Hollywood Hack

Cease & Deceased

2005-08-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I'll be offline indefinitely.

The blog may return under my real name in the near future. Or it may rise from its ashes as something else entirely. Or it may slip into the Dead Blog Limbo.

Thanks to all who visited, and continue to visit. I wish you the best in all your endeavors.

-HH-

Have they ever played the game...?

2005-07-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

I often wonder if the suits ever play video games. Let me explain.

I had a general meeting recently at a pretty large production company over on Olympic with its own money. During the standard five to ten minutes of Get-To-Know-You chatter, I mentioned that I'm currently in the early stages of developing a video-game comic-book series [more on that, at a later date, if anything comes of it]. I wish it weren't true, but what follows is more or less what was said, spiced up a bit to make me look good.

"Video Games? Great! I love video games!" the exec. exclaimed, startling me, and produced a pile of lime Xbox cases. "Have you played this?"

"Yep. Awesome action, great storyline too. Really one of the better games to come out last few years. Scared the Hell out me."

The Exec. then proceeded to tell me that they've got a great relationship with the publisher, and are interested in putting something together on it. My enthusiasm spiked tremendously.

"I think it'd make a kick ass movie, I mean, it's all there. Great characters, awesome villain, really mythology and a great cross between something like H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker. It's high concept, but a really original take on it. What were you thinking?"

"Well...we wanted to make it contemporary, you know, bring the characters into the twenty first century, bigger, that kind of thi--We're thinking maybe it could sta--"

"But...don't you think part of its charm is that it takes place in the post World War One years. I mean, don't you think that's what makes it pretty freaky? All the old antiques, massive houses, the atmosphere...?"

The Exec. paused, then winced as if stung.

"Oh yeah, sure...We're thinking that maybe we could make it about the grandson of the character. Like, say he's gotten his grandfathers powers, but this whole time he's thought his grandfather was just crazy. We have a cold opening showing the ending of the game, and then villain comes back into modern day. Sort of like a sequel to the game--"

At some point his voice became about as pleasant as the screams a hippo makes with a chainsaw through its head. I grew irritated. Not just at him, but at the six meetings I've had prior with others like him where we explored to various degrees the adaptation of a game that I enjoyed. Counting back now, four out of the six meetings followed the same trajectory.

Exec tells me they have / are in process of, acquiring rights to a video game that absorbed numerous hours.
I get excited.
Exec tells me they want to do something different and throw out the storyline of the game.
I get unexcited.

Now I'm not one to stifle innovation. If you can make the product better by twisting the subplot, adding new characters, or rearranging the story, then by all means, go for it! It's an adaptation, not a translation. But when the source material works, and not just on me, but on millions of other gamers, why try to reinvent the wheel?

I was fed up. He wasn't the source of the problem, but he was the one closest to the bomb with the matches in hand when the fuse was lit, so he caught the brunt of my wrath. The final straw was when he started spouting off a few movie references that felt nothing like the game what-so-ever.

"The monsters could be real cool, kind of like the wraiths in Lord of the Rings"

Wraiths? Lord of the Rings? This game was a gothic thriller with undertones of reincarnation, demon summoning, and a sleeping God the size of a planet. It owes as much to Tolkein or Peter Jackson as fish do to the internet.

"Have you actually played this game?"

"Oh yeah, they made us a demo tape, so I saw most of it. Really cool stuff."

I lost it.

"Most of it? That must've been a long tape because the game took me at least ten hours to beat. It's got a great storyline, great characters, and its steeped in a kind of Sherlock Holmes mood that works perfectly for post war, post Victorian England. Plus, one of the key points of the game is that one of the characters you play is a female, so the whole notion of a woman being a mans equal, which is taken for granted these days, is a primary source of conflict in this game. Frankly, I think it would ruin the whole tone of the movie, piss off the fans, and just be another piece of unforgettable garbage that has no relationship to the game but the title. Does Alone in the Dark ring a bell?"

Obviously it didn't, but my bitter tone did, because he shook his head, put the games back, and awkwardly shrugged off the idea. "We'll figure it out...

The meeting ended a few minutes later. I didn't particularly care to hear what else he had to pitch me, and frankly, I didn't really give a shit what he thought of the script that got me the meeting to begin with. I left my card, he gave me his, I forgot to get my parking ticket stamped but preferred to pay the $2.00 per 15 minutes than take the elevator back up. I was in an arrogant and pissy mood, partly because of the heat, partly because my agent hyped me up for meeting this guy, but mostly because it's the same thing I hear so often. Spend huge sums of money on acquiring the rights to something, only to make it into something it doesn't even resemble.

Resident Evil? Please...
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Okay, you got the boobs right. But a decent storyline might've helped.
Street Fighter 2? They did their best.
Mortal Kombat? Actually not bad, considering the source.
Wing Commander? Next time skimp on the F/X and invest in a better story.
Super Mario Bros? I hope fucking heads rolled for that.
Alone in the Dark? Stick to producing, Dr. Boll. I know down syndrome film students with a more evolved grasp of cinema than you.

I'm not naive enough to think that your standard executive is going to have enough time to play twenty hours of Half Life 2 or spend the necessary time to Level Up his character just to be able to hang in World of Warcraft. Heck, I don't even have that time half the time [huh?!]. But please...for the love of God...Stop Buying Games Because They're Best Sellers, Only to Destroy one of the things that make them best sellers: The Originality of them!

I hate having bad meetings. You walk away from them with a place you may never be able to go back until you're pulling in seven figures per script and have a Trademark after your name, or until 18 months later when the Exec is fired.

But I'm tired of playing the sycophant writer, nodding my head, saying: Yessuh master sir, issa grand idea indeeeeed! I felt like a dick, and my agent sure thought I was a dick, and I probably was a dick, but if Team America taught me one thing about dicks it's...

...nevermind.

Game Over...

2005-07-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Been a bit slow lately, which always gets me a bit freaked out. I think part of me is always expecting work to dry up completely and never return. The few professional writers I know seem to harbor a similiar feeling from time to time. As if their cosmic good karma streak could suddenly come to an end at any minute.

Thankfully, the International Comic Convention, aka ComicCon will offer me four days of mind numbing geek overload. I may blog from San Diego about the experience if I get a free moment. I plan to buy lots of stuff I'll never read.

Has it Really Been 10 Years?

2005-06-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Flew back to my high school reunion this week as an excuse to get out of Los Angeles until after the 4th of July.

It's so strange how everyone pretty much stopped growing vertically and started filling out horizontally. For the most part, hairstyles didn't change but hairlines did. Nice to reconnect with old friends, swap business cards, and attempt to explain how I earn a living writing movies that no one has seen.

"It's complicated. No, I don't know anyone famous. Really? That sounds like an 'interesting' idea for a movie."

In the future I think I'll say I'm a manager at Starbucks.

Things not to say in a meeting.

2005-06-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

"You think this next draft needs a bit more sex in it? No prob! It'll have more ass in it than a night at Neverland Ranch! Oh really? So you know him pretty well then...Yeah? I've heard he's nice too. Helluva dancer. Great musician, I mean...*wow*"

Scientists create Zombie Dogs

2005-06-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Looks like Vanilla Sky may not be too far off.

And speaking of Zombies...

What the hell happened George? Land of the Dead blew!

VoIP phone update

2005-06-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

As documented earlier, I had some Technology Problems. And like most baffling technology problems, they often seem to resolve themselves. That slight delay that rendered my Packet8 VoIP phone into an ugly paperweight has disappeared. And the sound quality? Superb.

I haven't changed a single thing on the home network side, and according to my broadband provider, neither have they. So whatever problem it was, Packet8 seems to have figured it out.

I'm using it as my main phone on a probationary basis for the next several months. My TiVo is on the wireless network, and I use virtual fax, so if all works well, I may ditch the land line entirely.

Somebody get these folks a movie deal!

2005-06-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Found via Boing Boing this glorious set of Bootleg Star Wars: Episode 3 Captions is utterly mind blowing.

As well as the ones for Fahrenheit 9/11.

I'm going to be sued for saying this...but on a side note I bought a few bootleg DVD's in Viet Nam a year and a half back, and I just checked them to see if I have any gems. It turns out that my Gangs of New York DVD apparently uses the subtitle text from what I can only assume to be Pokemon: The Movie on crack.

I'm currently watching Daniel Day Lewis as Bill the Butcher, draped in an American flag say: "Release the monkeys. Gather the coins. This is the greatness of America."

Not enough hours in the day.

2005-06-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Coward? Perhaps...

2005-06-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

This site started out a few months back as an experiment in anonymity. Since then, it's grown to the point that my statcounter now shows the 5,000 hit mark. In the last month, it's averaged 534 unique visitors a day. Most of which don't seem to stay longer than a few seconds, but still, I consider that a minor triumph. Not enough to consider quitting the screenwriting gig and supplement my income through Google AdSense, but it feels nice to see some return visitors, and I hope others get a little bit of entertainment out of this blog.

So...

To those of you who keep emailing me asking:

Who Am I?
Am I For Real?
Why should I trust you?

Or the several, 'colorful' variations there of, allow me to retort.

Who Am I?

A lowly screenwriter doing his best to climb the rungs. As previously mentioned, I've had NO spec sales, and as of today, no credits to my name. For the last year I have been, and continue to be, paid for a variety of assignments and rewrites. So far I've worked for only a few real assholes, and a lot of great people.

I would like that to continue. Working for the great people, that is. Not the assholes.

As such, I don't name names, including myself. My feeling is that there's two sides to every story, and I'm sure that some of the people I've been frustrated with have been just as frustrated with me.

Am I For Real?

Yes.

And I'm doing pretty well, thank you.

Why Should I Trust You?

You shouldn't. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I ask others, my reps, or I just feel out the situation and adapt on the fly. I make mistakes. A lot of them. And when I do, I'll be sure to let you know. Likewise, when I figure out something that works for me, I'll let you know as well.

That said, I don't have any advice to give that some of the others who post here wouldn't be just as qualified to answer. If you do have a question, from now on, I'll post it for discussion unless it's something that I have direct experience with and am qualified to answer.

Geek Rant!

2005-05-31T00:36:00.000-07:00

Warning, moderate Nerdery follows! Turn back now or be assimilated.

It's no secret that I'm a pretty big geek to the average person. While true geeks would probably call me a half geek, I prefer to think of myself as a functioning geek. I'm not front row at E3 or C.E.S. or W.W.D.C., but I catch the summary on G4TV, just to feed the need to know when the next add on pack for Doom 3 is coming out, or what must-have iToy Steve Jobs unveils that I simply cannot live without.

Two things at the top of my geek To-Do list have been to:
1) Blanket my house in WiFi
2) Check out a VoIP phone.

I'm glad to say that I've accomplished the two, and I'm sad to say that neither of them have lived up to my expectations. Lets start with the WiFi.

Three Apple Airport Extremes and one Apple Airport Express hooked up to a Linksys BEFSR41 v.3 router with 4 port switch, all acting as one great big web of WiFi, and my connections go down more often than a Windows 95 box. I should be sipping iced coffee in the sun and instead of tucked away in a dark corner, on the laptop, ten feet away from the office where the bloody desktop is. That's the whole point of a laptop. Apple is the grand poobah when it comes to simple, intuitive, and easy to use products. I'm a huge fan of them. Yet how come my old $60 D-Link DI-624 can give my neighbor half my bandwidth, while $700 worth of Steve Job's best can't even get a decent signal on the stereo while we BBQ? My triumphant Geek Moment was *going* to be streaming iTunes via Air Tunes over the WiFi network to the outdoor stereo so my guests could enjoy my wide range of Yanni tracks while I overcooked the steak and undercooked the shrimp.

Instead it came out a garbled mess of dropped connections and scratchy tracks, so we did it the analog way.

Burnt CD's and played them through the CD player.

How 1997.

My second geek moment began about a month ago when I bought a Packet8 DTA-310 VoIP adapter from Fry's after hearing Leo Laporte rave about them on KFI. Now if you've never heard about VoIP, or have, but think it's some sort of banned sex act, here's a quick rundown of what it does.

Basically, it's an adapter you connect to your DSL/Cable/T1 line that allows you to make and receive voice calls over the internet with a standard telephone. What's the catch? Well, you pay a monthly charge. In my case, $20 a month for unlimited calling within the U.S. Still, that's much much much much much much much much much less than my monthly phone bill is, and since I hate the phone companies only slightly less than I hate the Culver City parking cops, any chance to stick it to 'em is a good chance.

Plus, and this is kind of cool, you can hook the adapter up to ANY DSL line in the U.S. [with a router] and it'll be up and running within minutes. If I'm at my Summer Palace in Spokane, and someone calls me on my L.A. number, it'll ring in Spokane. At least, according to their website.

The truth is, the product worked as advertised, and I was more or less, happy with it.

Until I started making a lot of calls.

Then, I noticed a slight hiss in the background. As if at any moment Samara might come on and whisper: "Seven Days" into my ear. A little tweaking on the router, open up the DMZ, and the hiss is gone.

But something else reared its ugly head. An echo. Like I was talking into a hallway where my doppleganger muttered my exact words a half second afterwards. As is often the case with voices I hear, it was inaudible to others. Still, it was bugging me, and making it quite a pain to use the phone. A week after bragging to every man woman and child within three degrees of separation that "I'd gone VoIP", I was suddenly embarrassed to pick up the phone on my new nifty number for fear of driving myself to violence and punting the phone through the office window.

Finally, customer support somehow magically eliminated the gnawingly insane echo, but like all bad things, something else took its place.

A delay.

And not just any delay, but a delay of about a half second to two seconds. I confirmed this by phoning myself and having my girlfriend run around the house going: "Can you hear me now" as loud as possible so I could hear it both in person and over the phone. Unfortunately, taking any sort of conference call while there's such a delay makes the conversation a bit odd. While I was responding as quick as I could to questions and ideas, on the other end I could tell the parties involved thought I was constantly cutting them off. It sounded like one of those old shipboard phones where you end every sentence with "Over" so the man in the middle can properly switch the direction. The natural flow of high speed Hollywood conversation was interrupted by my not-quite-there-yet technological jump, and I ended out just phoning in from the land line I'd hoped to have cancelled.

The final verdict: Not quite there yet. At least, not for me.

Ironically, I worked in a call center doing customer support at one point, and whenever someone insisted that something was broken, even though it clearly was not, and they were simply using it wrong ["that's not a cup holder, it's a CD drive"], we would take their product in for a few days, just to make them feel better, and write: CODE ID-10-T on the ticket.

ID-10-T
ID10T
IDIOT

I think my bad technology karma is cashing itself in all at once.

Next time:
-How to blow up a producers email server with Final Drafts brilliant PDF compression scheme.
-Tips for turning your liquid cooled Pentium 3.2ghz game machine into a $2000 Fish Tank.
-10 best ways NOT to mount your Apple Cinema display.

The MBH Effect

2005-05-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

No, it's not a new drug, or the effect of.

It's the sudden spike in traffic I've been getting, courtesy of fellow scribe, geek, and all around great guy David Anaxagoras. While it's not the Slashdot Effect, it's certainly the most traffic I've seen in this humble little corner of the 'net since opening this blog.

You have to be a rocket scientist...

2005-05-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

...to configure wireless networks!

Is it too much to ask that three airport extreme base stations and one airport express are able to give me a hundred feet of decent WiFi?

A whole sunday spent trying to blanket the house in WiFi and all I've managed to do is amuse the dog and frighten the neighbors.

It's not like I'm trying to penetrate brick or adamantium. It's fucking lathe and plaster!

Go Wide!

2005-05-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

I have an ongoing list of goals that I try to accomplish to push my career forward as a writer and semi-functioning member of society. Every few months I review it, cross items off, add items, and make slight changes based upon new information that I've learned. Things like: Introduce Katie Holmes to mom and dad will be modified given recent events, and other goals may suddenly arise. Such as: check out Scientology.

I reviewed my past goal lists this morning over a cup of nuclear coffee and a bagel, when I realized that it's been over a year since a pretty large event happened. My agents took my first script out *wide* last year.

It wasn't my FIRST script. Far from it. But it was my first script to land me a pair of ace agents, and to make a small but significant dent in Fortress Hollywood. And while it wasn't the High Sixes against a Mil-Five sale I'd hoped for, it was a pretty big moment in my career; something I'm really only able to comprehend in hindsight.

For the non-screenwriting readers, *going wide* is when someone, usually an agency, takes your screenplay and literally blasts the town with it in an effort to create a bit of Jonestown hysteria and get you top dollar for your latest literary opus. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. As much as the idea of paying off your $20,000 credit card debts in one fell swoop from the riches you suddenly acquire may tempt you, don't give into the Dark Side of Delusion like I did. The primary goal¹ of going wide, according to my agents and manager that handled it, is to introduce you to the Town. Or the Town to you. A bidding war between two studios would be nice, but rarely happens.

Here's a time line of events prior, during, and following my first screenplay "going wide". Keep in mind that no one experience is ever the same, and the Devil's in the details. Like great sex, this was a bit of a blur, and by the end I was left exhausted yet eager to do it again.

Unlike sex, I had no idea what to expect before hand. Just a few vague grins from my more professional friends, and the occasional image of myself, in 2006 saying: ...and I'd like to thank the Academy.

Prologue
Worked my ass of with my manager rewriting an old spec. My manager slipped it to a few agents to test the waters. The reaction was slow at first, but once they read it they didn't stop calling.

Act One

Met with junior agents and agents at virtually all the major agencies, minus Gersh. They never responded. Fuckers...
Met with agents at several medium sized agencies, as well as a few lone gunman types running their own Jerry Maguire solo shop.
Decided on going with one of the major agencies based upon the agents enthusiasm, track record, game plan, and sensibilities. It was a very hard decision.
Made some last minute changes, and planned for it to go out wide on Monday afternoon of the following week.
Submitted my own list of ideal people who I thought the script would good for. Never heard back from Scorsese
The agents and assistants began to make phone calls pitching the script to their contacts, and slipping it to a few key allies. I already had a fan at a major production company, so they put some good words in on the tracking boards.
Threw up a few dozen times.

Act Two

Monday.
Script was emailed & sent around town to fifty-odd places. I sat by the phone in a bathrobe and chainsmoked Lucky Strikes while mumbling to myself. Didn't sleep at all.

Tuesday
Tons of requests based upon positive coverage and word of mouth. Still sat by the phone but occasionally moved to eat or shower. Read lots of screenplays by other writers but don't remember a single word of them.
Wednesday
A huge response. We had every studio covered by at least one producer who had a deal there, and in some cases, by several who were teaming up like Gondor and Rohan before the Black Gates of Mordor. The horses were jockeying for position and I was in a state of Euphoria. My agents assistant and I were now on a first name basis. My manager was calling me every other hour to update me. I called up Ferarri of Beverly Hills and asked if they took cash up front. Bought a GameCube just to keep myself from going nuts. A few passes here and there.
Thursday
Shot down at some of the studios. Too esoteric for Warner Bros. Too violent for Disney. Some negative coverage popped up on the tracking boards and suddenly there was a lot of silence. By that evening we'd had about a dozen passes, a few at the studio level, and quite a few at the producer level. "Never-the-less!" my agent screamed, donning his armor. "We're still very much alive!" I was already 1/3rd of the way through Metroid: Prime on the GameCube.
Friday
My telephone was eerily quiet that afternoon. Around mid day I braved a call to my manager and was told:"We took some big hits today. Sony passed. Paramount passed. New Line is taking it over the weekend and Dreamworks doesn't want anything to do with you." I went out for a rollerblade, put in some face time with the girlfriend who thought I had fallen off the planet, and tried to pretend that I wasn't in a delicate state of emotional imbalance. Turned my cellphone off and waited until around six to return home. A few messages from my agents. "We took some big hits today. But it's still very much alive. We'll find out more on monday. Have a great weekend!" as they sped off in their Ferrari's towards Vegas.
The Weekend
Longest one ever. Beat Metroid: Prime. Saw a movie.
I think.
Monday
8 am and I'm already by the phone, pretending to work, but it's not working. Get the call later that day. "They passed." "Who passed?" "Pretty much everyone." "Oh..." "Well it's still alive at a few places, but it looks like our next bet is to get an attachment and go back to the places that really like it." "Cool, when?" "Couple of months maybe...'round the Halloween." "Oh..." "In the mean time, we've got you on the books for some meetings." "Meetings? What for?" "Because a lot of awesome people really went to bat for you. And they want to meet you. Besides, this is where you'll make some great fans, and plus, might even get an assignment out of it. How are you looking for the month of May?" "Well, I can make some time, I guess." "Good. We've got thirty confirmed so far, maybe more. Get some rest. We'll talk later."

Act Three

The Month of May
One meeting after the next, sometimes three a day. All in all, forty eight general meetings. Some went over as well as could be imagined, while others stunk like a fart in church. Twelve of them led to formal pitches for open assignments. Another three led to various stages of developing a story. One went down a strange road towards video game development, and another towards a graphic novel.

So what's my point? Well, I'm not terribly sure, but I can say this. All the work I've done since then, every assignment small or large [I haven't really had any *HUGE* assignment²], has been as a direct result from that one spec going out last year and the meetings that followed.

So while my goal to: SELL SPEC FOR MIL-FIVE was not met, another more realistic goal emerged as a result.

GET AN ASSIGNMENT.

^{1 To most working screenwriters, this is pretty much preaching to the choir, since the vast majority of their income won't be from spec sales. But one year ago, my idea of the Choir was a New York Stock Exchange style pit where scripts are bought and sold like penny stocks.}
^{2 Still waiting for the Lawyers to ink the deal on the Lord of the Rings prequels.}

Development, part Trois

2005-05-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I hit a titanium wall in the development process with all the grit and grace of a bug on a windshield. I found myself not only writing, but outlining, thinking, speaking, and dreaming an entirely different story than I'd started out to write. It was the first genuine Charlie Kaufman moment I've ever had. I literally HATED the story I was supposed to write. Not to mention that I had to dodge the occasional call from the producers & Creative Exec who wanted to hear what the status was and "If I was having any problems, they're always there to help me."

Yeah, lot of help you guys had been, I bitterly mumbled to myself as they drove down Topanga Canyon in their Masarati being rich and powerful.

What started out as a cool and unique concept that no one has done, had evolved into a hodge-podge of ideas tossed together like some story-Gumbo of half-cliches and incoherent motivations. And here I am, left to turn it into some sort of brilliant horror film that not only scared people, but didn't fall apart like a house of cards when a characters motivation was changed.

After mucho stress, half an ulcer, several nights of binge drinking, and the occasional emotional melt down in public (there's nothing like seeing a grown man sob on Third Street Promenade), I realized something.

This is why the job is so fucking hard. And this is why, when it's done well, it pays well.

I've known this, I mean, years and years of saying: "no thanks, can't go out and skinny dip with five single bi-sexual redheads, must finish screenplay" was hard work.

But this, this tortured limbo between writers block and mediocrity, this was gut wrenching. I felt like I was letting everyone down. My agents, who got me in the door. My manager, my personal John Keaton, screaming: "Carpe Diem!". The C.E. who fought for me, an unknown, a hack who bumbled his pitch like Rain Man without Wapner.

Somewhere, a village was missing its idiot.

And I was that village.

Then, out of the blue, something else hit me. A sort of horrible epiphany, like the twist ending of Angelheart.

I was the master of my own demise.

FLASHBACK TO: the dozen or so creative meetings I'd had with the producers and creative exec on the project. They'd throw an idea out, I'd write it down and try to figure a way to make it work. Always eager to please, to be a writer they'd say: "Hey, lets work with that guy again, he was uber-nice."

But not all the ideas they had worked. And some of them blatantly sabotaged the story. It's not like my ideas were gems, in fact, I'm utterly embarrassed by a six page section that seems ripped out of Hellraiser 2. Still, they called me out when they didn't work. They played ball, I didn't.

I should have raised issue with those ideas then and there in the room. Should I have battled them out? Called them "Idiots!" while throwing a stapler? Keyed their cars and blamed it on an intern? No, not at all.

But by not contributing to the ebb and flow of the spitball process, by not explaining why something didn't work, or may have to be tweaked, I was, in a bizarre sense, validating that it would work. That mental priest that says: "Speak now, or forever hold your peace" was off with an Altar Boy, and I was left there, wed to a tangle of plot threads that amounted to the worlds biggest ball of yarn. My mental image of the story and their mental image had, at some point, filed for divorce and were now eating the children. It was the difference between 2001 and Plane 9 From Outer Space, and I was writing Plan 9.

So here I am, a few weeks to deadline, and I call them up, get everyone on the phone at the same time, and explain my problem. They ordered Sushi, I brought them Calamari. They were both from the sea, but not quite the same thing.

I'm expecting: rage.
I'm expecting: fury.
I'm expecting: You're Fired!

Instead, after careful explanation, aided by 2 pages of notes, there's a long silence on the other end. Finally: "Okay, let's roll up our sleeves and dig in, say...next monday?"

BEAT

"Monday works."

CUT TO: Next Monday. The best story meeting I'd ever had. Ideas were tossed out and shot down. Feelings were hurt. Names were called. Cigarettes were smoked and assistants scurried for shelter like vampires at dawn. I talked, they talked, we all talked and two hours later, we'd dug up the faulty pipes, poured a new foundation, and I was off to build a new house. This was how it was supposed to work. This is how it should have worked. In all my eagerness to please, to play the bookish, sycophant writer, I'd ignored one of the basic tenants of this business. It may be a collaborative medium, but I wasn't the one collaborating. I was the story expert in the room, and I wasn't doing my job by explaining why something wouldn't work, and then trying to figure a way to make it work.

These producers and C.E. rock.

I walked off into the Santa Monica sunset with a smile on my face and a tune on my lips. I haven't had been blocked since.

I turned in my draft this week.

And fuckin' A.

I like it a lot.

Treat it like a job, and it is a job.

2005-05-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

I hate giving advice, because frankly I'm about as qualified to speak on screenwriting with any sort of authority as a mechanic is to give me story notes on my musical horror movie. Yet, something that drives me up the wall is the vast amount of starry eyed dreamers that seem to think a three hour session of pretending to write on your laptop in Starbucks while mentally undressing the cute barista with the pierced eyebrow somehow makes them a screenwriter.

Congratulations, you wrote one draft in six months. You equals screenwriter. At least to yourself.

Okay, enough venom for one day.

It's no secret that I'm still teetering in the grey nether between what some would call being a fully professional screenwriter, and someone who has gotten a few hard earned breaks. As such, my friends tend to run the spectrum of Hollywood employment. Some are still struggling a few years after film school, while others are earning a sizable paycheck and have very recognizable credits to their name. Yet there's one thing that the majority of us have in common, and that's the way we approach our writing routine. Sure, there's a few with that starry eyed belief that they'll be the one discovered beneath a rock by a lucky producer or agent who just stumbles upon their brilliance and can't wait to usher them into the inner circles of Hollywood. But for the most part, friends with these ideas are openly mocked and tend to be driven off with stones and pitchforks on a regular basis.

The bottom line is this: most writers I know, professionals or soon-to-be, treat their writing routine like a job long before it ever becomes a paying job.

So what's my routine? Every day is different, depending on who I'm working for, what I'm working on, but there's generally one constant, and that is my ass. It's parked on a chair in front of my desk for over eight hours a day. After all, I firmly believe that if you treat your writing like a hobby, then that's all it's going to be.

Etch that behind your eyelids because that's about the only piece of advice I'm qualified to give.

Okay, here's MY routine.

8-9am
Sit down, check email, surf the web, procrastinate.

9-10am
Warm up, review the previous days work, get a second cup of coffee.

10-Noon
Edit, make changes to the previous days work, return phone calls, start writing.

noon-midafternoon
Write Write Write, break to eat if I remember.

3'ish-5pm
More writing, occasional phone call, but mostly it's just the sound of fingers on the keyboard.

5pm-6pm
Phone call time. Usually this is where I'll address any issues I have with the days writing, places I'm stumped, notes I'm struggling to execute. Sometimes this bleeds over into...

6pm-8pm
Magic hour. Or a last ditch race to preserve my social life. Usually the brunt of the days battles lead up to this two hour period because I absolutely need to address the issues discussed while they're still hot in my head. I'm not Rain Man, so I can't remember every detail unless it's in front of me and I'm actively trying to untangle it. And if I don't at least partially untangle it, I'll be sitting there at one a.m., wide eyed and thinking: "How do I get the dog into the mineshaft when the door's already been closed by the zombies?"

8pm and beyond
This is the Dark Zone, not a time I like to write during, but often find myself forced to if on a deadline. Otherwise, I'll close down the Powerbook, save backups to my iPod, and try to either catch a flick, hang out with friends, head to the gym, or simply sit in a corner and mutter to myself. If I'm feeling ultra-geeky, I'll play some video games, but most of the time I try to put in some analog face time with the Real World. Having a girlfriend helps, but beware of too much time in the Dark Zone, Girlfriends rarely tend to like that place.

As you can see, that breaks down to almost twelve hours of work during the day. Well, twelve hours of billable work if I were a lawyer, but let's be truthful, it's just as often less as it is more.

Now, I've been doing this routine with minor variations for almost two years. Far longer than I've been able to convince someone to pay me to do this routine. Yet, it's only BECAUSE of this routine that I built up the skill base and drive as a writer to be able to convince someone to pay me to do this.

That's what we call 'round these parts a Catch-22.

So how does one manage to work for a year without getting paid a single penny? My suggestion: improvise. Work odd jobs and quit often. Save up. Live humbly. Eschew the consumer lifestyle. Buy in bulk. Go to Matinees, not Midnight Premieres. Get a coffee or tea instead of that Venti Soy Mocha. Don't have a girlfriend and don't get her pregnant. Be a cheap bastard. Hit up happy hour instead of Friday Night. Steal Wi-Fi or Cable from the neighbors. Give blood. Or sperm. Or eggs.

Basically, do whatever you need to do to preserve the glue that keeps your writing togother: the day to day grind of being at a desk from nine-to-five, or eight-to-eight, doing what you should be doing.

Writing.

Sorry About That.

2005-05-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

After an uber-quick three week quasi-research vacation around the states and parts of Europe I'm finally back and writing full time, and I promise, will have quite a few posts in the coming days. Overall, the Vacation-Research-Trip was a blast, and I had brought my trusty Powerbook, my iPod photo, Treo 650 with a bunch of SIM cards, and a bazillion packs of American Spirit cigarettes, all with the intention of getting some top quality writing done as I took various Trains, Planes, Taxis and Boats around Old Europe.

Alas, that idea was jettisoned in the first 72 hours when I discovered my self-designed itinerary barely factored in enough time for sleep, and lets face it, there's nothing more pretentious than an american screenwriter sipping top notch 'spresso in some French cafe as he works on his "masterpiece". I had promised myself to post a few updates while on the road, or even figure out how to "future post", but in the whirlwind of last second traveling, I managed to forget to do it (along with a host of other things, like shave, and bring electrical outlet adapters).

I never thought I'd say it, but it's good to be back to Los Angeles, where the drivers are at least half-sane.

Life, The Universe, and Everything...Part Two

2005-04-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Go see it.

It's great.

In Other News...

2005-04-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

According to This supposed BBC news site^*, there's an outbreak of "Zombism" in a remote corner of Cambodia.

I, for one, welcome our new zombie overlords.

^*Please note the sketchy IP Address. I've mirrored a JPEG of the page in case it goes down.

Life, The Universe, and Everything...

2005-04-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

Warning: Sickeningly Longwinded Nostalgic Geek Rant follows.

Like many writers I know, I'm a big geek.

Not just because I gravitate towards the latest functional techno-gadget, like my trusty Treo 650 and iPod full of Audible.com audiobooks; not because I spend too much to much time on Fark or Kingdom of Loathing; and certainly not because I can program pretty much any VCR or Universal Remote in five minutes flat.

No, that's merely technical proficiency which is only a few steps away from a job at Best Buy.

I'm a geek because, in essence, I love to learn. Whether it's my lame attempt at HTML, another language, travelling to a far off place, or finding out something amazing about our own little world. A geek, in my personal dictionary, is someone who never stops learning because they love the challenge, but more importantly, at their core, they find this world so full of amazing things that they simply must explore it. Most Geeks I know were never beat up or hung from the flagpole by their underwear during Highschool, and some even played football or Lacrosse. Yet, most never embraced their full geek potential either, operating in sub-geek mode until around college or afterward; as if they'd been a half-geek, a geek caterpillar waiting until it was a socially safe time become a full blown Geek. At the heart of it, I think, there was a repressed fear of appearing too interested in something, too excited, and too knowledgeable for fear of being labeled a card carrying member of the Pocket Protector Posse.

Anyway...

Two or Three years ago, a friend lent me The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on audio book for a drive I was making from L.A. to Boulder. Now, I'd heard of this book, and even vaguely recall at some point there being a video game, but outside that menacing green ball with no eyes and a hideous tongue, I had little desire to read a subgenre of a genre I found taxing 94.5% of the time. To me, Humor and Science Fiction had been synonymous with a guy in a skin tight leotard at a Star Trek convention giggling like a sugared up eight year old as he says: "So this Klingon walks into a bar..."

I wasn't too thrilled, but I promised my friend I'd listen to it on the drive if all else failed. I'm fairly certain he muttered "42" under his breath with a grin, but it could have just been my medication wearing off.

"Whatever," I shrugged, then promptly chugged a Red Bull and bitterly spent next eight hours of my Friday evening staring at tail lights going 15-20 mph on the I-15 from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

" border="1">Somewhere past Vegas around two in the morning Art Bell's tales of UFO sightings and IntraDimensional Demons grew boring, and I popped The Hitchhikers Guide into the tape deck. A cheerful British accent followed which sounded about as appealing at that time as chewing razorblades, and I promised myself that if it wasn't damn good, I was going to re-listen to either Fight Club or The Beach or simply put the car in cruise control and catch a quick nap. After all, much of the drive is a straight line, so if I simply held the steering wheel between my knees and kept a solid 70 mph, I could probably get a few hours of rest before I drove into the side of the Rockie Mountains. I ended up listening to that cheerful British voice chirp on as I drove through the desert in darkness, occasionally glancing up at the arm of the Milky Way high above, or the lonely glow of a passing car or truck in an otherwise empty landscape.

Six or seven hours later, the sun had come up and I had just come back from a journey to the end of the universe with an ear to ear grin. I had actually pulled over at a rest stop to listen to the last tape, rather than attempt to navigate Utah. I was floored. For once, I felt like someone else Got Me, like someone else not only understood the vast level of absurdity all around us, but the overwhelming beauty to this universe as well. From the sheer perfection of the Norwegian Fjords, to the mindless bureaucracy that results in Arthur's house being demolished contrasted with, on a larger scale, the destruction of earth to make way for a Galactic Super Highway, or the improbability of a sperm whales first and final thirty seconds of thought, and most of all, to the sheer joy of exploring something new and all the bumps bruises and bad poetry that ensue.

This weekend The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy opens after twenty years in development hell. Let's say that with the respect it deserves.

Twenty.

Years.

And here I am, nowhere near as clever or as articulate on the page as the late Douglas Adams, and I'm bitching about months of my own foray into development Hell? And this weekend, one of the quintessential Geek masterpieces opens nationwide without it's author in attendance. I can think of little in the literary world that is more sad and absurd than that, and most of those that I can involve either a suicide in a river or, like Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys, watching the only copy of ones literary opus flutter away in a gust of wind.

Not since the new Star Wars movies, or the amazing Lord of the Rings films have I had such high hopes for a film. I've declined a few early screenings for this movie because I want to financially support Spyglass Entertainment and all the others involved with my overpriced movie ticket, as a small way of thanking their investment in something I loved, and even if it doesn't turn out as good as I'd hoped I'm prepared for that, because at least it turned out.

But most of all, I want to watch it with a live audience who paid to see it, who knocked back a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster, grabbed their towel, and embraced their inner Geek.

I have a feeling there'll be a few in attendance.

My Gift, To You...Mr. Know-It-All...

2005-04-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

To:

The Fucktard behind the desk who insists that every horror movie MUST have someone die in the first five minutes. I sincerely hope you wake up to find this staring at you.

You can't Produce shit other than excuses.
Can't afford WGA minimum? Sell that fucking Lexus and buy a Prius.
If ain't broke, quit trying to fix it.
Leave the story telling to me and stop pretending you have a single original thought in your head, and yes, I saw that episode of the Twilight Zone too.

In Summary: Get Fucked.

Sincerely,

Somone-Who's-NOT-Going-To-Be-Working-With-You.

Development, Pt. 2

2005-04-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

A weekend spent unraveling and rewriting a treatment that I'm trying to rescue from the Ninth Circle of Development Hell, and this is about how I feel right now.

'Nuff said.

Our Lycanthropic Friends

2005-04-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of the modern evolution of the werewolf.

While movies like American Werewolf in London and The Howling hold a near and dear place in my heart, I'm glad that the cinematic portrayl of the lycanthropic form has become more of a fusion between Man and Wolf, and not Man becoming Wolf.

About the only things Van Helsing had going for it, beside Kate Beckinsale in a corset, were the werewolves. Same thing with Underworld, only this time we got Kate Beckinsale in leather. Or even the low budget and rather goofy Dog Soldiers, which showed as little of the werewolves as possible. But no Kate Beckinsale.

I know some purists out there are crying "Blasphemy" as they long for the days of Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolfman, or the snarling pig-beast on all fours running amok in Piccadilly Circus, but to me something that's as big as a bear, as fast as a tiger, can leap like a monkey, and can kill in an instant is pretty much the pinnacle of terror.

But that's just me.

Status Update!

2005-04-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to David Anaxagoras over at Man Bytes Hollywood for the inspiration and code to utilize the fun little "Progress Bars" I've added to this site. I'll do my best to keep them current, especially now that this site seems to be drawing a little bit of traffic from some other great sites. How I ended up in their List-o-Links, I haven't a clue.

Inspiration for a sick and twisted mind

2005-04-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

A friend met up with me today for espresso and cigarettes to discuss my latest horror spec she just finished reading. After a brief run-down of what she loved and what she loathed, she paused, took a drag off her cigarette, and and said: "You have the most twisted mind of anyone I've ever met."

My first reaction was to take offense, which she sensed and immediately backtracked, adding: "I'm not saying you're psychotic. More like...you don't mind going to those dark, uncomfortable places of the mind where real nightmares dwell."

[Okay, so she didn't say it exactly like that but I'm a writer, not a secretary]

It took a second to realize that this was an enormous compliment. She followed by asking: "So where do these ideas come from?"

I couldn't really answer then because I was still gushing from the glowing review and subsequent compliment to form an articulate answer. Plus she's hot and smart and that always intimidates me, even tho' I've known her for years. Anywho, it got me thinking: where do the ideas come from?

Frankly, In horror, or at least the kind of horror that I enjoy, I write what scares the living shit out of me. Not a black cat jumping out of a bush when I pass by, but a concept, an idea, and ultimately an image that at a more visceral, spiritual level really gets beneath my skin.

Of course many of those things change over the years, but there's a few things that are constant, such as:

Abandoned Places with a History ["Don't worry, those murders were YEARS ago...they've put in new carpets and all."].
Old Music coming from radios that aren't plugged in.
Doors that are chained, boarded, and bolted shut.
Clowns or dolls with porcelain faces.
Crying coming from between the walls.
Rabid dogs.
The illogical.
Little Kids with Hollow Eyes.
Going insane.
Going insane and not knowing it.
Windchimes when there's no wind.
Creaky floorboards.
Feeling like someone is looking over your shoulder even when you're alone.
Dead nurses with scalpels.
Dust covered books.
Being locked in a trunk.
Hitchhikers.
Being buried alive.
Old Grandfather Clocks.
Waking up and finding a room full of old people dressed in clothes from the 1920's staring at you and smiling.

Each of these items conjours up a mental image connected with an emotion that, ultimately, when I'm alone at night, makes me keep the lights on. Sometimes it's a matter of stringing the mental images together coming up with a relevant plot, while other times it's just the thought I might turn a corner and find a little girl with a porcelain face sitting in the corner and and singing to herself.

Horror is about the unknown, the unexplainable, the irrational, and ultimately, it's about that fear you felt as a kid when your day time back yard suddenly became a haven for monsters after dark.

My super powers can only be used for good.

2005-04-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

I had to step off the project, I just had to. What was a mediocre and recycled idea to start with could only go so far, yet somehow I managed to push it beyond that limit, and turn it into a pretty bad ass intelligent science fiction film with plenty of action and more than a few memorable scenes.

Alas, we didn't see eye to eye, and rather than polish a turd I'm going to gracefully bow out and gripe about what could have been. Everyone has a job, and we don't always have to like it, but we can at least choose where we focus our energy, and this was a classic case of Too Much Time, Not Enough Enjoyment.

It feels nice to be able to say no to something. Especially something you did your damndest to make work.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot.

2005-03-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

Let this be a warning to, like, the three readers I have aspiring to work in the film business. If you find yourself informally pitching a project to a producer, and they freaking LOVE it when you're done.

Shut.
The.
Eff.
Up.

Don't say a single word more. You've sold it. Everything you're doing now is talking them out of it.

I recently had a serendipitous, informal meeting with a producer I'd kill to work with. When he jokingly asked if I had anything for him, I tossed out a quick idea I was working on, a futuristic Sci-Fi biblical Revelations-esque project, sort of like The Matrix but with bad-ass monks and bio-mechanical demons. Yeah, I know...it sounds capital L Lame, but trust me, it's pretty fucking cool.

He was sold. His eyes lit up like 4th of July fireworks. It was exactly what he was looking for. But then I kept talking and talking and talking. Clearly riding off the amazing pitch I'd pulled out of my ass, my mouth ignored the signs that his interest was waning, his darting glances around, the perplexed look on his face when I described the "Theme" of the story, and the little conflicts, subplots involving betrayal and how it mirros Judas betraying Jesus, or the unity of all religions standing together side by side and fighting off the end of the world. By the time my mouth registered the ABORT! ABORT! signal my brain was sending for the last five minutes, I'd talked my way out of a potential job.

I've heard it said a million times before, but why I didn't heed it I hav no idea. If ever there was a case of Less Is More, than this was it.

If I didn't need my higher brain functions, I probably would've taken a power drill to the skull.

Color me bummed...

2005-03-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here Be Spoilers!

As a HUGE fan of the american version of The Ring, I've been eagerly awaiting The Ring Two for what seems half an eternity. So saturday A.M. I catch it by myself [to maximize the terror, but also because I couldn't convince anyone to see it at 9:30 a.m.]. The screen goes dark, the beginning creeps the hell out of me, and then...nothing really happens. Sure, there were a few scares, a few moments where I found myself gnawing away at my fingernails like a beaver in a lumberyard, but over all...blah! It was like Rosemary's Baby meets The Omen, and not have as good as either of those.

Most insulting, to me at least, was that they forgot the central premise of The Ring, which is the cursed video tape, and instead wandered off into left field to delve into a backstory of Samara that only raised more questions! Nevermind that the first Ring never answered the questions of How the tape was created and How Samara got her powers. That didn't bother me because, frankly, every question that is raised doesn't always need to be answered. But this one had the chance to explore them further, and instead only added one more mother to the list that Samara had before she took a short dive into the bottom of a well. And riddle me this: if she could get out of the well to kill people who watch the tape, how does closing the well up contain her? And when the well was closed was it in a dream or in reality? An what is the air-speed velocity of an unladen Swallow?

The good:
Some cool F/X, especially the Well Climb and the Bath Tub.

The Bad:
The plot.
The reindeer looked worse than that silly three headed dog in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

The Ugly:
Juicier dead faces than the first movie.

Weekend Read

2005-03-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

It's a long shot, but my agents put me up for assignment on a nanotech-Sci-Fi project whose producers are looking for a fresh take on the screenplay. Thus, it ended up at the #1 position on my weekend read. I've given it the twice over, and I think I've discovered the problem.

There's nothing wrong with it.

Seriously. Not a single thing as far as I'm concerned. The story is tight at 109 pages. The characters are well drawn and unique and believable, given the fact that it's set in an alternate future. The ending feels genuine and earned, although a bit loose, a.la: X-Men, but frankly, I prefer open ended endings.

Of course there are tiny little things I would change here and there, probably bumping it from a PG-13 project into the realm of the dreaded R rating. Maybe a bit more destruction, and most of the action scenes felt about 1-2 pages short, but other than that, in current form, this is a movie I would go see, and a movie I would probably enjoy quite a bit.

So, it's going to be a pass. I think I've earned the right to say: It's good the way it is. I can't make it any better.

I wonder who'll get the job.

"I actually think there's an element of psychosis involved here."

2005-03-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

Far be it from me to get off on some ham handed rant about what movies I think are underappreciated gems, but I just got back from seeing David Cronenberg's 1999 mind fuck eXistenZ and am left winded.

Now I know what you're thinking: what rock have I been under? Well, the truth is, I've seen this movie maybe a half dozen times between its meager box-office debut back when Neo and Trinity made VR look like a bad bondage party, to this very evening, when I watched it in the 2001ish home theater of the director who's sci-fi / alternate reality project I'm attempting to write. And hot diggidity-damn, if eXistenZ doesn't age just like a 1961 Cheval Blanc.

Those of you reading this who haven't seen eXistenZ, I would strongly encourage you to do so. Unless, of course, you have an aversion to surreal stories about blurring layers of reality, bio-mechanical guns that use human teeth as ammo, spinal cord sphincters and about the closest thing to a rimjob an R-rated movie can get away with. Did I mention that it stars Jude Law [early widows peak period], Jennifer Jason Leigh, William Dafoe, Ian Holm, and Sarah Polley?

I admire Cronenberg the writer just as much as I admire Cronenberg the director, and for my money, eXistenZ is the perfect fusion between his story and style. Sure, there're a few moments where the C.G. looks second rate, and the acting is quite odd until the very end. Never the less, Cronenberg isn't afraid to go into odd realms that few directors can tread without totally going off the deep end into the land of Total Obscura, as well as leaving some questions up to the viewer to answer.

So if you've got an empty spot in your Netflix queue, and a few hours to spend in during and after the mental mirage he pulls off, give it a day in the DVD player.

Development...

2005-03-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

So after half a months wait, the first draft of my horror script came back like a boomerang in barbed wire. With more caffeine and nicotine in my system than was thought humanly possible, I sat down with the producers to hear my horror opus get torn apart like a c-cupped blonde in a tug of war between Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees.

While I'm not exactly a virgin to this process, I'm far from some street hardened Sidewalk Susie roaming the late night streets of Development-Land. Translation: my experience is limited. None-the-less, it's always interesting to hear the lines:

"You really nailed this one, I mean, it was just so...fresh."

(beat; then)

"But we've got some notes."

My experience(s), and as confirmed by a few others, has been that the first two-to-four meetings during development, the C.E. and V.P. or whoever the heck is ushering the story through literary puberty, tends to talk to the writer like they're a ticking time bomb ready to blow. I'll admit, I'm a bit "on edge" because the story I turned in I feel represents a great story. Not just good, but great. Otherwise I wouldn't have turned it in. Still, this isn't Dog Day Afternoon and I don't have a bank full of hostages at gunpoint, so let's dispense with negotiations, roll up our sleeves, and dig in.

I've got thick skin. I can take any criticism dished out. In fact, I enjoy getting notes! Is that odd? I love other peoples opinions on my own writing. I may not agree with them, I may not even think the question they're asking is of any importance, but I'll be the first to genuinely say: Let me think it over.

Thankfully, I haven't yet run into a scenario where the notes sucked. If and when I do, my gut tells me I'll simply swallow my pride, nod my head, and say: Let me think it over.

And then throw those notes out.

Well, The Academy isn't TOTALLY Insane...

2005-03-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad they gave the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay to Charlie Kaufman. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was one of the most original movies of 2004, and while I think it went well of over the heads of mainstream America [as does much], I was genuinly concerned that it might even be a bit too smart for The Academy this year.

None-the-less, when he awkwardly took the stage and mumbled like a shy kid on the cusp of puberty, screenwriters like myself the world over were doing backflips. While the Actors and Actresses and Producers and Directors may revel in the time onstage to thank a small army of assistants and assistants assistants, telling the band to STFU when they cut them off, some of us lowly writers are solitary beasts for the most part. I think Charlie may have accidentally captured something so universal to why I'm sure many write, when he simply said:

I don't want to take my time. I want to get off this stage.

As a writer, much of my work is not just behind the camera, but behind closed doors, in the mental upstairs of my mind, a quite different place than up at the podium accepting a golden statue live in front of a billion people. That's the place we wake up to, work in, eat, breath, sleep, fuck, shower, etc. That endorphin buzz you get when your creativity is flowing, let me tell you, there is NO drug or feeling in the world more addictive than that. Everything else, including the awkwardness of being on a stage before the world, pales in comparison.

To me, the biggest reward is just doing my best, day to day, and doing what I love, and hoping, praying, attempting to create, something that others like as well. Awards and Box Office grosses are secondary to everything else, and despite the desire to get the Oscar, to open at Number One, to outgross Star Wars, us writers really just want to entertain others. We may not be able to lead the troops like directors, look beautiful and play ugly like actors, or grease the rails like producers, and yes, some of us are awkward in public, at parties, and our eyes sometimes glass over in mid-sentance as a thought runs through our head. But goddammit, without us, neurosis and all, you'd simply have Police Academy 6

That said, I wouldn't mind a little Golden Statue myself. But then I wouldn't be a Hollywood Hack, would I? ;-)

Insomnia...

2005-02-27T01:26:00.000-08:00

What should have been a simple bedtime around 1:30am last night turned into a pitched battle between Hypnos, the God of sleep, and myself. See, my Insomnia, which I thought I had vanquished a few months backs with a heavy dose of Ambien and early morning exercise, launched a Tet Offensive on my circadian rhythms, and by 2:45am I found myself counting the spots on the ceiling while attempting to read Do You Speak American? with the hope that it would lull me into Dreamland.

Around 4am, I admitted defeat, rolled out of bed and hopped into the Hybrid. Some smokes, my iPod, and twenty minutes later, I was winding up past Skirball and onto Mulholland Drive, if for nothing more than the simple fact that I was bored senseless. Now, having seen both Mulholland Drive and Cursed in the last few weeks, and considering there was some intense fog at points, I was a bit cautious on the turns. After all, I didn't want to end out like some anecdote in Less Than Zero, just another car flying around a bend too fast, finding myself weightless momentarily, before plunging through the roof of some house a hundred feet below. Nor did I want to hit a werewolf or smash into a limo, ending out in a David Lynch film where I discover that I was already dead.

So I took it easy, enjoyed the drive, and the fact that I was probably the only person in Los Angeles up at that hour who didn't have methamphetamines running through their system.

And then, right before Beverly Glen...red and blue lights behind me. I pull over, as much as anyone can pull over, meaning I pulled over into someone's driveway. Seconds later, I'm out of the car, explaining to the officer why I was not speeding.

Let me say that again.

Why I Was Not Speeding.

Apparently, as I was soon informed, the tell tale sign of a drunk driver is that he / she "takes it slow", especially around "sharp turns" and "windy roads." Gone are the days of high speed chases and two lane races at five a.m. with a 40 of Mickey's between the knees and Ride the Lightning at full blast. These days, potential DUI's come in the form of a spotless Hybrid with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on AudioBook, a pile of screenplays in the back seat, and speeds 5mph below the speed limit through banks of fog.

Call me crazy, but somehow, the thought of a drunk driver on Mulholland at 4:30am, being "overly cautious" and taking turns at 20mph strikes me as slightly less of a concern than the average asshole I've encountered on that God-less stretch of pavement, tailgating me at three in the afternoon and going fifty around blind turns while talking on his cell phone.

/end rant

On the To-Do List...

2005-02-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

Places I have been:

Places I want to go to:

Sell Out!

2005-02-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

When the idea is so bad it makes you cringe, but the job pays fairly well, do you take it?

That's the moral dilemma I'm facing now. On the one hand, the payday isn't bad [really good by standards outside Hollywood]. On the other hand, the idea is so flawed to begin with, that it amazes me that the person who thought it up wasn't shot and fed to a pack of wild dogs.

I'm such a whore that I'll probably take the job. How can I stand the reflection I see in the mirror?

Don't buy stock in tMobile

2005-02-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

Paris Hilton has been hacked!

I still think it's, like, a total violation of privacy, mainly because my number wasn't on there. Now watch her Per Movie Quote quadruple.

*sigh*

Hunter S. Thompson 1937 - 2005

2005-02-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

As is being reported all over the news, Hunter S. Thompson has apparently taken his life at the early age of 67.

Love him, Loathe him, Fear him, or Agree with him, it's impossible for any intelligent person to deny that in a world of carbon copy clones, he was a true original.

Here's hoping heaven has a sense of humor. I have a feeling the Big Bar in the Sky is going to be closing much later than usual from now on.

Power Lunch

2005-02-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

Drinks at the Chateau Marmont for a possible assignment where I totally stuck out like a Fart in Church.

I think I appeared too ~~desperate~~ eager.

Note to self: cultivate EITHER the neurotic writer image OR the hip uber-geek. That grey zone between the two is just plain weird.

Things to do in Los Angeles

2005-02-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me today: What Is There To Do In Los Angeles? I admit, when I first got here off the bus, er...101 Freeway, Los Angeles was over whelming. Not just big...but BIG. I've travelled extensively through out the world, and let me tell you, going from Santa Clarita way up North to Long Beach, way down south...you might as well be going from the The Shire to the Crack of Doom in Mordor.

And that's not to say I don't like Long Beach.

The truth is, there's like, infinity things to do in Los Angeles. When I emerge from my cave, these are some of the things I do, or want to do, in no discernible order:

Rollerblading from El Segundo to Hermosa Beach and back again.
Visiting the amazing Getty Museum. I try to do this once a month.
Take your sweetheart out to The Hollywood Bowl. I caught The Lord of the RingsSymphony in 6 movements and it was a blast.
Venture into Downtown in search of rags in The Fashion District.
Chinatown. Though it's only really fun for an hour.
Geek out and be proud at The California Science Center.
As big a movie nerd as I am? Go catch a screening of some movie you've never hear of at the Egyptian Theatre.
Managed to find the last single girl in L.A.? A brisk stroll through the Descanso Gardens will seal the deal.
Like to drink and jog? Join up with the Southern California Hash House Harriers. It'll be the best time you won't remember.
Like Turtle Racing? Head over to Brennans Pub on Thursday. It's beyond bizzare.
If you're an unabashed Uber-Nerd then you shouldn't be afraid to take your friends to Medieval Times and reenact The Cable Guy! [I haven't been to this one, but it's on the To Do List™ four places above Get Another Girlfriend]
And while you're at it, make it a day and visit The Happiest Fucking Place on Earth.
Or if you want some great seafood, some cheap beer, and a place where the Macarena is still done, head over to the San Pedro Fish Market.
Want to channel the creativity of Jim Morrison's spirit? Have a power lunch with your hip entourage at Chateau Marmon.
Want to get the eff out of L.A.? If you like car camping, I reccomend a 5 hour drive to June Lake and the surrounding areas. Or bring the lotion for Death Valley. Or the always eerie Salton Sea is just a hop skip and jump to the south-east.

This is like, 1/1000th of all the cool schtuff that's capable of being done in L.A. I'd post more, but frankly, I'm still struggling to get through this list.

done, Done, and DONE!

2005-02-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

Well, not exactly.

The first draft of the Horror Script with all the relevant suggestions incorporated into it like some paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa has been officially turned in. The Agents, Manager, Lawyer, and various Producrs, all have it in their pile to read over the weekend. I have a pile of DVD's from Netflix to get through, some major cleaning that needs to be done, and it's looking like clear skies in West L.A. so I may just have to go for a bike ride.

I think I deserve a little bit of fun.

In other news, the fucktards at the MPAA are sure doing their best to appear as Orwellian as possible.

"Wow 'em in the end..."

2005-02-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

So I saw Boogeyman the other day. As an avid fan of horror, and a horror writer myself, I always pay super-close attention to the film, but not at the expense of missing the "experience" that most of the audience gets. After all, we're writing for an audience, not just ourselves. And I must say: this film hooked me from the beginning. I jumped, I screamed, I even wanted to cover my eyes...but I didn't. It's rare that a movie can actually scare me to the extent that I grow more and more uncomfortable with it, and look forward to the ending. And then it came.

And the ending sucked!

It's the most crucial thing in any story. It's like having an amazing five course meal and then having a steaming turd for dessert. The Ending is what EVERYONE will remember. Tattoo that behind your eyelids if you must.

What was even worse was that, as I drove home, alone and at night, I started deconstructing the film. Breaking it down like I'm sure most writers do to see how it worked. Sort of like reverse engineering something by taking it completely apart. What I found was that, despite the amazing experience, as a piece of storytelling, there were quite a few unanswered questions, and even more, a few glaring contradictions. Given, this was no Alone in the Dark, but still...it was like the cinematic equivallent of Chinese food; tastes good going down, but three hours later, you're hungry again.

As a writer, I'll assume that the answers I sought were left on the cutting room floor. Cut out of the film to give it more dramatic effect, or to simply trim the running time and fit the maximum amount of asses into the seats during its theatrical run. Sadly, this often happens with little or no regard to the actual impact on the story, but rather, the bottom line.

Leave your friends at home.

2005-02-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

Trying to break in to Hollywood is in many ways, like Monopoly. You move to L.A., start out at GO! and roll the dice. A few bad decisions and you can end up bankrupt, in jail, unable to move forward. A huge helping of talent, a little bit of luck, motivation the likes of which few can comprehend, and you've got your hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk.

I set out to conquer this town several years back with a good group of friends. Some that I've known for many years, one that I've known since diapers. Since then:

one has moved back home with his mother
one has had a child and gotten a divorce, essentially rendering himself financially insolvent
another simply has tuned out and taken up drugs
one has gone back to school and is now living in Florida
and a lifelong friendship slowly fell apart when one of us moved up the ladder while the other simply stayed still and did nothing with himself.

When we all set out to conquer this town together, we used to joke over late night beers in cheap bars that one day we'd all do a movie together. I would write it, two of them would direct, one of them would shoot it, and two would act in it.

The other day I realized that it's been well over a year since we all had a beer together, let alone have actually been together. Were we to meet up today, somehow, I think the conversation would be rather silent.

Go see this movie. NOW!

2005-02-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

Christian Slater...

Tara Reid...

...and Stephen Dorf

In an Uwe Boll film.

Alone in the Dark!

Worst.
Movie.
Ever.

I may have to rename this blog if Uwe Boll ever decides to start his own.

This movie should be seen by any and all with an interest in any aspect of filmmaking, be it acting, writing, directing, cinematography, composing, editing, catering, set dressing, line producing, FX, etc, for the simple reason that not a single thing works in this entire effing movie. Nothing, nada, zilch. It's not even "so bad it's good", it's just plain terrible on all levels. I saw this for free and I feel ripped off.

Two so-called Hollywood movies into his career, and this I know: Uwe Boll's best could never equal my worst.

Cocky? Hell-fucking-yes. You would be too if you'd just experienced the experience that is...

Alone in the Dark!

And for the curious who wonder how crap like this can get made, let me send you to this interview with one of the original screenwriters.

Business or Pleasure...?

2005-02-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

Or a bit of both.

Late afternoon meeting with the C.E. and two producers on this horror project.
Meeting spills over to drinks and dinner. Plans get grander the more drinks come our way. My manager excuses himself when he realizes he's late for another drinks and dinner meeting.

Producers leave and C.E. calls some of her friends ["You'll like them. They're creative. Like you."]¹. Head to West Hollywood via cab, since neither of us should drive, it's Friday evening traffic in L.A. so we don't want to end up on the news.

More drinks in WeHo where I get hit on by the bartender. The C.E. is a bit stunned when I tell her I'm straight. Five of us take taxi-van over to Venice where we get the best mojitos this side of Havana.

Faces blur, names change. At some point an actress from a popular TV show that I don't watch gets carded when she orders a drink, so someone of age orders it for her. C.E. introduces me as a hot-up-and-coming writer to some of her friends. Blank stares all around.

Effeminate Assistant procures some Romeo y Juliet cigars, and five of us head over to his place to smoke them.

There's a party when we get there filled with a bunch of fresh faced actors/actresses, most fresh off the bus or boat from Skokie or Houston or...wherever.

Head outside to smoke the cigar after one too many conversations with a coked up hyphanete actor-writer-director-waiter.

C.E. follows me out. Talk about snowboarding, what the weather is like in New Zealand at this time of year, and how over rated Million Dollar Baby is while occasionally stifling a cough.

"I think this'll be good" I say.

"The cigar?" She asks with a quizzical look.

"No, the project. I think it'll be really good."

She thinks about it. Nods, as if giving me the benefit of the doubt.

"Just don't fuck it up."

Silence; inhale. She stares off into space for a moment, smiles, and excuses herself.

"I've got a pile of scripts waiting for me at home. Let's talk monday."²

I realize I'm alone in someone elses back yard and I only just met them two hours ago. I taxi it home and when I pay for the cab I find several business cards that I must have been given at some hazy point last night.

I pass out downstairs on the sofa to G4TV and annoying Sir Mix-a-Lot commercials for Jamster!

My hangover promptly arrives five hours later.

¹This is a nice way of saying: "Like you, they're a step a way from total insanity. Amusing to watch, and fun to be around in easily escapable surroundings, I wouldn't trust them with a chain saw."

²I have seen this "Pile-o-Scripts" and it's disturbing to say the least. She is, without doubt, one of the hardest working C.E.'s in this town.

The Wind Up...

2005-02-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

The Pitch

So picture this:

You're in a meeting. A producer / creative exec / story editor / etc. says: "We've got this idea. It's Die Hard. But here's the twist. The lead, is a female bounty hunter. And the husband, is a stay-at-home Dad."

"Okay," you say, nodding, feigning interest.

Beat; then.

"What do you think?" He/She/It asks, taking a sip from a bottle of water.

"That's it?"

He/She/It nods with a grin. The assistant clears his throat. Someone in a nearby office screams: where's my fucking Blackberry!?

"We'd like to hear your take," Person of Power says. "Take it home, kick it around, see what you come up with."

You shake hands, get your parking ticket stamped, battle traffic to get home, and for the next week you come up with an entire movie.

An entire movie. Beginning, middle, end. Basically 120 minutes worth of visual and audio information. No big sweat. Maybe you craft a story you start to like. You find something compelling in it. A commentary on the Alpha Male culture, or a twist on your standard Saturday Night action thriller.

You write your pitch down. Maybe first on the PC, then onto notecards. You edit, change, cross out, rewite.

Then you memorize it. Enough for about 15-20 minutes. You make it exciting, like you're telling a story to a few friends over drinks. Not like you're giving a speech you've memorized, which is what it really is.

You anticipate questions.

Could you clarify why the villan needed to rob the bullet train?
What's the motivation for the cop when he betrays the bounty hunter?
Does Act 3 need to take place on a jet boat?

You do all this work, maybe a weeks worth, 40 hours.

And here's the thing.

Dozens of other writers are doing the same thing. You're doing the equivallant of a literary American Idol. All in the hope that you'll get the assignment to write a Female Die Hard.

God I love this business!

Digital Therapy

2005-02-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start a blog.

Actually, I had a blog going at one time, but it was in no way connected to my job. However, like all things Hollywood, in this town you tend to become your job. This will simply be an extension of that. This being the blog, that being my job.

So.

Where to begin?

How about some questions:

Q. So why post a Blog?

A. Because I spend 8-12 hours a day writing, outlining, taking meetings, or rehearsing pitches. This gives me a chance to:

Interact with the world outside [Hollywood].
Gossip about people, jobs, or just generally bemoan my situation.
Chronicle what it's like swimming with the sharks.
Heck, maybe even answer a few fictional question I make up for myself.

Q. So, what films have you written and where can I see them?

A. I don't have a single produced credit to my name. However, I hope to change that soon.

Q. What scripts have you sold?

A. On spec? None.

Q. What about assignments?

A. Fighting for a few currently. I'll keep you posted.

Q. Anything in Development?

A. Yes. A pretty fucked up horror film, a politcal thriller, and a third project, a quasi-sci-fi mind fuck that's about as confusing as the plot to Lost. By "in development" I mean that people who make movies are in the early stages of trying to make these. Into movies, that is.

Q.Have you been paid to write?

A. Unbelievably, yes. I've crossed that threshold and I'm now able to afford this addiction 24/7. So long as I don't develop a raging coke habit and cultivate a Don Simpson-esque lifestyle, I should be able to keep my Powerbook, my morning bike rides, and afford the occasional romp off to some exotic corner of the globe.

Q. How old are you?

A. Under thirty and older than twenty.

Q. Who's your agent?

A. I have two, and they're at one of the Big Three, or Big Five, or Big Seven, depending who you ask. I've been with them a little under a year and I'm pretty happy. They sent my spec out last year and introduced me to the town. Without their help and backing, I'd still be banging my head against the iron wall of Hollywood.

Q. Manager, Lawyer?

A. Yup. My manager kicks ass. He's about as close to a writing partner as I could have. My lawyer, thankfully, hasn't needed to be used that much.

Q. What's your name?

A. Not important. I haven't gotten a better seat at the Oscars because of it, and I doubt you'd recognize it. In fact, I haven't been to the Oscars period. This time last year I was probably watching the Oscars from a bar because I couldn't afford cable and my then-crummy hovel didn't get antenna reception.

Q. Why all the secrecy? Doesn't everyone in Hollywood name drop?

A. I'm sure they do, but I don't know many of them. I'm basically two or three rungs above the bottom of the ladder. Dropping names right now would be career suicide, especially if I call them a Dimwitted Hack Producer Who Hasn't Made Anything Good Since The Mid 90's. And despite what you just saw on Entertainment Tonight, my feeling is that most people in "The Biz" seem to enjoy their privacy. Except when it'll get them a better table at Koi.

Still, I think people in the Biz who read this may be able to figure out who I'm talking about, and how those fucking life size Agent Smith figures that greet you can make you jump if you've had to much coffee before your pitch.

Q. So then how do I know you're real?

A. You don't. I could be an overweight 40 year old man posting this from the basement of his parents house in Dayton, OH. Such is this great thing called "the internet", and if that's the case, I hope at least I entertain you.