Sex In A Submarine

Compulsions Web Series

2009-12-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

Monday night I went to the premiere of a new web series at Cinespace (a bar/restaurant/cinema in Hollywood). They showed the trailer and first four episodes, then did a Q&A with the cast and crew. Because I am planning to do a web series, this was very interesting to me.

The great thing about each episode was that it was 5 minutes long (including credits) and hit the ground running. Just - WHAM - you're in the middle of the story. And each episode is packed with story, packed with character, and so extreme that you feel the compulsion to watch the next episode to see what happens. As I was watching the first episode, wondering just what the hell this is and how could it possibly be anything I would want to see again... a character pulls out a dossier and the story kicks in - this is not just some random event, this is part of a larger story that will play out piece by piece in each episode. You have to tune in every day to find out just what this story is all about. All of that in 5 minutes, folks!

COMPULSIONS - a new web series that is sick and twisted and might not be safe for work (sledgehammers and people meet). Three people who seem to be "normal" actually lead secret lives. That dull guy working in the cubicle next to you? Don't get him angry! Here's the show...

Compulsions Episode 1: Unleash
by compulsions

The great technique they use is *contrast* - the dull day job and seemingly dull employee constrasting with his after work life which is anything but dull. Using contrast gives the story an automatic hook... and makes the character automatically interesting. By showing us two extreme sides of the same person, we want to know more about them. There's an episode every day if you want to find out more...

Compulsions Episode 2: Friends
by compulsions

- Bill

Picky Producers

2009-12-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Just read an advert from a producer who is still looking for a script, and doesn't want to read any of the previously submitted scripts again - he is looking for *different* scripts that fit his criteria. If you have already read all of the scripts submitted the first time, how many new scripts are there that fit your criteria a few months later?

A couple of years ago a screenwriter friend of mine had a movie stall out, and took a job on the other side of the desk as a development executive for a new company. Because he’s a good guy, the very first thing he did was call up all of his screenwriter friends and see if any of them had scripts that would fit the needs of his new employers. This was great, because we now had a friend “on the inside” who would really push our work to the company. My first question was, “What are they looking for?” If they were looking for rom-coms, I was out. If they were looking for family films, I had a treatment but not a screenplay - and that treatment is not high concept at all, so would probably not be in the running. If they were looking for a comedy, um... that’s also not me.

My friend got back to me (and everyone else) with the company’s needs... The good news was that they were looking for a thriller or horror screenplay. Hey, I have those! But that was not the end of it... They were also looking for scripts that can be made for $1m (hey, I got those), that were film festival quality (hey, I got those), that used an untraditional structure, like MEMENTO or RUN LOLA RUN (okay, now I’m in trouble) that was high concept (hey, I got those), that would not just be selected for the film festival, but would win a bunch because that was part of the distribution plan (um, I have no idea how I can guarantee a win), and would not require a star to be successful at the box office, oh - and would appeal to 15-25 year olds in the mainstream audience.

Okay, that’s a lot of different conditions for one screenplay... and a screenplay you are going to make for only $1 million. The company supposedly had access to $1m per film - probably some sort of revolving credit deal - so they were for real and could actually make several movies, one at a time. Now, $1 million may sound like a lot to you - it is what the average American will make over a lifetime of work - but it’s nothing in the movie world where the average studio film costs $106.7 million by the time it hits your screen. Making a film for $1m is difficult, and you really need a script designed for the budget. Limited cast, limited locations, limited night scenes, limited to no crowd scenes, etc. It is not easy to write a script that can be made for $1m. The biggest expense in a studio film are stars - and just because your film costs less than 1% of theirs doesn’t mean you can don’t need stars... you need a script that is set up for “confined cameos” where you can spend a chunk of money on one day of a name of some sort (or two) and try to get the biggest name you can for the least money. And you want *someone* in that lead role - a B level star or some TV person. All of this means the script for a $1 million movie is more difficult to write than one for a $106 million movie, because you must limit the cast and locations without looking like you are limiting the cast and locations. You can’t rely on amazing car chases or CGI or even fantastic locations or acting - the script has to be clever enough to work without those things. So, the $1m thing is already a tough thing to find in a screenplay.

But I have some scripts that were written for that budget.

The big problem seemed to be the elements that contradicted each other. A film that appeals to the 15-25 year old mainstream audience is not likely to have an untraditional structure or end up winning a film festival. If you look at the films that get *bought* out of film festivals, they tend to be the midnight genre films showing out of competition - like my friend Jonathan King’s horror comedy BLACK SHEEP. Now, BLACK SHEEP is a great movie and got some great reviews when it was released, but it is not the type of film to win a festival. It’s *fun*. It’s about killer sheep. It’s not some drama about an issue with a bunch of big speeches. And even BLACK SHEEP wasn’t a hit with the mainstream 15-25 year old audience - I think that demo prefers their horror without laughs and clever dialogue. They just want blood and guts and boobs.

It seemed to me that there were two factions at this company, and each wanted to make a different kind of movie... so they were looking for a script that would please both sides. One faction wanted an art house movie that would win at film festivals and the other wanted a movie that would make money with a mainstream audience. It is difficult for me to imagine the script that pleases both factions - and I am a fan of quality genre movies. THE DARK KNIGHT was a crowd pleaser *and* a critical success (though it was not nominated for Best Picture). But DARK KNIGHT had a traditional structure - wasn’t told backwards or sideways or any other strange way.

The problem for me was that I had clever genre scripts that could be made for $1m, but they were traditionally told and were not the type of scripts to win any film fests... though they might play midnight shows. I also had a couple of scripts that were not traditionally told (like LAST STAND), but these were aimed at an older audience and were too expensive to produce on a $1m budget. I had nothing that fit all of the criteria.

I thought my best chance was a thriller of mine, THE COMPLEX, which has almost been made three times, and whenever people pass on it they always say it’s “too art house”. Of course, it wasn’t art house enough for the company my friend was working for.

I talked to my friend, and he suggested I artificially break up the chronology of one of my scripts so that it fit that criteria - and that would get me through the door. Except I thought that would ruin the script. Here is where my ego gets in my way - because I should have just done it...

But first time film company with odd criteria seemed like a long shot to me.

Another friend had a script that was close enough (I think he may have jumbled the chronology in a rewrite to get through the door) and they had some meetings with him, but eventually did not think his script had all of the criteria. This writer is produced, and I believe he eventually sold that script (for much more money than this company would have paid) to a producer with plans to make a much bigger film. I’ve said this before on the blog, most low budget producers never even consider that the script they read for their $2m film still has fingerprints on it from a couple of studio based producers who were interested in buying it as one of those $106m films. They think the scripts are on the same level as they are, and are usually unable to tell a good script from a bad script.

Well, actually a “great” script from a “good” script - it’s like wine: An average person can tell a good glass of wine from a bad glass of wine. But the more you know about wine, the more refined your palate, the better you are at telling a great glass of wine from a good one. Suddenly that table full of wine bottles the average person thinks are good can be grouped into better and great and best and just downright amazing. The low budget producers usually just know what tastes good, and can’t tell which of those is great... and often are more interested in “bland good” than “interesting great.” So the company my friend worked for missed a chance at a script that sold for a bundle to others. They probably couldn’t see past their conditions.

If you are investing money in a script and film, you want it to be the very best you can afford. A producer is going to be stuck with that project through pre-production and production and post-production and selling the film and distribution and exhibition and DVD sales and cable sales and TV sales and then paperwork for the rest of their lives. They need to love the project. Making a film is like getting married, and you don’t want to chose some random person as your spouse. So I understand the need to be picky - in fact, I think I have a career *because* producers are picky. They want the best script they can afford, not just a bunch of action scenes connected by a flimsy plot and 2D characters. They want something good - and that’s what I want to provide for them. And I also understand that a movie, even a low budget movie, is an investment and the producer would like a return. That means the script has to be something that can be made into a movie that paying customers will want to see.

I know a director who makes genre films for a living, and when he finds financing for his own film, ends up making an “anti-genre film” - a boring drama of some sort. (may have blogged this before.) He has talked to me about writing one of these a few times, and I usually say no, because I’d like to write a film that will be seen and distributed (his previous arty films were not). I think the problem with this director and many picky producers is that they see all genre films as the same, and either do not look for or can not see the “art” in some commercial films. My theory has always been to write commercial genre films that are also about something - so that people will be talking about them 50 years from now... the way we're still talking about INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS and CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and other films that were made for commercial reasons but have stuck around because they are "commercial plus".

With the indie world drying up right now, there may not be financing available for non-mainstream films, so producers are going to have to make the kinds of films that are popular with a wider audience... but make *great* ones instead of dopey ones. Make genre films that will get good reviews. If you watch PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and any Uli Lommel film on a double bill, you’ll see what I’m talking about. We need more really great genre films!

Now, all of this sounds like I’m happy that this company my friend worked for was picky as hell... but I’m not. The whole unusual structure thing is obvious indie stuff, and it seems like they were looking for a mainstream genre script that was also an unconventional niche market art house script. They were *not* considering making a really good mainstream genre film. Maybe they were unable to see how a mainstream genre film could be good, or maybe the money faction wanted one thing and the creative faction wanted the opposite. They continued to look for that one amazing script that did everything.

Though I am the first person to point out that there are probably close to a million scripts in circulation at any one time, most of those scripts stink. The ones that are good? Well, I’m not really sure there were any that fit all of the company’s criteria. You would think there might be that one in a million script out there, and maybe there was... but the longer you spend looking for the perfect script, the more time your money people have to wake up and realize that making movies is high risk... and back out. There comes a time when it makes more sense to buy the best script you can find and make the best movie you can make, rather than waiting around for that one perfect script to cross your desk. There comes a time to settle for the best available.

Because there are only so many scripts available - and once you’ve read through them and not found *exactly* what you are looking for, waiting around for someone to write it just doesn’t make sense. When you’ve read through all of the submissions and none fit the criteria, asking for submissions again will just get you the same stack. Makes more sense to select the best script from the stack and make it, even if it is not *exactly* what you were looking for.

I suspect part of the reason they wanted that *perfect* script is that they were thinking that everything was riding on this first film. They wanted to begin with the perfect film which would rocket them to fame and fortune and make their company instant players. Though that happens once in a blue moon, usually it’s a bunch of baby steps. How many films did Miramax distribute *before* PULP FICTION? Probably hundreds! You can’t plan on perfection out of the gate, you have to build up to it. If you wait for the perfect script to surface, you will be waiting forever and get nothing done. Better to make movies while you are waiting for that perfect script... and if you are constantly making movies I think you have a better chance of finding that perfect script - you are a player and people want to play with you. If you aren’t making movies, you are not even in the game.

The company my friend worked for never bought a script and never made a movie, and eventually their money source went elsewhere. They closed their doors without having made any films... as do many other picky start up companies. I see the script searches with too many conditions frequently, and sometimes have meetings with companies looking for that amazing script that will guarentee them an Oscar right out of the gate. If thse companies had just selected the best script that was offered to them, made it, then continued picking best scripts and making them; they would be a company with a library and a future... and maybe along the way they might have found that one in a million script. Instead, they didn’t even leave any junky mainstream genre flicks behind.

We all want to write great scripts, but our first script(s) are not going to be perfect. They are stepping stones to better scripts. A single script is not going to be a life changing property - it’s just a script. You will write a stack of scripts, and some will be the ones that open doors and some will be the ones that do nothing at all except get you to the next script that opens some other doors. Each open door takes you a little bit farther down the path. You may write that script that opens many doors at once... but that script was the result of lessons learned from all of the scripts you wrote before. There is no one perfect life changing script - nor is there one single perfect life changing movie that makes your company an instant major player.

If a producer waits until they find that perfect script, they will never make a movie.

If a writer waits until they find that perfect concept, they will never write a script.

If a writer waits until they come up with that perfect line of dialogue, they will never finish that page!

Don’t create so many conditions that you limit yourself and create your own failure.

Just keep doing your best work.

Every step is a step closer... but if you wait to take that first step? You're going nowhere.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Taglines - and the complete mess that is my 18th film.
Yesterday's Dinner: Al Pastor burrito at Tortas.
Bicycle: No. This time change is killing me - it gets dark so early I don't want to ride very far.

SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99

Movies: BLIND SIDE - On message boards and in e-mails, people are always saying they have lead the most amazing life and someone should make a movie about it - and they would gladly pay be a third of whatever the script sells for if I write it for them. When I say that I’d be doing all of the work, they always say it was their life and they have had to live it, and once Hollywood hears their story, they will pay millions for it! Though most people don’t want to tell me about their life unless I’m onboard and have signed a NDA, the few who do share a few juicy morsels of their amazing lives... well, they don’t convince me to drop everything and write their stories. Most have lived unusual lives that would make them the center of attention at any cocktail party, but not exactly the center of attention at a multi-plex showing the latest superhero movies and disaster flicks and high concept comedies. This is the big problem with true stories on film - they seem really dull when compared with the other movies out there. Also, you are shackled by the truth - even if your story is about the survivor of an amazing event, you have to stay within the reality of that event.

BLIND SIDE is based on a true story, written as a non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, the same guy who wrote MONEYBALL - he kind of has a niche writing strange-but-true sports stories. The screenplay and direction are by John Lee Hancock, who writes and directs heartwarming true sports stories that often take place in Texas. Perfect match - this story takes place in Texas and is unabashedly feel good material.

Quinton Aaron plays Big Mike, a homeless high school kid with great sports skills. His inner city friend’s dad uses Big Mike’s athletic skills as bait to get both kids into a private Christian school in the wealthy and safe suburbs on a scholarship... then kicks Big Mike off his sofa. So Big Mike sleeps in a 24 hour laundromat and sometimes in the school gym - because he can scavenge uneaten food after the games.

One night, after a game, he’s spotted walking through the rain by Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and her upper middle class conservative Republican Christian NRA family as they cruise past in their SUV. Leigh decides it is her Christian duty to provide shelter for this kid, and when she discovers Big Mike has no family to go home to for Thanksgiving, invites him to stay. Eventually he becomes part of the family, best friend and protector to her son SJ (Sean Junior played by scene stealer Jae Head), reluctant brother-figure to cheerleader Collins (played by Lilly Collins) and surrogate older son to dad (Tim McGraw, who provides a few tunes for the soundtrack). Oh, and later there is a college exam tutor played by always-fiesty Kathy Bates.

The problem with Big Mike’s amazing sports skills is that he needs better grades to make the team... so they set out to tutor him and give him a normal life base to work from. And he makes the team and is accepted by the other students. And folks, that’s just about it! There are some minor real-life complications that provide some drama and conflict, and a by-the-numbers lowest point in Big Mike’s new life that is a little exciting, but the world doesn’t end and Big Mike is not bitten by a radioactive spider. He just gets to play football and have a fairly normal life.

This is the kind of movie I can recommend to my mom - she would love it. Your mom would probably love it, too. It’s one of those good old fashioned feel good movies - and managed to be the #1 movie on Thanksgiving Day. I suspect lots of families went to see it after dinner, and it was the perfect film for that.

The problem with a movie like this is that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t - BLIND SIDE is not overly emotional, so it manages to avoid any criticism for being corny... but by avoiding all of those big over-the-top emotions, it comes off a little dull and distant. A little on the BLAND SIDE.

What saves this film is Sandra Bullock. After seeing her in nothing but silly rom-coms, it’s hard to remember that she can actually *act*. She was one of the saviors of CRASH, too - she just explodes in that film and makes you wonder why she isn’t cast in more serious films. In BLIND SIDE she is an amazing force of nature - you forget it’s Sandy Bullock. In a scene where she threatens the life of a vicious gang-banger, you fear for *his* safety! She is so fierce in this film, she practically burns a hole in the film in some scenes. This is a woman who knows what she wants and gets what she wants and *nothing* gets in her way. She’s also funny, and all of her passion comes from having a very big heart. I could imagine another actress getting the tough aspect down, but not the soft interior. Bullock manages to give a layered performance where she is tough *and* tender *and* funny all at the same time. Oh, and this may be TMI and just my personal opinion... but *hot*, too. She manages to be sexy while being tough and all of those other things. Though, that may just be wardrobe. When she goes onto the football field in a scene and man-handles the players - using them as props while explaining top Big Mike how to improve his game, you forget it’s Bullock. She just is that character.

The rest of the casting is also great - I mentioned Jae Head who plays SJ, who manages to make a work out montage funny, and a later college scouting montage laugh out loud funny. This little kid is amazing.

The film also has some great small moments, like when the cheerleader sister decides to have lunch in the cafeteria with Big Mike instead of her cheerleader friends. And when Leigh is reading the kid’s book Ferdinand The Bull to SJ and Big Mike... and cheerleader sis secretly listens from the next room. Moments of family life with this “adopted” family member.

Though the film also manages to show a conservative Republican Christian family and *use* those elements as a integral part of the story - the reason why they take in Big Mike in the first place is their faith, and the Thanksgiving prayer is another great moment - when they all take each other’s hands, and Big Mike becomes part of that circle of family. The way Leigh explains Big Mike’s job on the football field is that he is protecting his family of players. When those folks in the heartland complain that Hollywood doesn’t make movies for them, here it is. I have no idea how well it will play outside the USA, but it’s not strictly about football or religion, it’s mostly about *family*, and that may translate.

BLIND SIDE is a good movie... and probably the best movie your mom and her friends will see this year. And Sandra Bullock might even get some Oscar buzz from it.

- Bill

Black Friday Sale

2009-11-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

Just In Time For The Holidays!

Best Prices Ever on Class Audio CDs ($8) and other select items - prices will never be this low again (Okay, maybe *next* Black Friday)! The prices good ONLY November 27, 28, 29 & 30... Sale ENDS November 30th ("Cyber Monday") at midnight.

For those of you who don't know - Black Friday is our American shopping holiday. Day after Thanksgiving, when all of the Christmas sales begin... usually at 4am. People actually camp out in front of the stores days in advance to be the first ones inside to get the best deals before the store runs out of merchandise. Last year, someone was trampled to death trying to get a sale item. It's festive! Why do they call it Black Friday? A retail store in the red can get back in the black in one day. Not wanting to be left out of the festivities, I figured I'd slash some prices for 3 days. No need to camp out in front of the store or get up at 4.

*** BLACK FRIDAY SALE AT SCRIPT SECRETS! ***

And because it's Friday, here is Jonathan Coe on SABOTAGE:

And I hope that next Friday there will be an actual Fridays With Hitchcock entry!

Now I am going to go see what DVDs are on sale...

- Bill

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T05:09:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I will be off eating turkey (the bird, not the country) and watching some film (most likely BLIND SIDE because it's a feel good kind of thing that fits the holiday). I would like to take this time to thank *you* for reading the blog and the daily script tips and for putting up with me on those days when I'm a grumpy a-hole. I hate those days.

I think the great thing about Thanksgiving is that its the holiday where we set aside of differences and come together to celebrate all of the good things that have happened over the past year. Even if your life has not gone exactly as planned (and whose ever does?) you are still here and still plugging away. Find the joy in your life, even when things are not going right. Laugh.

I'm a big fan of silent comic Buster Keaton - his character had the worst luck of anyone on the planet... and that's where he found his comedy. My favorite Keraton short is THE HIGH SIGN, makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Hey, here's Keaton's feature THE GENERAL - view it online or download it free.

Tomorrow, tell the people you love that you love them. Forgive people. Be nice to complete strangers. Think of people other than yourself. And look at people who are different than you are and see the similarities. We all share this planet.

- Bill

*** Script Secrets First Ever - BLACK FRIDAY SALE - Lowest Prices EVER!

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Opposites React - and HAROLD & KUMAR.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich.
Bicycle: Through broken glass!

DVD Times Two

2009-11-22T16:04:00.001-08:00

In Brazil, one of my films is a brand new double bill on DVD. You can now get BLACK THUNDER in Portugese *plus* get some movie I did not write! Thanks to my friend Osvaldo for sending this to me.

Does this mean hot models from Rio will dump Leo and come after me? I sure hope so!

Classes On CD - Recession Sale!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: That great one on Tennis Plotting - and SPEED.
Yesterday's Dinner: McDonalds halfway through a bike ride.
Bicycle: Crazy long bike ride as I attempted to find a non-crowded place to work... and the ride home last night almost froze me.

SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99

Donald Spoto on Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS

2009-11-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

Donald Spoto is a film critic and Hitchcock biographer who also wrote one of the best books on Hitchcock's films. Here he looks at my favorite Hitchcock film, NOTORIOUS, and talks about a couple of things I use in my class...

1) The use of "Echo Scenes" (from Michael Hauge's screenwriting book) - where the same location is used for different scenes creating a film version of those puzzle where you look for the differences between two pictures. In my class I use the multiple scenes on the park bench from NOTORIOUS to show the way their relationship changes as the mission continues. Here Spoto looks at the two scenes on the balcony which use the same background to highlight the difference in the foreground. The earlier scene was the two coming together, here we have the two coming apart.

2) Also the use of dialogie as complete counterpoint to action. This is one of those basic screenwriting things - what they say needs to be different than what they do or you have a redundancy. Because "a picture is worth a thousand words" and "don't do what I say do what I do" and "actions speak louder than words", dialogue is usually less important that the actions of the characters. When action and dialogue are at odds, you can create subtext and depth in a scene - the actions telling us the truth and the dialogue as what the characters want to believe or even a complete lie. I use a scene from NOTORIOUS in class to show that what characters *say* in a movie means far less than what they do. This is why skipping the action to read the dialogue is the biggest mistake you could ever make - if anything, do the opposite!

He also talks about the casting of Bergman, but I think that is part of a couple of larger, screenwriting related elements...

1) Interesting characters. One of the things I talk about in the 2 day class is contradiction *within* character - this creates depth. Here we have a patriotic whore and a shy spy. Bergman's character (written by Ben Hecht) is created as a daring contradiction - this is the female lead, the *romantic* lead... and she is a usually drunk party girl who is sent on a mission to screw an ugly Nazi in order to find information. Um, how many whore leads are there in film *today*? (BTW - not my moral judgement, here: women can have a love life equal to a man's... but that is *today*, in the mid-40s this was shocking stuff, and I suspect that if you wrote a rom-com about a woman who had slept with a handful of men on screen, someone would want you to change that *today*. There is a double standard for female leads on screen.) So we have this shocking character... in a love story. Hey, it might have been a big deal to cast Bergman because she'd just played a nun, but casting *any* female movie star in this role would have been a big deal. It's the character created by the screenwriter that makes it interesting no matter who you cast.

And Cary Grant's character is equally complex - he must order the woman he loves to sleep with another man... Complete love vs. duty conflict, and he screws up and picks "duty".

2) Edgy and Dramatic Concept. If I said: "In a war, a woman is forced into prostitution by the government", you would think the enemy country was doing that... not *our side*! The story concept - that a CIA Agent must order the woman he loves to sleep with the enemy - creates the characters that all three leads play. Again, Bergamn is brilliant as are Grant and Raines, but the situation is so juicy that the film would have worked with other stars in the leads... maybe not worked as well, but still worked. When a screenwriter creates a dramatic situation like this, it really gives the stars something to work with. Cary Grant starred in a bunch of movies that relied on his wit and charm and good looks - here he is completely dialed down. This films is driven by story rather than star power. I think the casting of Bergman and Grant is genius - because there is a huge contrast between their usual screen personas and these characters. This is not a "Cary Grant role" at all - this guy is shy and quiet and introverted. The story concept itself is shocking and filled with drama, allowing the actors to show great emotions by doing very little. Is your concept this dramatic?

Fridays With Hitchcock will return soon! Next up with either be NOTORIOUS or LIFEBOAT.

Classes On CD - Recession Sale!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Those Three Greek Unities - and teenaged werewolf movies.
Yesterday's Dinner: Chicken Ceasar salad with garlic bread.

SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99

Lancelot Link Thursday

2009-11-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who buy Playboy for the articles, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

1) Overpaid Hollywood Stars - who is *most* overpaid?

2) Hollywood Reporters Next Generation List - Executives on their way up.

3) Why should you move to Hollywood to pursue your career?

4) And my friend Keith's movie BATTLE FOR TERRA is the #1 video-on-demand movie at Amazon (in its genre)...

Ranked 210 overall and
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Animation
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Animation > Kids & Family
#2 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Adventure

I saw it in the cinema, liked it but never got around to reviewing it... even though it pops up as a *great* example of a future or alien world in my review of TERMINATOR SALVATION (which had a stupid and sucky future world). Congratulations to Keith, and if you have those short people in your house, you might add it to your Netflix que.

5) Congratulations to all of the folks who made the top 100 in the Script Shadow logline list - many of them I know, and at least one of them I have slept with. The Top 100 Loglines. Some are... interesting. What are your favorites and the ones that had you saying WTF? Comments section!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: This is the end! - and the 5 basic kinds of endings.
Yesterday's Dinner: Tortas on Ventura.

SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99

Writer's Roundtable - Is The Film The Movie?

2009-11-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

And here is part last of the screenwriters round table, where they discuss whether the films resembled their scripts...

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.

Writers Roundtable - Success?

2009-11-18T08:53:00.000-08:00

Today I'm posting the other two parts of the Hollywood Reporter's writers round table discussion (last one is at 2pm). The problem yesterday seemed to be that every single writer's website linked or embedded the interviews, and you could not get through to see it. Same problem may happen today. I suggest trying after 5 or 6pm Pacific Time when most folks have gone home for the day.

So, here's part 2 about dealing with success... or even if these folks have found success...

Last one pops at 2pm.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.

Writer's Roundtable - Inspirtation & theme

2009-11-17T08:50:00.000-08:00

Hollywood Reporter does a series of round table conversations with people in the biz around award season - each segment is about 2 minutes - and here's part one of the series about screenwriters...

Congratulations to the 100 folks who made the semi-finals in Script Shadow's logline contest! Um, I ended up being one of them. Entered on a whim. After reading the other entries - I don't have a chance in hell.

And I have other scripts and projects circling which I will blog about later. Now they're still dreams and possibilities. But, things are happening!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Are A Failure! - and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich - tuna.
Bicycle: Short ride to an undisclosed location that is not crowded.

Movies Are Ancillaries Of Toys!

2009-11-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

And Soylent Green tastes a little weird...

A week ago I did a Doom & Gloom blog entry about the state of the biz after from a dead American Film Market and realizing that indie films and indie genre films are in big trouble these days... and studio movies? Well, it seems like movies today are now an ancillary of toy companies - Hasbro is a film producer now! For real. And Marvel comics is a film producer, they have a deal with Disney. And this just sucks for screenwriters who don't want to write GI JOE 2 or SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE...

The biggest mistake of my career is that I am a writer who really wants to tell his own stories and seems to have a bunch of stories to tell. I would much rather write an original script than adapt someone else’s material - and have turned down jobs I should have taken. I always joke about ANGELS & DEMONS, but had I said yes instead of no my name would probably be on a big Ron Howard / Tom Hanks movie right now instead of on some cool spec script I wrote instead that still has not sold. Hey, and that was *before* movies had become just an ancillary right of Hasbro and Marvel and Sony Playstation.

They are making MONOPOLY THE MOTION PICTURE and Ridley Scott is directing.

They are turning a guy’s *Twitter account*, SHIT MY DAD SAYS, into a TV series.

I have a Script Tip called Writing For Toys that gets me a dozen angry e-mails whenever I run it, because it says we should consider the ancillary rights when we write our original screenplays, because that is an elements that the producers are considering. If they have two specs on their desks and one is a perfect for games and toys and Happy Meal tie ins and a Saturday morning cartoon spin off, and the other can only be a movie; guess which one will make them the most money? Hey, you may think this is art, but the guys buying our scripts are businessmen and are making an investment in our screenplays with the hope of making a good return on that investment. They are going to pick the screenplay that will make them the best return. That Script Tip is now out of date because movies are the ancillaries now. They aren’t looking at our spec scripts any more, they are looking at what board game hasn’t been filmed yet, what toy line can be a summer tentpole, what comic book might be the next IRON MAN. It’s long past thinking about the ancillary rights when you write a spec...

Depressing, huh?

As I said in the Doom & Gloom blog entry - Uwe Boll is a genius! He was the one who figured this out before anyone else, before any of the studios, and began making the movies of video games while studios were still thinking the business was all about making movies and then making the videogames of movies.

Terry Rossio (and Ted Elliott) have a column on their site called Mental Real Estate that foresaw all of this a decade ago. This column used to be one that I understood but disagreed with - my theory was that popular movies required original ideas, not some idea so worn out that everyone on the globe knew about it. Of course, that little PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie and its sequels proved me wrong. The Mental Real Estate model is the one Hollywood loves right now. “Hey, everybody knows Solitaire! We play it on our computers when we’re supposed to be working! And old people play it with actual cards! That makes SOLITAIRE: THE MOVIE ‘four quadrant’! We get the young *and* old audience! And SOLITAIRE has built in sequels that are also part of our Mental Real Estate - I can’t wait for the scary excitement of SPIDER SOLITAIRE, can you?” If you have an idea on how to turn solitaire into a movie, you can sell that to Hollywood. The business is more interested in the Universal than the Unique right now.

Depressing, huh?

Everything runs in cycles, so this trend will eventually burn out... but it may takes years, probably a decade. Now, the way we land a job like SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE is to write a great original spec with an amazing original idea... and that leads to writing a movie that is just an ancillary for a toy or game or comic book. So we still need to be writing original material... unless you can crack that SOLITAIRE movie (because that games is public domain). But this doesn’t satisfy someone like me, whose motivation is to see *my* scripts on screen. Though I have realized the error of my ways and would now probably take the ANGELS & DEMONS assignment or any of the others I turned down, because for some mixed up reason the biz respects the guy who adapts a popular novel more than the guy who can actually create their own story and characters... and more than the writer of that popular novel. I have learned that I need to play well with others rather than go to my own little corner in my own little room where I can be whatever I want to be. But am I going to write stuff like ETCH-A-SKETCH: THE MOTION PICTURE for the next decade until this trend dies out?

Depressing, huh?

So, Bill from Pulp 2.0 and I were talking about this... and instead of looking at this as The Death Of Cinema, we've decided to use this as an opportunity. To make lemonade out of the lemons. Basically, I’m taking my own advice and looking at projects with strong ancillary possibilities. I have a script called ANDROID ARMY that is often a bridesmaid, but so far has not been a bride. People keep *almost* making this script. The great thing about it is that it’s affordable sci-fi, and has some really strange characters. It is the only thing I've ever written that screams: "Action Figures!" It also screams video game and comic book and game cards and all of that other stuff. The stuff that used to be ancillary rights but now seems to be driving the market. So, we are going to try to set it up as a video game and a comic book and maybe even a toy line *before* we try to set it up as a movie. Instead of looking at the movie first and the ancillary stuff second, the plan is to reverse that - and look at video games and all of those things that used to be “after markets” as equals to cinema. To play this ancillary game Hollywood seems to be playing.

Hey, the economy sucks - games and comic books and all of those things that used to be ancillaries are hurting. We understand that. This is not a case of thinking that setting this up as a comic book is going to be easy, this is trying to break down some other door - find some other way in with this project. If we do all of this and nothing happens, how is that any different than trying to set up the script with a bunch of producers?

I did not start writing screenplays to sell dolls, but many of my favorite films have action figures... no, not CASABLANCA, but ALIENS does. So, for a while, if I have a choice between the story idea that can sell to multiple markets or a story idea that can only be a movie, I'm going to pick the additional markets one. I'm not writing anything I don't like, just selecting from ideas I do like or twisting an idea a little to give it additional chances to be bought and made. I’m kicking down different doors.

And that’s kind of exciting.

Instead of looking at something like SHIT MY DAD SAYS and complaining that some guy sold his *tweets* to Hollywood and they are making it into a TV series... I’m looking at things like tweets as a possible market that can lead to a script deal. Instead of looking at Diablo Cody breaking into the biz because she wrote an amusing blog about working as a stripper, I’m looking for a job as a stripper! Okay, I tried applying for a job at Bob’s Classy Lady in Van Nuys and they wouldn’t hire me to strip, even though my boobs are larger than many of the women on the pole. So I’ll have to blog about something else.

But the thing about Diablo Cody and the SHIT MY DAD SAYS twitter guy is that they are *writers* who are *writing something*, just in a different medium than screenplays. If you think about his tweets, it's not just a basic twitter account - it's very specific and all about one character (or maybe two) and it's funny. I can easily see this as a TV series. Yeah - you have to adapt it, but how is that any different than adapting Ray Romano's stand up routine into a series? This guy is writing 140 character scenes about a character! He has found a way to show off his comedy talents. Of all of the twitter accounts in all of the world, his is the one that will be turned into a TV series. Not mine... not even Roger Avary’s tweets from prison (though, he’s funny as hell, too).

The thing with tweets and blogs is that it's a writer getting attention with *no money* because they found a unique character or world to write about. One of my "FB friends" has a blog with all kinds of attitude and a very distinct voice and "world" - she writes hardboiled kick ass action stuff. Carole Parker, it’s over there –> She's damned smart, and FB spams the hell out of her stuff (usually with a smokin' hot picture of some babe with a gun to get your attention). I know her blog is going to land a screenplay deal because it’s unique and she’s working her butt off to get it in front of people. She has kicked in some other door that may lead to Hollywood. That’s one of those inexpensive things you can do to get Hollywood’s attention. I'm looking at something like that myself - a fictional blog that is really a novel in disguise. Costs me nothing to get that out into the world.

I think the challenge for us now is to find stories that have some sort of additional market. Something that makes this script a "web natural" or a comic book or game or action figure or whatever else *in addition* to being a great screenplay. This ancillary thing isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. Before we only had the one door that we could try to get through - the movie door. Now we have dozens of doors, dozens of possible ways in. We can write a blog or tweet or make webisodes or write a novel or write a comic book or create a game or toy or... well, don’t let me make a list that *limits* the possible doors. Find the door that nobody has thought of, yet. Be like Uwe Boll!

Okay, maybe not that last part.

But find where the door is and see if you can kick it open. The blog thing and the tweets and toys and comic books and videogames and whatever the hell else you can think of are doors. Kick 'em open if you can.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Research - Who Needs It? - and many of my awful films.
Yesterday's Dinner: Fuddruckers bacon cheddar burger.
Bicycle: Rode *West* to a Starbucks with a bad layout.

Movies: PIRATE RADIO - Saw that new PIRATES movie, and it was okay. As usual, Bill Nighy was great, and Jack Davenport was back again as that government guy who tries to capture the Pirates, like in the other movies. But where was Keira Knightly and Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom? Why didn't they come back for this sequel?

The film was *really* episodic, just all over the place. I had no idea what the story was... a kid searching for his dad? They don't spend much time on that plot thread. The whole government vs pirate thing? Well, the problem with that plot thread is that the *people* are supposed to love the pirates for what they do (play rock & roll music) and we even get shots of normal people listening to the radio and dancing... but they never show us *why* the people *need* the music. Hey, it's great music, but I'm not exactly sure why this service is so important when you can just go by a record.

If they showed us why their job was important to all of those dancing people, showed us that this music was the thing that cheered them up and changed their lives (which isn't the same as just showing them dancing) then we would have felt that the pirates were doing a noble job and wanted them to keep doing that pirate thing. But we don't know why the people need the pirates, so what the pirates do doesn't seem to have a real value, and not an *emotional* value. Why do we care if the government stops the pirates or not? Stakes are not established.

And the government guys, including Davenport as a character named Twatt (never gets a laugh) are just pure evil. They just want to stop the pirates because they are pirates - the antagonist's goal has zero motivation, so it is unbelievable. Which makes the whole film seem fake.

The pirates themselves are a bunch of character sketches instead of real people. It's like each has a cliche they are playing. I didn't believe them, either - though Rhys Ifans steals the whole damned film along with some actor who has three lines in the whole film. If you want us to care about the pirates, make them real people.

It's kind of strange to see a divorced actor & actress couple in the same film, even though they are never in the same scenes.

MILD SPOILERS: HOW I WOULD FIX IT

For me, it was a grab bag of amusing scenes put to amazing music from the 60s that were stuck into this "story" of the government talking about going after the pirate radio boat. There's a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Ifans have a dispute and race/climb the ship's "mast" to settle it - but the dispute seems bogus and not really fleshed out, so the whole scene is just there. We don't care who wins. And we don't care whether the two ever really get along.

I would have begun with the boy, had him kicked out of school for playing the radio station... and used this scene to show how important this radio station and the music they played was to everyone at the time. Establish the stakes right up front. We'd lose the casting reveal of who played his mom, but that might be good - we show his mom as being a frump, and establish his need for a father and to find out who his father is. Then she sends him off to live on the boat... and plant the idea that one of the guys on the boat might be his father. But open it up, so it could be any of the guys old enough - even Rhys Ifan. That gives the kid a goal on the boat which also gives the story some direction.

Later, when mom comes onto the boat, the reveal could be that's she's found her inner babe - and I'd tie that into the pirate radio station - she switches from whatever boring BBC station to the pirate radio station to see how her boy is doing (kinda)... and the music takes her back to that time when she was having FUN as a young woman, rather than as the working single mom she is now. Use this to show how rock & roll really can transform us - make us take risks and have fun and just let our hair down (as they said in '66).

The music in the movie was great - but the movie wasn't ever *about* rock & roll... and rebellion. The ship is rebellion... but that was never really explored except in the most cartoonish way.

Once we get the boy on the boat, the movie this should have been was ADVENTURELAND - a coming of age movie that is about your idols having feet of clay. There are scenes like that - with Nick Frost - but the script is so unformed and vague and all over the place, anytime it does something that could be from an ADVENTURELAND scenario it does it so poorly and without any emotions at all and you don't care - just another incident.

The government plot thread needed to be less silly, more serious. That's the big external thing that really drives the plot - there would be no boat without the government plot thread. But this thread depends on us understanding how important the boat is to the nice people of England and how their lives would be hell without it. It's strange that a movie like FOOTLOOSE does this story a million times better. I would have had one of the guys go to shore, get arrested, go on trial... and show the public outrage/need and give him one of those speeches. My choice would have been the silent guy... though I know Philip Seymour Hoffman would have probably made the speech, because he's the "star".

They needed to make rock & roll and rebellion and just having fun more of the story - shown that this was a period in time where the old was fading away and the world was evolving. People were rebelling. For that - why not show some scenes with those dancing people getting caught listening to the station and having their boss turn the radio to boring stuff and make them get back to work? Another tradition element was Christmas - and they really needed to push that farther and show the pirates rebelling against formal aspects of the traditions and focusing on the more - spiritual seems like the wrong word, but basic human love aspects. Use this to show a strong contrast between rigid society and actual love-thy-neighbor stuff.

Curtis is already a really episodic writer (THREE WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL - title tells all), so maybe he needs someone to keep him on course. This thing looked like a really rough first draft that needed to be parted out for ideas for the next - more focused - draft.

Also, it could have used more sword fighting scenes.

- Bill

SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99

Patricia Hitchcock on STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

2009-11-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

Sorry there's no Friday's With Hitchcock this week, still shoveling out from under all of the stuff that piled up while I was in London, at Expo, almost in Hong Kong, and at AFM (which ended Wednesday). So here's something to tide you over...

Hitchcock's daughter, Pat, was *in* STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and these are her thoughts on the film...

And, in the event you missed them, here are my thoughts:
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

And if you click on the label "hitchcock" you will get all of the past Fridays With Hitchcock (I think).

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: High Concept Vampires - and those high school vampires.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco Chicken Tacos.
Bicycle: No... but I did on Tuesday and Wednesday
Pages: Did a quick rewrite of ANDROID ARMY before sending it off into the world.

Bordwell & Bedposts

2009-11-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

About a week ago David Bordwell had a great blog entry on bedposts in movies - and other things phallic.

Bedposts On Film

- Bill

Clash Of The Titans

2009-11-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

Ray Harryhausen. When I was a kid, that name meant magic. Probably the first Harryhausen film I saw was MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, and it was one of those films that made me want to make movies. It's still one of my favorite movies. The creatures in that film were so real! How did they do that?

And that's how I got to know Harryhausen's name. I started to look for movies he did special effects on - and discovered fighting skeletons and sea monsters and cowboys who roped dinosaurs... and Dynamation (also, the Super type). This guy made things that could usually only exist in the imagination of a kid into something that could battle Kerwin Matthews on screen! He made magic into reality.

But the problem with being a star special effects guy is finding stories where the special effects were the stars... at least, that was a problem in the pre-CGI times. So CLASH OF THE TITANS was Harryhausen and his producing partner Charles Schneer's new excuse to do some stop motion work... and they cast prettyboy Harry Hamlin and brilliant-but-down-on-his-luck actor Laurence Olivier, and the film was, well, okay. The mechanical owl was kind of silly - I'm sure in response to STAR WARS' R2D2.

But a new generation of kids saw that magic and remembered the film... and became studio executives. So a film that was just an excuse for Ray Harryhausen's special effects has been remade *without* those effects. And here's the teaser trailer...

And here's the trailer for the original film...

- Bill

Makes 2012 Look Like A Disneyland Ride

2009-11-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

Coming Friday to Los Angeles and New York, this nice little documentary shot at the same location as one of the low budget horror movies I worked on... but much more frightening. It's all about the end of the world. Not some Roland Emmerich natural disaster, but burning through all of our natural resources and killing ourselves. And not sometime in the future - sometime very very soon.

Maybe by 2012.

This looks interesting. It's the end of the world, baby!

- Bill

Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

2009-11-10T07:30:00.000-08:00

After the doom and gloom of yesterday's post, something to cheer you up. Sesame Street is 40 years old... and still going strong.

Though The Muppets were aimed at adults and kids, Sesame Street was aimed at kids... and still managed to appeal to adults. The characters where wild and fun and irreverent. Here's a song from Ernie...

And a cross-over from The Muppets Kermit singing a song...

Which brings me to my favorite song of all, from THE MUPPET MOVIE. It's not just some silly Muppet song, it's about *me* and it's probably about you, too.

That song just brightens my day.

Tomorrow - back to doom and gloom... and sometime soon, an entry about The Brad Pitt Guy.

- Bill

Is Cinema Dead?

2009-11-09T08:23:00.000-08:00

The American Film Market is going on right now in Santa Monica... or maybe it’s *not* going on. If you have a film market and nobody comes, is it still a film market?

Is this the canary in the coal mine for cinema?

NO... WHAT *IS* A FILM MARKET

In case you don’t know what a Film Market is, it’s a market where they sell films. Obvious, huh? When a producer makes a film they still need to sell it to a distributor... actually, usually several distributors. Basically, these days a studio is really just a distributor and a bank... they fund a producer’s film in exchange for distribution rights. The producer makes a % of what the film makes after the studio subtracts distribution fees and overhead and the cost of making the film and the townhouse they keep in Marina Del Rey for the studio chief’s mistress to live in. But these days, even studios are looking for money from other sources, and often co-producing some film with some other studio in some other country, or just acting as a distrib for hire for films made in some other country.

Most studios either have long standing deals with foreign distribs or they have their own foreign distribution arm. At one point in time many of the majors shared a foreign distribution company, but I think those days are long gone - too much money in foreign distribution to share with the competition. But as more film finance money comes from outside the USA, in order to get the money a studio must often give up foreign distribution or at least share it.

But not every producer has a studio deal - some are independent and have no foreign distribution in place and sell their films to foreign distribs on a film-by-film basis. There are somewhere around 70 foreign territories that buy USA films for their country (or countries - some territories cover more than one country connected by a common language or geography). These independents go to markets - kind of like a trade show - and sell their films...

And USA indie distribs go to these markets to buy foreign films. Often the indie production company will buy the foreign films, take them back to the USA, and sell them to a USA distrib along with their own movies. Anyway - there’s this whole business of buying and selling films to overseas distribs, and the big markets are Cannes (the festival is the sideline, the market is what it’s really all about) and American Film Market. Now, the Hong Kong Market is taking hold, too. Used to be a marked in Milan, MIFED, but it’s gone.

The thing about these markets, and American Film Market is where it is most obvious, is that “Independent” covers a lot of ground - from all of those serious dramatic Oscar contenders to modern day grindhouse films. It’s not unusual to see some Merchant-Ivory style adaptation of some classic novel you read the Cliff Notes to in High School being sold across the hall from BLOOD OF THE NAKED MUTILATORS. Anything made outside the studio system is here...

Along with films you *think* are studio films but are really some sort of foreign coproduction starring Bruce Willis or Al Pacino or someone else who “likes to work”.

CROWDED ELEVATORS?

When I first began going to American Film Market it was held in Beverly Hills and *crowded* with buyers and sellers and a million cool movies. Those were the years where a small video company could still get films with B movie starts in cinemas - and you might see some Gary Busey action flick at your local multiplex, or one of those Canon Films with Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris or American Ninja Michael Dudikoff... and a year later the films would go to VHS where they probably belonged. But, as a guy working in a warehouse back then, those were the movies we all saw after work. Beers first, movie, then more beers. And sometimes these movies did some breakout business and became DIRTY DANCING (made by Vestron Video). That’s when cinema - and low budget cinema - was alive and kicking! (especially in the Chuck Norris movies)

A couple of years later AFM moved to Santa Monica, and was still going strong. The films were not getting that theatrical window anymore, but VHS was *hot* and had become a separate market with separate stars. It was strange because there were some stars who were huge in cinemas but when the films went to VHS they bombed... and other people who were nothing in cinemas but massive stars on VHS. And it seemed like the market was still *expanding* for independent films (both arthouse and grindhouse) - cable needed movies! DVD replaced VHS, and needed new movies. And then the studios began to realize that DVD was making so much money on non-theatricals that they jumped in making DVD originals... or, trying to. Studios always seem to have problems making movies on a budget, and are used to throwing money at a problem instead of creativity.

Well, a few years ago AFM began to contract instead of expand... though, they actually expanded geographically by taking over the hotel next door. For the first time there were fewer people at market than the year before, even though the PR firm the AFM hired kept trying to convince us there were more people.

But here’s the gauge - at Beverly Hills you could not get on an elevator. There were hundreds of people waiting for the elevator at any time of the day... so you had to climb the stairs. When they moved to Santa Monica - same exact thing. HUNDREDS of people waiting for the elevator... even on one of the slow days! You had to climb the stairs. By the end of AFM my legs were throbbing and jelly-like. But over the years the crowds at the elevators have gotten smaller, and my joke for the last couple of years is that you could actually get on an elevator right away if you didn’t mind being packed in there.

Saturday I’m at AFM, talking about how it isn’t crowded, and I mentioned the elevator thing, and looked over... and there was *no one* waiting for the elevator. No one. The elevator doors opened and *one person* walked out - no one else in the elevator.

ALWAYS A RODEO IN TOWN

Wednesday afternoon when I dropped by to pick up my badge and the catalogues, it was practically empty... but it’s a week day. Weekdays can be weak days. Never this slow before, but I was sure by Saturday and Sunday the place would be packed. Usually the weekend has a great show in the lobby - hundreds of undiscovered actresses wearing the legal minimum of clothing show up to pass out headshots (insert the obvious joke) and try to get a role in some movie being set up at the market. Also actors, composers, posers, directors, writers, and people who have business cards that say they are producers. They crowd the lobby, pouncing on anyone with a badge. I call them the Lobby Rats. After 6pm you might also see some B movie stars (or even an A movie star from one of the big budget films) in the bar, secretly looking for work. They are the center of attention and I’ll bet none of them even have to buy their own drinks. Just for fun, Troma often sends down some costumed superheroes to promote their films, and other companies or producers might have a team of hot women in T shirts with the film’s title or in costume from the film as promotion. It’s a circus, and fun to watch.

This year - no circus. I was there Friday, and the lobby was almost empty. After hours, Fred Williamson showed up, but the place was still mostly empty. Let me put it this way - there are maybe a half dozen tables in the bar area of the lobby, and usually you can’t get near one. This year, I could have sat at the one behind Fred... it was empty!

Saturday? The same. I saw Corbin Bernsen walk past, but no Al Pacino or Val Kilmer or any of the other guys who I’ve seen before. And the lobby was mostly empty - not even the costumed Troma people. Not even the undiscovered actresses. The place was dead!

The hallways were empty. The elevators were empty. The lobby was mostly empty.

WE GOT OURSELVES SOME O'THAT ART HOUSE STUFF

One of the strange things this year was the exploitation companies selling those Oscar movies. It seems that when they closed down the studio indie labels and the independent art house labels began going out of business, there was no one left to sell art house movies to the foreign market except those grindhouse companies. The latest Polish Brothers quirky arthouse movie starring Billy Bob Thornton was being sold by the company best know for flicks like the Steve Guttenberg thriller FATAL RESCUE. I know you've seen that one - it stars the Gutt! There just aren’t any arthouse places left! They closed Miramax!

And that’s the thing that’s scary. The studios say they are hurting now that DVD sales are off due to the economy and need to find ways to cut their film budgets. The studios have stopped making indie films and don't make many prestige films. Those larger budget indie films with stars are not being made, and when they are, they end up being sold by some grindhouse company because they are still in business. But even the grindhouse companies are in trouble, because that middle has fallen out of low budget. There are still films made for under a million (many well under) and still films made for over $10 million that will get a theatrical release from some studio... but nothing in between.

Over the years I’ve seen big companies die and those scrappy little guys who had offices in the basement of the hotel start to climb floors until their offices were in prime real estate. I’m sure I have mentioned Brain Damage Films before - I’ve talked to the guy who runs it in the past (seems like a nice guy) and they specialize in no-budget horror films people shoot in their back yards for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY budgets (around $10k-$15k)... and they are not only still in business, when a movie is made that cheap, it’s hard not to make money. A baby step higher is The Asylum, who make all of those really bad films you see on SyFy and those knockoffs you see on the Blockbuster shelves with titles like I AM OMEGA and SNAKES ON A TRAIN. These guys used to make films for $100k... with a name in the cast! Now their budgets are a little bit higher (not much) and they have a couple of names... but we are still well below half a million bucks. Again, hard not to make money off a film made for so little. But the problem is - the budgets are getting smaller and smaller and there’s not enough money in the budget to make a living writing something like that... or directing... or anything else.

The canary in the coal mine is falling off its perch.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE!

AND IT DOES NOT WORK...

With studios aiming at some Hasbro toy tentpole crap, and the indie world decimated, and the grindhouse world being $10K wonders and $200k mockbusters, where is the business going? I’m having trouble seeing the future. I was talking to Bill from Pulp 2.0 about the market, and joked that the Mayans got it wrong - cinema is dead *today*. I was talking to Bill by phone, because I skipped AFM completely on Sunday - wasn’t worth driving out there. Bill did drive out there, and said it wasn’t worth it.

I think the Hasbo thing, as much as I hate it, is the future of cinema. Instead of making a movie, we will be making something that can sell as a video game, comic book, webisodes, toys, online entity, and maybe a DVD - but the deal will have to encompass all of those things in order to get the financing to make them. The world of selling ancillary rights to movies is over - the *movie* is the ancillary product, now. Marvel and Hasbro run Hollywood. And as the indie films just die, and the grindhouse films get smaller and smaller, the only future I can see for genre movies is if they evolve the same way studio films are evolving and become part of some larger product... We will look back on Uwe Boll and consider him the cutting edge genius who could see the future - he’s already making bad video game movies.

There is no more cinema, there is only the film version of toys and the film version of comic books.

Welcome to Hollywood. The new Hollywood.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Characters ARE Relationships - and ALIENS meets BLACKHAWK DOWN.
Yesterday's Dinner: Grilled Ham & Swiss on Rye at home.
Bicycle: No... but should have.
Pages: Um, do these count?
London Blog Entries: 42,000 words = 168 typewritten pages. Crap! I should have written a script instead! Or *two*!

New Issue Of Script

2009-11-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

The new issue of Script Magazine is out now! Sherlock Holmes on the cover. My article is reporting from the Ameriacn Film Market on Worldwide Cool - making sure your script plays globally.

Script to Screen: Precious
When director Lee Daniels first read Sapphire’s novel Push, he immediately wanted to see the story come to life. However, trying to illustrate the abuse the protagonist suffers without earning the movie an NC-17 rating seemed almost impossible. Daniels and scribe Geoffrey Fletcher collaborated on an adaptation that would retain its dramatic impact and become a work of art on the screen.

Nicholas Meyer: The View From the Scribe
Some writers struggle in transitioning from one type of writing to another, but Nicholas Meyer has conquered many forms. Learn Meyer’s cross-format storytelling processes and what encouraged him to write his recent memoir, The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.

Independents: Worldwide Cool
Visual storytelling, clever scenes, cool battles, emotional plot twists, vivid characters—all of these things and more can be found in the Chinese import Red Cliff. So, what can writers learn from this dynamic film about international box-office appeal and about writing across borders?

Small Screen: How I Met Your Mother
The broadcast-network sitcom How I Met Your Mother is enjoying its fifth season of success on CBS, along with a fervent fan following bolstered by interactive Web content. Writer-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas explain how they combine team writing, nonlinear storytelling, and the best of their favorite shows to create characters we all want to hang out with.

Anything but Elementary: Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for more than 100 years. As Lionel Wigram, Michael Robert Johnson, Tony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg pieced together a new story for the famous duo, they balanced the needs of a modern audience with the wit and subversive charm of the source material.

Susie’s Story: The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones touched a chord when it was published seven years ago. The tale of a 14-year-old murder victim examined the complexities of grief and hope. After spending years navigating Middle-earth, Oscar®-winning screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson were ready to explore a less epic, more personal story. Here Walsh and Boyens discuss bringing Sebold’s novel to film.

Writers on Writing: Invictus
After leaving behind his home in South Africa to pursue his screenwriting career, Tony Peckham never thought he would be penning the story of a hero from his past: Nelson Mandela. Invictus’ central challenges were crafting an interesting protagonist when the real-life subject behaved as a saint, and making new the well-worn theme of sports as social politics.

Writer, Edit Thyself!
Reality check: Your final draft is most likely as bad as your first. Unless you’ve made self-editing and heavy revision a priority, you’re nowhere near completing a flawless script. Mystery Man offers advice on how to sculpt your masterpiece while maintaining objectivity and catering to your audience.

Under the Big Top
Equal parts innovator, diplomat, taskmaster and ringleader, the showrunner wears many hats. Responsible perhaps as much as any one person can be for a show, the showrunner must balance creative interests, network interests, and personal conviction—to wide and varied results.

Writers on Writing: The Messenger
Especially during wartime, no civilian can guess what emotions a soldier experiences on a day-to-day basis. Scribe Alessandro Camon tells how he and co-writer Oren Moverman decided to explore the private heartache some soldiers face as part of the “casualty notification” team.

Writers on Writing: The Informant!
Writer Scott Z. Burns delved deep into the journey of Mark Whitacre from federal agent to criminal, but thought it would do more harm than good to talk to Whitacre himself. Read how a bizarre history of crime became a comedy for the big screen ... and even received glowing endorsement from its subject.

- Bill

North By Northwest - 50th Anniversary!

2009-11-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

The original plan for Monday was to see NORTH BY NORTHWEST on the big screen again as part of the AFI Fest - in celebration of the film's 50th Anniversary.

Think about that for a moment - that film is 50 years old! Hey, 1:30 minutes into the film, the protagonist is kidnaped at gun point and taken to be killed! I love how those old movies took their time to get to the story!

This is one of my favorite Hitchcock films - it's funny and fast paced and exciting.

Here's is a link to... The Birth Of Roger Thornhill.

And here is a link to... The Fridays With Hitchcock Entry For NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

- Bill

BUY IT AT AMAZON:

Publisher's Weekly Best of 2009 List!

2009-11-02T13:22:00.001-08:00

So, yesterday I reviewed my friend Harry's first (published) novel CHILD OF FIRE... and today it was selected by Publisher's Weekly as one of the 5 Best Mass Market Novels of 2009. It's his first novel, and it beat out all of those books at the airport and supermarket and front displays at Barnes & Noble and Borders - those books by big famous best selling writers! (well, beat all but the other 4) (well, it was #4 on the list, so it beat out all but 3).

Big congratulations to Harry! If you read my review below, you know I really liked it and want to see what happens in the next book in the series. But Publisher's Weekly Best of 2009 List? Those guys know what they are talking about, I'm just some screenwriter who prowls used book stores looking for that missing Highsmith book I've never read. This is great news. Here's a link to the list, scroll down to Mass Market...

Publisher's Weekly Best Of 2009 List

The great thing about this is that Harry did not take no for an answer and kept writing, finding a place for his stories... not the big screen as it turned out, but a novel. Well, a series of novels. Well, a series of novels where the first one is one of the 5 Best mass market novels according to Publisher's Weekly.

- Bill

Child Of Fire... And Post London Disorientation

2009-11-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, my friend Harry wrote a book... which was bought by Random House... and is Del Rey's big fall paperback release. It's the first book he ever sold. I was going to buy it for my London trip, but the book came out the day of my flight and no one at a book store would slip me a copy before the street date. So I bought it when I got back, for my Hong Kong flight... which never happened due to a late visa.

HONG KONG?

My Visa arrived two days after my plane flew. The pisser about that is that the HKFA was handling my visa, because it was a work visa and I would be working for them (teaching my class) and the envelope was postmarked 14 days after they e-mailed me to tell me they had the visa and confirm my address so that they could put it in the mail that day. Then, it sat on a desk for 2 weeks before anyone actually mailed it. If it had only sat on the desk for one week, I'd have gone to Hong Kong.

The week between London and what should have been Hong Kong was living hell - unpack, do laundry, re-pack, mail orders... and then try to get the damned Theme Class to fit on the CD while dealing with jet lag. The edited version of the class was 4 minutes too long, and that meant trying to find 4 minutes to cut.

Oh, and in the middle of all that I went to Screenwriting Expo - which was a ghost town this year. I was in there for a couple of hours on Saturday, which included a period between classes so that I could see how many people were there - not many at all. Someone told me 1K, but I have to tell you it looked like half that at most. Shane Black said hello.

After that I went for drinks with some people I know - the evening was designed to hang out with people who were only in town for the Expo... but I don't think a single out-of-towner was there. Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood - more Guiness and pub food!

Now, every day during this week I am checking my mail like someone with OCD, looking for that visa for Hong Kong. I have a plane ticket, the plane is leaving first thing Tuesday morning, and I do not have my visa, yet.

This is controlling my life at this point. I'm still jet-lagged because I haven't had a moment to relax, and trying to get everything taken care of for the HK trip...

So, Monday rolls around - I'm flying to HK on Tuesday - and I spend the whole day checking my mail... and when the mail finally comes (it always seems to come late at times like this) - no visa. So, now what do I do? I can't teach my class in the airport, because the students would need a boarding pass to get to the gates... where I'd be stuck without that visa. So, I e-mail the Hong Kong Film Academy to tell them what happened - using their e-mail where they varified my address a month ago as the e-mail I reply to, and go about canceling my plane tickets - lost $150, and the airline keeps the rest for some future flight of mine.

That airplane ticket almost cancels out what I made at Raindance, so I'm kind of breaking even at this point. You know, there are people who think the whole teaching classes thing is a way to get rich from poor screenwriters. Um, hasn't worked that way for me, please send all complaints to Bob McKee.

Now, I'm frustrated, jet-lagged, exhausted... and my head is about to explode.

CHILD OF FIRE
by Harry Connolly

So, I popped open Harry's book and *escape*. Escape from the Hong Kong thing and all of the frustrations. CHILD OF FIRE is almost impossible to put down. Relentless pacing, and escalating conflict, and cool stuff. I want to get me one of those ghost knives.

I am not the kind of person to read fantasy novels - I love science fiction, but anything with wizards just sounds silly to me. Harry's book CHILD OF FIRE is about a sorceress and magic spells and crap - but it's written like a noir action story. Remember those HBO movies that combined Lovecraft and Chandler? Not like that...

CHILD OF FIRE is more of a *Hammett* Continental Op novel like RED HARVEST meets HP Lovecraft - more action oriented, more brutal, more "street" - and a real fast read. Ray Lilly is a career criminal (car thief) who is awaiting trial for some murders he didn't do that have a weird supernatural element to them. His public defender is replaced by some slick mob lawyer type who tells Ray he'll make the charges go away if Ray forgets the supernatural stuff he saw. He even sets Ray up with a job as a driver. This is no normal mob lawyer - this guy is from the Twenty Palace Society - a secret organization of Sorcerers. They control magic, the way some other mob might control drugs or prostitution or motion picture distribution. Ray's driving job is for...

Annalese Powess, a sorceress-assassin who kills those who use magic without permission from the Twenty Palace Society mob. Rogue socerers, people who find some spellbook and use it... anyone who is using magic in some way that might bring down the heat on the mob - or maybe get in their way. Cast a spell without permission - they send Annalize to wack you. All of this stuff is back story we have to piece together as we read - because the book hits the ground running!

It opens with Ray and Annalise on the way to a hit...

Small town in Washington State has an overly successful toy factory - and children who spontaneously combust... and the kid's parents forget they even had kids. They find ways to rationalize the car seats and toys in the front yard. The burning kids are scary and sick and twisted - but that's just the tip of the terror in the novel. This is one of those small towns with a secret - and also a bunch of warring factions that would rather the two outsiders be dead.

No shortage of scary stuff, and no shortage of action and tension. Just when you think things can't get worse - Annalise tells Ray that part of his job is to be the "red shirt" decoy that gets killed so that she can attack...

But when she attacks, Annalise discovers the evil in this town is more powerful than she is. Ray survives, Annalize is seriously wounded... and now all of that evil from all of the different factions in the town are coming after Ray. He is the man in the middle and must figure out who and what is behind all of this in order to survive.

The cool thing about it is how those scenes you might expect to find in a Hammett or Chandler novel are here, but with a supernatural twist. Really corrupt cops who would rather kill you than help you solve the mystery? They're here - but they have also found a little evil magic to use... which makes them a million times stronger than Ray and almost impossible to kill. Wealthy Femme Fatales that lure you to your doom? Here, bit with a twist. There's even a Mayor who seems like he wandered over from THE GLASS KEY looking for some additional bribes.

And reading Harry's book allows me to finally relax... which kind of brings us up to now, present day, Hong Kong just a memory of what might have been. Or, actually, what will be in March, 2010. A good movie or book can just take you away from all of your troubles and let you experience someone with stranger troubles than yours. I didn't have it all that bad - no one was trying to kill me with magic.

CHILD OF FIRE is a real page turner, and *really dark* - kids burn to death in the first ten pages. It really gets into Lovecraft territory at the end... and has a bunch of really haunting, frightening things that stick with you long after you have finished reading it. If the book has any problem, it's *too* fast paced. No place to close it and sleep... and sometimes things happens so fast that you have to read carefully so that you don't miss anything. I know Harry, so you may think I'm biased, but the reviews on Amazon are mostly good:

Amazon Page For CHILD OF FIRE - scroll down for reviews.

And Del Rey has already bought the next two books in the series (Harry has written both already - playing beat the clock so that they could put the first chapter of the second book in here and get them ready). He was on a panel at ComiCon, too. I'm not the only one who liked the book... and I didn't just like it because my friend wrote it. I really want to read the next ones.

So, if you like hard boiled mystery stuff like Dash Hammett or Michael Connolly, or you like those friggin' Urban Fantasy novels or even stuff with sorcerers and werewolves and stuff like that, or if you like classic horror like H.P. Lovecraft, or if you just want to support a fellow writer, buy a copy! Paperback, much cheaper than hardback. And if Harry is signing at some bookstore in your area, tell him Bill sent you!

- Bill

BUY IT AT AMAZON:

Click The Book.

London 16C: Day 13 & 14 - Drinks & Airplanes (heading home)

2009-10-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

So the alarm goes off at 5:30 AM, I shower and shave and zip up my suitcases and do a final room check (still not spotting that USB drive) and carry my luggage down the stairs (no lift) to the lobby and check out, and go stand in front of the hotel... at about 6:15. Damn - a prompt man is a lonely man!

The taxi arrives on time at 6:30 - actually a shuttle van - and the driver (a woman) tosses my suitcases in back, and we go to pick up the filmmakers. Except, it’s on the other side of London. We get to their hotel, and no one is standing out from, no one is in the lobby... no one seems ready to go to the airport. The driver calls dispatch to make sure she has the right address - she does - and makes sure she has the name correct. It’s two Japanese people - last name, Japanese, is not easy for the driver to pronounce. The driver sounds like she’s from Russia or Eastern Europe. She goes into the hotel, to the front desk, and asks where these people are. I am sitting in the shuttle van this whole time. Driver comes back - tells me the desk called up to the Japanese women’s room and they were getting ready to come down. We wait. We wait some more. We wait even longer. The driver is thinking about just leaving - I have a plane to catch. That’s when the two Japanese women with a whole cargo hold of luggage come out of the elevator. The bellman is pushing the overloaded cart, and he does not look happy. When he gets to the shuttle, he tells the Japanese women that he can’t unload the cart because he has a bad back. I’m thinking this guy’s a dick... but the Japanese women do nothing - they don’t even tough their small bags. The driver starts grabbing bags and putting them in the shuttle van. There are huge *boxes*, there are massive trunks that seem really heavy. She stacks them all in the van. The bellman gets no tip for loading up the cart. The two Japanese women get in the van, the driver races to the airport... and the women are putting on make up... then they crank the heater up to Hell and take a nap, while I’m sweating like crazy and nowhere near the heater controls.

Guess what? Their flight left before mine. So they were *really* not ready.

The driver gets them to their terminal, and unloads all of their stuff, including the heavy trunks... and the women want to know how their trunks and luggage will get from the curb to inside the airport. The driver points to some carts (free to use at Heathrow) and I think gets stiffed on a tip, then gets back in the van and takes me to my terminal. I tip her, give her a little extra to make up for the women, then drag my luggage into the airport where it costs more per bag to get them home than it did to bring them here.

In the waiting area for my flight, there’s a cute women near my age who is reading the Samuel French edition of THE CHILDREN’S HOUR. I want to strike up a conversation with her - I played Joe Cardin (male lead) in a community theater production while in high school - and it’s written by Hellman, who was Dash Hammett’s girlfriend. I could probably talk for hours about the play... but I say nothing. I’m tired and maybe still drunk and am afraid I’ll say something stupid. I’m never gonna find a girlfriend this way!

Several hours of absolute torture later - I am too tall for airplane seats - we land in New York where I have to go through customs, then recheck my luggage... then take this crazy shuttle bus to another terminal to catch the plane to LA - the bus driving too close to a runway where planes are landing for my taste. Kill time, they board the plane... and I find that I have the absolute worst seat on the plane - 22A - a window seat where there is no window. In fact there’s something in the wall, there, and instead on the indent between “ribs” it’s flat - meaning less headroom and less shoulder room. Probably not a problem unless you’re 6'4" tall - the most cramped seat I’ve ever been in - and my knees were mashed against the seat in front of me. Seriously - airlines need to tell you the maximum height for their seats, and have emergency exit and bulkhead seating prioritized for people who are too tall for their seats. Someone knows the maximum height number - let’s get that in print somewhere.

They close the plane door, and I realize I only have to be in this cramped position from New York to Los Angeles... when the plane loses all power. Something is wrong, and we haven’t even left the gate. Pilot comes on, says it’s a minor mechanical problem and a mechanic is on his way to fix it, so we’ll all just stay on the plane. Great - I don’t have a window and if the person in front of me leans back in their seat my kneecaps will snap off. It takes forever fo the mechanic to fix whatever is wrong. And we’re still on the plane, at the gate. Eventually it’s fixed. The plane takes off, and by they time we make it to Los Angeles and I take my shuttle home (I bought a round trip and had to make sure I knew where the receipt was the whole time I was in London and make sure I didn’t accidentally throw it away along with the receipt for those socks and British underpants) - and it’s *pouring rain* in Los Angeles - worse weather than in London - tip the driver and drag my luggage into my apartment, I have been traveling for almost 24 hours! Okay, sitting on an unmoving plane isn’t exactly “traveling”, but that took up a chunk of time. My refrigerator is empty. I walk to the store, buy some food, eat a frozen dinner, and go to sleep.

I have no idea how long I will sleep, but I’m hopping a plane to Hong Kong in 6 days, and Screenwriter’s Expo is in there somewhere. Of course, those are other adventures.

- Bill

London 16B: Day 13 & 14 - Drinks & Airplanes (drinks)

2009-10-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

The thing I always forget about the Holborn station is that there are two exits on different streets. It’s not as bad as, say, Leicester Square where the exits are spread out on opposite sides of Charing Cross Road - no way to keep an eye on all of the exits there! But it’s a small problem. I stand at the main exit, figuring I not only have the best chance of being seen by someone leaving, but if someone exits on the other side and doesn’t see me they might check the main exit area. I don’t know who I missed, but I found most of the London regulars from past Drink With Bill nights, including the amazing English Dave... dressed in a suit! I almost didn’t recognize him!

I know English Dave from the Done Deal message boards, where he is witty and profane and combative and hysterical. He’s a TV writer in the UK, and he is constantly having run ins with idiot producers. Dave is a real character online, and when I first met him many Raindances ago, he lived up to his online persona. Somewhere back in the past on this blog, or maybe on my website messageboards that were kind of a blog before this, I have a story about one of the Drink With Bill nights where Dave shows up in a Hawaiian shirt and short pants - in London - and we drink until the pub closes at 11pm. Dave is a member of a club, so we can continue drinking... All we have to do is walk (or stagger) across central London to his club. We do this, and it seems like a long walk, even though I have since passed his club a few times sober and it’s really not that far from the Holborn Tube Station (at least by London walking standards). Well, we trek all the way to his club, where Dave tells the man at the door that he’s a member and pulls out his membership card and wants to bring all of the rest of us in as guests... and the guy at the door mentions to English Dave that there is a dress code, and loud Hawaiian shirts and short pants are not allowed. So we all staggered away, back to our various homes and hotels. So, the idea of Dave in a *suit* - what happened?

The other reason why it was great to see English Dave is because he seems to have disappeared. He left the Done Deal message boards in a huff years ago - some dope took was offended by something he said and started a flame war. Um, Dave is *funny* when he’s mean. You just have to laugh at that stuff, not get angry. Dave has a blog, it’s listed over there –> And that’s how I know that he got divorced, quit TV, got remarried, and wrote a novel... but his last blog entry was months ago. Was he still alive?

Yes, and a novelist and working as a consultant in a suit and tie for a while as the novel makes its way to market. As always, he told great stories. Paul & Wolfy talked about their script - the one they pitched at Live Ammunition Pitching Panel - and both wondered why I’m not doing classes to rooms filled with hundreds of people like McKee. The strange thing about Raindance this year is the number of people who have taken some class by me in the past who either have a film here or have come up after one of the free classes to tell me that they optioned or sold a script and some class I did in the past helped them. Maybe I’m selling myself short? The problem has always been - I don’t really want to be a teacher, I just want to write scripts. But maybe I need to find a way to really make both work. Right now the teaching this is completely half-assed. I haven’t done a class in Los Angeles for 3 years. I haven’t done the 2 day class for over 2 years *anywhere* - London was my return to teaching. These other guys teach for a living - I don’t want to do that. But what if I figured out a way to do 4 classes a year? That’s not much, still gives me time to write. Maybe come up with an online class like Max Adams has for people who can’t make it to a live class? I never really think about the classes until people start telling me how much they got out of one. Or I see some success stories with movies or books or working on some TV show.

Anyway, many Guineii were consumed and those damned people would not let me buy a round. That’s unfair! I’m getting smoke blown up my butt and getting drunk on their dime! Close to last call, a woman comes over to our table and tells us that we need to come with her immediately. I wonder if we’ve been too loud, but English Dave figures it out and starts making fun of this woman who is trying to kick us out! That’s when her drunken boyfriend comes over to fetch her - she’s just some drunk woman, not an employee of the pub.

Eventually it’s last call and an actual employee of the pub comes to tell us when we’ve finished our drinks it’s time to go. No staggering to Dave’s club tonight - even though he easily makes the dress code - he has a family to head home to. And it’s Monday night - tomorrow everyone has to go to work... and at 6:30 AM I have to be standing in front of the hotel for my taxi pick up.

Great to see all of the London folks and meet the new people, but now it’s time to stagger back to the hotel and finish packing.

At the hotel, I do the final bit of packing (except for the things I will need for tomorrow)... but what I don’t know then that I have since learned - a portable USB drive that had some materials for one of the 5 free classes that I’d had Elliot print out for me was on the desk with some other things. When I grabbed those things, I knocked the USB drive onto the floor... where it blended with the carpet. Didn’t notice this until after I returned and looked all over the place for it. Nothing critical on it, but a couple of things from an old computer I will now have to unbury from the closet-of-doom and fire up to download those items. Even though I have been back a couple of weeks, now, I still haven’t done that - lost of work for a couple of items. Problem is, I’m afraid I will forget about it and later panic when I can’t find those items on my current computer. Eventually I would figure it out, but when I really need something and it isn’t there, I tend to panic first and think much much later.

I'm tired and drunk and the alarm clock is going to go off a few hours drom now... I get some sleep!

- Bill

London 16A: Day 13 & 14 - Drinks & Airplanes (settling for less)

2009-10-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

The morning after... and I feel fine. I go to the British Museum Starbucks to check my e-mail and get the blood-caffeine level up to Level Orange, then walk down to the Raindance office to talk to Elliot. Kind of dreading it. As much as I talk about conflict in scripts, I *hate* conflict in real life. I’d rather just avoid it. When I get to the office, I cool my heels for a while waiting for Elliot to finish what he’s doing, then he insist on taking me to a local café. Great - a public place. This is not looking good.

At the coffee shop, we have this innocuous conversation that seems to waltz around what he thinks he owes me and what I think he owes me. We talk about how much he wants me to come back next year and I mention how small the class is and how it would be nice to have some advertizing... or at least for them to tell me there will be no advertizing so that I can take care of that myself. I also mention that I think the 5 (FIVE!) Free classes undercut the weekend class - when a waiter serves you 5 trays of free hors d’oeuvres, then asks what you’d like to order for dinner, you probably have already had enough to eat. I bring up all of my problems politely... even timidly... trying not to create much conflict. Elliot says that preparing for the film festival, and all of the problems along the way this year (sponsors dropping out, cinema chains dropping out, etc) turned my class into less than a footnote - and he apologized for that. He wants me to come back next year at some time other than the fest to do my class... and we talk about some ways to insure a larger turn out. We also talk about some sort of deal where I would license my CDs for him to sell in the UK and give me a royalty. Seems he’s already done a test run and sold them., and he owes me $100. We leave the café so that he can show me a place that manufactures CDs for bands - and I keep thinking I haven’t pushed hard enough and we haven’t discussed payment at all.

We look at the CD stuff, swell, and I hint that I’d like to look over the numbers and see what is owed me. And Elliot says, “Of course” and we go back to the office... where we began. I am now ready to push hard to get my money - to argue and fight... but Elliot doesn’t need to be pushed. He apologizes again for the small turnout, and has one of the staff run up the numbers (without me seeing them).

Now, Elliot has told me that a majority of the class came in at half off - the made that deal to film fest pass holders... and just about anyone who would ask. I have done the math for 50% of the class price times the number of students... and I need most of that just to end up with *half* of what they usually pay me. And that’s my number - half of what they usually pay me. Usually there are 50 people in the class, this time... um, less than a third of that. So I may have to fight for my number, because it may leave them with nothing. The staff member totals what they’ve been paid, subtracts taxes, subtracts the room rate, and gives the page to Elliot... who says my exact number. Plus the $100 for the CDs they made and sold. I say, “Deal” and they pay me. Oh, and I find the envelope from the CD sales - $40 - and note that there are about 6 CDs left, and I say they can keep ‘em and sell ‘em.

We talk some more about the CD thing and ways to increase the class size and then I thank Elliot and the entire Raindance staff for a great festival and for helping me sell the CDs and have a great time at the fest. In all honesty, had the deal been teach 5 free classes and get to attend the film festival, I would have been happy. I had a great time and got to see a whole bunch of movies for free.

On the way out, I notice the piece of paper with the numbers... and realized Elliot had split the profits with me! Most people had paid full price, and even with the poor turn out, Raindance had made money off the class! Real, tangible money!

So, the Elliot part of this story had a happy ending. Not a great ending, because I only got paid half of what I usually get, but Elliot paid me what he agreed to pay me without any real problem. I think in retrospect, all of the evasiveness was due to him feeling bad that my class had fallen through the cracks while planning the film festival.

Before I leave they mention that they have a taxi that will take me to the airport tomorrow morning - it’s picking up a film maker and I’m on the way, so I have a free trip to the airport and don’t have to get up early and take the tube... except in order to pick up the filmmaker and to allow for traffic, the taxi will pick me up at 6:30am. Swell.

Because by now it’s close to dinner time, and I’m near that great fish & chips place on Poland Street, I decide to go there again. Once more, great food and great service. Not some little pieces of fish, this was like a huge whole fish! A giant serving of fries. And the homemade tartar sauce was great a second time. Once I’d finished dinner I had to get to a Starbucks to check e-mail and put up a blog entry. Mostly to check e-mail, because some stranger might be coming tonioght and have questions. Though I did a search on pubs near Holborn Tube Station and found one that got great marks that we had not been to in the past, and listed it on the blog, I had also mentioned in that blog entry that I would add more details later... and never got around to it. Though the meeting location and drinking location and time were not going to change, someone might e-mail to ask if it was still on. I needed to answer e-mails...

Except after buying my coffee (no milk!) I discovered the BT Online at this Starbucks was not working. Hey, there’s a Starbucks every other block in London, so I carried my drink to the next Starbucks. BT Online also not working here. After trying a half dozen Starbucks, it was obvious that the system was down... and obvious that I had better run back to the hotel to do a quick packing job before I jogged over to the Holborn Tube Station to drink with friends and strangers.

In my hotel room I do a quick pack - but run out of time and some things will have to be packed when I come back that night. Off to Holborn.

- Bill

London 15C: Day 11 & 12 - Class & I find a Girlfriend (Party)

2009-10-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

There are so many people crowded to get into the club for the closing night party - hundreds of them - that Suzanne suggests we get a coffee while waiting for the line to die down. Next door to the club - a late night donut shop! A strange thing in London. In the USA we have donut shops all over (some sections of the Valley seem to have a donut store in a strip mall on every single block!), but other parts of the world have no donuts at all. Donuts are an American invention - a relic of the Great Depression. Deep fried dough was about the cheapest thing you could eat. Odd that even after the depression was over, people had developed a taste for them and they stuck around... though very few people during this financial downturn can afford a dozen Krispy Kremes.

We drink coffee and I eat *two* donuts, trying to absorb some of that wine before adding beer to it. The huge heavy bag is dragging me down, but I’m stuck with it. The donuts are dry - yesterday’s donuts, or maybe donuts made at 6am that day. They donuts are like me - should have been retired hours ago.

After we’re finished with our coffees, there is no line outside the club, so we show our ticket stubs and go in... where the crowd is. As usual, music turned up to ear-bleed, so many people packed into the room that you can’t turn around without hitting someone (and the heavy bag clips a bunch of people) and the line for drinks at the bar? Well, imagine those hundreds of people waiting for drinks! Janet and Suzanne and I split up and stand in different lines... and the race is on! I don’t think I win. But I do get some pilsner. This club is decorated Middle Eastern, so I guess they don’t serve Guiness. After we get our drinks we yell over the music to each other and I say hello to some of the Raindance staff people and some of the film makers and audience members I’d come to know. There is no place to sit - so we stand. As we get to the bottoms of our drinks, we discover that out ticket stubs *also* get us a free drink - from sponsor Absolute Vodka - Vodka mixed with... something. Hell, it’s free so we all stand in line again and snag another drink. I think they were supposed to take our tickets to prevent us from getting a second free drink, but they don’t do this - all of us still have our tickets. Though, I wouldn’t discover that until an hour later...

Because after getting my drink, I lost Janet and Suzanne in the crowded night club.

This really isn’t a problem - it’s a *party* - so I try to mingle as I casually wander through various sections of the club looking for them. A bunch of people come up to tell me how funny the steel cage match joke was (I could not tell if they’d been drinking before the awards ceremony) and most asked if I was an actor, because I had a good voice. Conversation after conversation... and then I find myself talking to the producer of REDLANDS and wondering if she had read my review and was about to poison my drink... but we just talked - I congratulated them on winning Best Debut Feature, and then said I had to split to find my friends (before she could ask me what I thought of her film, which I did not like). I finally found Janet and Suzanne, and they had found a place to sit. Just one place, so we took turns. We all had our tickets, and wondered if we could get another free drink - the bar line was only a couple of people.

One more free drink, but they took our tickets this time. Probably for the best, because Absolute was the sponsor, not whatever they were mixing it with, and the drinks were *strong*. I was glad I had those two stale donuts. After drinking most of the second drink, I’m floating. Janet and Suzanne skip to the loo, and I notice the Tall American Girl in the corner with a group of Raindance people, and wander over to say hello.

Though she was polite, for some reason she was not interested in a fat drunk guy probably twice her age who was hitting on her with zero subtlety. I wonder why? After saying goodbye, I went back to where Janet and Suzanne were standing and realized I’d made a complete ass of myself. I’m sure I wasn’t the first fat old drunk creep that hit on the Tall American Girl, but it was depressing as hell to think that I was the last. (Wait... is that some other guy talking to her now... hey, I *wasn’t* the last!) Janet suggested I try computer dating - but that’s not really the solution. I must actually find the time in my schedule to get out and find some woman to take to London next time I’m here. Every time I do something cool like this, I’m doing it alone. I need to fix that. And not with an escort who does nothing but talk about investment strategies.

Janet and Suzanne left, I talked to some of the filmmakers for a little while longer, then realized I needed to stagger back to the hotel and stagger up the stairs and get some sleep. Tomorrow would be my last day in London, and I had to settle accounts with Elliot and then head over to Holborn Tube Station to meet friends and total strangers for Drink With Bill In London Night. Great... I’m going to have to make my deal with Elliot hung over.

- Bill