's actually harder than ever to stand out. the choice of what to watch is becoming wider and more varied by the minute, yet the message we're still getting is akin to coppola's prediction about the fat girl in ohio making a masterpiece with her father's camcorder.

the impetus for this train of thought was started by a video of quentin tarantino discussing his early days. his point about leaving the comfort zone behind and challenging himself really rung true with me. but thinking about reservoir dogs and the milieu of it's debut lead me to realize that the current environment is far more cluttered and competitive. just making a film isn't enough anymore (though it never really was). but once upon a time, if you made a film there was a good chance it would be seen, since completing a film was an accomplishment. now? not so much. when home-made films cut on imovie are getting released, you know it's a different game.

scott suggests that we'll see new solutions for standing out in a crowd, being a cardinal instead of a pigeon. but i think individuals conjuring up creative ways to be noticed has limited effect. usually it results in novelty or gimmick - neither of which can sustain a media movement. what's needed is a systematic solution. sites, paradigms and mechanisms that facilitate the pairing of audiences and content. theatres were that for film, and as a society we've built massive stadiums, systematic solutions for bringing large amounts of people and sports entertainment together.

it's this type of across-the-board, systematized solution that we'll need to make this next entertainment leap. systems that will manage the flow of media; to help sort, rank and prioritize it. the middle management of media, a conduit between the audience and the millions of options arrayed before them. youtube was one small step for videos and one giant leap for new media, but like walking on the moon, so far it hasn't paid off.

as i complained about in a previous post, it's not necessarily complicated, at least at first. but eventually it probably won't look like what we've already seen. it will take building something from the ground up with this in mind. youtube was designed from the start to share home videos - and it shows. it wasn't created to be a global repository for entertainment media, it wasn't designed to discover the next great filmmaker or musician. it's simply an over-grown home video swapping site.

perhaps the solution will emerge from the social network sites as they become more intertwined with each other and the rest of the web services. regardless, until it does we'll have lots of exploding coke bottles and not so many blair witches.

an exercise in vigilance online!

2008-01-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

i'm proud to finally announce that 'an exercise for vigilance' has been put online for the world to see. the film is hosted on revver, but on the eivmovie site there are also download links for standard and hi-def quicktime versions of the film.

feel free to embed the video anywhere you like using the following code:

<script src="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.js?mediaId:630797;width:480;height:392" type="text/javascript"></script>

i had flirted with going through shorts international for possible itunes distribution, but although we've talked and they said they were viewing my film, they either aren't interested or are moving far too slow. either way, it's more important for me to have the film available for the online audience to see. it was designed as a reel piece; as an example of my directing and writing abilities and it's value is directly tied to it's visibility and availability.

so please check out the film (it's only 7 minutes long) and if you think it worthy, pass along the link to your friends. i hope you enjoy it, but regardless you can leave anonymous feedback here if you're interested.

more billion dollar gems

2008-01-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

as i mentioned before, i'm reading jeffrey stepakoff's 'billion dollar kiss'. it's a wonderful book and stepakoff winds a good yarn, but occasionally he paints a depressing picture for us aspiring writers, such as in this bit on the results of the fin-syn repeal:

"we all like different kinds of tv. there are millions of different strongly held beliefs about what is the best television, and they are all valid. deregulating the mechanisms that produce and distribute entertainment and expecting the best tv shows to then rise to the top is like putting a few hundred random paintings up for auction and assuming that the ones that fetch the most money are the best. the deregulation of the media has created a market where those with the most money get the best tv shows made for them. and those with the most money control access to the production and distribution mechanisms, thereby creating barriers to entry that are virtually impenetrable. if you are a wealthy white kid, yeah, tv is good."

and this about the social networks that tv shows thrive on:

"and likewise, remember how those recommendations come into play when staffing a show? what this really means is that showrunners are staffing their shows almost entirely with their friends and friends of friends. friends tend to run in the same circles and, as we all know, these circles tend to be defined by age, sex, and race. however, in los angeles, these circles are tighter and smaller than in perhaps any other city in this country. once again, this is a function of money more than anything else."

some of his descriptions of his life make me insanely jealous. of course he describes the riches he made and the luxuries and amenities he was able to afford from a young age. that alone would be sufficient reason to covet his success, but what im really jealous of are the experiences he was so rich in, as in early in his career:

"i had frequent pool parties where mrs. gooch's filet mignon and fresh corn from gelson's were barbecued and served to a decidedly under-thirty crowd. the writing staffs of numerous prime-time shows were always well represented. someone would tell a joke, next week it would be on a sitcom. someone would tell a story, next month a drama episode about it would be aired. the rest of the guests were young writers who were trying to break in, researchers and assistants, several of whom would end up creating and running their own shows and being future multimillionaires. whenever someone had a show on the air, we would all gather around the tv, watch together, and celebrate."

"and mostly, there was the work. developing, writing, and producing a new television episode every single week, forty-five weeks a year. i lived every minute with a sense that i had made it to the absolute center of the world, that there were truly no limits, that anything was possible."

and then later, after moving to a new home with his fiancé, with a lower guest house that he made his office:

"...my life now became one of long, reflective hours spent writing alone in my basement office during the day, and long and memorable dinner parties with friends, writers and actors, and showrunners and movie stars, which went well into the night."

this is the thing i want most of all, whether it truly exists or not. the community of artists, of like minded driven people who want to create, who want to discuss it endlessly and who want to share that experience with others. i had it for a year in high-school as part of our theater group and briefly here and there ever since. but i ache for that.

for me the most enticing thing about this business, next to actually making creative content that others will enjoy, is that experience of shared community. i want that more than anything. it's the part of stars and directors and producers lives that i most envy. not the money or the fame, but the friends, co-workers and collaborators. and to be honest, i believe that's harder to acquire than the money and fame.

previously on deepstructure: billion dollar gem

show off your shorts update

2008-01-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

in my last post i discussed what seemed to be rather insane programming style for the show off your short film festival. turns out i was mistaken in my interpretation of the schedule sent out to the filmmakers (but not yet posted on their website). as you can see from that previous post, there's no mention of any breaks or even running times of the films. however according to jemiscoe chambers, the festival director, they are not programming three hours of films per block:

"...in every program block there aren't three hours worth of films to watch..., there are 2 hours. In every block we save room for the MC to introduce each film, for the Q&A afterwards, extra time for any technical difficulities, and time for the audience to leave and others to come in..."

this of course makes a lot more sense and describes a much more tolerable viewing experience than what i assumed it was: lights go down - films run - lights come up. three hours would be a long time to sit in the dark watching short films. thankfully this isn't the case.

so i can now recommend that you attend the show off your short film festival, especially on saturday february 16th, from 6-9p. this is an excellent time slot, featuring many of the award-nominated films. 'an exercise in vigilance' is nominated for best drama and is the fourth film in the block. also showing is one of the other two films nominated for best drama, rabia. so come see what we're up against and check out the other nominated films on saturday evening.

the films play in the charlie chaplin theater at raleigh studios, across from paramount studios.

show off your short madness

2008-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

the show off your short film festival is coming up and 'an exercise in vigilance' is playing there saturday night, february 16th, in the 6-9p slot.

their schedule is a bit disconcerting. they seem to be programming three-hour blocks of short films. i can't in good faith ask people to sit through three hours of short film programming that i know nothing about, simply to see my 7-minute short. i've written to the festival organizers to see if they'll reconsider their schedule. we'll see what they say.

on the plus side, tickets are available for purchase now, well ahead of the event and a one day pass is only $10. the entire weekend pass (including the gala awards) is only $15. so for about the same as a regular movie fare, you can see an insane amount of short films.

here's the schedule we were sent (though they haven't published it yet):

friday, february 15th of 2008

12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
the recording
ants
aberration
the creature from outer space
4th & 99
expendable
the baseball player’s wife
attendance
pushing the envelope
limbo
spin

3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
the old son (43m)
over you
(eight one eight)
lavinia’s heist
patients
gardenia
small killing
the vault

6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
ku klux kornea
partially ture tales of high adventure
the man who paints with his nose
dreamtime
beanbag
masculine timing
sound machine
safe zone

9:00 p.m. – 12:30 a.m.
kiari
the paradigm shift
love conquers al
tracks of color
p3rsona
men of steel
…less than kind
one word
epicac

saturday, february 16th of 2008

11:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
smoking frustrations
absolute zero
wednesday
zoe’s day
zombie love
renee turns 40
lesson in humility
anonymous
these boots are made for walken

3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
kings down
the naked hitchhiker
my mother
under
bombay skies
improbable fix
freedom dance
the night before christmas
asparagus

6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
nonplussed
family xmas
blind spot
an exercise in vigilance <-- 0_o hello!
eli
cyn
confessions of a slacker
pilgrimage
rabia

9:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.
the perfect dress
droomtijd
jim in the box
when erma made herman
misty & sara
hollywood jerome
orion slave girls must die!!!
leave you in me
gideon falls

sunday, february 17th of 2008

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
drifter
portait of a whig
texas chainsaw musical
what i see when i close my eyes
patterns
foet
shake
raccoon & crawfish
a life beyond

1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
something
alien for christmas
the only girl
arena
the beanie baby soldier
the sisterhood of night
ascend to zion
bubble-rama
locked out
nice meal

4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
joseph henry
vanished acres
the audition
just dinner: an unromantic comedy
i still love lucy
simulacra
lucky escape
spring eternal
soul intentions
fallen apple
the postcard

shooting for the stars

2008-01-12T02:16:00.000-08:00

with his latest column in which he decries the modern state of science fiction, mark harris helped me define why i've been soured on sci-fi for the past few years. this has bothered me as im a huge sci-fi fan, especially of the written kind.

flickr photo by user: philliecasablanca

in my youth i was a rabid devourer of andre norton, arthur c. clarke, larry niven, isaac asimov and numerous other less well-known sci-fi authors. star wars was literally the first movie i ever saw in a theater. i pestered my parents for months before it was released (we lived in england and it wasn't released there until december of 1977, seven months after it's united states may premiere). we watched countless news reports of this phenomenon featuring fans lined up around blocks to see a film.

as i grew older (and especially after seeing star wars), i became enthralled with any visual sci-fi depiction i could get my hands on. i would beg my parents to let me watch blake's 7 and doctor who. but later, after becoming jaded from so many bad sci-fi films and tv series (space: above and beyond anyone?), i started to drift away from the genre. sometime during college i became a voracious consumer of information and started reading more non-fiction. since then my fiction/non-fiction reading ratio has been severely unbalanced.

so i'd assumed my lack of interest in sci-fi was due in part to a change in me. and that probably has something to do with it. but reading harris' column made me realize that a large part of it was due to the lack of original and interesting sci-fi material available.

flickr photo by user: alex light

you know how sometimes you get information that sheds a new light on how you've been thinking and even makes you remember certain facts you'd conveniently forgotten? that all happened in a flash after reading this article. it's as if i received permission to disagree with the status quo and suddenly remembered all the mutinous thoughts i'd had.

i'd forgotten how when discovering later parts of julian may's 'pliocene exile' series, or peter f. hamilton's 'night's dawn' trilogy, i dove into them as a starving man stumbling upon a royal banquet. despite my willingness to blame myself, when i discovered quality sci-fi i hungrily imbibed it.

so amen to mark harris. yes, i've enjoyed (some of) battlestar redux, and i'll check out the new sarah connor chronicles, but the endless parade of knock-offs, remakes, sequels and most especially, the endless parade of craptacular sci-fi channel movies, has had me less than enthused about produced sci-fi for some time. you know the genre is in trouble when the eponymous sci-fi channel has an entire night (tuesday) dedicated to the spectacle of extreme wrestling.

but in some ways it's exciting. if the state of sci-fi is so bad that op-eds are being written in entertainment magazines and sci-fi blog sites are writing posts about why star trek should stay dead, then there's opportunity for something new, creative and different to make an impact.

of course, james cameron may beat us to it and re-invigorate the genre all by himself with avatar. but like michael jackson's 'thriller' album and the original star wars film, one excellent example could kick-start the entire industry. which would mean more opportunity for the rest of us.

billion dollar gem

2008-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

after reading denis mcgrath's review of jeffrey stepakoff's 'billion dollar kiss', i decided to check out the book (literally, from the library). i've barely started, but already it's richly rewarding. on page 31 is this gem:

"what television studio executives began to realize in the late eighties -- a realization that set them apart from their motion-picture counterparts -- is that the most influential decision a studio can make on a tv show is simply deciding which writer to place in charge. it is probably this distinction more than any other that is responsible for the rise of television as a quality artistic medium and the simultaneous descent of the motion picture into, first and foremost, a corporate product."

fascinating.

great minds think alike

2008-01-07T03:14:00.000-08:00

im a big fan of underworld, so it was a very nice surprise for me today when a little mystery about their soundtrack for danny boyle's sunshine was solved.

i'm not a fan of the film, but walking out afterwards with my friend i commented on how much i liked the soundtrack and how familiar one of the main themes sounded. i assumed the theme was from an earlier piece of music from underworld and never got around to figuring it out. one reason for this is that the soundtrack for the film has yet to be released, even though the dvd, according to quiet earth, is coming out on tuesday, january 8th. however a single track from the soundtrack, 'to heal' was released on their latest cd, 'oblivion with bells'. i fell in love with this track all over again, but at a paltry 2:36 it's only a tantalizing taste.

today for some reason i decided to listen this piece again and was reminded that i'd thought i'd heard it before - and this time i remembered where. take a listen to this excerpt of the 'to heal' track (you can listen to the entire piece on their myspace page):

and now listen to this excerpt:

that last piece is something i wrote. it's the intro to a song called 'dreaming of you', which i recorded in 1999 as part of a 4 song demo. the song itself is a rock/pop piece, sandwiched between this ambient intro and a similar section at the end. imagine my surprise and delight when i realized the reason the underworld sunshine soundtrack piece sounded so familiar was because it was in spirit and sound almost the same as something i'd written and recorded eight years ago! my respect for underworld just went up another notch. ;)

black list 2007

2008-01-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

i'm a little late with this but the 2007 black list, a compliation of the most popular unproduced scripts according to a survey of film executives, has been released. bucket of love has a nice summary by counts.

and via a post on joblo i found some detail about each script:

RECOUNT by Danny Strong
“A behind-the-scenes view of the 2000 presidential election and the scandal that ensued in the weeks following.”
AGENT: CAA - Risa Gertner, Maha Dakhil
MANAGER: The Gotham Group - Lindsay Williams
UNAVAILABLE. HBO Films.

FARRAGUT NORTH by Beau Willimon
“A young, idealistic communications director for a fast-rising politician falls prey to backstabbing and trickery while working on a presidential campaign.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Chris Till
MANAGER: The Shuman Company - Larry Shuman
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

INFILTRATOR by Josh Zetumer
“British intelligence launched a campaign to undermine the Irish Republican Army by planting spies there in high level positions. The program helped the British upend much of the terrorist activity planned by the IRA, but at a high price.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Jason Burns
MANAGER: Management 360 - Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

PASSENGERS by Jon Spaihts
“A passenger on an intergalactic spaceship is the only one prematurely thawed out from cryogenic slumber … 100 years before anyone else.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Trevor Astbury, Rich Freeman
MANAGER: Circle of Confusion - David Alpert, Lawrence Mattis
AVAILABLE. Company Films (Keanu Reeves & Steve Hamil) producing.

CURVEBALL by Steve Knight
“An Iraqi informant code-named ‘Curveball’ gave flawed information about biological weapons that the U.S. government used to justify the war in Iraq.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell, Sally Willcox
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Focus Features.

SELMA by Paul Webb
“The story of Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to convince President Lyndon Johnson to enact the voting rights act and the march from Selma to Montgomery that came as a consequence.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Robert Bookman
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Celador Films (Christian Colson) producing.

THE ROAD by Joe Penhall
“Based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. After a nuclear explosion, a man goes on a nightmarish road trip in order to transport his son to safety, while fending off starving stragglers and marauding packs of cannibals.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Phil Raskind
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. 2929 Productions.

I WANT TO F--- YOUR SISTER by Melissa Stack
“A young man goes to great lengths to protect his younger sister from guys just like him.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Chris Smith
MANAGER: Kaplan/Perrone - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone, Justin Killion
UNAVAILABLE. MTV Films.

THIS SIDE OF THE TRUTH by Matt Robinson
“Set in a world where the concept of lying doesn't exist, a loser changes his lot when he invents lying and uses it to get ahead.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Elia Infascelli-Smith
MANAGER: Underground - Oliver Obst
UNAVAILABLE. Media Rights Capital.

THE WAY BACK by Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
“A teenage boy comes into his own over the course of a summer through an unlikely relationship with the man in charge of the local water park.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Jay Baker, Brian Kend
MANAGER: Principato Young - Brian Dobbins, Paul Young
AVAILABLE.

DUBAI by Adam Cozad
“A young economist is forced to go on the run to prove his innocence after Iranian operatives in Dubai use him as part of a plot to collapse the United States economy.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Jeff Gorin, Aaron Hart
MANAGER: Foursight - Jeremy Bell, Michael Lasker
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

PIERRE PIERRE by Edwin Cannistraci & Frederick Seton
“A self-indulgent, lazy, French nihilist has to transport a stolen Mona Lisa from Paris to London.”
AGENT: ICM - Brian Sher, Eva Lontscharitsch
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Fox & Fox Searchlight.

SOURCE CODE by Ben Ripley
“As part of an experimental government program to investigate a terrorist incident, a soldier finds himself living and reliving a series of events that take place on a commuter train just prior to the train exploding.”
AGENT: Hohman, Maybank, Lieb - Bayard Maybank
MANAGER: Foursight - George Heller, Michael Lasker
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

THE NECESSARY DEATH OF CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN by Matt Drake
“After his mother dies of cancer, a young man named Charlie takes a trip to Budapest. En route, the passenger next to him, an old Hungarian man, dies. Charlie, who promised the man to bring his daughter a gift, falls in love with her, then discovers that she has a violent past.”
AGENT: Original Artists - Jordan Bayer & Matt Leipzig
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.

EDWIN A. SALT by Kurt Wimmer
“Centers on Edwin A. Salt, a CIA officer who is fingered as a Russian sleeper spy. He eludes capture by superiors who are convinced he is out to assassinate the president. While trying to reunite with his family, he struggles to prove someone else is the traitor.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Tom Strickler
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Sony.

THE HUMAN FACTOR by Anthony Peckham
“Nelson Mandela unites the country of South Africa during the early days of his presidency as the country hosts the 1995 Rugby World Cup.“
AGENT: Paradigm - Lucy Stille
MANAGER: Anonymous Content - Michael Sugar, Bard Dorros
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

UNION STATION by Doug Jung
“Based on the graphic novel by Ande Parks. A federal agent tries to solve the 1933 Union Station massacre while contending with the criminal underworld and a young bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover who is using the case to seize power.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Charles Ferraro, Barbara Dreyfuss
MANAGER: New Wave Entertainment - Brad Mendelsohn
UNAVAILABLE. Overture.

KAMIKAZE LOVE by Chad Damiani & JP Levin
“A mild-mannered bartender has an intense sexual connection with a Japanese girl who is escorted into his bar on route to an arranged wedding with an Asian Mafia boss. The young couple flees and must battle a band of mercenaries and the bartender's sadistic ex-girlfriend in order to retrieve a hidden stash so that they can leave the country.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Mike Esola
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Screen Gems.

ADVENTURELAND by Greg Mottola
“When an uptight recent college graduate realizes he cannot afford his European dream vacation, he is forced to take a minimum-wage job at a local amusement park.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Charles Ferraro, Tracey Jacobs
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Miramax & Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.

BFF by Chad & Dara Creasey
“A nerdy guy and a popular girl meet as high school freshmen. Over four years of high school, four proms and one funeral, they become friends and eventually fall in love.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Greg McKnight, JP Evans
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Rogue.

LION MAN OF TUSCANY by Nathan Skulnik
“The true story of Gino Bartali, the Tour de France-winning Italian cyclist who, during World War II, helped save the lives of over 800 Jews by helping to smuggle them out of fascist Italy.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts
MANAGER: Kaplan/Perrone - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone
UNAVAILABLE. Fox 2000.

NEVER LET ME GO by Alex Garland
“Based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro. Students at an isolated boarding school in the English countryside gradually discover that they are clones who will inevitably be harvested for organs no matter how ‘human’ they are.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Robert Bookman
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Fox Searchlight.

THE BOOK OF ELI by Gary Whitta
“A lone hero must fight his way across the wasteland of post-apocalyptic America to protect a sacred book that holds the key to saving the future of humanity”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Charles Ferraro, Keya Keyatian
MANAGER: Circle of Confusion - David Alpert, Lawrence Mattis
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

UNTITLED BILL CARTER PROJECT by Jordan Roberts
“As he delivers food to starving Muslims in wartorn Bosnia, grieving young American Bill Carter documents the siege of Sarajevo on film and enlists Bono to broadcast live interviews with Sarajevans during U2's European concerts.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - David Lubliner, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Participant co-financing.

$40,000 MAN by Jonathan Goldstein & Sean Daily
“A legendary astronaut finds himself horribly injured in a crash and is rebuilt by the government to be a bionic man -- but on a budget of only $40,000.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Bill Weinstein, Elia Infascelli-Smith
MANAGER: The Management Company - Paul Coates [Daily]
UNAVAILABLE. New Line.

BLITZ by Nathan Parker
“The London police track down a vicious killer known as The Blitz as he rampages through the city killing cops as he goes.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Jeremy Barber, Rio Hernandez
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Brad Wyman producing.

THE ART OF MAKING MONEY by Frank Baldwin
“The exploits of Art Williams, who conterfeited as much as $10 million in American currency.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts, Aaron Hart
MANAGER: Leverage - Michael Garnett
UNAVAILABLE. Dreamworks.

SHELTER by Karl Mueller
“A group of nuclear holocaust survivors caught in a bomb shelter begin to turn on each other as they wait for rescue.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Mike Esola, Aaron Hart
MANAGER: Energy Entertainment - Adam Marshall, Brooklyn Weaver
UNAVAILABLE. Mandate.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE by Simon Beaufoy
“An illiterate kid looks to become a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants to be A Millionaire in order to re-establish contact with the girl he loves, who is an ardent fan of the show.”
AGENT: The Rod Hall Agency - Charlotte Mann
MANAGER: Thompson Street Entertainment - Susan Landau
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Independent Pictures.

UNTITLED MICHAEL MANN/JOHN LOGAN PROJECT by John Logan
“A private eye is used by motion picture studios to clean up star scandals.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Forward Pass producing.

MANAGEMENT by Stephen Belber
“A traveling saleswoman, who sells cheap art to small companies and motels, has a fling with an aimless, underachieving motel manager who then pursues her all over the U.S.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Todd Hoffman
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.

WEDNESDAY by Massy Tadjedin
“A man steals a woman's car, taking her on a high-speed chase across Los Angeles.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Maha Dakhil, John Campisi
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Dreamworks.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET by Terence Winter
“The story of Jordan Belfort, a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 20 months in prison for refusing to cooperate in a massive 1990s securities fraud case that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - John Campisi
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

THE DREAM OF THE ROMANS by John Hindman
“A reclusive writer and a chiropractor fall in love, healing themselves and a recovering alcoholic in the process.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Jessica Matthews, Maha Dakhil
MANAGER: Thruline Entertainment - Adam Williamson
AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION. Kevin Messick Producing.

GET BACK by Chris McCoy
“Two die-hard Beatles fans find a time machine and travel back in time to prevent John Lennon from ever meeting Yoko Ono, as they blame her for the Beatles’ demise.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Alex Lerner
MANAGER: Anonymous Content - Shawn Simon
AVAILABLE. Playtone producing.

JENNIFER’S BODY by Diablo Cody
“A cheerleader with the perfect life becomes the girl from hell when she becomes possessed and begins killing boys in a small town.”
AGENT: The Gersh Agency - Sarah Self
MANAGER: Benderspink - Mason Novick
UNAVAILABLE. Fox Atomic.

JONES by Carol Heikkinen
“When a teen girl returns to high school after battling leukemia, she falls in love with a boy and thinks her life is perfect but suddenly her new boyfriend dumps her and she has another cancer scare before things are put right again.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Mike Esola, Rob Carlson
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

VALKYRIE by Chris MacQuarrie
“Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler's once he is dead. Fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation’s government--he must kill Hitler himself.”
AGENT: None
MANAGER: Ken Kamins
UNAVAILABLE. United Artists.

WORLD WAR Z by J Michael Straczynski
“A sober telling of the aftermath of a war fought against a legion of humans who were inflicted with a virus, died and were re-animated into flesh-eating zombies.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Martin Spencer
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

MAN ON THE TRAIN by Dan Taplitz
“Two men, one a criminal and drifter and the other a conservative small-town professor, cross paths and their envy of each other's lives leads to a life-changing and unusual friendship.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - David Kramer, Tobin Babst
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Miramax.

THE WRESTLER by Robert Siegel
“Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, a 1980s-era pro wrestler, has become a burnt-out shell of his former self. After he has a heart attack during a small-time match, a doctor tells him he could die if he fights again. In an effort to build a new life, Robinson takes a job at a deli, moves in with an aging stripper and tries to build a relationship with her son. The prospect of a rematch with his old nemesis, the Ayatollah, proves too tempting to resist, even though it means risking his life.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Greg McKnight, Risa Gertner,
Jay Baker
MANAGER: 3 Arts - David Miner
UNAVAILABLE. Wild Bunch.

ZOMBIELAND by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick
“After a zombie plague ravages America, a pair of ‘odd couple’ survivors team up to find purpose and combat the living dead in the post-apocalyptic Southwest.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Phil D’Amecourt
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Sony.

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Craig Titley
“A mad scientist has created a monster-like looking submarine that sails underneath the oceans. “
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Jeff Gorin
MANAGER: Magnet Entertainment - Jennie Frankel, Christopher Mills,
Bob Sobhani, Zach Tann
UNAVAILABLE. New Line.

BALTIMORE by Chris Terrio & Jesse Lichtenstein
“Only twice in history has a city in the continental United States been attacked by a foreign enemy. The second time was September 11, 2001. The first was August 24, 1814. This is that true story.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Rowena Arguelles [Terrio]
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE

COLD CITY by David James Kelly
“During the Charles Manson frenzy of 1969, an ex-cop must overcome his demons when he’s hired to help protect a young girl and sole witness to Legion Gringo, a murderer who has been brutally slaughtering prostitutes in LA.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Harley Copen,
Todd Hoffman
MANAGER: The Firm - Jennifer Davisson
AVAILABLE. Terra Firma Films producing.

DARKON by John Hodgman
“Every other Sunday, between 150 and 300 people gather in costume and armor to fight unchoreographed mock battles with padded weaponry. For most, it is much more than a game.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Kassie Evashevski, Sharon Sheinwold,
Sue Naegle
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. MTV Films.

BROTHERS IN ARMS aka HILL 427 by Noah Lukeman
“The true story of a long-shot American army rescue mission 60 miles behind German lines during World War II to free General Patton’s son-in-law from a POW camp.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Ken Freimann, Mike Esola
MANAGER: Anonymous Content - Shawn Simon
UNAVAILABLE. The Film Department.

THE ORPHAN by David Leslie Johnson
“THE BAD SEED with an orphan.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Chris Smith
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Dark Castle.

GENIUS by John Logan
“Adapted from A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius. The story of chronicles the tempestuous relationship between editor Maxwell Perkins and his protege, Thomas Wolfe, as they work together editing Wolfe's prodigious output into publishable novels. The relationship frays but produces several literary classics.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Groundswell.

SCORE by Jeremy Slater
“Two guys and a girl go looking for pot and make a wrong turn that leaves them surrounded by violence.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Charles Ferraro
MANAGER: Kaplan/Perrone - Aaron Kaplan, Justin Killion
AVAILABLE.

UNTITLED CHARLES RANDOLPH PHARMACEUTICALS SCRIPT by Charles Randolph
“A humorous expose of the highly competitive and cutthroat world of pharmaceuticals, where salesmen schmooze doctors, nurses and hospitals to get them to use their brand of drugs.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Rowena Arguelles, Risa Gertner
MANAGER: Brillstein Entertainment Partners - Margaret Riley
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

ALL GOOD THINGS by Marcus Hinchey
“When Robert Durst, Manhattan real estate heir marries the middle-class Long Islander Kathleen Sullivan, class differences and his own anger towards his father lead to her disappearance. Years later, a detective picks up the unsolved cold case and tracks the fugitive Durst down.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Rio Hernandez, Charles Ferarro
MANAGER: 3 Arts - Tom Lassally
UNAVAILABLE. Groundswell.

BLACK BOX by Brad Holloway
“Following the crash of an airliner, a special agent doesn’t believe the black box contained no answers and goes on a quest to discover the truth. Meanwhile the United States government keeps an Al Qaeda operative’s family hostage to turn him into an informant.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Charles Ferraro, Yuli Masinovsky
Howie Sanders
MANAGER: Management 360 - Darin Friedman
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

BLINDNESS by Don McKellar
“Based on the novel by Jose Saramago. An epidemic of blindness sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts, Jeff Shumway
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Focus, Miramax.

BUTTERCUP by Alice O’Neil
“In the wake of his wife's death, an aging - but grossly irresponsible - father puts his life back on track with the help of his slightly neurotic daughter.“
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Shari Smiley, Spencer Baumgarten
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Brian Koppelman & David Levien producing.

DEAR JOHN by Jamie Linden
“A soldier home on leave falls for a conservative college girl. Instead of returning home to her permanently, he reenlists after the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Time and distance begin to take a toll on the young lovers.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Trevor Astbury, Valarie Phillips
MANAGER: Magnet Management - Jennie Frankel, Christopher Mills
Bob Sobhani, Zach Tann
UNAVAILABLE. New Line.

DIRTY GIRL by Abe Sylvia
“Danielle, the dirty girl of Norman High, hits the road with Clarke, the class gay, to find the father she has never known.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Elia Infascelli-Smith
MANAGER: Fuse - Rich Demato
AVAILABLE. Killer Films & Darko Entertainment producing.

CLASH OF THE TITANS by Travis Beacham
“Zeus’s son, Perseus, journeys to save Princess Andromeda. During his adventure, he must complete various tasks set out by his father, including capturing Pegasus and slaying Medusa.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts, Sara Bottfeld,
Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGER: Anonymous Content - Bard Dorros
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

DOUBT by John Patrick Shanley
“A nun confronts a priest after suspecting him of abusing a black student.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell, David O’Connor
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Miramax.

ELI WEBB by Thompson Evans
“Edgy drama that explores hypocritical elements in American values.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Rich Freeman
MANAGER: Energy Entertainment - Adam Marshall, Brooklyn Weaver
UNAVAILABLE. Relativity Media.

HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE by Josh Radnor
“While his friends grapple with loneliness and romantic trials, an aspiring novelist learns about caring by taking in a lost child who ran away from foster care and finally realizes he worthy of love as well.”
AGENT: Gersh - Rhonda Price
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE by Peter Straughan
“Based on the book by Toby Young. The disastrous stint of a contributing editor for a magazine.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Michael Peretzian, Brian Siberell
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE.

HANGOVER by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
“Forty hours before the wedding, three friends lose the groom at his bachelor party.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Greg McKnight, Jay Baker, JP Evans
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

JEFF THE IMMORTAL by Chris Bishop
“A slacker discovers that he is the lastest in a long line of immortal warriors who must fight to achieve his destiny.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Bill Weinstein
MANAGER: Kaplan/Perrone - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone, Justin Killion
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

JOY by Jack Paglen
“A young man returns to New York City after a three year stint in the Amazon only to discover that his sister, Joy, is missing and suicidal. So begins his comic quest to save Joy and come to terms with the bizarre childhood that haunts them both.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Ava Jamshidi, Nicole Clemens
MANAGER: Luber Roklin Entertainment - Stephen Crawford
AVAILABLE.

MAGGIE LYNN by Craig Brewer
“A woman's life is turned upside down when she learns her husband has had an affair. She goes on the road with her brother's country music band and taps into her pain to become a burgeoning music star.“
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Charles King
MANAGER: Brad Gross Management - Brad Gross
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

THE ORNATE ANATOMY OF LIVING THINGS by Matt Spicer & Max Winkler
“A New York bookstore clerk discovers a museum devoted to his life.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Keya Keyatian
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Fox Searchlight.

LAST CHANCE HARVEY by Joel Hopkins
“A man down on his luck finds an unlikely companion while attending his daughter's wedding in London.”
AGENT: PFD - Natasha Galloway
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Overture.

RELATIVITY by Peter Craig
“On the eve of a couple's 35th wedding anniversary, the disclosure of a secret sends shockwaves through the household.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Mark Ross
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Waldenmedia.

THE REVENENT by Mark L Smith
“In 1870, a black scout is mauled by a bear and then left for dead by the white trappers he was leading. He survives and seeks revenge.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Harley Copen
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Anonymous Content producing.

TEHRAN by Richard Regen
“An American professor is contracted by the federal government to observe tensions in pre-coup Tehran, 1978.”
AGENT: The Gersh Agency - Abram Nalibotsky
MANAGER: Circle of Confusion - David Alpert
AVAILABLE.

UNTITLED CHEF PROJECT by Steve Knight
“A Michelin-level chef tries to make a comeback from major personal issues. He gathers his old friends together as his ‘dream team’ and ends up falling in love with the newest member of the group.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell, Sally Willcox
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

THE WACKNESS by Jon Levine
“New York, summer 1994, the greatest year in hip-hop. A troubled teenage drug dealer trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist intent on living his life to the fullest. The two form an unlikely friendship, but things get complicated when the kid falls for the doctor's daughter.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Keya Keyatian
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION. Occupant Films producing.

TOKYO SUCKERPUNCH by Ed Solomon
“An American novelist writes a column that casts him as a macho hero living in a surreal, amped-up Tokyo. When his book gets turned into a movie, the author flies to the city for the premiere and hates it enough to clash loudly with the director, who ends up murdered.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - David Lubliner, Rob Carlson,
David Wirtschafter
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Sony.

THE WEDDING PARTY by Francesca Marciano
“A Wedding Party during the war in Afghanistan is told from the perspective of an English officer, A Russian and a American, all of whom are the same man.”
AGENT: Peters, Fraser, & Dunlop - Jago Irwin
MANAGER: None.
AVAILABLE.

WILD WILD EAST by Chase Palmer
“In modern day Ukraine, the political landscape resembles the Wild West. Gangsters run the government, and the government runs the gangs. And only one man, an American known only as The Fixer, knows how to navigate the murky and dangerous waters without getting himself, or his clients, killed.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Craig Kestel
MANAGER: The Gotham Group - Peter McHugh
AVAILABLE.

THE WIZARDS OF PERFIL by Keith Fulton & Lou Pepe
“Based on the short story by Kelly Link.”
AGENT: The Gersh Agency - Frank Wuliger
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE. Mark Gordon Productions producing.

WRECKING BALL by Susan Brightbill
“A strained family goes to visit the grandparents for christmas only to learn while there that their 9 year old daughter might have cancer. “
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - John Campisi, JP Evans
MANAGER: Foursight - Michael Lasker
AVAILABLE.

WITH KIND REGARDS FROM KINDERGARTEN by Adam K Kline
“A little girl’s grandmother tells her a fantastical story of how brilliant inventor K. Intergarten saved his town.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Ken Freimann
MANAGER: Circle of Confusion - David Alpert, Rick Jacobs,
Russell Binder
UNAVAILABLE. Focus.

ZELDA by Hanna Weg
“The true story of Zelda Fitzgerald (and her famous husband Scott), the Jazz Age icons who lived large, soared high and crashed very hard.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Shana Eddy
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. The Film Department.

THE 37TH DIMENSION by Tom Kuntz & Griffin Creech
“A classic detective noir...with some big twists.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Blair Belcher [Kuntz]
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. ThinkFilm.

ARCADIA DISINHERITED by Adam Hutchinson
“Three brothers, displaced to a refugee camp after Hurricane Katrina, fight for each other's survival after one of them accidentally commits a crime.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Trevor Astbury, Valarie Phillips
MANAGER: Benderspink - Charlie Gogolak
AVAILABLE.

36 by Richard Price
“Two detectives try to solve a series of armored car robberies with a promotion going to whoever catches the perpetrators.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Robert Bookman, David O’Connor,
Todd Feldman
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND THE MAKING OF PSYCHO by John McLaughlin
“The true-story behind the difficult production of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Bryan Besser
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Focus & Media Rights Capital.

BACK EAST by Zach Whedon
“A young man living in LA heads back east to help his aging folks, only to find himself stranded in a nearly deserted desert town after his car breaks down. While fixing the car, he meets and falls for a sexy traveler heading west to LA with her boyfriend.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Ken Freimann
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE.

BFF by Jenni Konner & Ali Rushfield
“Two best friends in their late 20s, who have been inseparable best friends since freshman year of college, break up and have to deal with the repercussions of ending their intensely close friendship.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Blair Belcher
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Disney.

BIG EYES by Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski
“Based on the true story of painter Margaret Keane and her husband, Walter, who took credit for his wife's work while she toiled in obscurity.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Tom Strickler
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Bureau of Moving Pictures.

BEAT KIP by Todd Waldman & Rob Kerkovich
“When his girlfriend breaks up with him for a guy named Kip, Michael, a cowardly producer's assistant, and his equally cowardly pals, drive to the girlfriend's college to kick Kip's ass and win her back.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Dan Rabinow
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE.

BROMANCE by Barry Schwartz & Raza Syed
“A smooth-talking college professor tries to prove that it is impossible for two heterosexual men to share an emotional connection by engaging in his very own bromance.”
AGENT: William Morris - Jeff Gorin, Aaron Hart
MANAGER: Fuse - Rich Demato
UNAVAILABLE. Dreamworks.

BURN AFTER READING by The Coen Brothers
“CIA agent Osborne Cox decides to pen his memoirs and is fired from the agency. The disc containing the memoirs inadvertently gets left in a ladies locker room at a gym, where Linda and co-worker Chad, hatch a plan to sell its contents to the highest bidder.“
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Jim Berkus, Rich Klubeck
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Focus.

DEEP THROAT by Peter Landesman
“The true story of W. Mark Felt, the retired FBI man who identified last year as anonymous Watergate source Deep Throat.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Sally Willcox, Rowena Arguelles
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

DEMOLITION by Bryan Sipe
“A man who just lost his wife forms a relationship with a woman under bizarre and hilarious circumstances.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Bill Zotti
MANAGER: New Wave Entertainment - Brian Volk-Weiss, Brad Mendelsohn
AVAILABLE. Frank Coraci & Greg Shapiro producing.

COXBLOCKER by Tim Dowling
“A guy meets the girl of his dreams, but her ex-boyfriend, who's now her best friend, keeps blocking his advances.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Dawn Saltzman
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA by Robbie Pickering
“After the death of his wife, a man grapples with his grief by befriending a young girl and building a raft made entirely of trash.”
AGENT: None.
MANAGER: Ampersand Management - Marti Blumenthal, Joan Scott
AVAILABLE.

THE DUCHESS by Jeffrey Hatcher & Anders Thomas Jensen
“A vibrant beauty and celebrity of her time is trapped in an unhappy triangle with her husband and his live-in mistress. She falls passionately in love with an ambitious young politician, and the affair causes a bitter conflict with her husband and threatens to erupt into a scandal.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Rob Carlson, David Lubliner
MANAGER: Anonymous Content - Doreen Wilcox
UNAVAILABLE. Pathe & BBC Films.

EAGLE EYE by Hilary Seitz
“A slacker and a single mother are framed as terrorists and forced to become members of a cell with plans to carry out a political assassination.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Barbara Dreyfus
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount & Dreamworks.

ENRON by Sheldon Turner
“Based on Kurt Eichenwald’s book Conspiracy of Fools. The story of Enron's collapse. A new employee slowly peels back the layers of corporate corruption to expose the greed and fraudulent accounting that drove the company into bankruptcy in 2001.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - John Campisi, Rich Green
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

DUPLICITY by Tony Gilroy
“Two corporate spies and longtime lovers team up and stage an elaborate con to steal a valuable product.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Risa Gertner, David O’Connor
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

FIASCO HEIGHTS by Kyle Ward
“A notorious hit man teams with a failed private eye to find a missing woman and an invaluable briefcase.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Billy Hawkins, Adam Kanter,
Josh Krauss
MANAGER: Benderspink - Cory Hebenstreit, Jill McElroy, JC Spink
UNAVAILABLE. Universal

FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE by Josh Marston
“Based on Jonathan Lethem’s novel. A white kid living in a black neighborhood of Brooklyn forms an unlikely friendship with the son of a washed-up musician.“
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Jeff Gorin, David Lonner,
Cliff Roberts, Craig Kestel
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Groundswell.

A GOOD MOTHER by Rey Howard
“The lives of two women converge in a dark and unexpected manner.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Rio Hernandez, Andrew Cannava
MANAGER: 3 Arts - Tom Lassally
AVAILABLE. David Higgins producing.

I ROCK IRAQ by Stephen Chin
“Brent Balloch and Jack Roe, two twenty-something entrepreneurs, go to post-war Iraq to make their fortune. They eventually become millionaires and help run the country's first post-invasion elections.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Michael Eisner
MANAGER: Industry Entertainment - Jess Rosenthal, Rosalie Swedlin
AVAILABLE.

GIANT MONSTERS ATTACK JAPAN by JF Lawton
“Prompted by a corporate transfer, a father and son move to Japan and find that all the fantastic elements of the son’s favorite Japanese movies – Godzilla, giant robots, secret ninja cults, etc. – are a real and borderline mundane aspect of everyday Japanese life. Adjusting proves difficult, hijinks ensue.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Sara Bottfeld, Aaron Hart
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

IN by Bess Wohl
“A young woman, just out of college and trying to write her first novel, takes a tutoring job to help a wealthy and handsome student get into Harvard. She finds herself seduced by him and his entire family when they take her in as one of their own.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Jason Shapiro
MANAGER: Untitled Entertainment - Alissa Vradenburg
AVAILABLE.

JIMBO by William Finkelstein
“The downfall of populist Ohio Congressman James Traficant, who was expelled from Congress and jailed in 2002 for taking bribes, filing false tax returns, and racketeering.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. HBO Films.

LET IT FALL by John Ridley
“An examination of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 after an all-white jury acquitted four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Jason Spitz
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

MAMMOTH by Lukas Moodysson
“Tom, as successful New York businessman, leaves his wife and daughter in the care of a Filipino nanny to go on a business trip to Thailand. As he delves into a new cultural experience, Tom soon realizes he wants to change his life, setting off a chain of dramatic events.“
AGENT: None
MANAGER: Paul Schwartzman Office - Paul Schwartzman
UNAVAILABLE. Zentropa Films.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA by The Mulroneys
“The exploits of the Justice League of America, an organization made up of the world's greatest superheroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Green Lantern.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Todd Feldman, Maha Dakhil
MANAGER: Management 360 - Guymon Casady
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

MAN AND WIFE by Lorene Scafaria
“A story about an immigrant's love for the United States.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts
MANAGER: Management 360 - Doug Johnson
UNAVAILABLE. Universal.

MAN UNDER by Ann Cherkis
“Members of a drab, unhappy family in suburban New Jersey find their lives dramatically altered when a photograph of them is showcased at the Museum of Modern Art as the centerpiece of a retrospective exhibit for a photographer who was murdered.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Jeff Gorin, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGER: A Guy Walks Into a Bar - Jon Berg
UNAVAILABLE. Miramax.

NO MAN’S LAND by Jeffrey Nachmanoff
“Fifty years after an alien race takes over earth, a human detective investigates a rape/murder case and ultimately discovers the aliens’ true intentions.”
AGENT: The Gersh Agency - Frank Wuliger
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Dreamworks.

OCEAN BEACH by Frank Cassese & Joel Plotch
“A young man's incestuous love for his sister drives him mad when she begins a relationship with someone else.”
AGENT: None
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE.

MATZOBALLERS by Adam Herschman
“A sports comedy set in the world of Jewish Community Basketball.”
AGENT: Endeavor - Lis Rowinski
MANAGER: Mosaic - John Elliott
AVAILABLE.

OF EVERY WICKEDNESS by Brian McGreevey & Lee Shipman
“Based on a true story: Three years before Jack the Ripper shocked London and the world, a murderer terrorized the dusty streets of Austin, TX, in what would become the first recorded serial killings in American history.”
AGENT: Paradigm - Trevor Astbury, Valarie Phillips
MANAGER: Mad Hatter Entertainment - Michael Conolly
AVAILABLE.

PANDORA by Karl Gajdusek
“The residents of a small Texas town are shocked when 7 local residents are killed in a bank robbery gone wrong. Although the culprits are immediately captured, they are kidnapped from the local jail and held for ransom - the town now has to buy back their killers - and this is when things really start to go awry.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Ken Freimann, Mike Eisner
MANAGER: None
AVAILABLE.

ROSCOE by Steve Zaillian
“Based on the novel by William Kennedy. It's V-J Day, the war is over, and Roscoe Conway, after twenty-six years as the second-in-command of Albany's notorious political machine, decides to quit politics forever. But there's no way out, and only his Machiavellian imagination can help him cope with the erupting disasters. Every step leads back to the past -- to the early loss of his true love, the takeover of city hall, the machine's fight with FDR and Al Smith to elect a governor, and the methodical assassination of gangster Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond.”
AGENT: None
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Paramount.

SEX AND SYLVIA PLATH by Jennifer O’Kieffe
“A Sylvia Plath obsessed teenage girl discovers her sexuality over the course of a difficult summer while dealing with her dying grandfather, selfish mother and sex-crazed best friend.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Bill Zotti, Jessica Mathews
MANAGER: Luber Roklin Entertainment - Steve Crawford
AVAILABLE.

PICTURES OF YOU by Josh Friedlander
“A teen boy whose twin sister outshines him and whose two best friends are sex-addled side-kicks comes into his own when his girl-pal encourages him to pursue a girl whose photographs he found on the beach.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Eva Lontscharitsch
Ava Jamshidi
MANAGER: Becker Entertainment - Michael Becker
AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION. Carsey-Werner (Matt Berenson) producing.

SHOTGUN HARLEY by Jason Jones & Mike Beaver
“A past-his-prime action TV star stumbles into a real life terrorist plot and is forced to finally become the hero he once played on TV.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Jason Burns [Jones]
MANAGER: Brillstein Entertainment Partners - Tim Sarkes
AVAILABLE.

STRANGE SKIES by Pat Healy
“A darkly comic and ultimately redeeming story of a seriously misanthropic man in his thirties who decides to unburden himself of all of his adult responsibilities by falsely claiming that he has terminal cancer.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Julien Thuan, Adam Weinstein,
Kassie Evashevski
MANAGER: Brillstein Entertainment Partners - Naren Desai, Missy Malkin
AVAILABLE. Stillking Productions producing.

THE TOWN by Peter Craig
“After a bank robber falls in love with one of his victims, his relationship with his crew changes, and this leads to their downfall.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell, John Campisi,
Spencer Baumgarten
MANAGER: Management 360 - Guymon Casady, Darin Friedman
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

SPACE INVADER by Mike Lisbe & Nate Reger
“Doug Huggins, the son of a NASA legend, is terrified of flying. When Huggins learns that his girlfriend has been chosen to fly to the International Space Station with Stamp, a handsome astronaut, he must overcome his fears in order to win her back.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Brian Sher
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Fox Atomic.

UNIQUE by Michael Cooney
“Jon Geoffries discovers the Earth has a twin, a parallel world in another dimension. The worlds are closely linked, explaining such phenomena as deja vu and love at first sight, with people having counterparts on both Earths. However, a few are born "unique," with no doppelgangers, and can travel between worlds. Geoffries is one such person and soon finds himself a target of enemies who want to exploit his connection.“
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Andrew Cannava, Keya Keyatian
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Touchstone.

SOMEBODY TO LOVE by Michael Cunningham
“The story of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Sally Willcox
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Tribeca Films producing.

YEARBOOK by Bob Nelson
“When a 30-something guy returns home for the demolition of his high school, he reunites with the girl he's always had a crush on. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as he had hoped.”
AGENT: International Creative Management - Todd Hoffman,
Sophy Holodnik
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Plum Pictures producing.

YES MAN by Nick Stoller
“A man decides to change his life by saying yes to everything that comes his way. On his journey he wins $45,000, meets a hypnotic dog, obtains a nursing degree, travels the globe, and finds romance.”
AGENT: United Talent Agency - Julien Thuan
MANAGER: None.
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

WILL by Demetri Martin
“A young man discovers love after he develops complete free will when the angel who writes his destiny (not unlike an author) forgets to finish writing after page thirty-five.”
AGENT: Creative Artists Agency - Greg McKnight, Dan Aloni
MANAGER: None
UNAVAILABLE. Dreamworks.

WHIP IT by Shauna Cross
“A Midwestern, small-town, teenage girl discovers the high-energy world of roller derby and must decide if she’s willing to go against her parents and friends in order to pursue the sport she loves.”
AGENT: William Morris Agency - Cliff Roberts, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGER: Jaret Entertainment - Seth Jaret
UNAVAILABLE. Warner Brothers.

mission complete

2008-01-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

photo by flickr user: j kyle

although i haven't written about it much, i've been working on a screenplay on and off since december of 2004. after a recent brief affair with a new script, i returned to 'borrowed heaven' and decided i needed to just finish it so i'd have a writing sample i was proud of. to keep myself honest i set the end of the year as my deadline for finishing the second draft.

well yesterday i put a final polish on 'borrowed heaven' and sent it off to scott for some professional analysis. i'm also having a couple of other friends read it for feedback.

it feels very good to have met my goal, even if it came down to the last day. the script is nowhere near finished, but it's in a good state and im happy with the progress i've made on it. here's to finishing it and at least a first draft of another in 2008. hope you're all meeting your writing goals and continue to do so in the new year.

cheers.

show off your short nomination

2007-12-27T16:38:00.000-08:00

'an exercise in vigilance' has been nominated for the 'best drama' reel award from the show off your short film festival.

w00t ftw!

2007-12-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

yesterday, merriam-webster announced the winner of it's 2007 word of the year contest:

photo by flickr user: bubbles321232

yep. w00t.

which is...ridiculous. but in wired's coverage of the news, i discovered a new word: sardoodledom. now this a word worth celebrating. finally a great descriptive word that encapsulates how i feel about much of the slickly-produced but vapid content passed off as entertainment. w00t!

coined by george bernard shaw while disparaging french playwright victorien sardou's work, sardoodledom refers to:

plays having contrived melodramatic plot, concentrating excessively on the technique to the exclusion of characterization.
[via: wordsmith.org]

well made works of drama that have a trivial, insignificant or morally objectionable plots
[via: wiktionary]

although it sounds ficticious it's a real word, even being included in the 2007 scripps spelling bee, much to one participant's amusement.

film radar field trip

2007-12-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

kimberly and i went to see 'juno' last night as part of a film radar field trip. film radar is a movie buff site created to inform los angeleans about the specialty film offerings in town. i'm on the weekly mailing list. from the about page:

My goal is to bring the virtually endless world of specialty film-going in Los Angeles right to your fingertips. This site covers revival, repertory, and special film events and the venues which house them. Whether your taste is classic Hollywood, documentary, avant-garde, foreign films, silent films, or cult classics ... FILMRADAR has it covered!

the creator of film radar, karie bible, regularly organizes field trips to get folks together to watch films. it's a casual affair. she'll pick a movie, place and time and let everyone know. anyone who wants to join in can simply get a ticket and show up. afterwards karie leads the group to a local eatery to chow down and discuss the film. i've missed the opportunity to make a few of the trips so i was happy to see that last night's film was at the landmark in the westside pavillion, which is close enough to santa monica to make an evening trip eastbound across the westside feasible. afterwards we walked down the block to a mexican restaurant for dinner.

karie is a lively, energetic person and passionate about film. we had a long conversation over mexican food and even picked up some free juno swag (t-shirts and funky home pregnancy test pens). if you like independent film and chatting with other film lovers, you can't go wrong participating in a film radar field trip.

if you're interested in getting a comprehensive weekly email with film happenings around town you can subscribe to the film radar mailing list here.

terms of the debate

2007-12-10T00:47:00.000-08:00

photo by flickr user: varun2911

as the wga strike passes the one month mark and the rhetoric between both sides seems bogged down in contract minutiae, this paragraph in the latest essay by software developer joel spolsky struck me as the way we need to re-frame this discussion. joel wasn't writing about the strike - he was giving a speech to the computer science department at yale, his alma mater:

I noticed that the really good program managers at Microsoft were the ones who could write really well. Microsoft flipped its corporate strategy 180 degrees based on a single compelling email that Steve Sinofsky wrote called Cornell is Wired. The people who get to decide the terms of the debate are the ones who can write. The C programming language took over because The C Programming Language was such a great book.

it's amazing to think that microsoft's internet strategy was changed by an email and that a programming language would become the standard because it had the best written book. and it's this kind of acknowledgement of the power of writing that's missing from many of the conversations about this strike. it's also why i believe the writers can prevail in the end; not just because you can't support our massive entertainment needs without a serious amount of writing skill and creativity, but because as writers they have the power to define the fight.

"The people who get to decide the terms of the debate are the ones who can write."

formatted

2007-12-06T23:26:00.000-08:00

i've written before on format and violating it. and i was reminded of that again recently when i downloaded the screenplay for 'the usual suspects' and read the first pages:

1 -BLACK

The lonely sound of a buoy bell in the distance. Water slapping against a smooth, flat surface in rhythm. The creaking of wood. Off in the very far distance, one can make out the sound of sirens.

SUDDENLY, a single match ignites and invades the darkness. It quivers for a moment. A dimly lit hand brings the rest of the pack to the match. A plume of yellow-white flame flares and illuminates the battered face of DEAN KEATON, age forty. His salty-gray hair is wet and matted. His face drips with water or sweat. A large cut runs the length of his face from the corner of his eye to his chin. It bleeds freely. An un-lit cigarette hangs in the corner of his mouth.

In the half-light we can make out that he is on the deck of a large boat. A yacht, perhaps, or a small freighter. He sits with his back against the front bulkhead of the wheel house. His legs are twisted at odd, almost impossible angles. He looks down.

A thin trail of liquid runs past his feet and off into the darkness. Keaton lights the cigarette on the burning pack of matches before throwing them into the liquid. The liquid IGNITES with a poof.

The flame runs up the stream, gaining in speed and intensity. It begins to ripple and rumble as it runs down the deck towards the stern.

2 EXT. BOAT - NIGHT - STERN

A stack of oil drums rests on the stern. They are stacked on a palette with ropes at each corner that attach it to a huge crane on the dock. One of the barrels has been punctured at it's base. Gasoline trickles freely from the hole.

The flame is racing now towards the barrels. Keaton smiles weakly to himself.

The flame is within a few yards of the barrels when another stream of liquid splashes onto the gas. The flame fizzles out pitifully with a hiss.

Two feet straddle the flame. A stream of urine flows onto the deck from between them.

The sound of a fly zipping. Follow the feet as they move over to where Keaton rests at the wheel house.

CRANE UP to the waist of the unknown man. He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of one pocket and a strange antique lighter from the other. It is gold, with a clasp that folds down over the flint. The man flicks up the clasp with his thumb and strikes it with his index finger. It is a fluid motion, somewhat showy.

Keaton looks up at the man. A look of realization crosses his face. It is followed by frustration, anger, and finally resignation.

                  VOICE (O.S.)
        How are you, Keaton?

                  KEATON
        I'd have to say my spine was broken,
        Keyser.

more advice from the land of start-ups

2007-12-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

photo by flickr user: wondrous22

i've actually linked to one of paul graham's essay's before, and i tripped over his site again recently and read his essay entitled, 'how not to die.' once again, the lessons for those attempting start-ups seem directly applicable to writing and filmmaking:

If so many startups get demoralized and fail when merely by hanging on they could get rich, you have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I've been there, and that's why I've never done another startup. The low points in a startup are just unbelievably low. I bet even Google had moments where things seemed hopeless.

Knowing that should help. If you know it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think "ouch, this feels terrible, I give up." It feels that way for everyone. And if you just hang on, things will probably get better. The metaphor people use to describe the way a startup feels is at least a roller coaster and not drowning. You don't just sink and sink; there are ups after the downs.

Another feeling that seems alarming but is in fact normal in a startup is the feeling that what you're doing isn't working. The reason you can expect to feel this is that what you do probably won't work. Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don't assume when this happens that you've failed. That's normal for startups. But don't sit around doing nothing. Iterate.