Hollywood Fun Camp

The Walls are There to Climb

2008-03-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The lyrics of Elvis Costello:

Our Little Angel

This is the place where I made my best mistakes
This is the place even angels don't understand
I've seen the disappointment in her face
And the collection of engagement rings on her right hand

She sits alone apart from the crowd
In a white dress she wears like a question mark
Friends speak of her fondly
Enemies just think out loud
You think you're man enough to please her
And you're fool enough to start

You're not going to do a thing to our little angel
There's nothing you're thinking tonight that tomorrow won't change

Now the cabaret is frozen and the laughter comes in cans
And the lonely hearts club clientele don't know what to do with their hands
You think that you'll be sweet to her but everybody knows
That you're the marshmallow valentine that got stuck on her clothes

But you're not going to do a thing to our little angel
There's nothing you're thinking tonight that tomorrow won't change

So you mix your drinks and words
You make bad jokes you make bad time
The floors are there to walk over
The walls are there to climb
You swear that you'll never go back again once you're inside
You're never the bridegroom she's always the bride

And you're not going to do a thing to our little angel
There's nothing you're thinking tonight that tomorrow won't change

You'll come in a sweetheart and you'll go out a stranger
Well you try to love her but she's so contrary
Like a chainsaw running through a dictionary
So get your mind off the sweet behind of our little angel
You're not going to do a thing
You're not going to do a thing
You're not going to do a thing to our little angel

----

Hear that sound? That's Fun Joel fainting dead away, because only five months after he tagged me with his music meme, well golly, I'm answering the call!

The song above is very special to me, perhaps because it's one of those Elvis Costello songs I feel I can decipher, which is saying something, because his songs often are like a neverending string of clues from a National Treasure movie.

This song relates very much to my last script, which I just finished and re-finished and sent out to make its way in the world.

Both the script and the song are about longing, futility, and how deceptive and purposefully fleeting the object of desire can be. In fact, a really good object of desire is one that doesn't exist, or that cannot be gotten; it can only be desired.

EC writes here about America -- and I didn't figure that out just because it's off the album "King of America." But even as an American, I share everything he feels, not only about the romantic conquering of this country, but about the conquer of screenwriting.

I have a lot of optimism for my writing efforts, but at the same time I know I'm a piece of dust on the giant's shoulder, and I'll likely as not get shrugged off in the moment of pending triumph.

And if it weren't that hopeless, that staggering a venture, would I be so possessed to try?

Probably not.

Holy Crap

2008-01-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

Nikke Finke has posted that none other than UA is about to announce a deal with the WGA.

Others will analyze this development (apparently due to hit mainstream press tomorrow, Sunday) with more insight, but it underscores a delightful fact about this labor conflict:

The AMPTP may hate writers with all their brittle, alien hearts, but there's something they hate even more: each other.

I suspect that Tom Cruise won't stop until he's taken the fillings out of Sumner Redstone's teeth. And he's not the only player in town with deep, personal, hellfire resentment and determination to prevail. Mr. Katzenberg? Your table is ready.

Let the fur fly.

2008, hoboy

2008-01-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I rang in the new year being annoyed at chatty cathys at the Arclight. Already this year is so drearily like 2007.

I saw several movies over the holiday, including Sweeney Todd, I Am Legend, Charlie Wilson's War, In the Valley of Elah, National Treasure 2, and checked out Ronin on DVD, which I missed in its theatrical run.

I loved pretty much everything, especially Sweeney, Charlie and Elah. Legend scared me too much, but it's awesome. National Treasure 2 was superficially fun, and Ronin was cool, although it ended on a sappy tone, and they threw away Sean Bean!! How can you throw away Sean-freaking-Bean!? Oh, and honestly, who would ever confuse Katarina Witt as a Russian ice skater? Russian poise athletes (gymnasts, skaters, etc) move like prima ballerinas, not like a stop-motion doll.

And thank god I now know how to pronounce "Elah." I've been saying it ten different ways for the last few months: Ella? EEE-luh? eee-LAH?. Being raised agnostic has some painful drawbacks.

Elah is a heartbreaker, although it wanders a bit in the second half and commits hara-kiri in the final shot of the film. Haggis just can't resist a mulchy, mushy, implausible beat. At least there's only one such ludicrously manipulative moment in the film, as opposed to about twenty-thousand in Crash.

--------------

So that was 2007. Well, see ya 2007. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. The cab's waiting out front, so take your wagon-wheel coffeetable of disappointments, losses and mistakes and just get the hell out.

I have to say I'm jazzed about 2008 despite crippling labor unrest, recession/depression (yeah, the D word. I said it), the end of network television and 10 new pounds from my all-pumpkin pie holiday diet.

I'm ready for the new. I'm ready for this goddamn strike to be over, that's for sure. To all my friends suffering personally from this shameful union-busting attempt, hold fast. Something tells me help is on the way.

I'm desperately trying to complete the song meme-thing from Fun Joel. Hang in there, Joel! I'm just too shiftless and slow. Maybe I need one more wedge of pumpkin pie to focus my creative energies. Just one more slice. Excuse me while I slip off to the kitchen.

AMPTP Powders its Nose

2007-12-10T16:59:00.001-08:00

During labor strife it's easy to demonize one side or the other, but I heartily recommend reserving judgement until you give each side a good listen.

The WGA's side has been well-expressed on the internet. Now, up steps the AMPTP:

www.amptp.com

JUNO

2007-12-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

JUNO opens soon. It's the buzz right now, and hopefully will carry over the sparkle from last year's indy-that-could LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.

I read JUNO way back when. It was a buzzy script, and I was very curious about the newbie wunderkind writer.

Well, it was rough -- the strong point was the bold dialogue, at least that's what everyone seemed to feel. It read very much like someone's first script, and it was Diablo Cody's first script, so there you go.

What I saw in it was the creation of a world, one wherein a teen's casual pregnancy was so unblinkingly accepted that, instead of being a movie about her struggle for acceptance, it was about her struggle for solid ground when a Very Big Mistake is treated like a bad haircut by her family and society. As a result she goes looking for love and meaning in all the wrong places.

Maybe the script changed a bit before filming, but that's kind of how it was. It also had a real soul to it -- it wasn't just frothy fun, it was ABOUT something. A script can be slick and flip and stylish, but without a soul, you can't make a great movie out of it.

So yay JUNO. Yay Diablo.

But if the script created a world, had a soul and signature dialogue, can SOMEBODY tell me WHY all anyone can lead with on the promotion is:

STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER PUSSY RANCH STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER PUSSY RANCH STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPERSTRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPERSTRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER PUSSY RANCH STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER PUSSY RANCH STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPERSTRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER PUSSY RANCH STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER STRIPPER????????

Jesus, people. I know it's a marketing hook. I get it. A hook makes it easier to brand and to get the news out there. But for the love of hot buttered toast can we maybe celebrate a new female writer without slobbering over her **naughty-naughty-wink-sleaze** past?

Especially when the script wasn't about "ooh look how naughty/sleazy I am." The woman isn't talentless. Why is she being marketed as if she was? Like some playboy bunny endorsing an endangered species calendar?

Maybe her reps can convince her to change her name to STRIPPER STRIPPER. Just to condense things. Just a thought.

Everybody Hates The Writers

2007-11-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

I got hit with a meme blog thing from Fun Joel and I promise-promise-promise I will respond to it shortly. It's just that the strike has interrupted everything, infected everything. Even my sad little neglected blog.

Can someone tell me why I keep reading strike blog comments? Why?? With few exceptions the commenters are all the same nasty, shitty, anonymous bozos spewing bile on all the other blogs. I mean, sometimes I just hate the Internet. I know it's our future and everything, but I wish it didn't summon the worst out of so many. I wish I didn't know how crappy people could be.

That's not to say that I have pure thoughts either way about this strike. Most people are neither for nor against either side -- they just want everything to go on the way it has. People in the industry are very upset to find their livelihoods in jeopardy and they want someone to blame.

And, of course, writers are to blame for EVERYTHING. They are the most reviled group in the industry -- the impotence of the writer is a universal cliché. Yet when something's wrong, it's the writer's fault. When a movie is great, the director and actors are praised. When it's bad, the writer sucks.

Writers bent over last time to appease everyone. They shut up and took it and kept the wheels rolling and the green coming, and now that they've drawn a line, howls rise from the industry as from bewildered, feral wolves deprived of meat.

Fact is, most of the people spitting on the strike would be thrilled if their young child came home with straight A's on their English papers and earnest praise from teachers. "Wow," they'd think. "My kid is going to have a shot in life, in school, college, perhaps a great high-paying job that keeps them comfortable and protected from a tough life of low-level work."

But grow those kids up, make them writers and give them some achievement, and now they're the greedy ELITE. Because, you know, unless you're digging out of trashcans for your supper, you have no right to ask for anything, ever.

When did socialism sweep the land? Everybody wants to be rich, but not as much as they want to HATE the rich, or the perceived rich. And we all know that anyone who (you think) makes more money than you do is RICH. Especially if they earned it with their sneaky, tricky CREATIVITY and EDUCATION and INTELLECTUAL ENDEAVOR.

Don't get me wrong -- the WGA negotiations were botched. I'm not on the inside, but you can smell it. At the very least, I wish the strike had been delayed so that there wasn't this industry-wide sense of disbelief and despair. Yeah, the WGA is unified, but it could be a whole hell of a lot more unified, if you know what I mean.

Now that the strike has started, though, there's only one thing to do, and that is to support the writers. Anything else will just make the strike go on longer. Busting the union will not get your job back and yes, you will go to hell for that.

The only thing the AMPTP understands is pain -- financial pain. In the fine words of Kyle Reese: “It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

Don't be Nick Counter's sock puppet. Stop shining Murdoch's shoes. The AMPTP is doing the firing, the cutting back, the suspending. Writers don't have that power. Don't be a chump and blame people trying to fight the good fight. You're smarter than that.

Now that I’ve geeked out and quoted The Terminator I might as well go all the way: Remember in The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader uses the force via hologram to strangle Admiral Ozzel for coming out of light speed too close to Hoth?

Ok… well… I do. It was to keep the other Imperial soldiers in line. If this struggle were Star Wars ESB everyone would blame the Rebels for Ozzel’s death. Imperial Tie Fighter squadrons would be crossing their fingers and toes hoping to blow up the Rebel base, ‘cause, gee, good pilot jobs are hard to find!

That’s bullsh*t. You're Americans, and you're supposed to be tougher than that. You're supposed to find a way to do the right thing. That's what all these movies and TV shows we make are about, right? You know, all that junk you give lip service to around your kids? Like fortitude. Fair play. The idea that when you see a man standing up for what's right, you stand with him, because A Man Stands Up.

Yeah, this strike is a disaster. But let's wrap it up, hit a number and get it over with. We all have one thing in common: we love show business. We can't imagine working anywhere else. Let's fight for that.

Don't worry -- as soon as it's over you can go back to despising the writers. They'll still be here, and frankly, they can take it.

A Spooky Halloween

2007-10-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Could any more fun and frivolity be sucked out of Halloween in Los Angeles this year? The town's in flames, both literally in several wildfires, and figuratively in strike tensions. Although, some of the nasty rhetoric between AMPTP and WGA has died down as people's homes and neighborhoods turn to ash. Rampaging wildfires have a way of reorganizing your priorities.

As far as the strike goes, things are tepidly moving forward. I don't know what the outcome will be on November 1, but I will tell you that studios are INDEED commencing people. So all that tough talk about lockouts is just chest-rattling. Or sabre-pounding; one of those.

It's funny to hear collective statements on behalf of any group in Hollywood, because Hollywood is all about the deal. Everyone is really out for themselves, and all the group-talk in the world doesn't change that. Writers will hurry to finish drafts for the studios because their careers depend upon their obedience. Studio execs will commence projects before the 10/31 deadline because their future careers depend upon a future pipeline. There's precious little room for high horse-riding.

Strike or no, most in-process drafts are due by Halloween. After that, watch as a number of hastily-assembled projects start to un-assemble in light of inadequate drafts, over-committed stars and under-equipped budgets.

-----

I was talking to a pal the other day, talking about the spec boom that occured after the last strike. I posited that although everyone talks about all the specs that will crowd the marketplace at the end of the current strike/slowdown, things are actually quite different now.

First of all, there's a lot less development money these days. In the 80s-90s, there were tons of vanity deals and all the prodcos had rich, creamy development budgets. There was a lot of cash around, and it fed a lot of activity in the spec market.

That is not the case now. There's been a strong contraction and the budgets for purchasing specs and paying for multi-step rewrite deals have shrunk.

Additionally, the appetite for material has changed. Big budget ensemble dramas are struggling (Tyler Perry notwithstanding) and the Rom-Com field has just dried up and blown away. "Women's" pictures in general have suffered a horrible dropoff and no one has yet figured a way to reverse the tide.

But most significantly, the Action genre has really shifted. In the 80s and early 90s, the heroic Western hero was still in good health, but Ahnold, Bruce, Tom, Mel, Sylvester and the movies they made are no longer easily palatable to movie-goers. Everybody still wants action movies, but not the plug-and-play kind.

The 80s-90s hero and his action format were pretty formulaic -- they're what we call "B" movies now. The US felt pretty good about itself and we liked traditional, untroubled heroes who weren't overly conflicted about who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

Writing breezy, fun, witty specs for that old action hero was a lot easier. I don't think we're going to see a hailstorm of perfectly-tuned, post-heroic action specs this year. Sure, pre-existing franchises like the Bourne series and well-known comic heroes can pull the coin in, but those aren't specs. 300 wasn't a spec. Harry Potter movies aren't specs. Transformers wasn't a spec. Neither was Die Hard 4, Fantastic Four 2, etc. etc. All these movies are well worth studying as examples of what *can* work now, but they don't technically set precedent for your spec concept.

So what should writers spec? That's the big question. If you're an action writer at heart, I think science fiction is the way to go. Think of The Matrix. The Terminator. Poppy, intellectually stimulating sci-fi action is a strong category.

Horror will get you there too, but it has to be high-quality. That market is saturated now.

Crime specs are fun -- if you can capture lightning in a bottle like The Usual Suspects. But that wasn't a whopping spec sale, so I'd marry the crime genre to something else and write the hell out of it.

I am going to take my own damn advice and proceed with a sci-fi/supernatural piece. It's low-budget but high-concept and I'm confident that this script will either get me someplace or discourage me entirely -- this idea feels so cool to me that either I'm a shoo-in or a complete moron who can't tell good from bad.

Oh -- and don't assume that you won't need to produce your spec in the springtime. You *don't* have 8 months to write your brilliant spec. You have 3 or 4.

Consider yourself commenced.

Strrrrrrrrrikke!

2007-10-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

I hung out with writers all weekend, and boy is the chatter loud. A strike could happen in November, or in January. Here we go -- I hope you all have something else to do for the next six months besides write.

Or -- you could write. The spec boom of the 80s-90s was fed by a backlog of dazzling specs the writers worked on during the last strike, but we must also note the contraction in the industry as a whole since then. The whole gonzo spec payday is a little passé, barring a few atypical examples.

Some of the writers I talked to feel relieved -- these are people so overwhelmed with the pace of network TV that they say the only way they'll catch up is if there IS a strike.

One line producer on the show told a staffer: "There are kids who'll go without Christmas presents this year because of you!"

To which I'd say, oh, is that the biggest f**king problem we could have as a result of a strike? Wow, that's GREAT! And here I thought people might lose houses, or overall deals, or careers... but if it's only going to affect a few kids' iPod updates, well, then it's just a piffle!

Additionally, that producer's attempt at castigation is so bad, so hackneyed, so corroded, that it perfectly illustrates the value of professional writers. Leave the snappy one-liners to staff, bubbie. You're embarrassing yourself.

Emmys, Titles, Bad Notes

2007-09-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

I'm writing while listening to an awful notes call ("less grim"; "too grim"; "can we make it less grim?"; "more popcorn fun!"), so this post may run in fits and starts.

The Emmys were WAY better last year -- not just the show but the host, the bits, the theater setup, the energy, and lastly, the Governor's Ball.

The S.O. and I were seated on the stage near the top of the crowd -- the "round" theater was created by throwing seats up on the stage. It was not well air-conditioned on the stage side, but you could look out at the theater view from the stage, which was cool. All those people looked like they were having a really good time.

We stared at the stars' backs all night -- the one good thing was that we could appreciate the detailing on the backs of the ladies' gowns. So there was that.

Not magic like it was last year. However, this year the S.O. was in fact a nominee, and that made it magic, at least for us. The S.O. says that now I have to get nominated for an Oscar so that we can be a power couple.

If I'm going to get nominated for an Oscar, well, gee! I'd better get cracking. Might be a good idea to finish the first draft of my new script. I kind of did finish it -- at a lean, taut 150 pages. Setting the line spacing to "tight" will only kill ten pages. I have until October 1 to send this out to the circle for reads, so I'm revving the chainsaw.

The real problem, though, is the title. I don't have a title yet.

I've found that if you don't have a dandy title at the outset, you won't come up with a good one for a long time. With my first script I spent untold hours devising a good title, and it was exhausting.

Titles are incredibly important. You can create buzz on your script with just a great title -- it's the first impression and the first potential "poster moment" the powers that be will have with your script, so it's worth sweating over.

"Eastern Promises" is allegedly a great movie, but that title BLOWS. It just has to hurt the box office -- at least among audience members not initially interested. "Eastern Promises". Ye Gods. That sounds like fodder for the infamous Seinfeld list of fake movie titles, a la "Prognosis Negative" or "Means to an End".

Okay, on this notes call, I've just learned that a certain development honcho doesn't like car crashes. Stale and overdone onscreen. Wow. Uh... ok. Good to know. Perhaps someone should share that with Paul Greengrass.

A title can be inane but catchy, or speak to tone, genre, or theme. I think what I'll do for my title problem is reflect on the movies that inspired this script and see what type of titles they have. Are they one-word titles? Do they sound kinetic? Scary? Mysterious?

The development exec also shuns "punches" in scripts. And "kicks". No punches or kicks... I'm going to try to swallow the button on my shirt and see if you really can kill yourself that way. Sounds nice and clean, and accidental enough to duck life insurance restrictions.

Do any of you have this problem with titles? Do you guys also spend a zillion hours at thesaurus.com? Or does a title need to come to you in a flash to be really great? I feel like I'm trying to catch lightning in a bottle here... trying to calculate art, manipulate reactions...

... much like these studio execs on the phone are trying to reverse engineer a blockbuster.

But unlike them, I'm supposed to be the one that can do it. I'm the writer. This is my work.

I will find a title. I will shed 40 pages from my script. I will sell it. I will get nominated for an Oscar. And then I will listen to inane notes from foolish, overpaid studio executives and I will ask myself, "is this what I did it all for?

And I will still wonder about the lethal value of that button on my collar.

I Love the Arclight

2007-09-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

I do. Yeah, they'll seat people late even though they say they don't, their website is frequently overwhelmed, there's not enough room for concession lines and they don't monitor the theaters to keep chatters quiet, but still. It's a great place to see a flick. As a friend once noted, "the seats -- it's like sitting in a Nissan!"

What's really cool are the special screenings, such as the AFI 100 Years series. A year or so ago they presented a string of my all time favorite movies and it seemed like I was there every week.

I will say, though, that these special screenings draw a certain kind of fan. Like me, they're passionate, devoted and... kinda freaking crazy. Maybe you've run into these geeks before, but here's a recap of my experiences:

THE SEARCHERS

I decided to see this because shamefully I never had, and when it comes to classics I prefer to see them for the first time in the same setting as the original audiences -- I want that same cultural/cosmic experience.

Couple guys came in their cowboys hats. Nothing wrong there, perfectly charming and appropriate. The problem was the row of middle-aged ninnies lodged behind me that fucking whispered and murmured and compared notes all through the movie. Ladies, you're not on the couch passing the bridge mix. STFU.

In one scene the actual colored stage lights were visible at the top of the frame as Scar walks through his teepee village. If the flock of turkeys behind me hadn't gone wild with gibbers I might not have noticed, so thanks, I guess, but still. STFU.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

I had to see this again -- one of those movies that guided me to lifelong phone-answering in a production office. I could only get seats in the next-to-last row, which at the Arclight isn't bad, except for the two geeks off to the right who, yes, performed the Zoltan Kodaly hand signals in sync with the gray in the final scene.

Now I'm a geek, but -- GEEKS!

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

I've seen this so many times, but never with a row of hippie geeks in the row before me, dancing, swaying, singing along with the theme over the final credits. Those people hadn't been out of the house since--

ROCKY

--they pantomimed along with Rocky's triumphant run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, arms overhead in the iconic pose. Never mind other people watching the movie, these tubby hippies needed to relieve their childhood inspiration, even if they couldn't climb a flight of steps without a bag of granola and an oxygen tank.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY

I had two tickets to this but my buddy couldn't go so I turned his ticket in at the box office before the movie. The Arclight's really good about letting you unload tickets like that, especially for the sell-out geek presentations.

There was a homeless+ guy (i.e., not homeless... yet) lurking around the help desk, whining about a ticket. I didn't pay much attention -- until he sat down next to me in the dark just as the movie started. Yep, thanks to me he got a seat, and if I had known I was providing his last-minute ticket, I would have also offered a last-minute shower.

Nope, he hadn't showered or even washed his clothes too much. I'll never forget that musk. Understand, I couldn't change seats because there were no other seats. It was packed. I'm proud to say that I am a real, die-hard geek, because I held a napkin over my nose and mouth and watched the entire movie. I stayed the course.

Midway the guy pulled out some sandwich or something in noisy, rustling plastic and was working on it slowly until a grouchy New York guy in the row below turned around and bitched, "You gonna finish that thing, buddy?!?" Whoever that New York guy was, I love him.

SUPERMAN / STAR WARS EP 4 & 5 / ALIEN

Nothing to report here -- geek fans of these movies were all exemplary. Or, perhaps the nutty geeks sat elsewhere and plagued some other blogger.

--------------------

In summary, I love my geek brethren, but sometimes I prefer to love them at a distance. God bless you all, and please be sure to shower once a day. Or at least on movie night.

Next week I'll be back with coverage of this year's Emmys. Yes, the S.O. and I are off again to the Shrine, to be entertained by the comedic stylings of the hilarious, beloved host... Ryan Seacrest???

Oh, this is going to be ugly.

Lookit me go

2007-08-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Despite the drama of the last few months, the new spec is coming along. I'm at 90ish pages, although there's a least ten pages of cotton wadding in the first act. I started pages on June 19th, as far as I can confirm. Let's round it out to 8 weeks... that's at least 10 pages per week. Or not; I'm not math-y.

Recently I was telling a friend about my writing schedule -- this is the writer friend who was willing to be "tired for a year" in order to write two TV specs, and thus launched an amazing TV career and is the hot thing on this fall's schedule.

I reminded this friend of those sage words and remarked that with my dawn writing session I have been relieved of the will-I-or-won't-I writing angst. It's like there's a writing machine that gets turned on for two hours every day and at the end of the week there's product on the table, like magic. We shared a tiny moment of triumph.

Then I broke down a little over myriad problems and my friend felt badly for me. We were in Charcoal, a new restaurant next to the Arclight in Hollywood, a place that I could just tell was going to be weak but I went because my friend wanted to go. It's not a good place for an emotional breakdown, I'll say that. Charcoal's a cheesy imitation of a hip-and-happenin' joint, the kind of place that's full of tarts and idiots with drinks all trying to look like they're on Entourage.

Certainly the owners don't appreciate some blubbering wannabe screenwriter in a booth near the front door. I kept waiting for the beefy doorman to grab my arms and haul me out before I tainted their ambience with failure.

----

In other news, I'm working on a TV spec. About a year ago, while struggling with my last spec, I had one of those golden new ideas. Everytime I'm deep in one script, getting really sick and tired of it, an idea for the next one pops up and shimmies around. It's as if a 7-layer Mocha Sweet Lady Jane's cake danced up on a hundred little caterpiller legs while I'm eating a plate of cold broccoli.

I refuse to jump ship -- no pages on a new script until I'm done with the current -- but if my brain's barfing up a truckload of great details, I will sit down and write several pages of notes so that I don't lose the ideas. So last September for two days I jotted down a blizzard of ideas for a TV project. I just knew I was a genius, until I looked at it later and decided it was all lame.

Nothing much happened after that, until two weeks ago when I pitched it compulsively to another TV writer. She flipped. So did another TV vet. So next I'm writing a TV pilot, me who does not eat, breathe and sleep TV like so many friends.

I'll try it. I may have picked subject matter that's WAY over my head, but the characters and relationships are awesome. I think it'll be a good thing to have in my bag. Just in time for the strike/slowdown...

Sad News

2007-07-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

One of my two fathers died last week. My stepfather. He’d been sick for a long time, twenty-odd years really, ever since a series of heart attacks. A heart defect became known and as a result of close medical attention over the years, white-blood-cell leukemia was also discovered.

The leukemia took him down, although it was his heart that finally just said forget it and stopped right after going on intubation.

I wasn’t there, so I got the news via my sister’s crying voice over a cell phone. At that point I was collecting artwork for a feature in pre-greenlight phase and the rest of the day entailed the pushing away of emotion so that I could keep the office running while planning a late-day flight home.

It’s really funny to know that all the clucking I do on a daily basis over miscellaneous news of people dying, especially recently over war dead, is clucking over people feeling what our family feels now, that slow-cooking grief. Slap me if I f**king cluck again.

My stepfather was very different than I. He wasn’t wordy about how he felt or what he wanted or what he disapproved of. Consequently I often felt a pervasive sense that I was a disappointment. Surely I am a disappointing person in an objective sense, but still, you want your parents to puff up your profile. My mom says he loved me very much, so I’m going to choose to believe it.

He worked for the public good, so he probably never understood my fascination with and devotion to the entertainment industry. I can’t blame him – I’m clearly part of the world’s problem – but I will defend my life’s pursuit with one unassailable fact:

My stepfather just loved Han Solo.

I still can hear him cracking up over the line: “And I thought they smelled bad… on the outside!”

He also loved Indiana Jones. And Bill Cosby. And John Amos from GOOD TIMES. And James Garner in anything. Those exasperated, underappreciated, providing everymen who dealt with life and in return only ever got “the big piece of chicken” as Chris Rock would say.

My stepfather wasn’t an addition to the family comprised of my mother and her two bratty, future clinically troubled children. He WAS the family. God knows what would have happened to us without his organization, his genetic aptitude for management, his determination to have organized meals with the table set, vacations whether the kids liked it or not, duty, order, frugality and purpose.

Maybe that’s not much like Han Solo. But he was. Both men knew how to call bullshit when the occasion rose. They smelled rats, could add up a row of numbers and when it things got real they didn’t hesitate to put some skin in the game.

If there’s anything disciplined or dutiful in me, it’s because of him. He set a standard and although I may have spent a lifetime missing it, at least I knew what the standard was. I can still see it there, somewhere off in the distance like a mountain I'm never going to truly scale.

Part of me somehow expected he’d be around forever. That’s how it is with good parents, they’re so solid you confuse them with mountains. Realizing that he’s just as permanently gone is more than my poor, frivolous mind can wrap around.

Coldwater Canyon blues

2007-06-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Wow - it's been a month since I posted. Super lame.

Well, I've been busy setting up our new offices -- having furniture delivered, assembled; artwork installed, furniture sent back because it's damaged, blahdee blah. I already hate our phones. Our internet is too slow. The windows don't open like our old ones did. I don't like change!!!

Anyway, I leave for the office very early now. I live far enough away that it behooves me to leave home at 6:30am. See, I still want to get in my 2-hour writing block before work begins, and my new commute is absolutely deadly if I leave any later. Seriously, it takes me 20 minutes to get to BH if I leave at 6:30am, but if I leave at 7:30am it takes at least an hour. So my early writing sessions have saved me from sitting in traffic, but I sure do miss my old 5 minute commute.

I. Don't. Like. Change.

Thank God for my iPod, at least. I pass my driving time by listening to soundtracks, screenwriting lectures, or my two favorite podcasts, KCRW'S THE BUSINESS hosted by Claude Brodesser-Akner or MARTINI SHOT by Rob Long.

Claude and Rob have become the tassle-sleeved pied pipers that get me over Coldwater Canyon twice a day, wheedling me into another day with catchy anecdotes and sobering truths about the business. I relate to Rob's slight problem with cashew nuts and deadlines, and reminisce about Claude's trade paper days and how he would call periodically for quotes (except now we have a publicist and don't talk directly to reporters much anymore).

Both Rob and Claude have held onto the bucking show business bull through its absurd waning pains, coming out stronger for their efforts, and that encourages me to toughen up and hold on through my daily ups and downs.

As far as my writing goes, well, I had a longer chat with the boss who detailed his thoughts on my script. Again, he was very impressed with the writing but felt that the script was "fighting itself", which means the genre mash is not going to work. I buffed it out as much as I could, but the third act will have to be rewritten, with the ultimate antagonist replaced by a character less bizarrely ghoulish.

I've been staring at the wall trying to figure out how to whip out a quick rewrite, but I don't have the solution yet. In the meantime, I've just about finished outlining script #4, and am on the cusp of going to pages.

#4 is a thriller with a twist in the middle and nods to LAURA, VERTIGO and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. I am working mightily to get this bad boy tight. It's all got to fit like a Swiss watch, with everything timed just right, or else it won't work.

On the third burner I have script #5, which is gonna be the one, probably. I told myself I could dick around with the first five scripts, but after that I couldn't write anything but Agent Chow. No dreamy, navel-gazing philosophical manifestos, just Grade A spec market premises.

The premise for #5 kicks some righteous ass. And, it's the type of frontline genre piece that resembles the stuff I go to see at the box office. Funny how up till now I've written much smaller dramas, the kinds of things I'd LIKE to see, but never seem to get to.

I think I should write the things I go to the theater for, no?

See you soon. Remember, everyone's going on vaca in July, so get your specs out, or draw up your battle plans for Aug-Sept.

Beverly Pills

2007-05-15T14:40:00.001-07:00

I mentioned that changes were afoot, and they are.

First of all, we moved off the lot. I'm still wailing silently on the inside, but we pulled up those bucolic roots and now we're in Beverly Hills. Beverly freakin' Hills. Can you tell I hate it?

Beverly Hills is basically a collection of doctor's offices. Don't be fooled by the shopping and star sightings and pompous cars. BH is where the denizens of Los Angeles go get their teeth cleaned, their blood pressure checked and their holistic prescriptions refilled. Sure, there's also restaurants and wahoo department stores, but it isn't the glam locale it once was. There's been a steady attrition of class from these streets since before the turn of the latest century, most recently to Hollywood and Century City.

But now I'm here, in a stale building, with stale air and deadly fluorescent lighting and no phones yet and just... bleck. Tried to drive to Whole Foods to get a sandwich for lunch and it really brought home how great it was on the lot. You could walk to several different delicious lunch spots both on and off the lot. Now I have to drive my car amongst a platoon of bewildered old ladies weaving around the roads at five miles per hour.

And the agents. Ugh. There are still a number of agents slithering around the BH streets. I forgot how pleasantly isolated I was behind the castle walls. Why, at the lot, an agent stands out from a mile away: overly slim, sleek, polished and useless in their suits and gleaming hair and handshakes. We used to work in a building littered with creatives, and every once in a while some agents would stroll in, looking for someone to butter up. Once an agent stuck his head in my office, then walked past me to stick his head in one of my boss's (empty) offices, and asked, "whose office is this?"

I wanted to mush his face into one of the huge, obvious posters and suggest he suss it out on his own, but by the time I formulated that plan he was gone. After that, the receptionist would shout out "Agents!" whenever anyone in a suit came up the stairs and I would jump up and close our door. And lock it.

I miss the squirrels, too. There are no windows that open here, but at the lot I would get daily visits by a crazy squirrel that I had the bad judgment to feed once. When I gave in and resumed feedings, he was so grateful he peed on the windowsill. I can now say I've cleaned up squirrel piss in the line of industry duty.

I'll keep moping about this as the weeks go by, but there you have it.

In other news, I finally finished the third rewrite on my poor, idiosyncratic spec and -- gasp!-- gave it to my boss to read. Just so you appreciate this, I've worked for this boss for years, but never gave him anything to read. I'm a perfectionist, an insecure, very critical person, and I don't want to waste a read on anything that I don't think is really there. Perhaps other aspiring writers take better advantage of their proximity to professionals, but I needed to wait until I wrote something I could stand behind.

We haven't had time to discuss in detail, but the boss's comment was "the writing is excellent."

That makes me feel pretty good. And it also says that the story is more or less not a home run, but I knew that. Still, people to date have regarded it as a good sample, with strong characterizations and dialogue and lots of style. So, yay me.

Already I've noticed a difference in how the boss treats me. A little more curiosity, a little more respect. See, this boss's former assistants are all pro writers and I've been clear about my desire to follow in their footsteps. Yet, I haven't gotten the deed done. There's an expectation from everyone that I'm supposed to make it, even though everyone knows there's no guarantee.

It's a funny feeling, one that I've kind of dealt with all my life. My family always treated me like they expected some kind of breakout performance or "golden child" ascent to the top of something. And, after a puzzling detour into pot-induced lethargy and late-night reruns of Night Court, here I am, back in the batting box. Very strange.

Maybe I ran from this last time. Maybe I'll choke again. We'll see.

I'll pass on more of the boss's comments next time. Until then, write.

You're a Pretty Good Writer

2007-04-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

You are. You should be; you’ve worked at it long and hard enough. You’ve read the books, seen the classic films, participated in the big writerly discussions about What Works and What Not To Do and how many freaking brads, and on and on.

You’ve forced yourself to write shorter, better, dynamic action lines. You’ve worked on those characters, beat yourself with a stick until you wrote dialogue that actually contained the breath of life. You’ve pulled apart your story and rewritten it, brutally throwing away bits you love in service of the greater whole.

You sweat it. You care. You want this. You have a shot – bright people tell you so. You know you’re not one of these completely deluded nuts, the whackjobs who write 20 scripts and never get better. Your writing has that professional ring. You’re honestly one of the people who could make it. Maybe you won’t, but you could.

Well, now that your writing is good, guess what? Nobody cares. Because once you start writing to a professional level, everyone stops giving you credit for it.

A Hollywood reader gets stuck reading lots of bad scripts, and when you’re reading a wad of poo you’re forced to look for even a glimpse of quality. You perk up whenever you stumble across a moment that feels vaguely real, or even filmable. Strangely, you give a hack credit for eking out a shred of quality, because that little moment of suspense or line of reasonable dialogue is like a candle in a cave. You praise it like a child is praised for scribbling pretty colors on construction paper.

But when you read a well-written script, you don’t get excited over competency -- you want more. If the writer clearly has a grasp of the basics, suddenly it takes a whole lot more to grab the reader's attention.

Your IDEAS are now the focus. The challenge now is to raise the quality of your ideas, choices and plot machinations. If you don't, you'll be under-appreciated, even unfairly so. Even other writers forget how hard it is to craft every line out of nothing. This is the actual power of writing: when it works it's like a spell, capturing readers and taking them to your illusory world -- and in turn they demand satisfaction.

To break in, it often takes a script with a premise that BY ITSELF perks up those little agent ears. Sure, lots of sales are made with softer premises, but it’s your gamble. Those softer premises still have to feel like movies to impact with agents.

**WARNING: DIGRESSIVE SCREED AHEAD**

Yes, AGENTS. Managers are fine if they’re getting you work (which is not what they’re supposed to do), but if they’re also your “producer,” who doesn't make a living producing movies, look out.

I see a lot of good but not great writers ending up with bottom-feeding managers. It seems to be the fate of those who are almost-there-but-not-quite, not ready to snag an agent, but good enough to get a manager who knows that the material isn't all there yet, but figures it might strike someone the right way and lead to something. Maybe. If not, who cares because these managers aren't making a living as managers anyway. Or as producers, or whatever else they decide to call themselves in the middle of the night.

(*Note: If your manager tells you not to talk to anyone, but to have all inquiries and dealings go through him? Bad sign, if you're new and need to develop contacts and relationships. He's going to turn away anyone who doesn't want to pay him what he requires. He'll kill your deal over his fee. Yes, that's what these people do).

I almost wish that new writers wouldn't get encouraged by these fruitless managers, because I see draft after draft after draft with the manager before he sends it out to his "contacts," or with some equally thumb-twiddling production company that doesn't mind development hell because they don't pay for options! Sometime I wish these writers would be rejected by everyone until they lock themselves in a room and force themselves to write That Script That Is In Them, that not good but Great idea that you don't tell anyone about because it is that intrinsically valuable.

Sorry to rant about podunk managers but if I had a nickel for every ably-written but so-so premised script repped by an uncredited “manager/producer”, well, I wouldn’t be eating a can of Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle soup for dinner.

(Although it’s nice and tasty if you add chopped vegetables and mozzarella cheese. I swear, at this point I’m a 5’10’’ walking goddamn can of Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle Soup. It’s overpriced at the supermarket but go to Target and they have it for like $1.99 a can – but you have to check the cans for dents. Very important.).

Anyway. What I'm saying is you don't have to settle for BoBo the Manager. A well-written script with a great premise will probably get you an agent. It isn’t a magic trick -- it happens quickly when a script appears that at least on the surface looks like something that someone would buy.

I hope you can tell that I’m talking to myself here as much as any of you. Christ, I know how it is. You have to write something that for some reason speaks to you. You have to go with what’s coming out, with what provokes you. I’m not telling us all to sell out and write something garishly marketable, but once you’re written a few of those little peculiar peculiarities that make you giggle to yourself for whatever twisted reason, force yourself to reach further.

Take one of those ideas that appeal to you and ask yourself whether there are any bona fide surprises in it. Write the logline and share it with your inner circle. Unless everybody gives you an “A” on the premise, don’t write it. I promise, you can do justice to your idiosyncratic taste and still nab yourself a career – or at least a shot at one.

Soup's on. Gotta go grate the cheese. It's been a long time since I posted, I know, but changes are afoot and I'll try to chime in once a week with updates. Stay tuned.

Unsolved Mysteries

2007-01-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

Life contains a lot of unsolved mysteries. Criminals abscond undetected, numskulls get promoted, and I still haven’t figured out what happened to that stash of weed in 1992. I lived in a teeny one bedroom apartment, for God’s sake. With low-pile carpet! Where the hell could it possibly have gone???

I suppose we all have our “Days of Wine and Roses” humiliation and that day in ’92 was mine, on my hands and knees probing the corners of that apartment like a crime scene investigator, desperately searching.

So today, I ask you to join me on a similar search for the answer to the screaming mystery of this new year:

Why the f*** do I still watch NUMB3RS?

I’m not a great TV watcher. In fact I usually miss all the good series, letting the episodes molder on the Tivo until the thought of catching up on ten hours of television overwhelms me and I start “waiting for the season on DVD”, which means I’ll never, ever watch any of the show.

But I watch every goddamn episode of NUMB3RS. Ok, and "The Batman" too. Yes, the animated one. On Saturday mornings. When little children watch.

I suppose maybe this is painting a less than elite self-portrait, but stick with me.

I remember why I started watching NUMB3RS. The premise had a sort of Sherlock Holmes appeal to me: hard-nosed FBI agent turns to his academically-gifted brother to crack the hard cases with almost supernaturally sophisticated mathematics, just as Holmes used almost supernatural deductive methods to help Lestrade and the rest of the mouth-breathers at Scotland Yard.

The intersection of math and crime lies in the bristling familial relation between FBI agent Don (Rob Murrow) and his younger math whiz brother Charlie (David Krumholtz) as well as their attachment to their father (Judd Hirsch) and his hearth, a beautiful Craftsman home in an older suburb of Los Angeles. The sons and their father struggle with dating, family conflicts and worries over the future in this house, a structural ghost of the family’s deceased wife and mother, a warm female presence that all three men struggle to replace with romantic interests.

That’s the wide, horizontal structure of the show, which was always an awkward two-hander – every week Don had to shamble over to the university, or Charlie had to swing by the FBI, then Don had to incidentally bring up a tough case he was working on, upon which Charlie would pipe up with helpful insight.

They kept this up until it became ridiculous. One way around it was Charlie’s consulting status with the NSA, but the show hasn’t played this card very much. Now Charlie just breezes into the FBI War Room without much explanation, his laptop open, finishing someone’s sentence with his finger triumphantly in the air.

I don’t blame them for streamlining this process –- after all, every episode can’t be a rehash of the pilot -- but by trying to split the show this way they've developed a severe alignment problem between two radically different arenas: the crime-showy FBI procedural world of action and Charlie's rustic, sleepily political world of academia.

Every week the alignment between these two worlds gets further and further off. They’ve tried to reinforce the connection between the brothers’ lives with a brain-twisting romance between FBI agent Megan (the fabulous Diane Farr) and Charlie’s co-academic uber-nerd Fleinhardt (a deeply committed Peter MacNicol), but it hasn’t really helped.

And while this romance has been given heavy screen time, the more important romance between Charlie and his beautiful math protégé Amita (Navi Rawat) died centuries ago. These two were kept apart WAY too long and now there’s zero chemistry, zero anticipation and zero suspense. I’m sure they want Charlie to be the sexless nerd to some degree, but if so they shouldn’t have given him a ready and willing hottie.

I really don’t know spit about television structure, but you can’t pull of an unconsummated romance between two people who do not clash on a basic level. You need either sexual tension or sex. You can’t have neither. There’s nothing keeping Charlie and Amita apart, and yet they’ve danced around each other for the entire run. The mind boggles.

Meanwhile Don is too surly to maintain any relationship, although his various conquests are refreshingly superficial women, usually LEOs or criminal justice types who are as literal-minded as he is. They tried to dig deeper into Don’s psyche, but things got too dark because he’s the anchor and there are too many eclectic people already around. So Don’s just McGruff now, barking at everyone and scrunching up his face as he hunts the bad guys.

But here’s the real problem: the math has gotten boring. Dandy graphics aside, Charlie has gone from providing each episode’s intellectual thunderbolt to spitting up the computer algorithm of the week. They try to spice up the episodes with Law & Order-like red herrings, but it doesn’t overcome the essential problem.

In the beginning they used to solve the crimes with a mathematical approach that also provided a paradigm flip, an intellectual twist that revealed how limited our imaginations are when we only look at a problem through a prism of emotion, presumption or stereotype. Charlie’s breakthroughs championed the Holmesian approach of objective deduction and it led to a show that riffed nicely on the overdone procedural formula. Now though, they’ve drifted away from this cool style to lean heavily on simple-minded melodrama and unlikely Scooby-Doo villain confessions. Slowly but surely, this show is turning into a regular crime procedural, and that's a shame.

Honestly, my allegiance to the show has come down to one peripheral character: Colby Granger (Dylan Bruno). He came in the second season or so as a marine seasoned in Iraq whose job is catching fugitive leads – literally chasing and tackling them on lawns, sidewalks, everywhere. Bruno’s a better actor than you’d expect for a cheesecake jarhead, and I hope he gets good bounce out of this series.

Or maybe it’s the Craftsman house. I’ll never afford a damn house in this town, so perhaps it’s the fantasy appeal of an amber-hued living room with wood paneling and crossbeams that makes me keep going.

Whatever it is, it’s beyond me to figure it out. Maybe Charlie can come up with an equation for me:

Slacker – pothead + Angeleno angst/(Dylan Bruno+house) = Scoopy+remote/couch

There. Mystery solved.

2007: Year of the Script

2007-01-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

Yeah, sue me, I haven't written anything in a while. I know. I feel bad. The only defense I have is that Josh Friedman has gone AWOL even longer. As long as I can stay in front of him, no one can claim that I've quit blogging. I haven't quit, I'm simply... resting, or as my old boss would say, "flying under radar".

Whatever you want to call it, I'm happy to say I've finished my rewrite. So far, response has been good. Most people feel that there's about 20% more work needed, but they thought I really boogied on the new final act and that warms the cockles of my bitter, shrunken heart.

I finished and distributed the script just before the Thanksgiving break, which freed me up for the agonizing journey home to see the family. It's hard going home, harder every year, because my relatives just get sicker and less dynamic all the time. My mom has succumed to the dotty senior-woman syndrome of forced glee and pinching. When she hugs me, she squeezes my sides as if she's afraid her hands aren't strong enough so she overdoes it and her fingers feel like crab pincers. At the table she over-gesticulates and knocks shit over all the time, as if she's had too much to drink when she actually hasn't. Admittedly, she's on some meds for various ailments and this makes her hand-eye coordination fuzzy, but her intelligent personality is disappearing behind this chipper, bumbling facade. It depresses me.

As for my dad, he's on oxygen most of the time now, at least until his various respiratory infections subside, so he walks around with a small scuba tank of oxygen delivered through little tubes into his nose. When he picked me up from the airport it was the first time I'd seen him with this regalia and it took a while to get used to the little "PSST" of air every ten seconds. Twice a day he also has to sit in the living room and puff on a hookah attached to a tank of some kind of enhanced oxygen.

The silver lining in this is that, clearly, my father is morphing into Darth Vader. The down side is that he can't wear the portable oxygen tank near the stove because, well, he could explode by mistake. And he forgets because it's the holidays and he's trying to help put the feast on the table. But he didn't blow up and Thanksgiving was all right.

For Christmas, the S.O. and I escaped to Hawaii and shared a few blissful days on the beach. But when we came back we still had to visit the S.O.'s family for a belated Christmas dinner. Now, the S.O.'s family is as wacky as mine, just in different ways. S.O.'s mother (whom I'll call Madge) likes to "keep things". LOTS of things. They say you can't take it with you, but I'll tell you that woman is taking it with her -- all of it, riding into the afterlife atop a sleigh piled high with ramshackle furniture, yarn crafts and smirking Annalee dolls.

So we're eating turkey dinner in Madge's back room, surrounded by boxes and yard-sale detritus when the doorbell rings. Who is it? Why, it's animal control, here to pick up the DEAD POSSUM in the back yard. The only way to the back yard is through the room where we're sitting, so the fellows in jumpsuits march through, following Madge to the spot where the possum apparently met his maker. Just as they entered, so they must leave with the possum carcass, right back past the dining table. The possum was wrapped in plastic; so I hear, I was too busy giggling wildly into my plate to look up.

I tell you guys, you can't make this stuff up. I'll never be as inventive as that woman is wacky. God bless her.

Welcome to 2007. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty depressed these days. The workplace has gone steadily downhill with a new crew of nutcakes I have to work for and with. Don't be surprised if I start blogging about my new career in retail, because 2007 might just be the year I blow a gasket and get dragged howling away from my desk by studio security. The long holiday vacation just showed me how hopeless it is to stay there much longer. I wonder if it isn't a benevolent God sternly trying to force me to write harder, faster, better; just to parachute out of this dead-end Sisyphean hell.

2007 is the Year It All Comes Together. They say it takes at least five scripts to stop sucking and by the end of this year I will have written five scripts. My last script, Number Three, is the first script I'm giving to people who actually could do something with it. You know, connected people. I have to do the third rewrite by the end of January and, with the inner circle's approval, then it goes out to folks in circles of concentrically increasing power.

My opinion is that when it comes to giving your script to someone who could champion it, only give it to them once. If you really think someone can help you, don't ask them to read more than one draft of your script -- the best draft (unless they ask for more, or they're one of your inner circle). Obviously, I haven't given out my work to too many people. This year, that will change.

Script Number Four is halfway through the outline stage. I've hammered down the whole story, but now come all the fleshy details. Number Four has to become a solid first draft by March, combat-ready by June. Then Number Five begins, an idea I've already worked on to some degree, but because it's tricky I'm waiting to see if I still love it in June.

Hope you all have gotten your plans down for this year. Time's a wastin', so if you need structure I highly recommend the early-morning writing schedule. Up at five, at work by seven, write until nine. Steal another hour somewhere else in the day. Go to the gym after work because you'll need it to keep going. This routine got the best work out of me to date, so jump on board if you're serious.

None of us have a chance, of course. No one wants you to succeed and no one will make room for you on the court. But if you're like me you're all in and there's nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

No way out but to write out. Fight or die.

See you at five a.m.

Pilgrimage to the Shrine

2006-09-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

Now that everyone's long wiped the Emmys off the bottom of their shoes, here I am with my play-by-play. I'll try to keep it short because, hey, it's just the Emmys. As the S.O. enjoys saying, they can dress up all they want, but it's still not the Oscars. I don't know if I agree with this, partly because these days TV is wearing the Imperial Butter Crown as shows become more adventurous and quality-driven while features look more and more like the clearance rack at Ross. Also partly because I got a little googly-eyed at the star power walking by us right and left.

First of all, oh my God the heat. You've got to understand that everyone who works this event has to dress up so that roving cameras won't capture a bunch of shlubs crossing screen. The only people who don't are the cops in full riot gear, helmets, everything. These people were out in the blazing 90-100 degree heat, in gown and tuxes, for hours.

We knew that the limo lineup to disembark could be a problem, so we headed down earlier, remarkably encountering no lineup at all. After exiting our car with the grace of a stumbling rhino, I accompanied S.O. to the red carpet. I was so pissed, too, because they didn't really tell us non-entities where to enter. The last thing you want to do in a situation like this is blunder across the wrong stretch of carpet. I'm somewhat shy in circumstances like this -- I'm happy to play dress-up, but I really just want to fit in. Somehow, though, events like this are designed to make you feel as foolish as possible.

So we bumble along to the Shrine Auditorium doors and wait, because they're not open yet. There's only one umbrella providing dubious shade, with about thirty people clustered underneath, all of us feeling that same trickle of sweat creeping down the backs of our legs. Yes, we all are dressed in tuxes and formal gowns, and we're sweating all over them. I should add that the red carpet is sadly small. On camera you think it's this huge space, but at least at the Shrine it's about the size of someone's backyard, with little media pavilions crammed together like job fair booths.

Once they let us inside, we started to have fun. Our seats were pretty neat. If you looked out over the crowd from behind Conan O'Brien's back, we were just under the balcony on the right side of the main floor. No stars were within grasp -- they keep all the stars down front -- but embattled Paramount honcho Brad Grey was visible, doing as well as he could under the circumstances of that particular week, as well as Warner Bros. head Jeff Robinov, who always looks like he knows something you don't. Not smug, just... informed.

There were also two scamps dressed as valets sitting a few rows down and across the aisle. They gave every winner a standing ovation. Every winner. It wasn't Matt & Trey, but that's exactly how they acted. You can see them on the telecast in their cherry-red jackets, leaping to their feet constantly. If anyone knows who they are, I'm dying to find out.

The show was a blast, at least from our perspective. Just a great, goofy live show from the opening pre-tape onward. It's funny though -- during the commercial breaks everyone hops up to schmooze, drink or just walk around. When they come back from commercial, everyone's still in the aisles down by the stage. I mean, like hundreds of people are in the aisles. I don't know how they mike the auditorium, but they do a damn good job of concealing the disorder. Hats off.

The tributes were good, as they usually are. It was amazing to see how much of TV history came from Aaron Spelling. Then, just when everyone is getting all verklemmt, out come the real Charlie's Angels in the flesh. Everyone was nostalgic, until the cameras started doing close-ups and it turned into the Hammer House of Horror. I think we as an industry need to all pump the brakes on the plastic surgery. I'd rather see these people just look old. Tell me, if you're a 40 or 50 something actress, is it better to not get work because you look like a melted mannequin, than to not get work because you look old? Just asking.

I won't list stars because you probably saw more of them on TV than I saw in the flesh, but I will say that when Steve Carell walks by, it's an event. Everyone wants to get close to that guy. Of all the presenters, Simon Cowell was the most memorable -- I kept waiting for that glistening ferret hidden under his unbuttoned shirt to jump out into the audience and scamper to freedom. What was he thinking? Oh, and if you heard people booing at him, that was our group. Did I mention the bar? We had several Brits in our group, and they're pretty heavy into the whole drinking thing.

As far as stars on the business side, I already mentioned the studio heads. But those guys behaved very decorously. Brian Grazer, on the other hand, is a stitch. I saw that guy go up and down the aisle no less than fifty times, swaggering like a cross between Sherman Hemsley and Sid Vicious.

Afterward we all proceeded to the Governor's Ball, which perhaps was the best part of the night. They decked the venue out like a moonlit garden with a live orchestra on a rotating dais, upon which Seal later jumped to sing "Mona Lisa" for his wife. We may never get Errol Flynn swinging from the chandeliers at the Cocoanut Grove, but still, it felt like more Hollywood than I deserve. No, it WAS more Hollywood than I deserve.

Crazily enough, the Daily Show table was directly next to ours, and in one of our group photos you can see Jon Stewart purposefully mugging in the background. Damn you, Stewart! Damn you!!

Afterwards we snuck into a handful of parties, including the one at Spago where mega-winner Kiefer Sutherland strolled in, surrounded by media. It was another surreal moment to see him slowly approach the doorway, then turn and address the throng with flashes going off. One reporter even stuck a little digital recorder up to Keifer's face. I felt like I was watching a movie. To his credit, Kiefer restrained whatever madcap impulses he allegedly possesses -- he moved and spoke like an elder statesman.

All in all, it was fun. It wasn't the Oscars, but God knows I'll never end up there, so I'm glad I enjoyed it. It's the kind of thing all Hollywood aspirants should do at least once, before returning to the comfort of your own couch and a bowl of cheap popcorn -- because that's what all the hoo-hah is for: the people watching at home.

Red Carpet Blues

2006-08-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Remember a while back when I promised to describe my chance encounter with Donald Trump? Well, the time has come.

S.O. and I were given some tickets to Andrea Bocelli at the Hollywood Bowl. We went not because we were rabid Andrea Bocelli fans, but because, hey, it's the Hollywood Bowl. It's classic Hollywood, and more importantly, it's pricey. I'd go see a free Backstreet Boys concert at the Bowl. Hell, I'd go see a free David Hasselhoff show at the Bowl.

We go. The crowd is older, naturally, largely Italian or thereabouts and increasingly drunk as the evening wears on.

S.O. holds the tickets and we worm our way up the hillside. Leading up to this day I have been told that these are “good tickets.” Great, I say. Whatever. Are there really any bad tickets at the bowl?

So when S.O. leads me into the venue proper and turns right, toward the stage, I put out my hand. “Oh no, honey, that’s like, the orchestra pit.” Indeed, the stage is some hundred feet away and I see a field of sectioned tables with people dining. Not eating. Dining. With waiters running to and fro.

S.O. checks the tix with an usher, who waves us forward, toward the little tables and the stage, past the little tables to an even swankier section of tables. The usher keeps going until we are ushed within twenty freaking feet of the first violin chair. There are three squished rows of tables between us and the stage. The usher seats us at a tableclothed four-top and we are offered Patina restaurant menus, but we’ve already eaten, because that’s how cheapskates avoid paying inflated venue food prices.

Patrons eventually fill our la-dee-dah section and we peep at the faces, wondering who in the world rightfully belongs in this section. God knows we don’t. I felt like the country mouse chewing on hay, especially when I saw a suited man walking allllll the way from the far end of the row.

“Hey – it’s Donald Trump!” S.O. looks and confirms and we giggle to each other like stowaways hiding in a cruiseliner lifeboat. Donald gets closer and closer, and then – he’s seated next to us. At our four-top. Next to the S.O.

Now, I’m not the smoothest person around celebrities, perhaps because I rarely run into them. On our lot I’m known as the Star Cooler – walk to the commissary with me and you’re pretty much guaranteed to see no one important.

When I do see a star in close quarters, I choke. I’m shy around strangers, and a strange star? Forget it. Language leaves me. I become a non-person; no words, no history, no opinions, small talk or base personality.

So Donald sits across the table from me and l launch immediately into my statue impression. Luckily, S.O. has enjoyed a glass or two of wine and really digs this sort of thing, so the two of them chat politely a bit, but soon a handler comes up and offers Donald a private table some ways away. Mercifully, he took it and shortly began a wonderful twilight concert by the truly amazing Bocelli.

A few minutes into the show, a group came down the aisle, the kind of group where you instantly know that whoever they are, they are righteously famous. I look closer in the darkened arena. The guy was dressed up, but had a crazy kind of Mel Gibson beard. I look closer –

--oh, it’s just Michael Douglas. And his wife. And his parents. Dressed up, smiling, godlike. They sit across from us. Michael carried himself like a benevolent king, Kirk was relaxed and classy and Catherine looked like a goddess. I’ll tell you, there are people with cameras pointed at them, and then there are STARS.

It was quite a night. Catherine McPhee was a special guest and while her voice couldn’t come within a Texas mile of Bocelli’s, she looked amazing and wriggled innocently around in some great gowns. While I don’t like being so close to people that make me lose whatever sparkle I occasionally muster, it was still pretty amazing.

Now, though, I’ve found that somehow I’m going to the Emmys on Sunday. Don’t ask me how, because something tells me I don’t want to remember. Regardless, I have to go.

I’ve never been to a red carpet affair like this. A friend of mine went to the Oscars once and said it was more of a marathon of sitting than a gala, and that everywhere she went she saw Edward James Olmos. I hope my experience is more interesting than that, and I mean interesting weird.

I knew it

2006-08-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well, goddamn. Guess I won't be needing those mousepad recipes, as I was dinked in the opening round of Nicholl. F**kers! And is it just me or does the rejection letter zip to my mailbox with a fleet-footed smirk? Ok, maybe that's just me.

But see, I knew this would happen. I knew the script was not going to survive Nicholl, but that dang Pusher nudged and nudged and so I entered the competition. Maybe (as I believe) my script doesn't really fit the Nicholl rubric, which from my unscientific and intensely biased analysis promotes a smidge of convention. Maybe it was a cool idea trapped in an underdeveloped script (I can see the vigorously nodding heads already). Or maybe they got annoyed by the BIG, SCREAMING TYPOS I failed to expunge in my rush to make the deadline.

In the meantime I've been cooking on the rewrite, having a blast, working under my stringent new self-imposed schedule and really enjoying my new material. I want this to be a startling rewrite -- not one of those rewrites that writers do where they immediately send the "new" draft to you for comments, and when you're done reading it you have no idea what changed, because virtually nothing did. I hate B.S. rewrites. Most amateur writers ignore the gentle hints to dramatically re-conceive their stories -- but I didn't.

Among other global changes, I've almost completely rewritten the third act. The script was 99 pages and now it's 130 and counting. Rest assured I'll retrim the thing down to 115 or less, but I don't want to stop until I've gotten down all the new ideas and overturned every intriguing stone.

Rejection shouldn't matter. The original script has already been retired and even I don't think it holds up, so in fact the good people at Nicholl and I agree. But... well, we all like that big encouraging wink from the universe. I mean, it wasn't RAPEBEAR, or anything. Jeez... (kicks floor).

Speaking of encouragement, one of my greatest "encouragers" made it to the quarterfinals! Let's have a big hand for Scott the Reader. All I can say is, it's about damn time. Scott has done the crime, the time and then some, and he deserves some bleeping respect. I'll certainly do everything I can to trumpet his placement and return all the support he's so freely given to me. If you haven't checked out his site already, get over there and soak up the wisdom.

Back to the drawing board for me. And by all means, if you entered Nicholl please let me know how you fared so I can either resent or empathize with you.

Geekfest 2006

2006-07-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

ComicCon 2006

Worst thing: The flipping heat. That or the obese Catwoman strutting about in black pleather.

Best thing: A battalion of Stormtroopers marching through the lobby. Two Darths, Red Guards and good 'ol 'troopers, with some kind of drum core, too. Sweet.

Saddest thing: A Stormtrooper standing in a loooooong line outside the convention center, bundled up in his turtleneck, PVC and boots, the merciless sun baking him into Stormtrooper brûlée inside that ramekin of thick white armor.

Eeriest thing: A squad of V's from V FOR VENDETTA. That costume is downright spooky. Maybe it's the androgyny? Bet you dollars to donuts that's the hottest costume this Halloween.

Most aggravating thing: Our first cab driver, who sneered at the "geeks" in town and then turned into the biggest Lord of the Rings snob I've ever met. We're talking textbook geek, and yes, he was well over forty. Way to go, brother.

I think this may be the last year for me -- the event has grown to such outrageous proportions that it's more effort than fun. Everything was lines; lines to get in, lines for panels, lines for food and drinks, lines lines lines. After my last visit to Disneyland I dubbed it "The Waitingest Place on Earth" but ComicCon may just have stolen the title.

There were so many people on the floor that it was hard to root around the booths for cool artwork and projects. It was also hard to find everyone I meant to hang out with, so if I missed you, sorry.

Stupidest thing: Getting into an argument with S.O. during the first fifteen minutes of the three-hour drive home, over whether NUMB3RS is science fiction or not (it isn't). If we weren't geeks before that, we damn well were afterwards.

Until next year, nerd brethren. Until next year.

Tired for a Year

2006-07-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was an assistant, slaving in the trenches, working for a producer on a TV show and dreaming of the day when he'd make it as a TV writer.

(Sorry, this assistant isn't me, but a friend of mine, who now is rich and successful and part of a hit writing team. I'm jumping back for a second here in a verboten VO kind of way).

Anyway, this assistant worked on specs, boarding them, fussing over them, but never finishing. In the meantime, work became more difficult, life took over... in general, the dream was looking fuzzy.

One day this assistant and his good friend, a licensing assistant for the same show, decided that together they should try a spec. They picked a show, picked an idea, divvied up the scenes and went off to write.

And it worked. One spec became two, and two assistants became a team. The specs were read by the assistants' bosses, favors were called in and presto, they were signed by an agent and staffed.

Three assignments later they became quite the reputed team and came close to some kind of an award, and as those familiar with TV compensation can guess, they now live quite the padded lifestyle.

That former assistant said something to me one day about when it all really changed (probably to encourage me to get off my ass). What he said was that he wrote every night after a long day at the office, well into the night, doing his scenes. He capitulated to his work in some way that he previously had not.

He said, "I just decided that I was going to be tired for a year."

I’m tired now. My typing accuracy is down about 30% and I stumble over words sometimes. People look at me and ask if I’m doing alright. They say I look pale.

Good.

The Devil Wears My Sympathy

2006-07-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

I saw PRADA last night. Don't you love how we boil movie titles down to a single word or two? Some people call it "DEVIL" and some "PRADA". I call it PRADA because of how that word sounds in my lazy California drawl: "Praaahda."

So PRAAAAHDA was fun, but Meryl Streep was amazing. If you liked her outrageously steely work in the remake of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, you should run to this movie.

My only problem was the typical problem with romantic comedies/chick flicks. There were some foolish sitcom moments where smart characters (not just not-dumb, but specifically bright characters) did dumb things so that the plot could run in the prescribed direction.

What really struck me about the movie was how much I related. I've heard the fashion world is even worse than Hollywood, but there are Miranda Priestlys out here. I've never worked for the name brand crazies, but I've dealt with them. The problem is that so much of assistanting involves the performance of tasks serving primarily to demonstrate that your boss has clout, or to prove that they can have what the other executives and producers have. Monkey see, monkey want.

Also, the movie goes to lengths to present the lead character as misguided when she performs her job to the exclusion of her personal life. It was funny to sit there and get annoyed at the protagonist for letting her friends and boyfriend interfere with her professional life. I kept wondering "Why can't these haters back off? You can't keep a job like that if you don't put it first!!"

I guess people might criticize that attitude, but out here in Munchkin Land, well, it's 24 hours a day sometimes. Luckily, I and almost everyone I know implicitly understand the demands of the business, and no one blinks if plans have to be repeatedly cancelled to make room for an extra shift at the office.

Maybe we're sick, maybe not, but we accept it. And as much as we tolerate instability in our personal lives, we expect it at the office. People new to the entertainment industry have so much trouble with this fact. There's a project in development here with a novelist who has recently blown his stack over a string of cancelled meetings. I don't blame him, but considering the producers involved, I can't help but laugh at his snitty emails.

I wish I could tell the guy -- "this is nothing. Welcome to feature development. Until your book becomes a glittering franchise, expect to be swept aside the moment anything already greenlit demands attention."

A project in development hell will never be as important as a horse already on the track. Don't quit your day job, don't expect a swift development period, and take the back seat with grace. Untested writers and producers are pieces of flotsam in this town, and to demand expediency is as naive as the PRADA hero's friends thinking she can just shut off her cell phone at night.

"You've got me? Who's got you?!?

2006-07-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

I saw SUPERMAN RETURNS just like everybody else and since have sifted through online comments with interest. I had quite mixed feelings about the movie. Some things were great. Unfortunately, most of those things were in the first half of the movie.

(And now as I write, I'm listening to the SUPERMAN soundtrack. I'm not ashamed).

It's been quite the superhero weekend, actually. I saw SUPERMAN RETURNS on Saturday night and last night I finally watched FANTASTIC FOUR. I like superhero movies and so feel it's important to see the good, the bad and the ugly if I want to grasp what makes them work.

As conflicted as I was about SUPERMAN RETURNS, it looked like CITIZEN KANE next to FANTASTIC FOUR. Talk about "the ugly"; that flick was shat out the ass of hell after a long weekend. Good God. I was simply riveted by the badness. Maybe that's why it performed at the box office -- it just stunned the money out of the moviegoing public.

Ok, back to SUPERMAN RETURNS (oh, and SPOILERS ahoy. Leave now if you haven't seen it).

I come not to bury SUPERMAN RETURNS, but to analyze the living crap out of it. We're screenwriters, or at least we want to be, right? It's easy to rip apart a movie once it's been made, but would you zero in on the pertinent issues if you saw it in script form? What if it was up to YOU to fix it? How would you fare, mon Capitain?

Let's start with big things. I have to say, I've seen lots of picky comments about the little stuff, but I'll tell ya, if they had resolved the bigger issues, those little things wouldn't pop out so much. Some things you don't have space to address, or the explanation gets cut because it plays lousy. There will always be little niggling issues about a film-world with many rules. In the contest between logic and running time, running time will always win. ALWAYS.

What were the big issues? First off, well, running time! There was no reason for a 2.5 running time. I guess the filmmakers thought there was, but it put a weight on the movie that the plot could not hold. I think this happens when good filmmakers try to make a grand movie. It happened with KING KONG and again here. Hard to know why the scenes were cut so fat, unless it was to disguise the lackluster third act. I felt that every time the final set piece built up a head of steam, some long moment siphoned off all the tension and pace.

Next, I feel as though the filmmakers forgot to make an action movie. Superhero movies are ACTION movies. You can put in tons of emotional material, as we saw with SPIDERMAN II, but you have to deliver the action. This movie just didn't do it, and I'll tell you right where it all went kaplooey -- the third act.

We typically know we've entered the third act because the starter pistol goes off. The action shifts into real time, or almost real time, and once that bell rings we are concerned with survival of the heroes. Until they are safe and the villain has been thwarted, we're in the climactic battle. Once that battle is over, the movie is essentially over. Yes, there are wrap-ups and epilogues, but we don't enter into another act if we've already had the climactic battle.

Tamper with this formula at your own risk (remember LOTR: ROTK?). I think SUPERMAN RETURNS tampered with it, to ill effect. The movie rolls on and on without shape even after Lex's plot has been thwarted, and the scenes themselves have little tension. It's a big request to have your audience sit through long scene after long scene when they thought it was all about over.

In this movie there's an actual starter pistol at the beginning of the third act: Lex Luthor fires the Krypto-crystal into the ocean and the repercussions hit Metropolis. And here's where we have another big problem, the issue of the climactic arena.

Once the quaking begins, Superman appears to save the city, at least as much as he can. We see him in and amongst humanity in his adopted hometown, using specific powers to save the terrified populace. But then we leave the city and the rest of the action takes place in the abstract Atlantic Ocean, on the cruise liner and Marina del Lex. And there's a lot of transiting in this overscaled set piece, back-and-forthing that has nothing to do with the people of the world.

Remember them? The people? Almost nothing that happens in the Atlantic, pertinent as it may be to the survival of the United States, feels imminently dangerous to the people. And that is where this film really misses the boat. Think back on the successful moments of the previous Superman films. It's when humanity is immediately and visibly in peril that Superman works as a hero. If he's fighting Lex for the sake of the people, then those precious souls have to be nearby, or at least represented by having Lois & Co. dragged along by Lex.

That's why we love Superman. He wants to save all of us, and at the same time each and every one of us individually. Superman is the God that we want but don't have. You could say our actual God stays in the boardroom. He's not a hands-on guy -- but Superman is.

So, unfortunately, when Superman is out in that abstraction of a set piece, it feels as though he's only saving himself, a sense enhanced by the Kryptonite-laced environment. Add to that the mice-saving-Cinderella moment of Lois & Co. rescuing Superman, and.... eeesh.

Don't get me wrong -- I loved the train sequence in SPIDERMAN II, where the passengers care for Spidey. But that's once he's almost killed himself saving them. It's a moment of earned appreciation and reciprocity, on an intimate level within a confined space. Lois saving her super ex-boyfriend isn't set up the same way. I mean, he does save them all from the sinking liner, but for them to fly home, and then fly back to save him? Did I mention back-and-forthing? This is a great example of why it isn't so good.

As another example, remember in X2, during the attack on Xavier's school, when Rogue, Iceman and Pyro escape through the underground tunnel, only to turn back when Rogue insists they must help Wolverine? You couldn't help but wonder why they got so far before Rogue decided they had to go back. In that case, it worked because the story needed that gap of time -- Wolverine and Stryker had to have their myth-moment -- and because it dealt with people running about 100 yards in a confined environment, not people flying back and forth across the ocean.

If you're going to have a big, expensive, effects-laden set piece, use it -- and only it -- for your big showdown. The action was scattered so far and wide. As I recall, story 101 requires everyone to come together in one place for the climax. We got the damsel and the villain, then the damsel and her family, then Superman and damsel and her family, then Superman and the villain somewhere else... you get the idea. If you don't get them all together, it has to be for a reason that really works to make everyone feel the compression.

Jesus, what else. I won't go into the Kryptonite thing or the progeny thing, as others have already nailed those problems. Suffice it to say that it isn't enough to have an explanation ("he lifted the Krypto-continent because he scooped it out from below" or "the sun re-charged his super-batteries"), the explanation must be dramatically fulfilling. If it isn't, make it so, or else you risk your audience becoming restless during that all-budget-consuming effects sequence.

Lex Luthor didn't feel fresh. It should be a federal crime to waste Kevin Spacey in a movie. Parker Posey was ok, but I liked Miss Teschmacher better the first time. If you're going to copy something, copy it well.

Cyclops as Richard was fine. Nice to see his eyes -- somewhere, LaVar Burton is smashing a vase. Still, as soon as we met Richard, I kept waiting for him to get killed. And the only reason he was in the climax was because they wanted to hammer home a theme, and that's the worst reason for a character to hang around. I tell you, if Lois and kid had been dragged along and witnessed Supes' clock-cleaning, it would've worked so much better. Why wouldn't Lex bring along some extra collateral, Kryptonite or not? Damn sure I would've. Then they could have cut to Lois's horrified face during the beating instead of eight thousand shots of Kitty.

Kate Bosworth was weak, but whatever. Katie Holmes in BATMAN BEGINS beat out whatever fight I had left against the casting of kid sisters in superhero movies. No longer a girl, not yet a woman, indeed. Remember when they used to cast ACTRESSES in film roles? Remember what a real metropolitan woman looks like? A grownup WOMAN?

Listen to me ramble. This isn't a comprehensive review, because I don't get paid for this crap, but I needed to speak my piece. There was a lot of great stuff in this movie, but just like after KING KONG, I walked out with the little marketing angel in my head saying, "what's going to make irreverent young audiences go for this movie??" I'm worried that its budget will rule out the possibility of a success, and Warners needs one now. Badly.

What did I like? First of all, who would've thought Brandon Routh wasn't going to be one of the problems? I thought he was great. Truly great.

The best moment for me was the scene between Supes and Lois on the roof of the Daily Planet and flying. Say whatever you want about Singer, boyfriend can create a great unrequitable love. He did it with Wolverine and Jean Grey, and he did it again here, despite Kate's big boring forehead. You sensed that there was no relationship, no matter how wonderful, that could compete with the love of Superman.

I also loved the idea of Superman having a son, although I understand from better-read fans that this could hamstring future movies. It would have been a better tag though, because it came in so early that we lost track of it by the time the movie was over. Still, the thematic pull of Superman finding what he was looking for in his own backyard was great.

Now if only Richard could've gotten killed.

A New Leaf

2006-06-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

I don't have as much time to blog lately, because work has been a major bitch. I'm so fried by the end of each day, I barely have time to get home, eat dinner and act like a jerk before the alarm goes off the next morning and it's time to start all over again.

Still, hard work is good. It's good that I have a job, even though sometimes I hate it, hate my bosses, hate my tasks and the stupid bad scripts and grown men and women who can't operate a damn speakerphone in the 21st Century.

I guess what I'm trying to express in my own tight-fisted, punch drunk way, is gratitude. As much as I want another kind of life, these are the cards I currently hold and they certainly could be worse.

Gratitude is rare for me. Typically I pout around wondering what it would be like to work at home as a writer, tapping the keyboard as the trees splay the shifting shadows of an unstructured day. But as much as I want to be a writer and not punch a clock, I often fear my own aimlessness. Maybe that's why I sabotage my writing efforts, or at least fail to give my all.

Lately though, I've had a wee breakthrough on the writing front. Maybe not so much a breakthrough as it was a good wake-up call.

About two months or so ago, a writer/drone friend of mine, (let's call him "JERSEY"), recommended a book. Jersey, by the way, is a quite talented writer who's trying to close in on that one spec that will nab him a sale. You can be a good writer, but the hard part is conjuring a story that can swim all the way across the roaring river of the marketplace.

So Jersey's working away on his scripts, living his life and feeling anxious, especially because his buddy "AK" is a newly optioned scribe. AK is a machine gun (hence the moniker) who writes every day, firing out scripts like someone who will be a professional screenwriter. Not maybe, not if, not kind of, but as God is his witness, WILL be a screenwriter. Jersey admires AK but doesn't have quite the same resources. Still, like me, he's in a dead end if he doesn't become a writer.

Anyway, Jersey happened across a book several months ago and it changed him. He suddenly started this crazy hardcore writing schedule, getting up at 3:45 a.m. and writing for two hours before work every day. Jersey starts pounding out product, knocking pages and pages, enjoying a flow and continuity with his writing he's never had before, etc.

He recommended the book, and being a screenwriting cottage industry junkie, I ordered a used copy from Amazon... and the damndest thing happened. That book has given me the same pimpslap that it gave Jersey.

It's not a guru book. It doesn't attempt to tell you HOW to write. It's simply a collection of insights from established writers about how they approach the work, what they do and don't do and how they regard the nature of writing, both the discipline and chaos of it.

Here's the thing that popped out at me: if you don't assume the responsibilities of being a writer now, before you make it, you'll never have to worry about assuming them after you make it, because you won't. Whatever commitment you won't make now, is the thing that will keep you from realizing your goal.

Most of the writers interviewed get up and write very early, because that's typically the way it shakes out for adults. I've never wanted to write in the morning. I love writing at night, when everything shuts down and the world is hushed and poetic, but let's be serious: I wasn't writing at night. I was barely writing at all except for scattered hours on the weekend.

To put writing first in life we have to literally put it first: First thing in the morning, before the craziness starts, before we think about every other problem, before we put it off.

Most of you probably already knew this and have arranged your schedules to give writing the appropriate space, but I hadn't. I kept waiting for room to appear, and it never would. So I took Jersey's advice and this week began my hellish new schedule.

I get up at 5:00 a.m., shower, dress and drive to work by 7:00 a.m. Then I sit in my boss's palatial office and work for two hours. I've done it all week, even starting at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday and logging a total of four hours that day.

Sunday and Monday were great. I felt like a superstud, slicing through the outline for my rewrite like a machete. Yesterday the sleep deprivation hit and the first hour was ugly. This morning was ok, but I'm clearly going to have to get to bed earlier.

Still, I go to pages next Monday (at the latest) and I'm impressed by the efficacy of this plan. It's not romantic writing; feels like a job, actually, but that's the point. I want this job and I'm going to assume the responsibilities of it now.

If you'd like to read the book for yourself, be my guest:

"The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters: Insider's Secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers," by Karl Iglesias.

Now it's time for my eighteenth cup of coffee. See you next time, when I tell you how I met Donald Trump.

Notes are trickling in

2006-06-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's hit me this spring/summer, but I am drooping. Seriously drooping. Maybe I have senioritis. It's not my fault it's beautiful outside and the squirrels are scampering in the trees -- who wants to sit indoors and bang out second act revisions when summer is calling?

But let's be honest. I haven't been frolicking at the beach, or mountain-bike riding, or even strolling through the Hollywood Hills. That would be a healthy reason I haven't been writing. The true reason I haven't been writing is that I'm too busy sitting in front of the TV, watching X-Files season one reruns late into the night and eating comfort food.

(Right now I'm into cornbread. The other night I watched "Little Green Men" with hushpuppies and buttered cornbread from Mr. Cecil's California Ribs in Sherman Oaks. Bliss.)

When I get bluesy I want the comforting and the familiar. Remember during the Iran-Contra fallout when Ronald Reagan drifted away from reality, when he holed up and watched old black & white movies all day instead of, like, running the country? Well, that was the first time I appreciated the guy -- because I could relate. Retreating from the world, disassociating via old movies... what's not to love?

Why am I hoovering up cornbread and alien conspiracies? Man, I don't know. No, that's a lie. I do know. I'm in the dumps because I'm having a small crisis of faith. It happens every so often, typically after I turn in a script. I get serious screenwriting postpartum blues and I can’t recapture my zest for the work.

I know it's there, lurking somewhere behind the wall of cornbread. Sometimes I wonder if I should book a hotel room and just go pound out my rewrite over a weekend. Drastic, maybe, but it's better than the "I'll quit my day job and pound out an amazing spec over the next 3 months!!" brainstorm that's destroyed many a fine wage slave in Hollywood.

While I search for my muse, I thought it might be interesting to share some of the notes on my script. It strikes me that many of these notes are universal enough to interest other screenwriters. As a reader of sorts myself, I can honestly say there really are no new notes in Hollywood, just the same notes wearing different clothes.

So here we go:

READER ONE

My first reader (and she's a doll; one of those people who reads the script immediately) sort of live-blogged her read, writing down reactions as she read, so the notes go something like:

p. 28
"not sure if [HERO] is clicking yet. Why didn't he [ACTION]? Are we supposed to know, or is this purposefully vague?"

p. 43
"Whoa! Didn't expect that!!"

Pg. 58
"[HERO'S] running away from [CHARACTER] feels unmotivated."

Pg. 70
"Ah, okay. Explained."

Reader One also had some good global notes, like:

"I’m not really connecting with [HERO], though. Not sure if this is your intent, but I feel like I’m on his shoulder, not in his head at all."

Ouch! That "sitting on the Hero's shoulder" is a note that could be made about every other screenplay in Hollywood -- especially if you're aiming for some ambiguity or mystery with your lead.

Reader One's live-blogging also illustrated something that preoccupies me quite a bit: the gap between a story beat that puzzles the reader and the answer that comes along later. Clearly, you want to create suspense by structuring your beats so that your reader is lagging the story. You don't want them bored by obvious or over-explained developments.

At the same time, you don't want to have a beat seem illogical or overwhelmingly unlikely and have the explanation come so much later that the reader spends thirty pages/minutes without faith in your story (or your storytelling).

Reader One's chain of comments above suggests that I might have let a confusing beat breathe too long. Perhaps something needs to be fudged a bit so that she is held in suspense, not in disbelief.

READER TWO

Reader two was my S.O. Reader Two typically makes comments that either make me annoyed, or make me wish they ran a studio. See, Reader Two has what you call "spot-on instincts," so the comments were brief and brilliant.

"You have a script here about a hero who is chaotic to a certain degree. I think you need to allow some chaos into the structure."

Reader Two is exactly right. My script has a hero with an unusual, chaotic world and personality, but the story developments resolve MUCH too simply and traditionally. Form doesn't follow function and it feels wrong.

READER THREE

Reader Three echoed Reader One in this note:

"The one thing that really felt lacking here was the whole ----- thing itself. I think it's a cool idea, and I'm assuming that people like this probably exist, but I don't think you really do enough to bring across here why [HERO] does it."

The murky hero note again. And Reader Three is exactly right. It's not that I forgot to explain the Hero better, it's that I really don't have an explanation for him.

How do you explain your hero? Sometimes the whole backstory explanation grows tired. It's so mathematical and overly symmetrical the way movies trace a character's personality back to a single past event -- but it works. I have to bite the bullet and give my readers a better map into my character.

For example, I found myself thinking about Fox Mulder in X-Files (stop laughing). He's a truth-seeker and would have been one even if his sister hadn't been taken, but it's the loss of his sister that is the single driving line for his character. Pursuing the mystery of his sister has bloomed into a larger pursuit for even bigger truths -- but it always comes back to that singular loss and desire, specifically a desire that can't truly be fulfilled.

My hero needs a similar singularity.

READER FOUR

Reader Four adamantly wanted a bigger story. He loved the world, loved the hero, but said the story felt too light and inconsequential. He wanted me to go deeper into the world of the story and have it become much more threatening and intense. This note was echoed all around, either specifically or by a lack of enthusiasm for the story.

So those are the notes. Obviously, I'm going to be writing an expanded story. I've got about eight pages of ideas that have to be fashioned into a new storyline.

Sigh. I'm going to need more cornbread. LOTS of cornbread.

Overheard in Hollywood 5/24/06

2006-05-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

"How did God get on my Friends list?"

-- overheard at Starbucks; a barrista complaining about a My Space member named God.

At Your Service

2006-05-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

I had a revelation last night after a tiff with my S.O. It was revealed to me as I stared balefully at the ceiling that the tiff was all my fault, although I wasn't going to apologize. The tiff was my fault because, once again, I brought my work home with me.

I didn't bring home rage or frustration or Machiavellian scheming and manipulation; I brought home my chipper, imperturbable attitude. I brought home Scooter.

Scooter is my happy, can-do alter ego. Scooter breezes through troubles, past pushy agents and completely skirts the professional fumbling of The 40-Year-Old Intern and I, Producer. Scooter jumps on verbal grenades, absorbs workplace bullets and even disposes of the occasional body, when necessary.

It all rolls off Scooter's back in a way that it never rolls off mine. The problem, however, is that Scooter is huge, fake, placating sonofabitch and he's terrible at sincere relationships. Scooter only wants to keep the other person happy, but he doesn't know shit about what Scooter himself wants. Scooter's complacent and helpful until one last straw falls and he abruptly blows his stack in an emotional Tourette's-like outburst of hostile accusations.

Then Scooter lies on the bed and scowls at the ceiling because he's completely alienated his S.O. and now no one wants to go get ice cream with him. And Scooter really did want ice cream last night.

I started thinking about poor Scooter after reading the newest blessing of a post on Josh Friedman's blog wherein he segued into observations on the platitudes of anesthesiologists and Hollywood assistants, specifically "No problem" which is indeed a fine old chestnut of my hallowed profession.

Josh is correct: "No problem" is a blow off. "No problem" means "this call is over, you just don't know it yet." "No problem" means I've already clicked over to Defamer and am halfway through the latest snicker over Tom Cruise's descent into madness.

Actually, you have to rotate your catch phrases. They get tired, and people start to count the number of times you repeat the same thing during a single phone call. I've found myself really settling in with "You got it", which roughly translates into "I am in no way able to guarantee anything to you besides an acknowledgement that you have spoken words to me and I have made a shorthand note re: your most likely unfulfillable request on my notepad."

Don't hate our glib little catchphrases. They really do have a purpose. As much as people claim to want the whole truth and nothing but, we assistants (and yes, anesthesiologists too) know better. You need soothing, and we are here to soothe your concerns like a lavender-scented eyemask. Let us lay down on your fevered brow and calm you with our pleasantly intonated words of dismissal.

Of course, if you hate lavender, then I can provide a more abrasive response. There's a touchy-feely saying that the universe never says "No" to our personal hopes and dreams. Instead of "no", the answer is "Not now" or "I have something better for you". But in this business, "Not now" and "I have something better for you" are thin substitutes for "No, never".

So on behalf of Scooter and all assistants who dress up the truth daily in a million shades of gray, I'd like to say, sorry, but no. Just no.

And to my S.O., I can only say: Baby, I'm sorry.

(Can we go get ice cream now?)

New Feature: OVERHEARD IN HOLLYWOOD

2006-05-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

You'd never believe the things you overhear on a daily basis in this town. To prove it, I will occasionally share astonishing soundbites here.

I love overhearing raging non-sequiturs. Not only are they wildly entertaining, but they're a great way to jumpstart a script scene, so perhaps this feature will help us all find a way to ditch the "pan-around-the-room" action paragraph and dive right into that opening dialogue.

Today's item:

"It's amazing the different things you can do on top of a horse!"

Enter at Your Own Risk

2006-05-02T14:25:00.000-07:00

So I cracked and entered Nicholl. It's all The Pusher's fault. The Pusher is a friend and fellow aspiring scribe who essentially ordered me to send in my script. The Pusher gave quite good notes -- many of them small, easy and quick to do, so I spent the weekend fussing and fiddling with the script and actually enjoyed myself.

I've had trouble diving back into the script, but The Pusher's thoughts helped me break into some scenes and shape up character reactions, little timing issues, etc. In fact, it was easy to see the result of The Pusher's screenwriting studies over the last few years. The Pusher knows more about how an individual scene must build and payoff than most readers I know. That makes sense though, because The Pusher is a TV writer. I work mostly in the feature world, but over the years I've seen a number of feature scripts written by TV writers and almost all have one thing in common: the individual scenes are head and shoulders over those of most aspiring feature writers.

TV writers write amazing characters and dialogue, because that's what TV is all about, or at least what it's supposed to be about. I realized over the weekend how much I have to learn about scene structure. I've spent countless hours studying overall script structure, but scene structure? Cripes. I have a long way to go.

Anyway, back to the stupid fellowship. The Pusher pushes me into entering, I hasten to incorporate notes over the weekend, but by Monday morning I'm still not finished. Then Monday turns into Hellday, as it so often does, and I start nervously eyeing the clock.

Sure enough, by 4:30pm I'm only just finishing the notes. I print out the sucker, and then print out the entry form. Then I wrap up the package all perfect like the admin pro I am, but only then realize that I'm not supposed to have anything on the title page besides the title. So I rip into my perfect package, replace the title page and print out a new label.

Then I realize that I'm never going to make it. Here's why: the studio I work at has decided to fire the employees who apparently made it possible to have a late mail pickup in my building. The studio fired lots of other people too, including the people who made it possible to send out a Fedex package without hiking clear across the lot to the mail center. A late Fedex pickup is out of the question as well. Basically, the new budgetary restrictions mean that a stagecoach rides through the lot once a week for packages and if you miss it, tough luck.

It's too late to scoot over to the Nicholl office in Hollywood and drop it off by hand, but then I glance again at the entry rules and I see that UPS and Fedex are acceptable. So I make the decision: I'm going to Fedex this bastard. I've come this far; I don't even want to send it in, but I'm not going to let time be the deciding factor.

So I hop in the car (I should mention that I have a number of other things to fedex, so I have professional cover for this little escapade). This will be a snap, I tell myself. The Fedex drop-off place is just around the corner.

Then I get to the Fedex drop-off place and see a little sign: "New drop-off deadline 5:30pm." By then it was 5:40pm. I try to haggle with the guy at the counter, who assures me that I can make it in time to the Fedex Service Center in BFE by 6:15pm, which is the totally serious final-final deadline.

I hop in the car with directions, zip onto the freeway, and immediately lose my mind because the freeway is jammed. What was I thinking??? Why didn't I take the streets? Sitting in that line of cars, I wondered how the hell I ended up in rush hour traffic at 5:50pm on the day of the deadline for a contest I don't even want to enter. And I'm paying for Fedex on top of it all.

I was happy not entering. I was happy in the knowledge that even if I was perfectly content with my script, I don't think it's a Nicholl script. From what I've read of the winners, it seems to be a contest that, well, is more likely to recognize the next WAR GAMES than the next BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I'm just saying.

Once you've gone a certain way down a road however, you feel less stupid going further than you would going back. So I drove to the BFE Fedex office and dropped it off just in time.

Then I drove back, regretting it; thinking of how I hadn't had time to read the whole thing over and make sure that my changes didn't spawn new typos and inconsistencies. Sure enough, back at the office I found some goofs. Nothing too awful, except perhaps the Big, Screaming Typo on the final page. It was actually an inconsistency rather than a typo, but it was big and it screamed.

Whatever; it's over. I'll eat my mousepad if it makes it to the quarterfinals. But it wasn't about trying to score, it was about being very happy and confident about what I hand out with my name on it.

Oh well. One good thing is that if The Pusher hadn't pushed I probably wouldn't have tinkered with the script at all, and the tinkering was productive. So thank you Pusher, and I'm very happy to have made my $30 charitable contribution to the Nicholl Foundation this year. I hope the winners spend it well.

To Nicholl or Not to Nicholl

2006-04-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Why am I considering the Nicholl? Don't I have connections? Don't I have the inside edge? Don't I have better things to do with thirty bucks?

Yeah. Yes to all. But it's still tempting. There's something about a contest, something democratic, even fabled about it. In ROBIN HOOD (the Errol Flynn version, thank you), evil Prince John knows, nay, bets on snagging Robin by simply holding an archery tournament. John knows that Robin won't be able to resist the temptation, and he's right. Robin almost sacrifices his life and mission for that temptation.

And I've almost convinced myself to throw my wee new script into the pile, just for the hell of it. I hate to clutter up the contest with a script that's promising but not great... but hey, I'm paying thirty clams for the trouble. Why not?

I'll tell you why not. Because I think it takes a fairly polished script to score in the Nicholl. I write okay, but a contest like this can't be dented by a so-so idea with nice style. The idea itself has to be of a certain quality, not an obscurely interesting idea, not a plotless experiment, not a generic genre piece. It has to, as one writer put it, "capture lightning in a bottle."

There are a lot of people who don't have any access to the industry; no contacts, no open doors. So why not leave one less cluttering script in those folks' path? Why be the chaff amongst the wheat?

We'll see if I crack. I have a handful of days to talk myself either in or further out. Pros and cons welcome.

Me Saw Play

2006-04-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

God, it's easy to forget how incredible the live theater experience can be when you sit all day, every day, on your widening ass in front of a monitor, logging calls, shuffling appointments and being afraid of the quite aggressive lot squirrel outside your office window.

I didn't know squirrels could squawk. I thought I heard a blue jay or a crow or something, but no, it was a fat little squirrel, scampering on the tree outside, just squawking his head off. Weird.

Anyway, I saw a play. ALL MY SONS, at the Geffen in Westwood, nestled at the foot of UCLA. It was absolutely stunning. Len Cariou, Neil Patrick Harris and Laurie Metcalf. Everyone is great -- everyone -- but Laurie Metcalf was just brain-smashingly wonderful. I knew she had the goods, but damn.

If you've never seen or studied this play, it's Arthur Miller's first breakout and the first of his trilogy of plays (including DEATH OF A SALESMAN and THE CRUICIBLE) dissecting postwar American malaise.

I've never seen an audience react like that; never been part of an audience where you could feel everyone's heart cut open at the end, together.

Go get tickets. Crack open your wallet, get good, close seats, and take it in.

Knowing

2006-04-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Go get your surprised faces -- ready? Ready?? There's another feedback debate raging on the Wordplayer forums!

The debate is in a response to a screenwriting newbie's blithe inquiry re: the merits of a pay-for-analysis service, which exhumed the hearty manifesto by pro scribe Terry Rossio extolling the superior merits of figuring it out by your own damn self.

I can't get involved because there's no right answer. I both love and hate Rossio's post because it gives me an uneasy feeling deep inside -- the same uneasy feeling I got reading this -- which is the feeling that he's largely right. Still, I recently sent out a new script for reactions because I couldn't spend any more time on it unless people felt that it was succeeding as a whole.

Now, I don't advise anyone to pay any more than, say, $60 for fresh insight on their script. In any "dream field" like theater, music, film, art, dance, etc., there are vultures who have basically given up on their own aspirations and decided to extract a living from newbies. Some may be able to help you, but I have a problem with the fee. Better to buy some of the universally liked screenwriting books and study the fundamentals, rather than pay someone to teach you about one single script.

Here's my main problem with triple-figure gurus: I don't know if any of them would ever say, "This script is not worth any more work. Chalk it up to practice, cut your loss and move on to another script with a stronger central idea."

That's the problem with so many scripts: an underwhelming central idea. Learning to judge concepts is the number one screenwriting skill, and I don't believe judgment can be taught in a single lesson. It's something you have to learn from years of effort, interaction and experience -- and from dozens of different people.

On the other hand, a huge problem in the amateur screenwriting field is that so many new writers refuse to consider professional feedback. I read a script a while back that was a holy mess, but the writer was totally defiant about the problems. This fellow didn't want to hear that I couldn't see the movie playing in his head, and I rapidly tired of his resistance and hubris.

He sent me the script under the familiar pretext of "feedback", when in fact he was hoping to get a "hit." This is a normal tactic of sending your script to someone in a position to champion it and asking for their personal opinion, when you secretly hope they will say, "hey -- this is really good! Let's make a movie!"

The problem is that, in my experience, those scripts are rarely breakouts. Either people think I have no juice (which could definitely be true) and they really are asking only for my personal opinion, or they mistakenly think their work has at least a strong enough concept to warrant prodco advocacy. Writers need to vet their work before sending it out to contacts -- but they don't. They are overconfident or compulsive and it forever damages the contact.

So I do believe in feedback. But again, something about Rossio's warning hit home. I believe that something has been lost, a guiding intuition lurking in our scribbling and random inspirations. This intuition is there in the genesis of a story -- certainly no one can teach you what to write about -- but it needs to be there at the end of it, too; when you've long stopped creating new phrases and have only tinkered with existing words over and over.

Allegedly, David Mamet sent GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS to Harold Pinter asking for help and Pinter said it was done. Isn't that the wish of all of us? To get the clean bill of health just when we're convinced that our work is too sick to recover?

It's sure as hell MY wish. But the fantasy of unwitting perfection is really just that -- a fantasy. Rossio asserts that we should know when we've done good work. By the same token, maybe we've come a long way when we know that we HAVEN'T done good work. Knowing your work is done can mean that you know you can't make it better, at least not at your current prowess.

Before you hand out that next draft to your readers, sit down with yourself and ask the questions: Is this good? Is it a good idea in a bad script? Is it a bad idea, written with style? We do know somewhere inside whether what we've written is marvelous or not. We've read enough good stuff (or should have) to know if our writing springs forth or lies flat.

Like a lot of other people, I fantasize about bursting out from behind the curtain, fully groomed as a professional screenwriter. That rarely happens. The reality is that like a lot of other perfectionists, I run the risk of never pulling aside the curtain at all. To be honest, when I tiptoed out and handed off my script, the responses turned out to be better than I expected (unless I'm missing a highly advanced form of Euphemese).

A writer I deeply respect claims that his first few scripts (sold and produced scripts) weren't very good. I've read much of his work, starting with the latest and best, and I gotta say, he was a pretty so-so writer at the start. The difference between his early work and the later stuff -- well, I wouldn't have figured it was the same writer. And that gives me hope.

He didn't hide his work until it was perfect -- he probably had to come out swinging with those clunky first scripts and take his lumps publicly until his work took on its current potency. He didn't metamorphize "timidly" as Rossio put it; he finished his scripts as best he could, shrugged and tossed those bad boys out the door.

Maybe the difference is that he was born to write and others are not. Like I said, there is no right answer. Professional feedback can help, it can hurt, and it can be inconsequential. Someday, you'll be on your own in a room with powerful idiots and you'll have to KNOW in your bones whether what you've done is good.

Then, whether people agree with you or not, you'll have that one thing, the holy grail of writers and the characters they write about: conviction.

O for Orwellian

2006-03-29T10:37:00.000-08:00

I liked V FOR VENDETTA, although by the end I was alienated by the staginess and the substitution of message for drama. Still, you've gotta admit they have huge balls for putting that movie out now. I like people with huge balls -- er, not in a sleazy way -- but I like guts. I like movies with guts and filmmakers who say "damn the torpedos". I wish there were more filmmakers out there like Peter O'Toole in THE STUNT MAN. But there are few.

Still, the movie didn't quite work and rather than babble through an explanation of my thoughts, I'd like to divert you to an interesting article I found in the course of some research a year ago. It's a piece by Lee Harris in the Policy Review called "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology." The web page is:

http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris.html.

(I'm not able to properly link to it and I haven't yet figured out why. If anyone can explain to me how to do it, let me know. There are frequently certain specific web pages I can't link to and I'd love to learn how. Anyone care to help out the resident computer doofus?)

Pass the Chuck Bucket

2006-03-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished the script. I'm still not satisfied, but I'll never be satisfied, so off it goes. Gave it to five people, my "first-tier" of readers. They're first-tier because they have expressed interest in reading my script and because they're people whose work I have read. I know these folks well, and I know that if asked for honest notes, they will happily oblige.

I know lots of other great people to send a first draft to, but you have to rotate your readers carefully. I don't want to have anyone read the script more than once unless I can help it (or unless they ask to read a subsequent draft), and I don't want to ask every one of my contacts to read every script I write and burn them out.

I'm in that miserable frame of mind that I always get into when I share my work. No -- at first I'm euphoric, wondering if maybe this will be a big hit! Then I sit down to idly page through a copy and notice some incredibly obvious logic problem in the first scene. Why the hell didn't I spot this before??? Goddammit.

Everything I loved about my little creation suddenly becomes suspect as hacky. It doesn't matter how much I dote on my writing and chuckle over what I perceive as clever bits of action and dialogue; sending it out is harrowing. Seriously harrowing.

My last script I sent out to a few people and only one person really responded to it. Granted, I didn't send it very wide, but figured mediocrity wasn't unusual for a second script and tossed it on the shelf.

Now, however, I'm afraid that anything I think is somewhat good is actually not so good, and that I'll go through this every time I send something out. Excitement -- Distribution -- Silence -- Ambivalence -- Dejection. Ain't writin' grand? Too bad I can't be normal like most writers I know. They send out their stuff and don't have a cow anticipating rejection. Why do I have to be such a big baby?

The only antidote to all this angst is to immediately start my next script -- which I have, thank you. I'm beginning a more mainstream project; a thriller with Hitchcockian touches, a little bit of LAURA thrown in, a little ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, and a lot of very complex political/corporate skullduggery that I must streamline into very digestible bits.

If I do it right, it will be great. If not... back to the chuck bucket.

My Oscar Summary

2006-03-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

Charlize – worst dress

Stewart – not right for the show. Still love him, though.

Lauren Bacall – hope she strangled the teleprompter operator.

Russell Crowe - begging for his career back

JLo – too bad she fell asleep on the tanning bed.

Nicole Kidman – her hair matches her skin. Not a great look.

Hated Michelle Williams’s goldenrod dress. Looked like the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese mix.

Hated Naomi Watts’s dress. What’s with all the ratted tulle topping on dresses? Looks like the cat got at it.

Sandra Bullock – best dress.

Amy Adams - cute as a button.

Rachel McAdams - like her better as a brunette.

Jennifer Garner - best recovery from a slip. And best new boobs. Nice to know costumers won't have to shove her into ridiculous padded bustiers anymore. Rachel Weisz second best new boobs, but she's still preggers, and that isn't a fair comparison.

Keanu Reeves - he's rich, got juice and staying power & doesn't give a damn what we all think. I like him for that.

Ziyi Zhang - is that how you pronounce her name? Holy crap. Most charming accent.

Phillip S. Hoffman – best speech.

Jack – best presenter.

Stage – like a bad wedding invitation.

Hated the music playing over everyones' speech.

Diana Ossana – wiped her nose about 20 times, but if she’s doing coke, she needs more. Could she be more dour accepting the award? But then I saw her wiping her eyes and drinking some water through a straw in kind of a weird way. Maybe she’s sick. Now I feel bad.

Crash – worst win ever. Isn’t personal racism so much easier than that sticky, challenging, institutional racism? What poverty? It’s all about epithets!!

Overall: I hope we go back to big bombastic movie winners next year. Makes for a better show.

This just in: LA Times not sucky!

2006-02-26T14:44:00.000-08:00

Wow. The LA Times Entertainment reportage this weekend has been... entertaining.

It started with Saturday's business section. Universal pulled out its gun and started polishing it in front of Stacey Snider. Fish or cut bait, lady, Ron Meyer seems to say, as he deadlines her choice between staying put at Universal or jumping to Dreamworks/Paramount**. Gail Berman might want to double-check the lock on her office door. Again.

In Sunday's Calender I section, there's a nice article on cafe screenwriters, one that does a fair job describing the allure of writing elsewhere than your crappy Hollywood apartment.

Then in the Times' new "West" magazine (whatever), there's a nice end piece about the hell of TV staffing. It's a pretty accurate depiction of how difficult it is to get and stay on a staff.

Best of all, yummy Brice Dallas Howard is on the cover. She was the reward for sitting through THE VILLAGE, but if Shammy ruins her in LADY IN THE WATER (as I and many others ruefully expect) there's going to be hell to pay.

As always with LAT, registration required.

**UPDATE** Snider took the gig. This should be an interesting few months. (subscription required for variety)

Ding, Dong

2006-02-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

Today's a rough day, but there's a wee silver lining. John Horn covered the Paramount/Stacey Snider/Gail Berman parfait today in the LA Times (registration required), and although he was tsk-ing at the bloggers who spread the gossip about "embattled" Gail Berman's rumored job in-security, all he really did was give it greater life.

As an aside, when they call you "beleaguered" in the press, that means you're in dicey shape. Once they call you "embattled", you might as well just start packing up your office. You're dead.

Horn makes reference to a piece by Jeffrey Wells on his site "Hollywood Elsewhere". He doesn't give you a link, but I am more than happy to. It's good readin', especially if you've come to love and appreciate Gail as so many, many people have. Heh.

And I love that Wells' mystery correspondent rips into the oft-repeated maxim that if you're a tough woman you'll get called a ruthless bitch. In many cases that may be true. But sometimes people call you a ruthless bitch because you're a ruthless bitch. Frankly, most studio heads are hated by a large part of Hollywood. But that's part of the job. You can't make everyone happy and the losers are going to be angry.

The whole thing reminds me of the quote from AS GOOD AS IT GETS where Jack Nicholson's Melvin remarks that the way to write a great female character is to write it like a man, then take away reason and accountability. I don't necessarily agree with the reason part, but the word accountability is something that separates Berman from a lot of women I know. You know what I like about them? They'd rather slit their wrists than play the girl card in public, let alone the major press. They'd rather die than imply that they're not fully accountable for their decisions and reputations as people, that they're destined to be part of a perpetual "one-down" group.

Imagine Dame Judi Dench's M complaining aloud that people don't like her because she's a woman. Powerful women face unique challenges, but they know that if you ask for sympathy, you never get it. They tackle criticisms head on without dodging behind a categorical shield, fair or not.

Food for thought, Gail. Food for thought. Oh and by the way -- DING-DONG!!

There are no small scenes

2006-02-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today that I have quite the number of empty water bottles bopping around in my car. Like, LOTS. I should have some sort of contest someday where I challenge people to guess how many empty water bottles I have currently in my car and bestow a prize for the winning guess. Because it doesn't seem like I'll be clearing them out of my car anytime soon.

This observation is apropos of nothing; just an aimless and annoying fact. I guess I simply marvel at yet another aspect of my life that is begging for attention and yet remains neglected.

I can take care of some housecleaning here, though. I'll set a separate page for my house-hunting and oil peak rants. My home search will continue for quite a while because I've recently learned that all this overpriced bullshit is about to come crashing down, probably taking the rest of the economy with it. So I'll update separately with my house tours and the ever-tightening fake smile of my realtor as she bats away reality in the desperate hope of suckering me into an overpriced hellhole.

So back to Hollywood stuff:

I enjoyed WALK THE LINE quite a bit. No, it wasn't groundbreaking, but it captured a particularly good take on one of those Amazing Journey romances. And although the movie was purportedly from Johnny Cash's point of view, it worked best when we saw the romance through the eyes of June Carter. We can thank Reese Witherspoon for that and I hope she's rewarded for it again at Oscar time.

I bring up the movie because there's a scene toward the end (if you haven't seen it yet, you should have) where John and June have succumbed to the inevitable consummation of their star-crossed affair. The next morning they wake up and before the brunt of reality swings in, they engage in some cute pillowtalk. It's really the only time where they're not burdened by verboten nature of their feelings; for once they're lighthearted. Johnny offers June a peanut and then pops it into his own mouth, several times, psyching her out every time.

It's sweet and it's just "a moment" that soon gets interrupted by a call from June's daughter yanking them out of their sanctuary. But it isn't just cutesy-poo filler -- the scene has structural resonance. By teasing June with the peanuts, Johnny's turning the tables on her. Instead of her pushing him away as she's done for two-thirds of the movie, Johnny's enjoying the slightest bit of vengeance; denying her something she wants that HE has. And the sad fact is that the only thing he has to hold away from her at that moment is a hotel peanut.

Most relationships have to have some kind of equity, even if both parties go overboard to manufacture it. If one person has all the power, both will be unsatisfied. So Johnny has to find some control to exert, and as scene reveals, June delights in surrendering control for a moment, regardless how small the amount.

I bring this up because it's a perfect example of how every little scene has the potential for depth and structural support. It doesn't have to be in the dialogue; in fact the best scenes tend to keep the "message" in the framing of the scene rather than on the surface. The essence of what's happening, the essence of the conflict is the art.

It ain't easy -- I know this sort of power is missing from several of my scenes and it's why there's that "thin" feeling to much of my work, but it's key to having your script, and later your movie RESONATE. You want your readers and audience members to lie in bed after reading/seeing your movie, maybe even a couple nights later, and stumble across little realizations and discoveries as they play back your story in their minds. You want the actors to see this sophistication in the roles. You want a director to sense that this story will allow him to flex all his artistic muscles and produce a subtle masterpiece.

When you start working on this level, you're going to get noticed for it. Check out those little interstitial scenes in your script that only serve an explicative function and see if there isn't room for something a little more profound, something microcosmic in your characters' interplay that, upon reflection, speaks volumes.

When Bad Scripts Happen to Good People

2006-02-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

Someone asked about referrals recently, which is a topic I meant to write about here. I need to remember to write these topics down.

Referrals. Back-scratching. Networking. Schmoozing. Ladder-climbing.

Referrals matter. You could say they are the most important route to success in Hollywood, or at least the most important shortcut. It’s hard to get past the Hack Filter in this town. There are so many people with, er, undeveloped skills that it makes it difficult for gatekeepers to open their doors or even pick up their phones.

Writers always seek referrals. What they may not understand is that a referral has importance for the referrer. When I ask a colleague to read a script, I’m putting my stamp of approval on it. If the script is bad, it implies that I don’t know good from bad. That's bad for me.

It’s bad whether I’m the referrer or the referee. When someone recommends a craptastic script, it’s hard to know how to respond. Does the referrer know that it’s bad? Or is he just doing a favor to someone he’s obliged to help? You can’t really come out and say, “Wow, this sucks! What the hell?!?” What if he has bad taste but doesn’t know it? What if he knows it sucks but he has to do a favor and doesn’t need the embarrassment rubbed in his face? Who knows?

This sort of thing screws up relationships. After all, most of us hope to ferret out contacts with similar tastes and interests. We need reliable sounding boards. When we refer scripts we want to have it mean something. If our batting average is low, then none of the scripts we refer will get priority.

So when asking for a referral, you may have to read into your hoped-for referrer’s reactions. Leave them room to gracefully decline. Weave your question in a way that leaves room for them to be honest, but polite.

As I’ve opined before, when people think you really have something, they say stuff like, “I think you really have something here!” Think about it -- it's fun to recommend a good script. It makes you look good. It makes you seem sharp. We want to refer scripts. If no one starts talking in that direction, they probably don't think you're ready. Listen for polite evasions. Be a good sport.

If you ask for a referral and get the dodge, suck it up. Writing is hard. If you're not ready, go back to the drawing board. Ask for constructive criticism. Assure your readers that you can handle the truth. Don't foist your frustration on those who have the power to assist you.

I've had some bad experiences. Everybody has. There's the writer who gets you to read his script in hope that you open doors for him, who then proceeds to send you everything else he's ever written. I don't mean the writer who periodically touches base with subsequent (and potentially improved) works, but the guy who sends everything he's written to date.

There's the writer who gets huffy when you don't recognize his genius. He oh-so-perceptibly implies that you are not reading the script clearly enough. He "sees" the movie in his head and doesn't understand that the movie is ONLY in his head.

There's the eight-thousand managers who send over script after wretched script, as if I'm a dumpster for all their dead-letter "clients". They just keep throwing it at the wall, clump after clump of crap, waiting for something to stick so they can attach themselves as producer and ensure the project's demise.

Actually, agents and managers send out crap because they have to. That's their job. But I stop accepting it after a while. I'm not in a position where I have to comb through the bushes. Unfortunately most studios and prodcos do get everything read, no matter how many dogs a rep sends out. Referrals are supposed to be different. They're supposed to be backed by personal reputation.

Having said all that, if you have a bad script but you want to send out no matter what, just in case somebody somewhere might see something in it, find a manager who's never produced anything. They'll be delighted to oblige!!

Now what if you have something that's good, but you don't have the contacts?

If you're ready to at least try to get a referral, you have to socialize. Either you're one of those effortlessly popular, outgoing types, or you have to clench your teeth and force yourself out there to meet people. If you like dating, you'll luuuuve networking!!

Comb your hair, put on your good shirt and your filmmaker eyeglasses and hit the street. Go to parties. Go to film festivals. Work on films. Go to every goddamn screening you get wind of. Go to art gallery openings. Go to birthday parties. Go to book readings. Go to bars. Go to stupid industry mixers. Go to premieres. Stand around in the Arclight lobby like an idiot. Blog. Join poker games. Go to pretentious cafes, go to Starbucks with your shitty laptop, go to magazine kiosks, go to comic book conventions. Go to AFFORDABLE pitchfests and conventions (do NOT spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on these things or I will get very mad).

Get out there and meet some damn people. Perfect your loglines so that they sound cool and fleeting. When someone asks you what you do, say you're writing scripts. Say it with energy. If they encourage you to talk about what you've written, say, "it's an edgy heist story", "it's a big comedy vehicle", "it's a drama about this amazing true story" or "it's a cross between [good movie] and [good movie]". Pin down what's catchy about your script, and if there's nothing catchy, keep writing until there is.

Ask about other people's writing. Ask to read their scripts. Ask to see their films, get involved with their work so that maybe you can become a productive link in the referral chain.

Whatever you do, don't be a sad sack. If you act excited by your work, other people will catch your energy. All it takes is for someone to still be excited after they read your script. Then you'll see how anxious people in town really are to find good material. If you write it, they will come.

Oil Peak and movies = the new peanut-butter cup

2006-01-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

O Joy, Kunstler has reviewed SYRIANA. I've felt consistently odd about swerving between the subjects of moviedom and oil peak, but now they've become joined in a fantasia of anxiety.

I saw the movie and liked it, but felt disengaged. Kunstler pretty much sums up why:
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_syriana.html

(Can't link the above successfully. I'm sure it's a simple matter, but all this computer hooey is hard for me. Suggestions welcome).

The interest rate, the third act thunderbolt and everything

2006-01-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

I didn't get the townhouse, or as I dubbed it, the Honeycomb Hideout. Did I mention it was built in 1974 and never updated? Swell wall paneling with mirror stripes, sick yellowy kitchen, cottage cheese ceilings, fake flagstone fireplace...mmm. Class all the way.

They wanted too much considering that I would need a demo crew to essentially cover the house in a big plastic bag and toss in a few grenades. So, I've moved on.

I don't think anyone marginally drawn to this blog would be interested in the travails of entry-level real estate in Los Angeles, but it's all part of the Hollywood reality, in a way. If you want to work here you have to live here, and if you live here, eventually you're going to want to buy here. I've been doing lots and lots of research on all kinds of finance related to home-buying, and that led me to some revelations about finance in general.

For instance, you know your bank, that brick-and-mortar institution that you've dutifully banked with since you opened your first checking account? Well, they're laughing behind your back. Laughing hard. The average brick-and-mortar thinks it's doing you some kind of a favor by offering a money market savings account with like, .05% interest. Do what I did and throw those pennies back in their facade. Then go to ING.com and open an Orange Savings account for 3.80% interest, no fees or minimums. But wait, there's more. From now until April 15 '06, they'll give you 4.75% interest on all new deposits, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Hmmm... let's see, on one side we have .05% and on the other side we have 4.75%... gee... which one to pick... Add to that their sweet CD deals starting at 4.20% for 6 months and going up to 4.85% for 60 months. No fees or minimums for those puppies, either.

Now, I'm no shill for ING but I'm happy to share a good deal. And let's face it, their ridiculously vague advertising campaign failed to share anything but people sitting on bus benches asking each other what "ING" stood for. Thankfully they've since revised that campaign. All they really have to say is, "We're an online bank. We're established internationally, especially since we bought Barings Bank for a ham sandwich and couch change after a single broker bought it to bankruptcy trading in derivatives. We're giving away money and we'll eat your bank's lunch. We're ING."

Aside from banking I also looked at some index funds in which to grow my pittance. Being a research monkey I started reading up on the stock market in general and historical stock market crashes, because hey, that's exciting, and that plus the Barings scandal got me thinking about a David Hare play I saw years ago on Broadway called "Amy's View", starring Dame Judi Dench. In the third act of that play Dench's character undergoes a financial tragedy -- the real historical crisis whereby Lloyds of London perpetrated an ersatz ponzi scheme that bankrupted thousands of unwitting investors. It's not the central issue of the play, but an event in the second act that spins the third act into an entirely different environment and atmosphere.

So that got me thinking about movies featuring actual historical events that yet are not the central focus of the story. SAN FRANCISCO, starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy uses this technique. The main characters experience conflict throughout the story, then at the end of the second act in comes the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The main characters seek each other out in the rubble, shocked into new appreciation for each other and for life itself.

Weird post -- it started with interest rates and ended up at, well, what do you call it, this paradigm-shifting event that slams the third act into entirely new territory? It seems to work best when it's an actual historical event, otherwise the audience calls bullshit. Anyone want to toss in other examples? Like this structural twist? Hate it?

Remember, it's not like a MOW where the historical event is the subject or framework of the whole story, it's a curveball at the top of the third act or thereabouts.

Is TITANIC an example of this? It almost kind of is, but not exactly. It's as though Cameron wanted to treat it that way, so that the disaster would be experienced palpably through the eyes of one or two specific characters. But when you name a movie TITANIC, well, you're waiting for that iceberg the whole time. It's built-in suspense.

Icebergs, financial scandals, earthquakes... should these events be dropped into the last act? Do they have to be actual events? Would you use fictional events? And what the hell do you call this tool? Deus ex tragedum? Bad writing? A lifelike random tempest?

And just what the hell does ING stand for???

The realtor ate my homework

2006-01-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Right, so today I was supposed to hand out my script to 1st-tier readers, ok? Right, but see, I have like a really good excuse. After weeks of looking at condos and townhouses and crap, I finally put down a bid. A sad little low bid, but a bid. And see, the thing is, bids take lots of time.

LOTS of time. Not only that, I crammed all weekend to compensate for years of idle ignorance of the real estate market and loan intricacies. I can safely say I know more now after my crash course than I ever thought myself capable of knowing.

If you've already lost respect for me and my sham deadline, you can leave now and go enjoy one of the perkier posts by James Howard Kunstler. If you've read much of JHK, you know that "perky" for him equals "apocalyptic" for most of us. Maybe you'll enjoy this abridged script more.

Or maybe you can relate to my bag of excuses. My new deadline is Friday, at which point I begin the new script, which is still due by April 1. I'm not extending that deadline. Every week I fritter away on this final draft is going to eat into the time on my next draft. That'll show me.

Of course, if my bid is accepted I'll be too busy either negotiating or commandeering a fleet of inspections, so if that happens, well, I'm just screwed.

Happy Happy

2006-01-03T14:58:00.000-08:00

Yo ho! Happy New Year! Is it just me or is New Year's Eve the most crushingly overrated holiday of the year? Frankly I kind of hate it. Three... Two... One: Happy New Year!! Everything's exactly the way it was a minute ago! But let's all cheer anyway! Yay!

It doesn't help that Dick Clark helped us ring in the year like the freakin' Grim Reaper. Way to remind us all of our impending demise. Good God.

It's good to be back in the chair today, though. Being a lazy bum, I benefit from a structured work day. Staying home is really only fun if you're supposed to be somewhere else. Staying home because you don't have anywhere to be is... a lot like unemployment.

Strangely, the lot where I work isn't fully up and running. I drove in and parked, anticipating the swell bustle of production, only to find my parking lot practically deserted. I park in the far corner, so you can imagine how stupid I felt parking at the far end of an empty lot.

The gardeners apparently have the day, if not the week, off. Hence the walkways are buried with stray leaves and twigs, and tree berries. It's like someone opened colossal bags of cranberries over our lot and let 'em fall. I made tree berry jam underfoot, at least a barrel. Yum.

Tomorrow everything will start up. Until then, what else is there to review? Oh yeah, KONG. You know, before the holiday I saw the great reviews and solid P&A and like everyone else, baffled at the underwhelming box office. Then I saw Kong. Now I know why it's not doing so well.

It's weak. Yes, many parts of it are fantastic. The CG integration, the characterization of Kong, Ann's personality, the magnificent chemistry between them... the ravine scene that reminded me of the first Tyrannosaurus scene from JURASSIC PARK and its Spielbergian horror... the Tyrannosaurus "trapeze" scene...

But overall? Those great things couldn't make up for the abysmal opening and the fatiguing third act. The boat trip is painful to watch. It all had an arbitrary feeling, not at all as if the filmmakers knew they were remaking a heavily dated classic and had to bring in a modern sophistication and logic.

And the last third... aaagh. Suffice it to say it over-emotionalizes Kong. Also, if Ann isn't still at least a little terrified by her predicament, it diminishes Kong. Ann's reciprocation is a good addition, but it wasn't tempered at all. Liked it on the island, hated it in the city.

See it for yourselves and analyze it on your own terms. But when I think of the average filmgoer out there, I know that many of them scratched their heads and wondered why they were supposed to feel consistently moved by a movie that could not maintain audience connection. The whole thing was kind of dumbed-down emotionally. There are too many irrational events in the basic story to overcome without extremely well-crafted surrounding characters. Instead we get characters that pale next to Captain Katanga and his crew from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. And what a shameful waste of Adrien Brody.

Other than that, I haven't seen much. Tried to go see NARNIA, but stupid Pacific Galleria 16 in Sherman Oaks decided to show it on a Beverly Center-sized screen with 127 seats. We got there 30 minutes early and there was nowhere to sit. What kind of gall does it take to screen a visual feast like Narnia (which has only been out three weeks, mind you) on a screen the size of a shoebox? We walked out.

I tell you, I've been advocating for people to not abandon theaters for a lesser DVD experience, but I'm getting damn sick and tired of defending exhibitors who treat filmgoers like f***ing cattle. Even my beloved Arclight has got to straighten itself out. Their website is too frequently down, and if you get stuck trying to buy tickets at the theater when their self-serve ticket kiosks are down, well, you'd better have something to read.

Seeing how this post has turned into an unfocused rant, let me take a moment to correct moviegoers on a puzzling misconception: When you're sitting in a movie theater and you turn on your handheld to check out a call or email, the BRIGHT, WHITE SCREEN is actually QUITE VISIBLE in the dark.

If you wouldn't flick on a flashlight during the movie, don't check your handheld. It's noticeable. It's obnoxious. You're driving people away from the place where movies were designed to be seen. Stop it.

Did you all get any writing done over the break? I didn't. Maybe about two hours of work, and the resulting guilt and psychic crisis is perhaps leaking out a bit. To make up for my jaw-dropping ambivalence over the holiday, I've set stark quotas and deadlines for the new year. Here's how it's going down, may God help me:

Current script out to readers: Monday January 9. Ready or not. I've been fussing with this thing long enough. It is what it is and changing punctuation isn't going to fix anything. Out it goes.

First draft of next script due: April 1. April Fool's indeed. That's 11 weeks, including outlining; a plush window compared to the industry standard. And frankly, I've outlined much of it already.

It's going to be ugly, but New Year's is all about painful realities. I'm overdue to make a sincere run for the scripting chair, and this year I intend to emerge with two seriously contending scripts.

A new script by April. Who's with me?!? Saddle up, kids. I need company.

New Blog Alert

2005-12-21T11:09:00.000-08:00

It's hard to find something to write about when the town shuts down. I'm still chained to the desk, wading through nut assortments, wine and holiday cards from people I don't even know.

Hopefully I'll get some screenwriting posts up soon, as we all should take advantage of the break to wrap up our current projects and recommit to those scripty endeavors, but until then here's where to go for really *good* writing instead of my mousehole yammerings.

Check this out right now: Who Are You People?. Screenwriter Michael Gilvary takes to the streets and the GLOVES are OFF, man!!

Well, actually it's more of his hallmark combo of sensible, evocative, humble and yet passionate commentary. Looks like he's just started, but this promises to be a must-read blog. And someone please get him to drink that damn wine.

Have a Holly-Jolly Non-Denominational Holiday, Scurvy Infidel

2005-12-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

It's time to wish everyone a Happy Something, but these days you have to be careful what you say. Personally I'm agnostic scum, but if you wish "Happy Holidays" to, say, a crusading cashier at Johnny's House of Crucifixes, he may snap and accuse you of defiling the Christian underpinnings of the holiday.

In a hostile, agendized environment such as this year's, I think all holiday greetings should be met with a resounding "Up Yours!!” If we're going to turn a warm, humanizing holiday into a religious turf war, then let's not tiptoe into it.

So up yours, everybody. Pagans came first. They win and you lose. Ho ho ho.

---

In this business the holiday comes in on two fronts: there's your own private celebration with family and friends, and then there's the work side of it. Lately, the work side has almost completely eclipsed my private holiday. By the time I'm done sending out eight gajillion business holiday cards (which I sign), found some lovely non-gender & non-denominational wrapping paper (thank you Martha Stewart Kmart holiday collection!!), sneered at the annual CAA McGift, received not even a losing chocolate bar from UTA, wrapped all my boss's family gifts, ordered fifteen bottles of wine and had them delivered to misc. suits around town and shipped my boss off on his extravagant holiday getaway which I can't even afford to THINK about affording...

...well by that time, I'm f**king sick of the holidays. But that's just when my personal holiday kicks in.

It starts with the annual Holiday Letter of Woe from Aunt Katie. Then comes Grandma's Christmas list, which includes requests for things that she refuses to let her family simply buy her throughout the year. She's got this insane, Spartan mindset and insists that we not spend more than the allotted Secret Santa amount, even though she lives meagerly by herself. I thought the cross was getting crowded with my sister up there, but Grandma found room for one more.

Then my sister sends out her family picture card -- a 8.5" x 11" sheet with a collage of pictures of the extended family from that year -- only every year someone is left out entirely, leading to sidelong glances around the holiday table.

Then, oh yes, then comes the family tradition that I have unsuccessfully lobbied to expunge for over a decade: the Christmas Eve caroling. No, we don't move around the neighborhood and sing to the neighbors, we sit in the living room and sing the songs together -- poorly.

My parents grew up in musical families, so they see it as a crucial element of Christmas. Loved it when I was little, hate it with a passion now. I've tried to replace the singing with a classic Christmas/family movie or even just some CDs of great Xmas music, but my parents just don't get the idea. I guess it's a generational difference.

It's so depressing -- I remember when Christmas was a fantastic childhood time, a month-long wonderland of surprise and pageantry. Now it's a time when I return home to obediently sit through my father's rigid Christmas program -- the same exact things, the same exact way, every year. As God is his witness, we're going to eschew electronics and enjoy our time together as a freakish Luddite clan, like it or not.

They're always saying that we should stop treating Christmas as an excuse to consume. I disagree. The reason we consume so much at Christmas is because we need something to cheer ourselves up after a strained family visit. It's not conspicuous consumption; it's the emotional reward for sacrificing our own happiness for that of our relatives. Nothing quells the pain of caroling like a new 20" iMac. Right? Right!

So buy yourself a reward for all you did this year. The script you finished or tried to finish, the co-workers you tolerate, the cringeworthy family moments, the traffic; everything you put up with as an adult. Find something to celebrate, and do so with Good Cheer.

Peace.

Turn, Turn, Turn

2005-12-12T14:53:00.000-08:00

Shawna over at Shouting Into The Wind recently wrote about her experiences as a applicant to various screenwriting competitions.**

The comments section for this entry was quite interesting, especially where Shawna talks about rising above the excessive use of "he turns/she turns" in her action lines. The consensus amongst the commentors was that this sort of action-crutch is the mark of an amateur, and I agree.

But I can't seem to stop doing it. Not only do my characters "turn" frequently, they "shrug" and "stop" and "shake their heads" with astonishing regularity. They "frown", "sigh", "puzzle", "react" and do lots of other scenery-chewing actions. My characters are downright twitchy.

I think I know why. They start fidgeting when the scene isn't right; when they are simply exchanging thoughts without strong cause-and-effect. When two pieces of dialogue don't fit together well, or when a moment of hesitation or a lull needs to be transmitted I resort to a physical action faster than Mariah Carey resorts to a red spandex minidress.

The worst thing about twitchy actions is that it makes your scene look like a scene, walk & talk like a scene, but it isn't really a scene. If there's something going on under the surface between characters (as there damn well should be), then these futsy little stage directions aren't necessary. But if the subtext is flat, then it seems like a swell idea to have everybody start turning and shrugging and "nodding" and "thinking" and "hesitating" and even "bristling".

No, I take that back. I love "bristling". I refuse to banish that one.

**UPDATE** Shawna made it to the finals of the Writers Arc Competition. Boo-yeah.

The Flesh-Cutting Laser Beam

2005-12-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

The first time I shot a gun was at a shooting range in the great state of -----.

(There will be some judicious edits in this post. I’ll explain presently).

That wasn’t only the first time I shot a gun, it was the first time I ever even held a gun. Very nerve-wracking experience the first time. I don’t know why; it’s not like there aren’t tons of safety measures and such to protect you from accidentally shooting the thing, but for some reason I worried that the gun would hop up like Eddie Valiant’s animated pistol, start yee-hawing and shoot up the town.

I was holding and shooting a gun because I was trying to get under the skin of the subject for a biopic. It was an undercover story, and the subject was wanted by certain shady people because he had gone undercover and ruffled their feathers -- in fact, he ruffled them right into jail. So there was a teensy little bounty on his head he had to live with.

This guy had a temporary apartment in ------, with guns stashed strategically about. A rifle behind the door, pistols handy and always, always, a Browning tucked on his person. During one visit, we headed out for a drive. I sat in the passenger's seat and waited for him to hop behind the wheel.

Instead, he started the motor while standing outside the truck, leaning in. When I asked him what he was doing, he said that if there was an explosive, he'd be blown back, away from the truck, instead of blown UP inside the truck.

"What about me?" I asked. He laughed.

So back to the firing range. My first gun lesson included the warning to handle the gun as if there were a flesh-cutting laser beam emitting from the barrel at all times. This is gun safety 001. Never point a gun at anything that you wouldn't mind blowing a hole in. Always assume that it's loaded and off safety.

This lesson is actually taught in lots of other fields. In print photography, the lesson goes like this: Never pose for a picture you wouldn't mind seeing on the cover of TIME magazine. In the internet age, the lesson's a little more emphatic: Never use your school's AV equipment to film yourself impersonating Darth Maul. Never ever.

In Hollywood, it goes: You are fitted with a miniature microphone and it is always on. Never say anything that you wouldn't want to see as a headline tomorrow in Variety.

Also, when you're rolling calls and muting out, always assume that the mute button is broken, because one of those times you belch or laugh at something funny said, one of the Very Important People on the call will say, "what was that?". It was you. Very, very embarrassing. And a fireable offense, if your boss is uptight.

Last week two guys came in and sat close to my office, waiting for a meeting with someone else. They saw a poster and started making critical remarks about the movie. They weren't whispering or being careful, they just blabbed away with non-constructive comments. And you know, it's nice that they haven't edited themselves into irrelevance. Of course you have the right to your opinions, even the hostile ones.

But next time guys, don't do it within earshot of the assistant to the people who made the movie. The flesh-cutting laser just sliced through your foot.

This Just In

2005-11-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I finally just posted something after weeks of nothing, but this justifies two posts in one sitting:

A History of Violence: The Abridged Script

Enjoy, monkeys.

Abandon Ship

2005-11-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

Last week Patrick Goldstein knolled the death bell (L.A. Times; registration required) for movies, sort of, when he reviewed film industry troubles what with nobody going to actually see them anymore and stuff. That, coupled with piracy, new distribution dilution of the market and blahblahblah – well, movies are doomed.

Whether or not I believe him isn’t the point. I believe it just enough to worry about it. Doesn’t take much for me to worry. I can strictly not believe in something and still lose sleep over it.

So I started worrying about what the death of movies could mean. Since movie-dom coughs up my paycheck, I worry that it could mean there’s no paycheck in my future. This made me think about working in TV.

Now, I’ve never been one of those TV people. Of course I watch it, but my homing beacon has always emitted from the movie theater. Frankly, I struggle to keep up with even one or two TV shows a week. With TV shows available on DVD and Tivo, wonderful Tivo, keeping and catching up with must-see network and cable TV has practically become a second fucking job. It's wonderful stuff, I'm happy, I'm enjoying it all... but Jesus. We need a national reduction in work hours to accommodate all this stuff.

Still, I have to butter the bread, so I start thinking that maybe I should try to become one of these TV people. Maybe I should try to write some TV samples and use them as a little plank to escape the sinking HMS Theatrical.

But working in TV is different. Network TV people… man, but they are fucked up. I know, I know, everybody in the business is screwy, but I’m talking about the Network suits. They are from another planet in another solar system.

I’ll say this about Network TV suits: They never misspeak.

(Hint: that’s not a compliment).

If you haven’t heard these people in a meeting, well, wow. The first thing you’ll hear in every meeting is a recitation of how great they think the project is, how excited they are, how enthused they are, how much they love this and that, and how they know this is going to be a wunnerful, wunnerful show.

Then they drop the kissy and start ripping apart the project. But it’s all done with this thick, fatty shellac. You know when you’re watching some bogus show and you frown and say, “real people don’t talk like that!”? That's how TV suits talk. Like nothing real.

It reminds me of The Age Of Innocence where acts of social enforcement were so submerged, so insulated from the possibility of direct communication, that they were overpowering. Otherwise fair-minded individuals were so overwhelmed by this invisible force that they willingly allowed the system to raze over their individual desires, even when to surrender would drive them half-mad.

Then there's the homogenization factor. The suits know that all an audience member has to do is lift the remote and they're outta there. It's not like film, where your audience member is committed. So the suits have a vested interest in not offending anyone, not even for, say, an act or two. They want to put people onscreen that you would be happy to sit next to on a plane. I think that's actually their rule of thumb. So characters (especially heroes) are given the Mother Theresa gene. They have to be people who desperately want to help others with big, bleeding hearts. And hot. They have to be extra hot. Mother Theresa if she were hot.

Aside from interference with content, Network suits are notorious and relentless in other ways. For example, it doesn’t matter that who the crewmembers are, the Network made the show. They are the divas, they are the stars, they take the credit for success. They don’t set meetings; they announce them. The meeting will occur and you will be there, no matter what your last name is.

Of course there are reasons for this. TV isn't glacial like film. In TV, you're supposed to actually get things done. Quality be damned, you've got a show ready to air every week. It's a grind house, and that's why it pays so much and employs so many. But is it worth it? After the experiences I've had, I don't know how cool shows like The X-Files ever made it on the air. I cannot comprehend how that happened.

Finally, and worstly, if I may coin a new word just for the occasion, here's the real agony of TV: You'll pitch a show, maybe a really cool and adventurous show. A network likes it and snaps it up. Suddenly there are 10 people on story conference calls, including prodco drama development suits and network development suits. Over the course of six months, they'll direct and oversee the pilot script, the pilot shoot, and the editing.

Once it's all done and ready the show will get sent to the Network Poobah. He will watch it and either pass or pickup. And here's the very bestest part: This Poobah has had no involvement with any part of the show up until then. His captains heard the pitch and bought it; they developed it from start to edit bay. But they don't have any say in whether the show goes or not. The Poobah does.

The suits have commanded changes and reconceptualizations, but they are all middlemen who are only guessing at what might work, at what the Poobah might like. You have jumped over hedges and through flaming hoops for people who cannot in any way guarantee that your efforts will achieve success.

Imagine you're running a restaurant and a VIP customer orders the salmon with lots of special directions (a la Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally). You'd then go about preparing the best salmon entree you could, hewing as close as possible to the customer's instructions. But when you proudly bring it out, there's someone else at the table. It's the VIP's boss, and he takes a bite only to spit it out and bark, "You call that steak?!?"

That's how they roll in Network TV. Abandon hope, all ye who enter.

Page 2

2005-11-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

John Rogers brought up the idea that you don't need page 11, but I'm sure even he would be surprised to learn that you may not need page 1, either.

Got a script this week that was lacking the first page. Here's the funny part: I read it, typed up comments and was preparing to copy the script before I realized that the very first page was missing.

I didn't even catch it! Yow. That's bad, right? I remember the start being a tad cold, but the layout perfectly matched an opening page. There wasn't anything suspicious because the story was just getting underway.

I think it just goes to underscore the truth about what Terry Rossio at Wordplay calls The Storyteller's Cut or "non-situation delivered information" and the truth about what Rossio deduces as the reason the audience pays such close attention to the start of a movie:

Audiences will fill in the blanks.

You simply don't need to overexplain or over-introduce a situation. As long as something's happening, the audience will jump in.

I got that first page from the writer and when I read it, I kind of wished he'd voluntarily taken it out. It actually took away from the power of the page 2 opening.

Food for thought.

The Opening Image

2005-11-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

I buy the books; I admit it. I love screenwriting books. And lectures, blogs, magazines, website forums, chat rooms; I love all that scripty stuff. I love reading about screenwriting WAY more than I love screenwriting -- and as soon as I dump this 9-8 gig I know all this chatty, pseudo-writing virtual stimuli will flesh out my existence. They say it gets lonely at the writer's home office, but in the internet age, I wonder how lonely it can possibly be. If guess if I'm lucky, I'll find out.

Anyway, all the scripty edu-chat helps me focus in on my writing when I find myself adrift, like I am now. I'm closing in on this latest script: I've actually got a first draft. I've read through it twice and made specific changes. I've wrangled those two last scenes into acceptable shape (thanks for the TOOTSIE script, Scott!). I've rewritten the opening scene -- went back to the short script that started it all and actually used the short as the opening scene, with some necessary compression.

But now I'm at that place where you look at your script and say, yeah, it's there, it's a script, if someone in power read this I wouldn't throw up right away -- but is it really good enough? It's scary to realize that this is where many screenwriters linger for months and months, trying to perfect every line, every word.

I can't do that. This is going out to private readers for first thoughts. That magnifying glass will come out eventually, but first I need a reality check on whether this puppy works at all.

There's one thing I can do, though: I can strengthen that opening image. Leafing through a book in my library last night I came across the question, "have you found an opening image?"

I really haven't; this script starts with a mundane setting, which doesn't really bother me. But I started to think about it; about the opening image and what it can and can't do for a story. Of course, this sort of reflection prompted me, as do most contemplative screenwriting questions, to pop in the DVD of STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE. It helps that there's a new 42" Plasma HD TV to watch it on. At least that was my excuse last night at 10:30pm. I'll just watch the opening sequence on the new box, I told myself, just the Star Destroyer passing over in that orgasmic, zeitgeist-altering shot.

Of course I ended up watching the whole thing; as usual. And you know what? There's a hell of a lot of looping in that movie.

But anyway.

I'm not writing a sci-fi western nor any hard genre. Therefore, the opening image can be softer. Still, why not try something punchy? I can't use a star-destroyer or a dying scorpion or a soldier's boot punching through the illusory reflection of a puddle. What can I use?

It seems to me that the opening image can do one of several things, specifically:

a) immediately set scene
b) offer a metaphor for the hero's(es') imminent experience

It's best to immediately set scene. What's not best is to take half a page (or god forbid, more) to describe your opening image. I've read a lot of scripts where there's a bit of a sensory-deprivation experiment going on for the first page or more. The writer wants to give you such an abstract sequence of images that soon you find yourself impatient for the commencement of narrative. I think a three-line action paragraph is plenty. The reader needs to know what they are looking at.

Pragmatism is always appreciated. Still, I'd like to have some pizzaz in the image. What about smuggling in a little statement? The aforementioned examples are great: A wee spacecraft is chased by an unfairly big spacecraft... David and Goliath-esque. A scorpion, usually a feared creature, is itself being cruelly killed by a group of laughing children... the end of an era, the killing of a killer. These images are perfect for ANH and THE WILD BUNCH.

The key here is elegance and restraint. Too often scripts hit the metaphor right on the nose, and it's patronizing. Metaphors are tricky things. In the case of ANH the metaphor isn't separate from the action, which is the best way to go. THE WILD BUNCH uses its opening image as a modular piece; the story could have opened another way, but they used it for the credit sequence. I believe screenwriters should avoid writing the credit sequence. It's either part of the action, or it risks being on-the-nose.

So the next requirement for an opening image is that it be:

c) part of the action, not a prologue.

There's another thing for us all to keep in mind when crafting this image. Make it:

d) fit the budget

It's nice to have a dramatic image, but do you really think the line producer's going to wrangle a fly-by of the stealth bomber? Or a building on fire? Or a whale surfacing? Or a firework display? You've got to keep an eye on the overall budget of your script. Money shots are great, but if your opening image is the most expensive shot in the film, you're going to have to come up with something else. Trust me, they'll make you come up with something else.

Ok, great. We're all done. Except, what about:

e) mood?

Now it gets fancy. You've got an opening image that:

a) immediately sets scene
b) offers a metaphor for the hero(es) imminent experience
c) is part of the action, not a prologue
d) fits the budget

Does the image also transmit mood? What is the mood of the script? Your opening image should reflect the mood of not just your script, but the genre itself. Again, hard genre is great for making these decisions. Maybe that's why I'm having such trouble generating this image: I had to go and be arty and amateur-y and decline to write in a rock-hard genre.

If I had to label this script, I'll say it was in the genre of "quirk". What's a quirky image? What's the mood of quirk? Bemusement? Irony? When I hit the wall, I've been advised to hit the mute button. What if the movie were silent? What would be a revelatory image to open on?

Damn. This is tricky. Maybe I can shoehorn in a Star Destroyer somehow.

I hug myself

2005-11-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

In yet another radical tonal shift, here's my day:

4:30am -- Toss and turn. Halloween gaity has resulted in ghetto birds buzzing the neighborhood and sirens waiting as they go to scrape another drunk idiot off the freeway.

5:50am -- Turn off the alarm, roust self from bed. The time change has made it alarmingly light outside, resulting in the nagging day-long feeling that I'm late for something.

6:50am -- Shit, I am late for something. I'm driving from the valley to Brentwood and back for my physical therapy appointment. Think the 405 sucks going one way in the morning? Try both ways before 9:30am!

7:30am -- Here's the question I know and love: "What percentage of improvement do you think you've made?"

The therapist asks me this and even after two years of treatment I don't know what to answer. How do I feel about the fact that I don't even remember what normal feels like? Do I feel 10% better about it? 20% less hopeless?

Quantifying systems actually work, funnily enough, as mental tricks. Except for an aspiring screenwriter. My God, I'm volleying back and forth between 0% and 45% and 120% and back to 0% in the space of an hour.

This is why I toss and turn. I read over my script last night, yup, read it cold. And it's not there yet. How do you go from feeling so high on your work to feeling so low? How do you weather it? I feel like a hostage negotiator, trying to talk myself out of despair on a daily basis. I'm becoming quite a good negotiator. Check me out:

ME: It... it's not all there. Even I can tell. And I think it kind of should be by now, shouldn't it? Shouldn't it be more robust?

ME: Well now, some of the scenes are there, aren't they? When he goes home for dinner with his family? Huh? It's funny, kind of! Just the right mix of pathos and humor!

ME: I'm talking about the last two scenes. The turnaround scenes. Where the hero starts out completely at odds with two pivotal characters and by the end of each scene, they've reconciled. The 180-degree scenes. They don't work.

ME: Does one work better than the other?

ME: ...Yes. The one with the detective.

ME: Well! There's more texture to this problem than you thought, right?

ME: ...?

ME: 180-degree scenes aren't easy. Remember TOOTSIE? The last scene where he approaches Jessica Lange and tries to set things right?

ME: I tried to find that *&^%!! script online and I couldn't. I wanted to study that scene.

ME: You're trying to have your people fall into each other's arms after being at complete odds. Jessica Lange didn't fall into his arms at the end of that scene. There was an obvious possibility for romance--

ME: That's because she didn't even know he was a man! You can't have them embrace when they've just clarified gender.

ME: Okay, that's specific to that movie. But that's not the case with your 180-degree scene.

ME: If my pair don't embrace then where's the *%$!@! love story? There should be chemistry! Chemistry that we want to see manifested!

ME: Ok, what about WHEN HARRY MET SALLY?

ME: Better example. But that was more broadly comic. Besides, they'd already had sex. It was already out there. The hurdle was their personality clash and resentment. And I just read that scene -- it's WAY shorter than mine. Their scene accomplished the same thing in less space. And, he declares love at the top of the scene, so they get right to the arguing. In my scene, the love is the last thing acknowledged.

ME: Go back and write it again.

ME: I've worked on this scene for months. God's trying to tell me something. It's a sign that the romance itself does not work.

ME: Why don't you let your readers decide that?

ME: Because I don't want them to think I suck.

ME: You can extrapolate weak scenes from an otherwise decent script. Give your readers some credit.

ME: You only have one chance to make a first impression.

ME: Has the scene -- hell, the script gotten any better via your rewriting? Does it suck less now?

ME: Yes. It sucks less.

ME: Then it will suck even less when you go back and work on it some more.

ME: There's such a thing as making it worse.

ME: You may have to be a bad writer first, before you get better. Let other people experience hating their friend's script. It won't kill them. You haven't written THAT much. Who do you think is watching you? Judging you?

ME: ... yeah, I guess. Nobody is.

ME: What percentage of improvement do you think you've made over the last year as a writer?

I can't answer this. Like my physical ailment, I just keep going. My back might heal, it might not, I may never get better. I've accepted this. But the writing -- I know I'll grip the steering wheel in the next 24 hours and have an As-God-Is-My-Witness moment. I'm going to master this beast. Maybe not this script, maybe not the next one, but soon. Soon.

Because existentialism doesn't work in screenwriting.

If You Can't Say Something Nice, Don't Work In Hollywood

2005-10-31T13:32:00.000-08:00

I've confessed that I don't like talking too much. Perhaps one reason is because when I do open my mouth, it's usually to cram in my foot. At least that's how it used to be, before I learned how to say nothing. I don't mean literally say nothing. I'm talking about covering your ass.

Discretion is a huge virtue in Hollywood. This is a small town, an incestuous industry where, to borrow from LOTR, even the birds are spies. Synergy has made the town even smaller. You never know who's standing next to you or who's a friend of the person you're bashing. I once flipped open a book jacket and mocked an author's photo. Called him "creepy." Too bad the development exec standing next to me was his close friend.

Happened again last week. Strolling down the hall with my cell phone, I was badmouthing CAA to a friend re: their latest poach. "CAA's up to their old tricks" I chuckled as I went down the stairs. Too bad a client of the poachee was on his way up the stairs, looking right at me. This was on my way out of the building, away from prying ears. Sometimes you just can't win.

The more you talk, the more likely you are to say something stupid. Sometimes you have to work the negative space. As the saying goes:

Don't sign if you can just say yes, don't say yes if you can nod, don't nod if you can wink.

The great thing about the mute button is the fact that if you don't say something, someone else will. So let them put their foot in their mouth. One of my friends always reminds me to be like his agent idol, a renowned "information gatherer". Get information, don't give it.

Obviously you're responsible for some amount of speech. So if you can't stay silent, you have to find a way to dress up the truth, to euphemize. Let's be honest, I didn't last this long by being honest. Political survival depends upon egregious amounts of ass-kissing and sycophancy.

We all have er, passionate or uh, vehement opinions about entertainment product. But until you really know who you're talking to and have some semblance of privacy, it's silly to go off on anyone. In fact, one of the things that make outsiders and newbies stand out so vividly is their tendency to make absolutist qualitative judgments. Obviously, on the Internet you'll find incredibly crass people who type any spew at all -- even as they profess to want a career in the industry. I can only imagine that they rightly suspect they'll never make it, so why worry about being thoughtful or respectful? Why worry about diplomacy? It'll never come in handy.

Covering your ass doesn't mean you should lie and say you liked something when you didn't. It's the calibration of your words that demonstrate experience, discretion and the awareness that sometimes shows just don't turn out so great. It's par for the course. People who have given their all on a project only to have a so-so result are all too aware of the need for restraint. They don't piss too loudly on other projects because they've been on the receiving end of bad words. They're in the game.

In my case, discretion comes from giving notes. When you have to respond directly to an eager writer or his agent or whoever, well, you can't always say what's on your mind. You can't say the script was a rancid mess that reduced the quality of your life. You have to find something else to say. Often you can circumvent by saying, "it's not for us", but some people like to argue it with you. I can't tell you how pleasant that is. Apparently some folks think they're going to debate you into optioning the script. Amazing.

So you have to dig deeper. You have to do your job, find the structure and character problems and convey the information sensitively. It forces you to deliver constructive criticism, again, to euphemize: It wasn't boring, I was... restless. It wasn't a bad idea, it just didn't... engage me. The dialogue wasn't lame, it was... a little arch.

This gets us around to what this post is really supposed to be about. Aside from not ruining relationships, what value does all this politesse have for a screenwriter?

I think exposure to all the double- and triple-talk can only help. After all, I'm one of those eager newbie screenwriters too. I'm fervently hoping that when I hand out my script for feedback I'll recognize my own code coming right back at me, falling into one of several categories:

Horrified Silence

This is where people are so aghast by what you've written that they really can't say much at all. They muse about it, they ask polite questions about it, they point out one small aspect and hint that that might make a great movie... but what they're really saying is, "It's not for me. Or anyone, anywhere."

"Needs Work"

In other words, it needs work just to get to the spec vs. sample pile. Don't even think about sending it out. If someone gives you "Needs Work" notes, I'd listen and write them all down, thank the reader and then ask: "Tell me the God's honest truth. Do you think this script is worth working on as a sample or a spec, or do you think it's better to put it on the shelf and get on with my next idea." Make it easy for them to deliver any bad news. Don't ask open-ended questions. Ask either-or questions.

"You Might Have Something Here"

This means that if you do some smart work you could potentially have a selling script. Not that it will sell, but it has elements of a seller. It has life. If I heard this from a reader, I'd ask what percentage of work is needed to turn it into a strong spec. Remember to always start out with "Ok, be very honest about this..." That means, I want to hear the bad news. I'm not looking for feel-good comments -- I can handle the truth.

"I Can Totally See This Selling. You Should Send This Out"

Maybe a few nips and tucks, maybe one or two significant changes, but go ahead and prepare lists and strategies. Not that it will sell, but there's no very obvious reason why it couldn't. My personal feeling is that this is what you should hear from at least one reader before going out with a spec. If nobody says this to you, don't send it out, except as perhaps a sample.

"Put It Away"

If you have someone in your reading circle honest enough to tell you this, consider yourself lucky. Everybody tries something that doesn't work. "Put It Away" means you shouldn't work on this, when you clearly are talented enough to write something better. You're wandering down a dark alley on the wrong side of town. Lassie, come home.

---

If you've come across any comments that sound like a publicist wrote them, let me know and I'll do my best to translate. Development execs are masters of indirect speech and understatement, so maybe we can all compose an executive-to-screenwriter dictionary. God knows we need one.

Soapbox Quickie

2005-10-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Kunstler gives a tidy breakdown of the history of suburbia on his Clusterfuck Nation. G'wan, read it. It's good for you.

Candy is God

2005-10-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Just in time for Halloween, I've added a new link: Candy Blog, by Cybele May. I heard her on NPR or something left-dial and she's a gas. There are links on her site to radio interviews and I recommend you sample some of her enthusiasm. She admits to eating candy every day, pretty much all day; yes, even for breakfast.

I like her style.

How does this relate to Hollywood? I don't know. But the daily avoidance of or indulgence in candy is a very relevant issue to anyone who, like screenwriters and assistants, sits on their ass in front of a computer all day. So go ahead. It's Friday. Have some.

Check, please

2005-10-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

This may not be the business for me. Why? Because I’m too lazy. And antisocial. And a chronic procrastinator. Everybody else seems to leap out of their seat to go out and do stuff and meet people and talk and talk and talk talk talk.

Talking tires me. I have about a good twenty minutes of talk in me before I get twitchy and start wondering how soon I can slip away, drive home and catch an episode of Sherlock Holmes mysteries on Bravo.

Because of these problems, I have become a champion of sorts at the time-honored game of Lunch-Chicken. You could call it a Hollywood game, but I’m sure people play it in every industry where two people talk on the phone more than once and one of them brings up that inevitable phrase – “Let’s have lunch next week.”

Sure, lunch is important in Hollywood, but only if you’re a CE or a VP or an established talent. Why the hell should I have to go to lunch? I don’t have any power. I’m not on any upward trajectory and frankly I don’t give a shit. In exchange for a dead-ended career you’d think I’d be entitled to a tuna wrap and the 1st season of LOST on DVD in the peace of the empty conference room.

But no. “Why don’t we get lunch next week?”

You can’t say, “No, never.” There’s no way to skip out without offence, so you have to go. You have to put on real work clothes instead of the t-shirt and jeans. You have to get your car washed. You have to look like you're trying.

But there is one last thing you can do in protest. It’s the non-violent approach, the game of Lunch-Chicken. And O I play it well.

See, at some point on the determined lunch day, one party has to communicate with the other to decide where you’re going, and exactly when you’re meeting. You have to confirm it. In the game of Lunch-Chicken, whoever waits until the other one calls is the victor.

Sometimes people have to cancel lunch – happens all the time. And you know that if things go unconfirmed long enough, sometimes it just goes away. I try not to be the one who puts off the unwelcome lunch, because then you have to reschedule it and relieve the weeklong dread and risk incurring bad feelings. Better to get it over with.

Unless—

--You can get them to bail out on you. Then you’re holding the reins. You get to wear the easy-going martyr crown. I love that crown.

So I wait and wait and wait, until 11am, until 11:30am, until Noon, until 12:30pm. I can wait until the last damn minute and still be on for lunch. The phone rings and I pretend to be astonished at the time. “Wow! Is it that late already!? What a morning! Sure, I’m still good. Are YOU still good? Great! I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Heh. I may still have to go do it, but often by then the other party’s mindset has shifted and they’ve already started thinking about the errands they could run during lunch, or a more influential dining companion.

“Oh, sure. No problem. I can do it next week. Just give me a call and we’ll pick a day.”

Somehow, frequently, when the other person cancels out, the lunch almost magically disappears. There's a energy behind an un-postponed appointment. It feels fresh. But a casual lunch that's been rescheduled once or more becomes... dingy. It loses its zing.

That's the secret behind Lunch-Chicken. There's a greater intelligence behind the game, and it makes that tuna wrap taste so much better.

Second Place? ... Steak Knives

2005-10-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

Per the previous entry, someone asked,

"How are [CAA] stealing the clients/agents? What do they have that ICM, WMA, [END] etc. don't?"

That's a tough question to answer. It's really a question about who agents are and how they behave. As with most influential operatives, agents have personality. They're Iagos, talkers who know how to push the big red buttons on your id. Agents can be larger than life, like characters out of movies. Listening to them is like listening to Al Pacino or Sean Connery tell you how to handle a career move. They way they talk... they may not be in the creative side of the business, but good agents make you think that they are.

They're not all sharky. Some are refined and understated. Some have a hook. There's a Scottish agent in town who works that fucking accent and god love him for it. By the time you've figured out what the hell he just said he's got you over the negotiating barrel. There are gabby girl agents, fretting Sydney Pollack-esque agents, depressed types, mad bulls, all kinds. Work as an assistant and you will hear them all. I have my favorites, but they scare me, too. They may be entertaining, but they have a job to do and it can be... unpleasant.

Think of the phone calls that make you cringe. The calls you'd really --REALLY-- rather not ever have to make. Imagine the call where you break up with someone. That call you dread. Well, agents do nothing but make those calls, all day long. So you can see that agents become a bit feckless after grinding through years of confrontation. They learn to thrive on the discomfort. They learn to drink the tension of others. They are unafraid.

Once this gall is firmly in place, the sexiest thing in the agent world is client theft. Not all agents approve of the practice, but it's a big GLENGARRY thrill, an Alpha rush. It doesn't always mean a lot in reality, but it gets the chicken coop in quite a flutter.

Agents do this with braggadocio, with fibs, or simply the lure of a more powerful agency. Think of agencies as black holes. The more galaxies a black hole sucks up, the stronger it becomes (god, I hope that's right. Astrophysicists?). The more power-clients an agency has, the more powerful each agent can potentially be on behalf of each client. A thieving agent can lure a new client with the promise of this leveraging power. They can also promise actors access to the same agency's directors and hot scripts, or vice-versa. They can imply that a client's current agent is lackadaisical or spineless. They promise more.

What's really sly is the understated approach. If you ever can, eavesdrop on the casual poach, where a prowling agent plays hard to get. It's a sophisticated dance; one that only a powerful student of the dark side can pull off. Then there's the stealth-poach, where a poacher calls up a rival agent's client under pretense of a neutral project, when it's really part of a long inching-in. Imagine looking out your window at a tree some thirty feet away. Next day you look and it's twenty feet away. You assume your eyes are playing tricks on you, but next week the tree's ten feet outside your window. Soon you're sitting in the tree, with your old agent in a hissyfit, wondering how it all happened.

The fact is, despite the name-calling, agents poach because clients make it so damn easy. Talent is perpetually nervous, scared of losing their careers, and it's a valid concern. There's no safe place to sit in the industry. Even superstars at the top of their game are worried that in a flash it could all be over.

Agents offer a fantasy of safety, of opportunity. Sometimes agents have valid criticisms of a particular talent's management. Sometimes they genuinely believe they could turn a C or B talent into an A. But what they don't realize is that it's often the talent's own fault that things aren't where they could be.

Take one client of a major agency. Let's call him, oh... Cracky McCrackhead. Cracky was a promising star; someone who everyone thought was going to be one of the all-time greats. Cracky went on to make LOTS of quizzical choices in his career, choices that made everyone wonder wtf was going on.

A rival agent wanted Cracky bad. He talked with an insider who knew Cracky and expressed the thought that Cracky could be the next De Niro, etc. The insider said it wasn't Cracky's agents' fault. Cracky had problems and wouldn't listen to expert advice.

The rival agent himself had trouble listening to expert advice and proceeded to poach Cracky. And let me tell you, that rival agent is really, really wishing he had not done that. Cracky has brought him nothing but misery, while continuing to flush his tremendous potential down the toilet.

So what's the moral of all this? Agents are opportunists, and to be fair, they're supposed to be. You want them to be a little bloodthirsty, a little feral. If you become successful you may periodically have agents circling around, sniffing your butt, winking at you. But don't get carried away by the flattery and promises. You might just be a token prize, a soon-to-be-forgotten spoil of a Darwinian Hollywood game wherein the goal isn't "you", it's "winning you". Once you've been won, you may find yourself where all the trophy cups end up: on the shelf.

The Beast is Back

2005-10-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ah, CAA. Built over a hellmouth in the soft belly of Beverly Hills, my first memory of them was being sent there for an interview. I wanted to get into the business, so a fossilized Friedman Temps associate suggested I go over there for an entry-level assistant job. "It's a good way to start," she rasped, "you'll learn what you need to learn, then when you leave you'll have contacts all over town."

An experienced publicist friend at the time gave me a more succinct perspective. "They're all business," she said, "they're cold, they're hard, they're cash." She delivered that line without a drop of self-consciousness, in her rapid-fire New York style. For a moment I thought I was in a David Mamet play, and maybe for just a minute, I was.

Off I trotted off for my meeting, sitting with a Junior Agent who spent the first half of the interview putting Visine in her eyes. She looked tired. But she was decent and straightforward. I'd be working for $300.00 a week, long hours, hard work. Advancement commensurate with drive.

Having no drive, I decided against it. Probably a mistake, one of a legion, but honestly, CAA didn't need me. They would've hated me and my conscience, my sappy humanity and my allegiance to creativity. This was the Ovitz Era. All those lousy movies with solid character actors forced uncomfortably into leading roles? CAA did that. They packaged their clients into high-powered projects and you can see the results on the used VHS boxes at Amoeba Records.

CAA was a beast with foot soldiers patrolling the Wilshire corridor, shadowy black suited trios with black hearts. But they didn't hide it -- they were shitkickers and proud of it. They would steal your client and kick your ass, just because. That crazy-killer rep fell away when Ovitz split. The inevitable power vacuum and the post-packaging environment forced them to change. Also, other agencies were competing, new agencies like Endeavor who brewed their own blend of nasty.

But lately that white blob on Wilshire has begun humming again. A clear sign was the recent William Morris debacle where a New Yorker profile on the WMA president went about as wrong as it could go. There was blood in the water and you could hear the cackles as CAA and Endeavor sharked in, spreading rumors to see how much wider they could cut the gash in WMA's side. It was an ugly Wild Kingdom moment.

After that, CAA continued, but now they're after not just clients, but agents too. Allegedly frontloading, they're making deals impossible for targets to refuse. They extracted powerful talent agents and their comedic power-clients from the friendly agency, UTA. They just swiped UTA's Dan Aloni and his classy director clients. In fact, the CAA plan seems to be to absorb UTA agent-by-agent. Poor UTA. And ICM? Just watching.

CAA, home of the blood-red script covers, home of Ari Gold and Stevie Grant. Alternatively known as The Borg, The Death Star, or any handy expletive. They're back, baby. And if they really are back to their good ol' badness, CAA might as well paint Richard Scary barracuda teeth on their building, or simply fashion the rotunda into a white Darth Vader helmet.

Because you shouldn't hide it. Hate to say it, but I'm a little glad to see the tongues forking over there again. A story's only as good as its villain, and Hollywood without ferocious agents is like the Old West with only bartenders and schoolmarms.

I miss the days when you turned and ran when you saw a pair of CAA agents heading your way. I miss the Black Hat. I miss the maniacal laughter. If there's a villain strutting fearlessly around out there, then maybe there are some maverick heroes, too. Maybe we can shed these corporate love handles and start swordfighting again, start bucking the system and create some new masterpieces.

If we need the light, we need the darkness. We need CAA.

The 40-Year-Old Intern

2005-09-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I was done with these foolish profiles, but dammit if something doesn't piss me off every other day and inspire another one. My latest peeve? The mature intern.

First of all, this is a business that fully exploits free interns. They come in all shapes and sizes and motivations, and sure, some of them are just wonderful. Some of them could start paid work in the industry today and they'd be a CE within a year -- they simply have what it takes, the adaptation and improvisation skills to survive in the business. One of these kids came in this summer and I swear, he could start as an agent tomorrow. Whatever it is, he had it.

Some of them are like this. Most of them are not. Most of them are frightening omens of a not just lost but dangerous future for our world. These include the Insubordinate Intern, the Evil Intern, the Exhibitionist Intern and the Illiterate Intern. Most of them... you can't understand what in God's name drew them to show business. Something does though, and often they are drawn to Hollywood way too late.

I always seem to get the lawyers with sketchy personal lives who want to jump ship at 40 and segue into filmmaking. And you know, anything's possible. If you got your shit together late in life, fine. But I never get the miracle cases. I get the frustrated lawyers, the frustrated accountants, the frustrated insurance adjustors... they are drawn to my door for some reason.

Seriously, if they were perceptive, quiet, alert interns, they'd be fine. Age shouldn't matter at all. But the 40-Year-Old-Intern makes it matter. He just can't be humble. That's the magic ingredient for this business. Humility. And patience. Chutzpah only comes in handy later on. In the beginning you need to be humble, to defer. You can't babble nonstop about everything you've done with your life and the classes you've taught and your children and your divorce and the company you ran or should have run, or your virtuosity in other fields or any of that.

You can't wear your Mother Superior smile and talk to everyone as if you were their professional peer. You can't be lofty. You have to have some hustle. Want to start over and break in at 40? Have some hustle. Have some fear. That's what the kids have. Humility, hustle and fear. They're afraid they're not going to make it and they're afraid for their financial future. They don't have anything to fall back on. They feel the other racers around them, they sense the dearth of jobs and opportunity.

A 40-Year-Old Intern without fear and hustle is just auditing the class, a Hollywood Dabbler. They have a job skill to fall back on and believe me, they're headed right back for it. And thanks for making me teach you how to do coverage, jerk. Thanks for wasting my time. Thanks for arguing with me about stuff you have no idea about and talking down to everyone in the office. Thanks for critisizing the nutritional value of my lunch. Thanks for expressing no interest in anything except solidifying your own pre-middle-aged perceptions. Thanks for reminding everyone of how mature and experienced and unflappable you are every time you open your mouth (which is all the time) in ageist Hollywood of all places. Are you nuts??

...

You know, deep down, I love late bloomers. I am one. I love the idea of starting over. But human beings are stubborn little monkeys. We get so set in our ways that it's hard to remember the tremendous feats of change that we are capable of. When you see that transformation, when you see someone successfully change courses or even just their minds at 40 or 50 or 60, it's miraculous. It's like rebirth. I wouldn't be a writer if I didn't treasure those transcendent moments in both real people and fictional characters. Story is change. That's what it's all about.

So that's why the smug 40-Year-Old Intern makes fire shoot out of my butt. They're not going to get it and they're not going to change. They aren't going to sweat and let you see them sweat so that you know how bad they want it. They're just passing though; they took a wrong turn and chose Break-Into-Showbiz instead of Take-Up-Photography or Start-Dating-Again.

From now on I'm doing my own filing and covering the phones myself. I already have to babysit my boss; I'm not starting up a dayschool of vainglorious washouts. If you like Hollywood and want to join late, make sure you're really ready for the degradation and the effort. Otherwise, just go see a movie and enjoy yourself. It isn't worth giving up your dental benefits for.

The Boomerang

2005-09-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

Moving on in the pageant of Hollywood typology, we arrive at The Boomerang. The Boomerang is the Hollywoodite or wannabe who forswears the business, only to return to town shortly thereafter and strap himself back in.

The Boomerang is different than The-Little-Engine-Who-Couldn't, i.e. the small-town aspiring actor/director/writer who makes a youthful stab at Hollywood only to retreat to their jeering hometown (usually to drink and inspire someone there to write a play about the failure-paradigm and how it vindicates small town life). The Little-Engine-Who-Couldn't is actually less annoying than The Boomerang, because at least the Little Engine sucks it up and endures the fallout. The Boomerang insists on repeating their exeunt, refusing to either stick it out or give it up.

Boomerangs are lost in a pattern that only they cannot see, ceremoniously declaring repeated departure to friends and family. I know one Boomerang who has taken three roundtrips away and back, each time swearing off Hollywood for the decency of civilian life. Back she always returns, all her crap once again in storage, mumbling about it "not working out" at the new lily pad.

The annoying thing about The Boomerang is that he can't stay away, even if it means completely uprooting his new life, selling everything, breaking job commitments in his new city, everything. It's frustrating because when he turns around and comes back, it's obvious to everyone but him that he left on a reckless tear. He'll never sit down and try to work through the kneejerk issues that led him to relocate so spastically. Instead he glosses over his misjudgment and sidles right back into the old grind.

Larry Sanders was a Boomerang. Remember? He'd had it up to there and bailed out overnight, landing in Montana. Only problem was he hated the isolation. Locals wouldn't talk to him and he spent the days watching his old shows on tape. There was nothing to replace the dense social infrastructure of Hollywood. He was stuck with -- himself.

And that's the problem. Wherever you go... there you are. The unique thing about Hollywood (well, maybe not unique, but distinctive) is that you can avoid the mirror here, the mirror being the deep and unassailable truth about yourself. You can stay as busy and distracted as you like, with all the work you put into your career rewarded at least emotionally from time to time with little pixie dust moments that keep stoking the fire, the desire to be a part of the magical showbiz poobah brigade.

When the Boomerang lands in Montana, Seattle, Austin or wherever, you'd better believe that mirror is hanging on the wall, Windexed but good. The Boomerang soon realizes that he's trying to scratch an itch on his butt by hitting himself on the head with a hammer. Whatever zen fantasy he had about selling printer cartridges in Nebraska soon disappears and the stark reality of life outside the bubble turns the new town into a hellscape populated by people who actually couldn't care less about Tom Cruise firing his publicist, or Universal's lunatic release date for CINDERELLA MAN.

Here's the real problem: The Boomerang isn't trying to change careers. He's trying to quit showbiz. He's negatively motivated, which never really works. And frankly, The Boomerang is rarely someone quitting at the top of his game. We're not talking about pulling a Garbo, or even a Terrence Malick. The Boomerang hasn't hit their mark. Usually it's a director, writer, actor or producer frustrated by his lack of success. He hasn't stopped wanting to achieve success but he's too burned out by failure to keep scratching at the door.

Sure, many of us will bail out at some point, but when I crawl away into the brush to lick my wounds, it'll damn well be for good. In my personal case, leaving early would vindicate the polite disapproval my parents have harbored against my ambitions for years, and I'd burn at the stake before I gave them the satisfaction.

On a slightly less bitter note, I suspect that life inside the industry gates is a lot like the mythical atmosphere of Shangri-La. Once you settle down here, you'd better stay because if you leave, like the non-believing heroes of The Lost Horizon, you'll find the charmed air inside has irrevocably changed you. On the outside you'll decay rapidly in an unpressurized life that doesn't include spec hunts, trade announcements and box office postmortems.

Outside the fort, it's... wilderness. Existence. Cubicle ennui. Here, the fantasy is the reality. If greenlights and pilot announcements float your boat, that plus a cup of coffee will get you through the day. Who needs reality? Who needs Montana?

This you gotta see

2005-09-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

I swear I didn't start this blog to plug my various idiosyncratic pet causes, but I've got to point out a one-man play that you MUST NOT MISS.

I originally saw this show with some reluctance. Theater is great and all and yes, all us movie & TV jerkoffs should show some respect and patronize the many local theater productions in and about Los Angeles, but man, sometimes it just -- seriously -- blows.

Nothing's worse than bad theater. You know it's true. When a movie's bad there's a certain freedom you feel to sit there and steam in your own misery. You stare at the screen, you hate the screen, you hate the producers, the director, the writer and you start mentally composing your bilious LA Times Calender section letter.

But when a play's bad you feel awful -- because they're right there in front of you. You hate them and you also feel sorry for them because you hate them. You can't turn and roll your eyes at your companion because, well, the actors might see you and there's no buffer and you're essentially a nice person struggling with so much hate... basically, you just want to die.

Well, here's one show that I guarantee you will love. It's called The Godfadda Workout. It's one guy, the brilliant and staggeringly athletic Seth Isler, who re-enacts The Godfather. That's it. That's the show. If you're a movie buff; if you're breathing, you will love this show. So much irreverent fun and bullshit and invention should not go unappreciated.

So go to the Century City Playhouse, buy tickets and GO. Don't miss it, don't wait until it's sold out, go.

A Descent into Predatory Violence

2005-09-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I'm not talking about an average Monday in Hollywood. The headline is a description of what's happened at the New Orleans Convention Center and environs, according to news outlets.

It's easy to conclude that human beings are no goddamned good when you hear of the maurading survivors in that region, but remember: it's only but for the grace of God you're cruising the internet today instead of huddling in the stricken gulf area, terrified and starving -- or unspeakably worse. Who knows how many of us wouldn't go all Mad Max without our decaf triple soy latte in the morning?

So prove that people are more than dormant predators: donate some cash to one of the worthy charities out there. My suggestion? Go to a matching donor like Kung Fu Monkey where producer/screenwriter John Rogers will match your donation dollar for dollar. He's got a successful career, perhaps you're a struggling screenwriter, so go stick it to him for a good cause. Dollar for dollar?! Let's bankrupt this noble volunteer.

And while you're sulking over the recent gas price hikes and the spector of oil shortages courtesy of Katrina, check out these links: The Oil Drum and James Howard Kunstler's web site. Educate yourself on Global Oil Peak. Go to Kunstler's home page and scroll down to his "Speech in Hudson NY on The Long Emergency". It's a comprehensive essay on oil peak and the consequences for America and the rest of the world. Global Oil Peak is a pet cause of mine and one you'll be glad to get a head's-up on. We're getting a taste of a post-cheap oil world, a world that will be very different.

"Sherman. T. Potter."

2005-08-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I just made a M.A.S.H. reference. But I did. So shoot me.

I impersonate my boss quite a bit. I forge his signature like a madman, access his cards and accounts, sign up online with his name and my email, buy flowers and gifts for his girlfriend(s), plan his dates, take his dogs to the vet, just nonstop. And that's my job -- I live his life when he's just too busy to do so himself.

But today's the last straw. I actually had to compose his arbitration statement. I had some language to go on, some pointers gleaned online, but seriously. This is too much.

I, Producer

2005-08-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

No, I don't produce. The title refers to the first of many profiles I'll sketch of various Hollywood archetypes, seen (as always) through the mousehole.

I, Producer isn't one of those great, thoughtful, actually *effective* producers out there. I, Producer is a dick. Because that's what he thinks producers are and what they're supposed to be.

I, Producer has an internal and perhaps subconscious axiom:

"If someone doesn't feel bad, then you haven't done your job."

If people aren't tense and combative, they must be slacking. Right? Only lazy people are happy. Hardworking hustlers like I, Producer are miserable killjoys, ergo anyone who is not miserable must be doing something wrong.

We're not talking about the Stanley Motss's of the world. Stanley knew he was valuable. Stanley knew he had juice. In contrast, I, Producer is all too aware that he could disappear tomorrow and twenty other "producers" would take his place, and no one would notice (except perhaps to cheer). Truth be told, I, Producer does not necessarily know how to smoothly navigate the politics and protoccols of producing. He is replaceable because he does not labor to make himself irreplaceable. He just kicks up dust.

I, Producer in fact believes that his dickiness is what will lead him to greatness. He's always had problems with interpersonal relations, but so what? In Hollywood, clods and thugs can thrive. The speakerphoners, the screamers and the phone-throwers all stand out from the pack and that is the hook I, Producer needs, because he doesn't have anything else.

Most producers sweat through the heavy lifting because those moments of creativity pay off. They labor for years without even seeing the carrot, delaying gratification until the credits roll on their finished work. They figure that's what it takes, that the ends justify the effort. But I, Producer would do what he does even if there were no payoff. Acting like a dick *is* the carrot. It's what he understands, what he breathes for.

The sad thing is that I, Producer digs his own grave. The bigger a dick he is, the less people want to accept or return his phone calls. The less people want to deal with him, the more angry and pre-rejected he feels and the more tenacious he becomes. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. He starts off paranoid and ends up detested. But it's his actions that have done him in, not the world's malice.

Ways to spot I, Producer:

1. Rude to underlings without reason.
2. Tries to talk like a hotshot agent (takes many behavioral cues from agents).
3. Particularly demeaning to women (under guise of professional disapproval). This issue linked quite closely to underpinning insecurities.
4. Fond of dramatic-sounding statements ("Her head's on the block!").
5. Senselessly escalates minor disagreements into major confrontations.
6. Often works with a mild partner ("the Cleaner").
7. In a business predicated upon relationships, bizarrely acts as if he doesn't care if he works with the same people again -- but just as bizarrely, believes that people will gladly work with him again.

Avoid him (or her!) if you can. I, Producer's pain runs deep, and just as you try to shed him for a more professional associate, he'll reveal the desperation behind the swagger, using guilt or any other handy emotional leverage. It ain't pretty.

Ugly Confessions

2005-08-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Can't tell military time, no matter how hard you try? Getting confused trying to read your boss's set call sheets and travel agent missives?

Me too.

Spiders. Why'd it have to be spiders?

2005-08-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

Working on a Hollywood studio Lot is great. It's both bustling and bucolic, a universe unto itself with whizzing golf carts, the occasional movie star dashing between prodco bungalows and a commissary that on a recent day hosted extras from a disaster movie soundstage, strolling with their lunch trays, boasting gory makeup wounds and bloodstains. Awesome!

However, there's a little wild kingdom amidst the sunlight-dappling trees, rose borders and honeysuckle-hedged walkways. There are Lot kitties (which I'll go into later), and then there are the spiders.

LOTS of spiders. Each dusk dozens of ginormous garden spiders emerge to expand their webs; tow-cabling across walkways, parachuting down from trees and wiggling midair like big, black spindly half-dollars. After dark the entire Lot turns into a ersatz Forbidden Forest crawling with the little beasties.

Now, I hate spiders. I'm terrified of them; my blood pressure spikes every night during the gauntlet run from my office to my ass-end-of-space parking lot assignment. It got so bad that last night after a late screening on the Lot I tried to return to my office for a crucial envelope, but could not find a walkway that wasn't commandeered by the mammalian horrors.

The gardeners leave them alone, probably because the spiders help keep plant-munching insects at bay. Great for the plants, bad for me and the other passers-by. See, it's not just the spiders that are a problem, it's the damn webs. Every so often you'll see someone suddenly halt and break into a flailing Batusi as they try to throw off the webbing they've strolled through.

Guess I'll have to pull it together and do like Bruce Wayne: face my fear. Although, if I -- like The Batman -- had to stand in a swirling cloud of (in my case) spiders, I'd run shrieking into the night. For a guy "frightened" of bats, he sure seemed calm.

Weekend in Review

2005-08-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Every Sunday the illustrious LA Times Calender section features a highlighted Letters page with various degrees of frothing bile donated by LA denizens. This weekend the Calendar Letters Bile-O-Meter reads about a 3.5. A few grumblings still pouring in about Mamet's latest crotchety rant against the film industry. Beyond that, fairly peaceful.

However, the weekend Calendar section has now been joined by a half-assed two page "Style" section, plopped right in the midde. One moment you're looking at the full-page STEALTH ad with, no kidding, a supporting quote from Dark Horizons, then you turn the page and scratch your head over a computer article. Wtf? Another baffling LA Times moment brought to you by the LA Times.

Onto the box office:

Unfortunately, nothing much stood in the way of DUKES OF HAZZARD (above is my candidate for an alternate poster that more succinctly communicates the film's marketing hook).

WONKA and the WEDDING CRASHERS have both already made the lion's share of their monies, but each still pulled in 10.5 and 15.5, respectively. Still, I fear we're now in for at least three more theatrical forays by Jessica Simpson, thespian.

Mission Statement

2005-08-03T23:21:00.001-07:00

Should have started out with a strong, structured and confident statement of purpose, but in a typically backasswards way I had to post a bunch of rambling crap first.

"Hollywood Fun Camp" titles the entire experience of working and living in Hollywood lo these many years. It refers to the cumulative effect of all the truly thrilling development, production and post-production moments, concentrated moments when every glam idea you have about the entertainment business feels like gospel, when you're in the center of the action and it seems like the only way to fly through life.

After a while, however, you see an equally ugly and depressing side of things in Los Angeles (see how I call it "Hollywood" when I'm referring to it as a fun place and "Los Angeles" when I'm hating?). You see ugly things that bring out other connotations of the word "camp" -- as in detention, internment, boot and other meanings that I'm not glib enough to trot out here.

It's still a great place, but you've got to look for the greatness. Sometimes you have to dig for it. Sometimes you think that giddy feeling will never return and it's a dark day when you consider life outside the smog bank. But if you truly belong in this industry, you know that it's easier to hate it than to leave it.

So please join me as I dig for the greatness. Surely I'm not alone out there -- but if I am then please don't tell me. I don't want to know.

CNN now blows

2005-08-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

Here's why CNN now blows: Because they do. Just flick it on, and scratch your head, wondering when did CNN get drunk and rip off their top? They're FOX'd up and almost indistinguishable from network crapola.

This morning the poor woman above was trying to recite some blithe entertainment tidbit and in the background was something like the sound of a painting crew. Voices, rattling equipment, dropped hammers... unbelievable. You could even see the shadow of some idiot stepping in front of the lights. I tried to get a shot above (it's in the lower left hand corner of the shot) but I don't think it shows up in a still.

Is fake-live TV that freaking hard in 2005? But here's the thing -- they keep running honked-up fake-live footage. They'll run mistakes over and over until you notice. You don't have to keep running unprofessional footage. But CNN does. Over. And over. And over.

Remember the live '60's vampire soap DARK SHADOWS? Well maybe not, but it was all the way live, to often hilarious results. There's a classic moment where, over the LIVE running credits, a freakin' painter crosses in the background, unaware that the camera was still on.

I'm waiting for CNN to have such a gaffe -- a crewman falling from a catwalk, slamming right onto the anchor desk. I'd like to see them run something like that over and over. Because they are officially now that lazy.

Fair Game

2005-08-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

Shopped at Third Street Promenade this past weekend. In Abercrombie & Fitch (Finch? Whatever) saw a T-shirt reading "Run Katie Run!" In a major clothing franchise! Can you believe? Guess they got tired of suggestive prepubescent thongs and decided to tangle with Cruise et. al.

I would have been impressed, but I was too busy gauging whether or not I could successfully remove the A&F elk-logo from a shirt.

I want my picture, Joe

2005-08-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

I've added a pic, which qualified this as a Day of Technical Achievement. This bizarre picture was placed on my apartment's new clothes dryer. See, the dryer was new, just installed, then immediately broke and then was fixed -- all within the space of a mere week (those astrophysicists are right -- the universe *is* speeding up!).

When the Acme dryer repairmen were finished, they put this maniacally chirpy sign on the dryer. Like it's a stuffed animal whose button-eye has just been sewed back on with maternal love. Clearly we're all dying for artificial intelligence -- ever notice how everything from a broken stairmaster at the gym ("I'm broken!") to automated customer service attendants ("Sorry. I didn't understand that. Can you repeat your question?") self-identify?

Or, it could be the more likely application of PR distancing. The dryer isn't a substandard piece of equipment installed by cheap property management. It's a little guy with feelins'! And now he's ok!

It's not like I don't have enough to do

2005-08-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

But I didn't realize that one could launch one of these natty-looking blogs for free. I'm a sale whore, so free? ...well, here I am.

Maybe this'll be a pile of spew the expulsion of which will make me more agreeable to the poor souls working with me (i.e., free therapy). Maybe I'll find I'm not alone in the world with my laundry list of complaints against and objections to the entertainment industry. Maybe the universal minutiae that plagues me every day will strike a chord in you, gentle reader.

Onto the small stuff:

It's still hot here in LA, but it's a dry heat. Pity the poor souls back east in that swampy, humid air. Brace for the inevitable flood of transplants who move out west to escape all that "real" weather. The Rose Parade may stimulate the majority of transplants to California, but that humidity in the height of summer is the second biggest selling point.

I could complain about the New York purists now, but frankly they haven't annoyed me lately. Used to always be someone living out here who wouldn't shut up about how great NY is, how much LA sucks, blah blah blah. Tell you what, bub -- I'll drive you to the $!@!* airport right now. Get out of my city if you hate it so much. So what if it sucks? At least we know it sucks. We're not over-invested in a romantic ideal. We're grounded.

In other words, I can bash my city, but you can't. It's just one of those things.