Things have been insane lately, but in a good way.
A new project on the front burner with the dial turned up to 10 to distract me as I await whatever fate befalls my beloved psychological horror project. And another rather interesting diversion that I'll write about at a later date if and when something pans out.
It's not exactly screenwriting, but screenwriting related, and it could be a great opportunity to simultaneously dabble in two mediums that I've always loved, comics and video games.
On a related note, I think I finally found my threshold. A few weeks ago I waxed idiotic about my writing routine, and I talked about the dreaded 12 hour day.
Well that has nothing on the 31 hour day.
Yeah, you read that right.
But first, the backstory.
A good friend of mine that I've known since college called me up from his temporary production office in Bucharest, Romania for a modest sized indy film of his that's in pre-production. He wrote the screenplay to direct as an attempt to break out of shooting commercials and music videos over in Europe. Somehow he was able to sell the idea to investors using a trailer he shot, and next thing he knows he's got a start date for filming. The only problem?
His script sucked.
And I mean sucked.
He knew this. It was one of the first words out of his mouth when he sent it to me. It was one of the first words out of my mouth when I read it. It was clearly one of those thinly masked autobiographies first time writers are notorious for spewing out. Plus it was a shooting script, so it was much more focused on camera tricks. The story had no set ups, it just launched right into the second act, and the dialogue, while witty, was hard to follow. So, we rolled up our sleeves, and dug in.
Now when you stripped away 95% of the shit, there was actually a beautiful story in there. Almost a modern day Zorba the Greek. It was one of those heartfelt coming of age movies that was just so fucking honest it made me get all misty. And I'm usually allergic to those types of films.
So this was his problem. Essentially, it was a first draft, albeit a good idea inside a crappy first draft--but he'd anticipated having more time to rewrite it in preproduction. Instead his directorial responsibilities took front seat, as well as all the diplomatic wheels that need to be *ahem* "greased" over in Bucharest. Unfortunately, as the dreaded start date grew closer, the script didn't get better with age.
He begged me to help him rewrite it. And when I mean rewrite it, I mean a page one rewrite. New characters, new plot, all building upon the foundation we agreed worked. But we had to thread this entirely new idea through the scenes he'd filmed for the trailer, some of which, in both our opinion, were straight out of a bad Lifetime TV Movie.
Needless to say, it was chaotic. But now imagine doing this with six thousand miles between us because the cost of flying me out there and putting me up would've cost them a day of shooting. Since we're both at about the same career point [and I'm not in the WGA], I was able to convince my reps that it would be a good idea to accept a job that pays peanuts and ties me up for at least two weeks.
Now we're both rabid Mac fans, so through the wonders of iSight and iChat we were able to bridge the distance relatively painlessly. I've owned one of these beautiful gadgets for almost two years, but in that entire time I've used it for probably ten hours total. Like the George Foreman Grill, the iSight was one of those things I needed to have but ended out rarely using.
Ironically, he was given one for Christmas but hadn't broken the plastic on it. It was time to put our geek, and the Romanian broadband, to the test.
An occasional dropped connection aside, we were able to work together in real time while he balanced a dozen different tasks, the occasional buxom assistant bringing him espresso and the constant background chatter of a foreign language [he speaks two, I speak zero]. Unfortunately, we never could get Final Draft to let us CollaboWrite so we ended out having to mash two files together every couple of hours. Still, it was the most impressive use of this technology I've been a part of so far. In some respects, we really are living in a Jetson World.
I quickly learned that since I was working for him, I needed to work at his pace. And his pace was insane. How he operates with absolute clarity on four hours of sleep, I have no idea.
So...in ten days, including the aforementioned 31 hour stretch, we wrote three drafts. One first draft and two heavy rewrites. We averaged about thirty pages a day. I consumed more Redbull, Rock*Star, and espresso than I've ever drank over a month, and at one point I actually needed a Xanax to take the edge off the wretched caffeine high I'd induced.
I absolutely do not recommend this routine to anyone. 
I felt like Dirk Diggler during his descent into drug addiction in Boogie Nights. After the initial massive brain storm, I was so behind on my sleep that even seven hours felt like five minutes. My thought process became a scattered mine field, and I honestly felt the fingers of insanity reaching into my brain. I am now convinced that sleep is the brains way of mentally defragmenting your thoughts and memories for more efficient usage.
*Mental Note: when you giggle at something that's clearly not funny, and your girlfriend repeatedly asks: "Are you sure you're okay?", it's probably best to put on the strapped jacket for a little bit of down time.
When it was all said and done, we finished that twisted stretch with what we both believe to be not just a good script, but a great movie. The experience was the truest feeling of collaboration I've ever had. After the learning curve of how he operates, and how I operate, it was like we mind-melded. In the past, working with others, I've often had to explain things [never a good sign], but 4 out of 5 times, he just got it. After we went our separate ways, I literally slept through the daylight hours this Tuesday, and when I woke up shortly before it became Wednesday, I found myself a bit sad that the job was done.
For now.
Would I do it again?
Not for a million dollars.
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