False Climax

"Don't Go In The Woods" if you are planning to make a bad horror movie.

2012-01-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

I have been doing so much thinking about film in the past few weeks --- what makes a film, how to make a film, what to do with a film once it's made etc.

A lot of things are changing.

I just had to review this film by actor Vince D'Onofrio, best known for Law & Order but also "Full Metal Jacket" and "Mystic Pizza" etc.

It was really bad, like he wasn't even trying to make a good film. It's a horror musical and while the acting is terrible but the music is pretty good.

So, after I watched the film, I read up about it and even found an interview with him where he said that the plan was to "make a bad horror movie" where they intentionally cast unknown people who had music and singing experience whether or not they had acting experience. He cast a band that his nephew was friends with, he cast some girls who worked at the coffee shop around the corner from him and he cast a couple of girls who had been extras on Law & Order and they shot in 12 days on his property in upstate New York for $100,000 --- but I have no idea what they spent the money on.
Here is the review that I wrote:

“Don’t Go In The Woods”
by
David J. Greenberg

Sometimes, not often, there is a film that blurs the lines between being “bad” and being “intentionally bad.” So, out of respect to the esteemed actor Vincent D’Onofrio who is making his feature debut with the horror-musical “Don’t Go In The Woods”, the question is more pronounced. Given his resume that includes his iconic turn in “Full Metal Jacket” as well as critically acclaimed work in “The Whole Wide World” and ten years of “Law & Order” D’Onofrio the actor clearly knows his way around a quality project so it seems odd that he should choose, for his feature debut, to work from a screenplay that is so fundamentally flawed.

The film is about a scruffy New York indie folk-rock band that, on the insistence of the driven, intense leader, Nick, drives out to the woods where he vacationed as a child. The plan is that they will seclude themselves in nature for the weekend, find the inspiration to write a new batch of songs without the distractions of cell phones, drugs, alcohol or girls ---- a method that, historically, is employed for boxers more often than musicians.

Despite some great moments where they really gel as a band, hit their stride and truly play in concert with one another, it is clear that some of them take the situation far more seriously than others. As is so often the case in a band dynamic, the plan inevitably disintegrates but not before every member of the cast gets to sing their heart out in one or more of the numerous musical numbers. The presence of a sledgehammer wielding psychopath in the same woods only complicates matters.

One of the great mysteries of D’Onofrio’s film is that when he could have taken the same actors and made a great slice of New York City life story about a young band struggling to make it, for some reason, he chose to make a slasher film. Move the location to a seedy rehearsal space, lose the crazed killer element make it a story about art, hopes, dreams and the interpersonal dynamics of the band and there is more than enough for a solid film with ample room for his actor-musicians to shine. It is really hard to not think about “Once” when thinking about this film. Heck, it is really, really hard to not think about Tom Hanks directorial debut “That Thing You Do” which also covered a similar struggling band scenario.

The whole piece smacks of artistic experimentation, like D’Onofrio was making a test film and challenging his own notions of what acting is. The clue to this theory is that the film really only ever comes alive during the musical numbers. In general, the songs (written by co-screenwriter Sam Bisbee) are actually pretty catchy, decent takes on the acoustic indie-rock singer-songwriter vibe that would be right at home playing in the background of a scruffy little coffeehouse. That the cast, made up of enthusiastic, fresh faced but character-appropriate-grungy twenty-somethings, is clearly better at performing the music than they are at delivering lines seems to suggest D’Onofrio picked people with some musical skills who might or might not be able to act rather casting actors who have some musical skills. The difference might seem subtle on paper but, in action, it jumps out.

So, it seems like D’Onofrio is going for a degree of Neo-realism here ala Vittorio De Sica, Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” and “Paranoid Park” and last years “Putty Hill.”

In that regard, the experiment pays off to a degree in that, overall, the attractive cast does have an appeal, they really do feel like a social circle plucked off the streets of NYC by someone who wanted to make a film about who they are - fresh, raw and palpably full of spirit, no baggage, giving it their all and probably not for the promise of what, presumably, was not a huge payday. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all especially talented actors.

Sometimes it seems like certain filmmakers are trying to make a point about bad films by going out and making a bad film, almost a sly send up of bad films. So what is this film, a drama with bad acting, a musical without a good story or a horror film without any scares? The whole thing feels as if it is really about D’Onofrio and some friends getting their feet wet, experimenting with film-making in anticipation of more ambitious projects to come. Does that legitimize releasing this film to the public?

I have seen a handful of films over the years where I have asked myself, "What would be more interesting, the film I just watched or a behind-the-scenes "making of" film about the film that I just watched?" Because, since watching "Don't Go In The Woods", I have now seen a number of interviews, behind-the-scenes, live concert footage etc. that was produced in connection with the film, I can easily say that the answer to my question would be the latter.

The whole experience of reviewing this film was so frustrating because, with some work on the script (or a whole new script) it could have easily been a half decent movie. I have written two horror screenplays about kids going out into the woods and both are ten times better than this film.

No, this movie is not getting a huge release, it's playing in one theater in L.A., one theater in NYC and going straight to VOD. Very interesting.

So what does all of this mean for me? Can I, a nobody, throw together a cast/crew of nobodies, run around, shoot a film and throw it up on the internet? Sure, I guess I can. Will anyone see it? I doubt it. Do I know that I have screenplays sitting around that were designed to be shot for little to no money? Sure do! If I go out and make one, will anyone see it? Who knows? Who really knows? A lot of things are changing.

100/5000

2011-12-21T18:20:00.000-08:00

This week, Indiewire.com published its list of the Best Undistributed Films in their year end critics poll. More than 160 critics voted. Altogether, around 275 films made the list. Granted, some of these films have gotten distribution deals that have not yet been announced but, according to the site, the top five films, those that were mentioned the most, do not, at this time, have deals for theatrical distribution.

During the spring, summer and fall of 1988, I worked on two feature films, a low-budget indie (around 1.5 million dollars) and a moderately budgeted (around 20 million dollars) studio film. Both films were released in theaters, have played on TV and gotten home video releases.

Maybe it really was a simpler time or maybe I am just naive but today, even with all the avenues for film distribution -- VOD, online, theatrical, cable and on and on -- it seems like it’s harder to get a film out there. Maybe the movies are just not that good.

Everywhere I turn, I hear about an actress or actor friend shooting this film or that film and everyone seems to be a director or a producer promoting their new film as they are shooting it --- sometimes even long before they start shooting. I understand that marketing buzz, building brand awareness and consumer interest is the name of the game but it sometimes seem like that is the only thing happening. I hear about all these films in the pre-production, then production stage and then what, they’re gone.

So many of these film just seem to disappear without getting much, if any kind of “proper” release -- much less a theatrical run.

Maybe I am old school in thinking that having a movie shown in a movie theater is the ultimate goal. However, film is a public art, it succeeds when people see it and I am not just talking about having a screening at a bar for friends and family. Now, much as I love to see a movie on the big screen, I have to admit that I don’t go to movie theaters as much --- honestly, the picture and sound quality on my TV or computer is better.

Still, for me, a theatrical screening -- even if it is just at a film festival or two -- is the gold standard. Maybe I am small minded in thinking like this but, if I bust my butt and break the bank to make a film, it means more to me to have people make an effort to go see it in a theater than it does to know that they are clicking a button on their computer and watching it while they are checking their e-mail.

For some people, having a screening of their film -maybe renting out a screen at the local art house theater - for friends and family is as good as it will ever get. For some people, the gold standard is breaking even, maybe even having something to hand over to their investors.

If you really want to know what my feelings on the matter, I want to make a film that does “well enough” critically and/or commercially to inspire someone to back me on another film and the film after that one and the film after that one and so on.

I have never been a big fan of writer-director Edward Burns’ work but I have always been interested in his career --- from the legendary “pay the rent or enter ‘Brothers McMullen’ in Sundance?” story to his more recent forays into micro-filmmaking (his new film "Newlyweds" was shot for $9000.00) and promoting VOD as the saving grace for indie filmmakers.

I have been watching the business of indie films and how they get to their audience almost as long as I have been watching indie films. In the “anyone can make a film” era, saying that you are making a film does not carry much weight with me. Telling me that your film screened at a reputable festival, got picked up by distributor with muscle or even, yes, that it’s been downloaded/whatevered 500 times is going to impress me.

So, whether or not my thinking is stuck in the past is less of an issue for me. The Hollywood Economist Blogspot estimates that, worldwide, there are 4000 - 5000 independent features made each year and, of that number, only 2% will be purchased for distribution. Making a film is half of the battle, maybe not even half. Getting people to see your film is the real trick.

Of course, I will still look through the behind-the-scenes photos that you post on facebook and wish you the best.

A Tale Of Three Indies

2011-12-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

It might sound as if I have this indie bias, this Hollywood = Bad, Independent Film = Good. I get that and I realize that there are just as many, if not far more, really, really bad independent films out there.

Orson Welles once said that the difference between filmmakers and all other artists is that, for the most part, other artists can afford to make their art.

With today's technology, however, anyone can make a movie and, from my perspective, far too many people are making movies and, not that I am a math whiz by any stretch or into odds and probabilities, it just seems that, the more movies that are out there, the more chances for more of these movies to be bad increases. Some people see the glass half full, I see a little crack in the glass where stuff is slowly leaking out.

I recently saw the 2011 Sundance hit “Bellflower,” which I had been eagerly looking forward to seeing. I can’t even remember what, exactly, I had heard about it beforehand but it had been long on my radar and I thought it looked cool.

Remember, movies are about creating images, making people think that they are seeing something that they are not really seeing. When we see rockets whooshing across space, we are not seeing rockets, we are seeing something that is supposed to make us think that we are seeing a rocket. And so it goes for movie marketing, very often for indie movie marketing. It is all about getting people to see a movie that appears to be about one thing when, at least some of the time, it is about something else.

“Bellflower” is about two scruffy 20-something guys who drink straight from the bottle, smoke a lot and, apparently, do not value clean laundry. They are obsessed with “Mad Max”, building flamethrowers and fixing up an muscle car so that it, too, shoots flames --- in the event of an apocalypse. For some reason, I was under the impression that “Bellflower” was some kind of post-apocalyptic zombie movie. Maybe I really am an idiot, maybe I was duped by the marketing campaign.

If you do not want to know what “Bellflower” is really about, skip the next paragraph and continue reading after it, skip ahead.

“Bellflower” is about two scruffy 20-something guys who drink straight from the bottle, smoke a lot and, apparently, do not value clean laundry. They are obsessed with “Mad Max”, building flamethrowers and fixing up an muscle car so that it, too, shoots flames. One of the guys meets a really cute but also sort of scruffy girl who can smoke and drink like the best of them. Of course, they fall madly in love, have a sort of “let’s hit the road in my vintage automobile and have a distinctly American 20-something experience” road trip. Once back home, things settle down, he catches her cheating on him, loses it and has all kinds bloody, fire-y, depression, drug and alcohol fueled visions that blur reality (for the audience) --- what is really happening and what is not happening. Boy meets girl, girl cheats on boy, boy loses it for awhile but, in the end, he still has his best friend --- that’s what “Bellflower” is about.

You can start reading here.

“Bellflower” was made by two scruffy 20-something guys who look like they drink straight from the bottle, smoke a lot and, apparently, do not value clean laundry. They are obsessed with “Mad Max”, building flamethrowers and fixing up an muscle car so that it, too, shoots flames. They have a handful of similar friends and they all got together to make this film for about $17,000. I liked the look of the film. It looks like it was shot on one of those Hipstamatic cameras that were all the rage for about five minutes. These guys build their own cameras. I found the whole thing tedious, pretentious and empty. Maybe if I had not seen the marketing campaign or if I was still a hip urbane, scruffy 20-something (okay, I never was but I sort of wanted to be) experiencing first love, it would have resonated with me. “Bellflower” got mostly good reviews but, I am happy to say, there are others out there like me who, well, you get the idea.

That said, I do think that the female lead, Jessie Wiseman, really has star potential.

After watching “Bellflower” over the weekend, I showed the 2002 Sundance hit “Pieces Of April” to my students. I quite like this film and I always show it to classes right before Thanksgiving because that is what, among other things, the film is about. It is my favorite Thanksgiving film. “Pieces Of April” is a low-budget indie-style film. I say “indie-style” because, even though it is, technically, an independent film, it is deliberately, maybe even self-consciously lo-fi, shot on really bad digital video with marginal production values. It does, however, boast a great (well-known) cast -- Patricia Clarkson (in an Oscar-nominated performance), Oliver Platt and Katie Holmes (in her bid for artistic credibility by playing against type) and Derek Luke -- at the top of their game and, most importantly, it well-written and directed by Peter Hedges. I show it to illustrate the point that, if there is a good screenplay in place, it almost doesn’t matter how the film is shot. So many people throw so much time and money up on the screen without truly understanding and respecting the importance of having a good screenplay.

Later that week, I got another indie that I had been eager to see, “Putty Hill.”

I first heard about the film when IndieWire reported that there was an issue surrounding the distribution of the film because they had used a song by the Rolling Stones without clearing the rights. I thought to myself, “What kind of idiots take a copyrighted song by a well-known band, put it in their film without paying for the rights and expect to get it distributed?”

On day one or two of my screenwriting classes, I always tell my students to never specify copyrighted music in their screenplays but, the vast bulk of the time, doing so will add thousands dollars to the budget of the film --- and make the screenwriter look like an idiot.

So, I had to find out what this “Putty Hill” film was and what kind of losers would be so careless about the music. The film, it turns out, is a micro-budget indie about young people dealing with the aftermath of a tragic event. The film was shot on lower-end video in just a few days and largely improvised with a cast of non-professional actors.

Hmmm, sounds familiar. Anyone who knows me and what I have been up to for the past few years, knows about my long, sort-of-in-the-works project “Aftermath” --- which is about young people dealing with the aftermath of a tragic event and which was designed to be shot in a few days, without name talent for no money.

This, I had to see, a film that raised so many red flags for me. How could it be any good?

I really liked it.

“Putty Hill” is shot on slightly lower-end cameras. It does not have a slick, pristine look technically but there are some really well-composed shots and the final image has stayed with me. The story and execution are simple; the style, mood and atmosphere are rich, I could go on and on but, the bottom-line, the takeaway, is that, financial or technical short-comings do not have to be a handicap. Filmmakers need to know what they have to work with and focus on crafting strong, cinematic narratives first and practical, technical execution that will serve the story shortly thereafter.

Know what you want to do. Know what you are able to do.

Something To Be Thankful For

2011-11-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Last week I was asked to speak at my old high school. Their scheduled speaker canceled at the last minute so they got in touch with me and asked if I could come in. I had less than 24 hours to organize my thoughts, come up with something to say and slap together a power-point presentation. If all of that sounds like a lot to ask of person, it’s not, if that person is me and the people asking are hoping that I can say something about movies.

I had a blast and I have a feeling that I might be going back to my old school on a regular basis, maybe as a film teacher.

The opportunity to come in and discuss what I have been doing gave me a chance to sit down and access the past year. I prepared my discussion, tallied up my gigs for the year and found that I have written seven feature film screenplays, written two documentaries, shot and/or edited three short documentary/promo films about with children with special needs, wrote a pilot for an animated Japanese sitcom, presented two workshops on screenwriting and I had two acting small gigs -- the first acting I have done in years. I also made a short film --- producing, shooting, directing and editing for the first time in years.

Of all things, I went to bed the night before the presentation with a sense of pride and accomplishment. No, as anyone who has read my blog or taken a class with me knows, I make very, very little -if any- money as a screenwriter but money, while certainly important, is not everything.

Yes, sometimes I want to give up and get a real job. Sometimes I think I am fooling myself by thinking that I am any good at writing. Sometimes I think I will be exposed as a fraud. Maybe that comes with the territory.

I woke up the next morning and remembered that I had forgotten about another screenplay that I wrote this year.

I have actually written eight feature length screenplays this year.

This week, two people have asked me if I am available to write screenplays for them.

So, I don’t get paid much to write screenplays at this point.

I like to think that people want me to write for them because they like my work, not because it’s a bargain.

I like to think that I have something to offer the world; it’s one of the things that keeps me going and, for that, for my family, for my health, for having a roof over my head and for sometimes feeling that I am good at something, I am thankful.

"Blog? I ain't got time to blog" -- Predator (paraphrased)

2011-09-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's been six or seven weeks since I last blogged. Sue me. If I was Catholic, I would probably be confessing. If I was Catholic, I probably would have gone out with a Catholic school girl once or twice.

Why haven't I written? Because, um, I have been writing! On Saturday, I finally finished the comedy mentioned in my 8/21 post, turned it into the director, who was meeting with a producer that day and.... haven't heard a word about it since. Prior to finishing the comedy, I finished a steamy political thriller ("Three Days of the Condor" meets "Blue Valentine") for a producer who asked me start a new screenplay even before I finished the one that I was working on.

On top of that, I am back to school, teaching two sections of my course on Writing The Short Film and scheduled to give two workshops in October --- one on shorts, one on pitching.

AND I still need to find a job that supplements the nickles and dimes that I make from teaching and freelancing. Indeed, it IS "a hard-knock life." Here I was thinking "It IS a small world, after all."

So, I about to start writing a micro-budget thriller, "The Apparitions", which, I hear, is already scheduled to start shooting in November. Let's hope I finish the screenplay by then. I have been doctoring an action film for a California producer and director/star and, several drafts later, the distributor continues to say that it still needs work ---- and it really does!

Yesterday, as if I wasn't stretched to the limit as it was, I went out and actually got messy and dirty by directing and shooting a short screenplay of mine, "Love, Park." As I write this, my footage in rendering or something and I need to have a cut ready to for a 5:oo Friday festival submission deadline.

I'm probably leaving something out. And you wonder why I haven't been blogging.

A Tangible Goal

2011-08-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

I am struggling with a screenplay.

It's an interesting situation. I was originally asked to write a short screenplay but it wound up being forty pages long --- too long for a short and too short for a feature. The director-producer and I were really happy with it and, after letting it stew for a few months, we decided to expand it into a feature.

Easy, right? Wrong. I was once in contact with a director whose film I had just given a bad review. I worked up my nerve and told him that it seemed like he had taken a five minute short and tried to expand it into a feature. He told me that he had taken a five minute short and tried to expand it into a feature.

Short films can play by their own rules and, among those rules is not necessarily adhering to the rules of structure that most feature length films tend to follow.

So, it's been a challenge to take this screenplay that was structured one way and rewrite it so that it is structured another way --- without changing the story.

I e-mailed the director last night:
I am really throwing up bricks when it comes to fixing the story. If you have any ideas, feel free to run them by me.

Here are some issues to consider---

_____ needs some flaws, a shortcoming that we recognize when we see him for the first time.

The end of the film should reflect the beginning of the film ie. in the beginning of "The King's Speech" he second in line to the throne, not expected to ever be kind and is afraid to give a speech because of his stuttering. At the end of the film he has become king, overcome his stutter and now has the confidence to give a speech to his subjects.

Brian has to have a tangible goal, something that he is trying to achieve --- not just the respect of his parents. He might or might not get that goal and get something more important in the end but there has to be this thing that he is chasing --- ie. Peter Parker in "Spiderman." He's chasing after Mary-Jane and, in the end, realizes that his destiny as a hero is more important than his personal life.

He got back to me:
I actually think we already have his tangible goal. I think his tangible goal is respect....

Sure, we all want respect but, in terms of plot points, act breaks and character arc it still wasn't working for me so I put the question to my screenwriter's group on Facebook:

QUESTION: is respect a valid goal for the protagonist? My director says "yes" but I think the character needs a more tangible goal. Think "Rocky" in which the protagonist wants respect but he has the title bout to shoot for, the thing that will earn him respect. Any thoughts?

And I got some responses:

Yes, David. You need to make this goal more tangible, respect has to be symbolized by something specific, otherwise, how do we know that it is achieved?

and also:

Yes, you're right. Rocky had an inner goal and an outer goal. Outer goal was to win the title, the inner goal was to gain respect. What is the outer goal your protagonist is after? In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman's outer need is to become a working actor so he can earn enough money to direct his friends play . His inner need is to become less selfish and in so doing, become a better man.

I shared those responses with the director and he responded:

I agree with both responses, but I feel like we already have that in the script and they are both the same thing. His inner goal is to be taken seriously, his outer goal is to ____ that doesn’t require him to ____, to be appreciated for his ability and not _____.

To me those goal are pretty clear. As the writer, I wouldn’t focus on changing those goal, I’d focus on making more a distinction about those goal.

Once again, I am reminded of the loneliness of the writer, how it really is all on me but I am encouraged to know that I can always reach out and get help when I need it.

The goal: finish the screenplay.
The obstacle: the plot doesn't fit into the structure.
The solution: realize that even, though I am the only writer on this project, I don't have to do it alone.

So, I finished a screenplay today, turned it and, tomorrow, I get back to work on the second draft of the screenplay mentioned above.

I think I can do it.

The Hollywood Creative Directory

2011-08-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

A former student of mine messaged me the other day and wanted to know if I think that the Hollywood Creative Directory is a scam.

No, it's not a scam, it's pretty legit and I think I even bought the hard copy way back in the day. What it is, however, is just a list of people and places you can contact with no guarantee of ever getting a response. I have heard stories (legends?) of writers getting their script to the "right person" via the HCD but they are far and few between.

While on the subject of "back in the day", back during the indie film boom of the late 80's-early 90's, I really studied the "path to success" that many films/filmmakers had taken -- Spike Lee (won the student Academy Award with his grad. school thesis film, opened some doors, not many but he raised the $175,000 to make "She's Gotta..."), Steven Soderbergh (nominated for a Grammy for a music video, which opened the doors that led to "Sex, Lies & Videotape") and so on, many stories like that, filmmakers who seem to come out of nowhere but really do have some industry credibility behind them. Of course, things are a lot different today.

The (rocky, hard to follow) path that I have been taking has been something like "put yourself 'out there' as a screenwriter, write anything for anyone for anything, even nothing, hope that it gets made, distributed, successful and brings you some industry attention."

So, I have a couple of original screenplays sitting around and I scour the classified ads (craigslist Philly, NYC and L.A.; mandy.com) to see if anyone is looking for anything resembling something that I have. Just last week, I answered an ad and they got back to me, interested in an almost 20 year old screenplay.

I think I have given up on sending things out to companies unless I know that they are looking for something --- that what I have is what they are looking for. Also, most of my work these days is "for hire", someone asking me to write a screenplay about XYZ for them. I haven't written an original feature length screenplay based on my own idea since 2005 -- not that I haven't wanted to.

That's not to say that I do not contribute to the story on most of the screenplays that I get asked to write. Much of the time, a producer and/or director will give me a shopping list of elements that they want to see in their film ---
"it has to have a sequence in China, organized crime and a chase with a helicopter."
"it's an Indian guy and an American woman, they're both living lies, caught up in intrigue, on the run from people but the emphasis is on the relationship, not the specifics of what they are on the run from -- an action film with only a little action."
"it takes place in Austin, Texas in 1987"

--- and then, I take it from there.

I know that I'm not in Hollywood but maybe I should be in the Hollywood Creative Directory.

Summer Of Spec

2011-07-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

I finished the first draft of a screenplay last night and sent it to the producer/director. To tell the truth, I don’t even know if I am getting paid for this job. It’s like that sometimes.

By the end of this summer, I will have written and/doctored thirty screenplays -- give or take. Of those thirty screenplays, two feature length scripts and few short films are based on original ideas of mine, something that popped into my head and developed into a story. In the case of all of the other projects, someone has said “can you write a screenplay about x,y,z where a,b,c happens?” or “can you take this screenplay and make it work?”

I don’t know why exactly but I rarely say “no” when someone asks me to write a screenplay and, sadly, this answer often extends to deferred pay or “spec” projects --- jobs where I only get paid if the film gets made or if, once it does get made, it makes a profit.

While it might seem as if I just say indiscriminately “yes” to everything that comes my way, I actually do have things that I look for when I am approached with a project:

Does it pay and, if so, does it pay well, is there any money upfront?

Who else is involved with the project, either in front of or behind the camera? Am I working for seasoned professionals or wide-eyed amateurs?

Does the project have the potential to advance my career, will it be seen by anyone who might want to hire me in the future?

Is the subject matter, the setting, the genre, milieu, story at all inspiring to me, something that I can work with and craft into something interesting?

If the answer is “yes” to one, if not more, of these questions, I will consider the project.
Honestly, I’m usually flattered that someone might want me to write a screenplay for them and will often agree to do it just for the ego boost, on “spec.”

A “spec” (short for speculative) screenplay is one that is written without any guarantee of getting paid, of it getting produced, of it ever going anywhere. It’s rolling the dice, taking a chance and, it is the way many screenwriters break into the business --- though having industry connections, an award-winning film or book or play etc. doesn’t hurt.

Some people sell the first spec script that they write. Some people sell the thirtieth spec script that they write. Most people never sell anything.

So, I finished a screenplay last night and today, it’s back to work:

I committed to doctoring a screenplay for an L.A. producer. It doesn’t pay but, if I do a good job -- and I am doing a good job --- they will remember me next time.

Last year, a director I know asked me to write a short comedy. The script came out so well that he asked me to expand it into a feature and I am working a second draft. I might get paid on this one and I might not get paid but it was a story that I had to write, something that struck me creatively and gave me the opportunity to sink my teeth into characters and situations that I am close to.

A director friend in Texas, for whom I wrote an artsy anti-horror horror screenplay last year asked me if I could write something else for him, again something I just had to write, a time, place and genre that I just couldn’t ignore.

Last week, I finished a teenage vampire screenplay that someone asked me to write.

I’m still not sure why I wrote that one.

It’s like that sometimes.

This Is The Week That Will Be The Week That Was

2011-06-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 3:00 A.M., the phone rings. Getting a phone call in the middle of the night is usually not a good thing --- in general, sleep is interrupted and, usually the call brings bad news. “I’m a producer in L.A., got your name from an online database, went to your website, was impressed and wanted to talk to you about a screenplay” said the voice on the other end of the line.

I am basically out of work, haven’t had a steady job since December, won’t have one until September and, while, sure, I am grateful for the handful of writing jobs and the brief return to acting that have paid some bills this year but I still need a job or, at least, a way to generate some income. In my most “awake” voice I said “I’m on the east coast, would it be possible to call you back later today?”

Twelve hours or so later, I call the New York area code of a guy in L.A., we do the producer-screenwriter version of dogs sniffing each other’s butts to check them out. Somehow, I usually manage to present well, sound like I know what I am talking about and, most important, appear to be enthusiastic about whatever story somebody wants me to write. I did what I could do. I might get the gig, I might not. The reality is that, under the surface, I was not that enthusiastic about the project.

I’m going on vacation this week: long walks on the beach, limited internet access, lots of reading, lots of chilling and, that’s right, lots of writing. Two years ago, on vacation in the same spot, I wrote two screenplays in four days --- of course I had spent months working on the treatments for both before I wrote the first FADE IN:

The was the same plan for this year. I am committed to three screenplays right now, have turned in first drafts of two of them and am ready to do re-writes. Yesterday, I got a message from another filmmaker I have worked with --- “Need an action screenplay, fast!” There were a few messages back and forth between us, I sent him a five year old treatment, he loved it and I told him that he could have a first draft in less than a week. I call myself a minimum-wage screenwriter and that’s not just a catchy phrase, it is really pretty accurate. Despite my continual promises to myself to never do it again, I agreed to write this screenplay on spec (“speculation”, not a firm deal), no guarantee of it being made or of me being paid anything for my efforts. I am going on faith here, I have been told that the project is for a well-known musical-figure-turned-actor and that the budget of the film will be $60,000,000. I am enthusiastic about the project.

How Much Happy Is Too Much Happy?

2011-05-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

I blog therefore, I am? That would seem to be the case for some people but, clearly, not for me.

I usually like to treat myself to movie in the theater when I complete and submit a screenplay, a way of closing the door on a particular phase of work. I finished a screenplay (another documentary) last week and I am going to finish one next week and I don’t anticipate going to a movie. Maybe there just isn’t anything out there that I really want to see or maybe it is something else...

Six years, countless different casts, several different crews, a Philly production company, an L.A. production company, the Philly production company once more and something like 15 drafts later, I have re-written “Aftermath” again.

As, I wrote in a previous entry, filmmaking is a team sport and the screenplay, while critically important to the success of the film, is only one element of the collaborative process. Unless I am producing and directing (and maybe even acting) in the film, it is not enough for me to be happy with the screenplay: everyone else involved with the film has to like it too.

So, this new draft is tighter, while longer, than the last draft, the six characters are a lot richer and, from the perspective of a one-time, former would be actor, each member of the cast now gets even more “spotlight” time.

Yet, throughout all of these drafts over the years, one thing has remained the same: the end. Just as I have never been completely happy with the name “Aftermath”, I have also been a little shaky about the end. The guy who wants to produce and direct it now has been on me for awhile to do something about the ending and I finally have done it, made a big, dramatic change that was, in many ways, really painful for me to write and will certainly be painful for the audience to see but, I have to say, as these things go, I think I am happy with it.

As mentioned before, it doesn’t matter how happy I am with the screenplays I write, I have to make the people who are actually shooting the film happy. If the producer-director likes the changes I made to “Aftermath”, the film is likely to be shot this summer. In that case, I would treat myself to a movie ...... “Super 8” looks good.

If that is not the case, if they don’t like it, then what? Do I continue to bend over backwards to make other people happy or do I take the whole thing back to the beginning, back to 2005, when there was an “I” in “team” and it was me and the only person I had to please was myself?

More UPs and DOWNs

2011-03-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Not to be too dramatic --- well, okay, I am a screenwriter, it’s my job to be dramatic -- but I was about to pack it all in an quit the other day, give up on writing for good.

Anyone who chooses a creative path in life is asking for trouble if not a lot of ups and downs. The last time that I wrote, I discussed the inherent nature of collaboration that is part of being a screenwriter: I write something and then someone else sees something else in it and uses it as the basis for a movie.

I was cool with it then but I am less cool now. That’s about all that I can say about it for now. In 2006, I was hired to write a screenplay. By the time the film was produced, the directed had rewritten my screenplay to the point that my original work was unrecognizable. In 2009, okay, not unrecognizable as my screenplay but tweaked in a direction that I did not intend it to go in. In 2011...sigh. I don’t know, maybe I really do suck as a writer if I keep writing screenplays that people want to produce once they have removed most if not all traces of my work. Maybe I need to be making my own films.

So, the ups and downs keep coming.

A few weeks ago, I beat out 300 other writers for a playwriting job. Yes, a play. Why not? I did sign a non-disclosure agreement so I really shouldn’t be too specific about the show. I was going to be writing a one-man show based on the life of a famous American, the famous American’s famous relatives were going to be involved, an Oscar-winning actor was going to be approached about playing the role and the plan was to take it all to Broadway next year. All of the plans are still in place but I am no longer part of them. I took lunch with a well-known man-about-town here in Philly, did some research, wrote a proposal so that the show could be pitched to the famous relatives for their approval and, hopefully, financing. Unfortunately, nobody told the Tony nominated playwright/director that he would be collaborating with me and nobody knew that this guy does not collaborate with anyone. So, I’m out. Whatever. That’s a DOWN.

My “acting” “career” as detailed in my last post has returned to suspended animation. I deposited my last paycheck today. Exit Stage Left. Neither UP nor DOWN.

On Sunday, I got the word that I was chosen to write a really offbeat black comic murder mystery --- think Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” as written by Charlie Kaufman -- and I am psyched. Even though it doesn’t pay much, I really wanted this gig and was worried that I might not get it. In the end, I had a phone interview, sent in a sample screenplay and was asked to send in two more screenplays. It came down to me and another writer but I came out on top. Who cares about money, I won the contest, I’m the better writer or something like that. Call this one an UP.

So, despite losing control over a screenplay once again, I am going to say that the UPs are in the lead. I had a major creative breakthrough on a screenplay that I have been struggling with for months and, just this morning, I heard that some financiers in Miami are interested in my old, old neo-noir screenplay “Payday.”

Though it was 32 degrees this morning, spring is finally here, baseball season begins this week, stuff is getting ready to bloom, things are looking UP.

The screenwriter learns that there is no "I" in "team."

2011-02-20T12:14:00.000-08:00

I have always said that filmmaking is a team sport; it takes a variety of people doing different things together to make it happen but, honestly, I didn't think the teamwork element applied to the screenplay.

I thought that I write the screenplay and the team makes it but I am now coming to realize that there has to be a degree of teamwork in the writing stage. I have to be open to input, questions, suggestions and different perspectives because, at this point, I am usually not the person who is making the film.

The person who is making the film either asked me to write a screenplay based on his/her ideas or saw something in one of my original screenplays that he/she wanted to produce. It becomes my job to serve the producer or director’s vision even if I was the one who came up with the idea in the first place. Ultimately, at some stage in the process, I have to sign off on the screenplay, walk away from it, let the production team do whatever they want to it --- while I cower in the shadows and hope for the best.

The L.A. producer who optioned “Aftermath” two years ago wanted me to make a number of changes to it in the six months that we worked together. The development and re-writing process in 2009 was the hardest work as a writer that I have ever been asked to do. Honestly, I have often been able to coast by on the relative strength of generally decent work but relative strength and general decency was not going to cut it in L.A. and I was really stretched and challenged. The result was a screenplay that is much deeper and richer, more solid than I could have done on my own.

While it is not official yet and I am supposed to be somewhat hush-hush about it at this point, it appears very likely that "Aftermath" will be shooting in Philly over the summer --- with a new title and, at the director's recommendation (and my willingness), a radically re-worked screenplay.

Truth be told, I just read the January 2008 and the July 2009 drafts and I have to admit, the screenplay needs some work.

Along the same lines, another production company is producing “April, Mae & Joon,” a short screenplay that I wrote. My original script was 5 pages long and largely silent. While the director sought my input on it and we volleyed several rewrites back and forth, she quickly developed her own vision of it. The screenplay has now become a 20 page, very talky piece with her stamp all over it that somehow retains my original ideas and themes.

Go team!

Why I became an "actor" when I coudn't make it as a waiter

2011-02-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

I couldn't get a job as a waiter so I became an actor!

Seriously, in December, when I found out that I wasn't getting any teaching work this semester, I went crazy, scrambling for any job that I could reasonably apply for. In one week, maybe even the same day, I applied for a job at a restaurant around the corner from me (owned and operated by U2's former personal chef but that's another story) and I responded to an ad placed by Philly/NYC theater company.

I never heard back from the restaurant but the theater company responded quickly. We had a series of e-mails, a couple of phone calls and, a few weeks ago, a face-to-face.

They are very much about blurring the lines between theater and real life in very high tech ways -- last year hiring actors to "play" people in facebook-oriented production online, in a theater and, to some degree on facebook and recently staging a similar production in NYC.

Their newest "production" is going to be the new website for the company where subscribers, fans and the culturally aware and excited 18-30 crowd will form a community, a back and forth with the members of the company --- who are all going to be fictional characters "created" and "played" by "actors" who will blog about the progress of work on various production but also art and cool culture in general --- and interact online with their fans, supporters, benefactors etc.

So, I have been “cast” and I am now "playing" a character online, on their blog, on facebook and, who knows where else? I have created a persona and I continue to cultivate the character, interacting with the other characters, posting links to sites, articles etc. of interest or concern to who we are and what we are doing. So, is this “Second Life: The Musical” or “Catfish: The Play”? I don’t know, I am just going with it and, why not, “All the world is just a stage” and so on. We all have our online persona anyway, I might as well have another one. By the time I post this blog, the gig could be over or it could just be heating up. And, yes, I am getting paid.

The Ups & Downs of David Greenberg: Confessions of a Minimum Wage Screenwriter Pt. 1

2011-02-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

In early December, 2010, I walked into the Kimmel Center with a video camera. I got into a glass elevator, turned the camera on, pointed out the window and shot myself going up and going down. I came home, put the footage into my computer, edited it, added tons of effects, music etc. and posted the resulting minute long short film “The Ups & Downs of David Greenberg” on Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook pages.

At the time, I had no idea of how accurately “ups and downs” would wind up becoming so accurate. I just thought I was being witty because I was riding in an elevator.

It was right around this time that I found out that I was likely to be unemployed, without a teaching job this semester. My one class at University of the Arts was canceled due to low enrollment and I was not offered any classes at Drexel University.

Unemployment = DOWN.

I scrambled for work.

I responded to a post from a producer who was looking for someone to write a documentary about Bonnie and Clyde. I had two phone interviews, wrote a sample treatment, outlining the approach to the script that I would take.

I beat out 150 other writers and got the job = UP.

Next came a whirlwind of research/writing and I delivered the first draft of the the script, on time, three weeks later. I turned in a third draft earlier this week.

It paid what I would make in about 6 weeks of teaching.

However, six weeks of work was not going to cut it = DOWN

In one week, maybe even the same day, I applied for a job at a restaurant around the corner from me (owned and operated by U2's former personal chef but that's another story) and I responded to an ad placed by Philly/NYC theater company.

I had not worked in a restaurant since my early 20’s --- and, even, then, it was at my father’s place whenever he was short-handed.

As mentioned in my last blog post, I had given up on acting long ago. I think I last auditioned for something in 1985.

I never heard from the restaurant but the theater company contacted me quickly. We spoke on the phone, had a face to face and, as of this week, it looks like I will be earning a little bit of money as an actor -- sort of. Much more on on that, later.

I like to think that, when I couldn’t make it as waiter, I took a job as an actor to get me through.

Getting a chance to “perform,” to be involved with my first love: theater = UP

I banged out a good, ultra-low budget screenplay for a director friend, he liked it, didn’t love it, but planned to make anyway.

Ultimately he decided that, even with 6 characters, a handful of locations and no major special effects or set pieces, it was too big for him to mount at this time.

He still wants to make it, but he wants me to write something even smaller = UP/DOWN

A short film that I wrote, “The Audition”, played at a film festival in California = UP

But the big news was that, after two years in development at an L.A. production company, the option on my screenplay “Aftermath” expired in December.

I have retained the rights to it = UP/DOWN

The Philly production company that optioned it in 2006 has expressed an interest in it and I feel morally obligated to give them a shot if they want it because I broke my agreement with them in order to send it to L.A.

An L.A./Philly based producer who has long been familiar with it seems awfully interested in acquiring the project.

One or maybe even both of these companies could produce “Aftermath” this year = UP

Both could decide to pass on it = DOWN

The “Aftermath” story has been and continues to be an epic saga, something likely to dominate my blog posts for the indefinite future.

I am working all the time and I am still looking for a job.

These are the Confessions of a Minimum Wage Screenwriter.

To be continued...

The Gray Swan

2010-12-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

This is not a review of “Black Swan”, it is a response to it. It’s been awhile since a film affected me so strongly. Sure, on one level, the film is about ballet but that is just on the surface, what drives the plot.

The film is about so much more.

The film is about film, painting, writing, acting, singing, music and on and on. Anyone who wants to create, to engage in art, doesn’t do it passively, they give of themselves, they throw themselves into the creative process.

“Black Swan” really struck a chord with me because, even though it is about ballet on the surface, it is really about all art and anyone who struggles to create something. At one point the creative director of the ballet criticizes his star dancer for being too perfect, too precise, mechanical, cold and distant and, to me, it came off as Darren Aronofsky, the director of the movie, making a statement about big-budget Hollywood movies --- this film is relatively low-budget, shot with really grainy film and herky-jerky hand-held camera movement.

I remember watching “It’s Complicated” not long ago and being so distracted by how obsessively good the lighting was in one particular scene. It was ridiculous, I could tell that, in this kitchen location, a light or lights had been set up “just so” in order to make a bowl of fruit stand out, not even a bowl of fruit that was an important prop, a plot device. It was like this throughout the whole movie and not just this one film, most “big” films. It didn’t have anything to do with art per se -- all due respect to the DP and the gaffer who are obviously master craftsmen -- it was about technical precision.

Artists don’t just wake up one day and suddenly decide that they want to be artists, it is not intellectual at first, it is instinctual, we are drawn to create, to perform. I teach screenwriting at an art school. My students want to be filmmakers. I don’t think that any one of them had a meeting with their high school guidance counselor, had to come up with something to say and spat out “I want to go to film school.” Okay, maybe one or two of them once said “Well, um, I like movies, can I go to college for that?” No, I like to think that, like me, they had a long-standing burning desire to create, to express themselves, their worldview, to tell stories and to connect with others, to make work that resonates.

Still, even if we are “good at art”, it is often not enough, we want to be great at it, we want to be perfect.

While I was into acting, theater and film from a very early age, by the time I became a teenager, I think I wanted to become a stand-up comedian, I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. I inhaled comedy, studied it, practiced it, listened to Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Steve Martin over and over again.

I saw Cosby at the York Pennsylvania State Fair when I was 15 and it was breath-taking, life-changing. I am pretty sure that I had never experienced that level of stage craft before but I know that I have never witnessed anything quite like it since. The show was so coherent and cohesive, like an intricate puzzle with many, many pieces that all fit together. Cosby came out on-stage, did one joke that served as something like a thesis statement from which every other joke evolved, even developed into a seemingly unrelated tangent but always came back, always had something to do with the original joke, which he would touch on for a bit and then go off in another direction and so on.

I think I knew, at that moment, deep down, that I could probably never attain that level of perfection, the thing that Nina, Natalie Portman’s character in “Black Swan” is obsessively after.

Also, in a really lucky moment of self-realization, while I was slitting the throat of my comedy career, I admitted to myself that I probably didn’t have what it takes to become an actor. Sure, I had talent but I didn’t have the looks, the body and, most importantly, the drive or the thick skin to make it in the world of making it as an actor.

A friend of mine who was a year ahead of me in high school was nearing graduation and, when I asked her what she was doing about college, she said that she was going to film school and, of course, my reaction was “Well, um, I like movies, can I go to college for that?”

Who knows? Maybe we seek attention and crave adulation. I always tell my students about the role of art in society, that artists are vessels for the human experience, that they cannot help it but take in the world at large, the things around us and then re-present or represent everything from their perspective, hopefully in a way that resonate with those who look at whatever it is that we do. Whatever the reason, we can’t do anything else, our art consumes us.

I can even see the beginnings of it, to a degree in my kids. Three weeks ago, my 16 year old daughter got up on a stage and with grace, poise and passion performed a long, intricate, complicated Beethoven piece in a recital. That one performance was the result of hours and hours of practice during which I can tell you, she sometimes resembled not Vladimir Horowitz but Keith Moon. Sure, practice makes perfect but if can drive you mad sometimes.

My 13 year old daughter has had a number of poems, short stories, book reviews and articles published in very high end literary magazines for young writers. Last year she entered two novel excerpts into a competition for homeschoolers. Both of her entries were among the five finalists and, in the end, she wound up in first and second place. Still, there is little that I can do when I see her in the agony of writer’s block or suffering the self-doubt and second-guesses about our talent that all artists go through.

Choosing an artistic path can be a painful, scary thing. Art succeeds when others respond to it. In order to get a response from an audience we have to put it, ourselves out there, be it as a ballerina, a singer-songwriter, a poet, a painter. Somewhere down the line, we say to ourselves “I think I am pretty good at this” and, in a best case scenario, we work up the confidence to create something, to show something, to play something and people agree with us and encourage us --- often to pursue often at the expense of learning how to do anything practical or developing marketable skills.

I wanted to be a perfect stand-up comedian and I could have driven myself crazy in pursuit of this goal. There is a scene in the wonderful Jerry Seinfeld documentary “Comedian” where, in an effort to rebuild and reinvent his comedy career from the ground up, he pays a visit to Bill Cosby who comes off as uncharacteristically laid back and humble, almost like a holy man of comedy. Seinfeld leaves the meeting speechless, his breath taken away. He is inspired. Maybe if I could have met Cosby when I was 15...

I don’t strive for perfection. I feel like I can never be perfect, that maybe, if I am lucky, I will be good enough. I am not perfect and I never will be. Most of the time, I think I am a pretty good screenwriter. Sometimes I wonder if I am fooling myself or anyone else when I say that this is what I “do.” I learn something new every time that I sit down to write and I know that I can never learn it all, that there isn’t even an “all” to learn, that it is infinite, that it keeps going, that I will never be the black swan or the white swan but somewhere in between, the gray swan.

The horror, the horror?

2010-12-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

There is very little new under the sun, it is often what you do with familiar elements, how you employ them in unconventional ways that is most impressive. Often, for many writers, the first instinct is to go with the obvious plot element, the idea that pops into your mind first, which is usually something that you have seen in another movie, probably more than once. So, it can be a really good discipline to recognize that first instinct and then look for something else.

A few nights ago, I delivered the screenplay for what I call a non-scary horror movie. I like horror movies and I like slasher films but I feel that it has all been done before, we all know what is going to happen: much of the time, a group of kids is going to find themselves in a situation where they are getting killed off one by one, end of story.

For me, the "horror" elements, the stalking and killing scenes have been so over-done that it's become monotonous, not very scary and, too much of the time, just an excuse for the f//x guys to go wild with gore -- who cares about the killing anymore?

Let me digress and talk about sex for awhile. Sex, yes, that got your attention. I usually fast forward through sex scenes. Why? Because I know what happens when people have sex. No matter how many variations we can come up with, it usually comes down to some version of Insert “Flap A into Slot B.” Yes, characters having sex is often an important plot element but actually seeing them have sex is usually superfluous and, when you get right down to it, gratuitous. Put it this way, I haven’t seen many sex scenes that further my understanding of the characters. They had sex, fine. They did it this way and that way --- probably unimportant.

I do not watch porn. I really have no need to watch people doing it. Bill Cosby once said “When I am hungry, I don’t watch a film of two people eating.” However, when I worked in a video store, one of my responsibilities was fixing broken VHS tapes. I would cut out the damaged section of the movie, splice the tape back together and test it out to see if it would play.

Sometimes I had to work on porn tapes and I would have to watch them in order to gauge the success of my repair work. So, here I was, for the first time, with a pile of porn tapes that I had to look at and what did I do? I fast-forwarded through the sex scenes and watched the “dramatic” material in between the sex, looking for acting and good dialogue. Needless to say, I found very little of either -- acting or good dialogue.

So, it is sort of the same thing with me and horror films. What I like to see in horror films are the non-horror moments, character development, who these people are and how they are dealing with the situation ---- something that I rarely see. So that is sort of what I set out to do in this horror screenplay.

Bear with me: It is about a group of bitchy, popular high school girls who bully an outcast, a lonely, awkward, artsy "weird" girl and who commits suicide.

The story zips ahead four or five years and the girls are now "adults", not really friends with each other anymore, largely out of touch until one of them dies mysteriously. They all reunite at the funeral and hang out for awhile afterward.

Old feelings are stirred when they discover that there might be a connection to the their friends murder and the suicide of the girl in high school or that it could just be a coincidence. They all start becoming acutely aware of this event from their past --- stories about teen suicide, internet bullying etc. everywhere they go. One of them even stumbles upon a tribute video to the girl on You Tube.

Then another girl dies. Then another. One girl really believes that there is a connection and that, if they go to the police they might be able to figure out who the killer is and get protection but the other girl(s) don't want anyone to know their story etc., etc.

Eventually, it comes down to the "good" girl, the one who wants to come clean about their involvement in the girl's suicide, and the "bad" girl, who is now an up-and-coming actress who doesn't want to jeopardize her career. They argue, the bad girl is really mean to the good girl, who storms off, distraught.

SPOILER ALERT -- If you really think that you might actually watch this film and you do not want the end to be ruined, skip the next paragraph.

The killer shows up, the bad girl runs to get the good girl only to find that she has committed suicide just like the first girl. The killer gets the bad girl, The End.

I left out big chunks and important details of the story but my point is that this is almost an anti-horror horror film, there are some scary moments but, mostly, it is about the girls sitting around, talking about feeling guilty or denying their guilt about what they did. Definitely not been-there-done-that --- whether or not it will translate into a successful film is another question.

Years ago, when I was writing film reviews for a national magazine, I got a “fan” letter from the director of a horror film that I liked and wrote a good review of. The director thanked me profusely and expressed appreciation for me because I really “got” what he was trying to do with the film. We stayed in touch, became really friendly, when this project emerged, he asked me to take a crack at the screenplay and I jumped at the chance. He is under no obligation to me to use my screenplay, he just asked if I wanted to do something with his premise and I took the challenge. With great trepidation, I sent the screenplay to the director, knowing that he wanted to make a horror film but that, what I wrote was more of a talky, indie art film with sporadic horror elements. He wrote to me halfway through reading the screenplay and told me that he plans to shoot it. I believe “shadow.man” will be produced in Houston early next year. Be afraid? Be very afraid?

Not Waiting To Exhale

2010-11-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

I should be grading my students screenplays but I am not. I should be grading the revisions of the screenplays that I graded last week but I am not. I should be working on at least one of the three feature screenplays that I have committed to write but I am not. I should be working on the revisions of the feature that I doctored over the summer but I am not. I should be working on one short screenplay and revising another but I am not.

I should not be holding my breath, thinking anxiously about what is going on in L.A. but I am. I should know better, I have been down this road before. People have expressed interest in producing my work in the past. One-time Indie hot-shot production company InDigEnt was interested in my favorite screenplay, Incorporated, years ago and I even had informal commitments from name talent but it never happened. Aftermath was optioned last year, the option expires in almost two months, the producer told me that they were hoping to shoot it this fall, which, last time I checked, is sort of around now. No word on any Aftermath production. Come January I could be faced with an offer to re-option it and send it back into development oblivion for who-knows-how-long or I could regain the rights and try to make it happen on my own, once again. No, I have learned to not hold my breath.

And yet, here I sit, grasping for air as my mind runs wild. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. I do have work to do, stuff to keep me busy and, if I ever feel idle time creeping in, there is always Facebook.

I had a speaking engagement last Thursday night. I’d compiled a bunch of clips from movies depicting inter-faith relationships between Jews and others. First I gave a little speech about movies, the film industry, relationships and cultural identity, next I presented the clips and then I moderated a discussion between an audience of nearly 300 people and a panel of rabbis and people in “mixed” relationships. Good times. It went well, I was “on”, knew my stuff, engaged, entertained and even got quite a few laughs.

I got home later that night, checked e-mail and found one from a former student who works in development for a fairly prominent producer-director, a guy who has had his fair share of hit films, worked with big stars and so on. The last time that I spoke with this student, he asked if I would be interested in adapting a beloved children’s classic for this director -as if it has not been made a number of times already. No, I would not be interested in adapting this book for the screen. “Yes”, I enthusiastically replied, “I could really get into doing that.” It never happened. Good thing I wasn’t holding my breath.

The e-mail last week was not about adapting a beloved children’s classic:

From: R**** T**** <****@gmail.com>
To: David Greenberg
Sent: Thu, November 4, 2010 10:08:23 PM
Subject: low budget noir

Hey David:

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

I was wondering if you had any unproduced low-budget noir scripts? W***** is looking for something low-budget while he's in L.A.
--
R**** T*****
S******** Studios
(323) ***-****

If I did not have a low-budget noir screenplay sitting around, I would not be writing this post. A few years ago, an author hired me to adapt his steamy, sleazy novel about a beautiful young gold-digger, her much older billionaire husband and the guys who kidnap her into a screenplay. Even he acknowledged that my version of the story was much better than the book that got published.

I know in my heart that I have done all I can do: I have written a really good, deliriously nasty low-budget neo-noir that can be easily adapted to their specifications, I have sent it in -- heck, I even cut this student a little break a few years ago when he needed a decent grade from me in order to graduate. So, no, I am not holding my breath, not letting my mind run wild with fantasies of this being “the one” that finally makes it happen. No, I am not doing any of those things but I am not doing much else. Maybe it’s time to get back to those other student screenplays because you never know...

"Spring Break" Summer Vacation

2010-09-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

In 2010, I have doctored no less than four feature length screenplays, written two features from scratch and written a short history of photography as part of The Daily Book Of Photography” that will be published in hardback on October 1rst.
___________________________________________________________________

August 2010
I woke up in the dumps on a Sunday a few weeks ago, depressed, defeated and demoralized for some reason. Not for some reason, some random reason. I decided to give up, to finally close the book on this stupid, pointless dream of being a writer or a filmmaker or, dare I even mention that I had considered doing both --- writing and making movies?

Everywhere I turn, it seems like someone I know is making a film or knows someone who is making a film and that’s what I want to do, what I have wanted to do for so long and I am not now, nor have I ever really been doing it.

Keep in mind that I was in a really bad mood, just feeling bad. I know that it is all crap. With all due respect, many of the films that have been made by some of the people I know, are quite unlikely to go anywhere -- maybe a festival screening here or there, but, more likely, straight to dvd oblivion if they go anywhere at all.

Of course, that is the dream, or at least part of it, anyway: make a film and have people see it. Sure, making a film, having millions of people pay millions of dollars to see it, would be pretty nice too but is, at this point, maybe unrealistic for me (and others) anyway. Don’t get me started on the topic of the movies that millions of people are paying millions of dollars to see.

Anyway, I’d had enough. I had spent the past few months struggling through a re-write or re-conceiving of a screenplay by someone else who feels that he has a good chance of getting it made. Why was it such a struggle? It was a half-decent screenplay to begin with and, after months and months of working on it, I am not sure that I can say that it is notably better, different or even good. I did not feel especially creative or inspired while working on it.

So, I simply don’t even know if I can write anymore, if I ever could write, if I should even bother trying. I submitted query after query, responded to ad after ad, really worked the system as best as I could but never got any bites, not even any responses. I decided to call it quits.

Okay, you know that this is just me whining, is not the complete truth. By my estimate, since 2003 or so, I have probably sent out 8000 e-mails to producers, directors, production companies -- some of who were actually soliciting writers. Of the 8000 e-mails, I have probably had 200 responses, of the 200 responses, I have gotten about 20 jobs, of the 20 jobs, fewer than 10 paid anything and, in the end, 1 feature film that I was hired to write was produced, albeit with a screenplay dramatically altered by the director and 1 original screenplay has been optioned.

Okay, so maybe I have nothing to be embarrassed about, I have beaten some considerable odds but I do feel that I have earned the right to be demoralized.

Later that Sunday night, not exactly out of the blue, I was asked to write a draft of “Spring Break Massacre 2” and, believe it or not, getting the gig really changed everything --- well, if not everything, a lot of things, primarily my attitude.

No, “Spring Break Massacre 2” is unlikely to make anyone forget “Citizen Kane” but I was really psyched to be writing it and enthusiastically threw myself into the project. I was not going to be much money from it but it was better than no money. A family film that I wrote -unwisely, for deferred pay- was supposed to shoot this summer and, had the investor not backed out in pre-production, it would have paid me almost ten times as much as “Spring Break Massacre 2.”

However, at this point, it was not about the money, it is really about the work and, oddly, I felt invigorated, like I had gotten a second chance, like I might be able to put off quitting for awhile.

So, I got a treatment from the director of “SBM2” and got down to business, felt “it” while writing and banged out half of the screenplay in a matter of days. Now, if anyone actually reads this blog, I am going to guess that this reader has not seen the original “Spring Break Massacre.” Shot in just a few days, for a few thousand dollars and then mired in a prolonged legal battle, it was finally released to DVD this year and, apparently, is doing killer business, especially overseas and nothing inspires sequels like a solid return on investment from the original.

As I was turning in my pages in ten page blocks, I was getting regular updates from the director as he was meeting with producers and investors. Time was getting tight and, fast as I was writing, they needed a script a.s.a.p. but, it seems, more than my script, he really wanted creative input and feedback, to be sure he was doing the right thing. Midway through writing my screenplay, I heard that they had made changes to the original treatment and commissioned another draft of the screenplay by another writer but, the director told me, I was to keep writing my version.

The second treatment was written, approved and then a third treatment was written, this time by the producers and investors who had decided to shoot for a comedy with slasher film elements rather than the slasher film with comedic elements that I was initially asked to write. A new screenplay was written, sent to me for my opinion and I really liked it.

There are now one and a half lines of my dialogue and a scene that was adapted from one of mine by in the new version and I am cool with it all. This is the way the business works and, in the end, I predict that “Spring Break Massacre 2” will do even better than the first one. My credit went from “co-writer” to “additional dialogue by” to, finally, in part at my suggestion, “special thanks to...” Shooting starts November 15th.

So, it was back to the dumps for me. No fat credit on a likely dvd “hit”, no paycheck, no new prospects on the horizon -- though the SBM/SBM2 director has “Bait & Tackle”, a screenplay that he asked me to write last year.

September 2010
I am currently writing a short film for another director. The guy who gave me my first screenwriting jobs back in 1996 just asked me if I am interested in collaborating on a feature idea that he has. I am open to anything, expecting nothing but hoping for something.

At one point last week, I found myself chatting with three people at the same time on facebook. One guy was a twenty-something 2010 film school grad who is finding life in the “real world” to be a bit of a wake-up call. Another guy was a thirty-something guy with one feature under his belt and a new short film that he was expressing anxiety about. The third guy was a forty-something successful commercial director who is eager to do more, to make features and has a lot to offer but is frustrated by his experiences with “the industry.”

So, there I was, licking my wounds, just about at rock bottom with nothing to lose, not much to look forward to and what did I find myself doing? I listened to people, I was there for them, present, supportive and encouraging when they needed someone to talk to and, while I am not going to support my family or realize my dreams by doing this kind of thing, I felt good.

1 in 4000

2010-07-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

Why bother anymore? What’s the point of trying to make art, to be creative, to even dream about being successful, let alone earning a living doing something I love? These are questions that I feel that I should be asking myself regularly, if not every day but I am not. For some reason I am still trying to do it.

I once heard Barbra Streisand relay an anecdote about a young, aspiring actor asking her “Should I be an an actor?” to which she replied, “If you have to ask, the answer is ‘no’.”

As I have probably written before, I always just assumed that filmmaking and screenwriting were youthful pursuits that I would eventually grow out of when it came time to become and adult and make a living. But it hasn’t happened, I haven’t grown out of those dreams and I am not exactly making a living as an adjunct professor. I am basically getting by, still scrambling for work semester-to-semester, getting a screenwriting gig here, a book gig there (the photography book that I contributed to comes out in the fall) and I even have a speaking engagement coming up, moderating a discussion on depictions of inter-faith relationships in the movies.

Anyway, to “promote my name”, “get myself out ‘there’” (and see a lot of movies for free) I contribute reviews to IndieTalk.com. The last statistic that I saw on the matter, said that, at any given time, there are approximately 4000 indie films in production around the country.

When I read the trade magazines and check out IndieWire, MovieMaker and I look at the actors, directors and producers who I am friends with on facebook, all of whom have this thing and that going on and I imagine all of the actors, directors and producers I am not friends with, 4000 films seems an accurate number --- even if less than 400 will ever see the light of day, play a festival or two much less get some kind of distribution regardless of quality. Of the dozens, if not hundreds of titles that have passed through my dvd player over the past five years or so, I have seen some really good, worthy films wither away without ever finding distribution and I have seen barely competent productions secure solid deals.

So, last Saturday I received and watched a film by a young writer/director/cinematographer from South Jersey. “No Footing” is about a young woman who, eighteen months after graduating from college with a degree in fine art, finds herself working in a copy shop, designing business cards and flyers, stuck in a rut, watching helplessly as friends from high school get real jobs and start families. The film is by no means great but it is a decent little low-budget indie with nice production values, camerawork and acting, better than most of the films I have had to review and, more than anything, I really related to it on many levels.

Watching a film about a girl just out of college, full of hopes, dreams and ambitions, it was pretty hard to avoid looking inward and back at the twenty-three years since I graduated, wondering what I have done with my life, how much I have accomplished - or not.

Don’t think, for a moment, that I am complaining. I have a good life, a beautiful family, nice house in a great neighborhood and there is some money trickling in.

Back to hopes and dreams? Okay, I can’t exactly complain there either. In 1988, after working on two feature films, back to back with only one day off between them and, somewhere in there seeing Woody Allen’s “Crimes And Misdemeanors”, I decided that I wanted to be a screenwriter.

A lot of people want to be screenwriters and part of the way I earn a living is by teaching people how to be screenwriters. It’s a hard field to break into and, if I haven’t exactly broken into it, I have made a little dent in the door. If everyone who wanted to be a screenwriter, was actually working as a screenwriter, there might be a whole more than 4000 a year movies out there.

I had a volley of e-mails back and forth with the director of “No Footing” and tried to be encouraging as he told me that the film has been rejected from festival after festival.

I am re-writing a screenplay for someone who has a good chance of getting it made. When I finish that screenplay, I am writing a short comedy. A filmmaker whose films I have not liked in the past, who sent me a screenplay to read that I wound up trashing, has asked me how much I would charge to re-write a screenplay of his that is likely to find funding, I told him and he agreed to my rate. Who knows where any of this will go, if it will amount to anything? I do not know but, for some reason, that does not stop me from moving forward.

Does “No Footing” sound interesting? It might. Do you want to see it? You can’t, it has not yet gotten a distribution deal and there is no guarantee that it ever will but there is hope.

No, but I read the...

2010-06-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

How do I know that I am back from vacation?
1) It was about 90 degrees in Philly today.
2) I didn’t take any naps.
3) When I look out my front window, I don’t see any water.
4) I didn’t read 200 pages of fiction today.

I could probably go on and on but that would be depressing so I am going to focus, for awhile anyway, on #4 but re-phrase it. How do I know when I am on vacation? I average about 200 pages of fiction or creative non-fiction a day. Yes, I read about 800 pages last week. Of course, that number is nothing for big readers or “real” readers. I do enjoy reading, I just don’t do enough of it when I am not in Maine for a week. I read. Of course, I read. It is a big, big, big part of my job to read. In the heat of the school year, I can read as many as fifty student screenplays in a week and, if that sounds like a lot, it is but it is not the same as 800 pages of fiction.

Screenwriting, as I teach it, is almost the antithesis of conventional prose writing and it takes me awhile to adjust to reading books. Screenwriting is closer to music composition than it is to prose. A film, like a symphony, is meant to be experienced in a single, uninterrupted sitting. Would you leave an orchestra’s performance of your favorite Beethoven piece mid-way through and then return the next night to hear the rest of it? Have you ever driven around longer than necessary or stayed in the driveway after your arrival because your favorite song was on the radio? Screenwriters and filmmakers strive to create a piece of visceral, visual music, something that draws you in, sweeps you up in it’s drama and carries you away. Do not hit the pause button!

So, I read a lot of fiction while I was away: “A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby and “The Corrections” by Jonathan Frazen. Wow. I am so glad that I am a screenwriter because I could never be a novelist. As a writer, I love to read books that would be ill-suited to cinematic adaptations. I love reading a book and thinking, “This could never be a movie!” Partially, I think that movies and fiction are completely (okay, largely) different art forms and lately, I feel like I have been coming across a number of books that are really thinly veiled movie-bait. All due respect to her, but it is pretty hard to not imagine Rowling sitting there, writing Harry Potter and thinking “This would be a great movie!”

I remember reading “Shopgirl”, the harrowing, hilarious novella about clinical depression by Steve Martin, truly one of my idols and such a major influence on me. “Wow,” I thought, “this could never be made into a film, how wonderful.” Later, on NPR, I heard Martin talking about how he thought that the book could never be made into a film --- and then changing his mind about it. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the film version (for the record, I haven’t liked most of his films), disappointed that Martin had second guessed his first instinct about the book and even more disappointed that he had miscast himself in a crucial part. We’re cool now, he made it up to me with his memoir, “Born Standing Up.”

Of course, I had to go ahead and dare myself, I couldn’t just let things lie, could I? What’s the point anyway, I would have found out soon enough. With great trepidation, a gnawing in my gut, I made a quick trip to IMDb and found that adaptations of both “A Long Way Down” and “The Corrections” are on the boards for 2011 and 2012. I guess that’s the way it goes. Maybe I’ll just read the dictionary on vacation next year. Maybe I’ll just work on screenplays while I’m away --- I would have gotten so much more work done this year if I had not brought so many really good books with me.

Vacation: Had To Get Away

2010-06-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, in case you're wondering, I did hear the old Go-Go's chestnut "Vacation" on the radio today as I was scurrying around, taking care of last minute stuff before heading off on our annual jaunt to the coast of Maine tomorrow.

Everyone is really looking forward to being away. A look into the future (aka the five day forecast) shows chilly temperatures and rain for our first few days and we don’t care. Being away is about chilling, it is about what we don't do as much as it is about the activities we have planned. We plan to sit and read and sit and read and sit and read -- with regular long, long walks on the beach that lies just beyond our yard. I can’t rule out the possibility of a board game or two entering the equation.

Beyond reading and walking however, I plan to write. With the blessing of little to no internet access to distract me, last year, I wrote two screenplays in about four days. Granted the legwork had been done well in advance, I had treatments and notes ready to go so, when it came time to write, I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.

So, I am going for it again, I have screenplay to rewrite or re-imagine for someone, a director who already has one feature to his credit and feels that this old script could be his next project but that it needs to be taken to a new place. Even though I sort of like it as is, I am under orders to add some Alfred Hitchcock, some David Lynch, some John Ford, some Salvador Dali and a little Fellini. Fun. Picture "Twin Peaks" meets "Touch Of Evil" with a dash of "The Exorcist."

Next, to lighten the mood, another Philly director has asked me write a short comedy about a model becoming an actor. I am looking forward to this project too because it is a world that I look forward to playing in and also because I rarely get to flex my comedy muscles on the page.

Oddly, I think I am a pretty funny guy in real life. I am not someone who suffers from an over abundance of self-confidence in many areas but I do think I have one healthy sense of humor. Sometimes I genuinely feel that my mission in life is to make people laugh and, okay, if it's not my mission, it's something I have been pretty good at since I was little and it seems to make people like me. Nothing too odd about that. What is a little odd, or maybe not, is that when I sit down to write, what comes out is rarely funny (go ahead, start singing “Tears Of A Clown”), instead it is my dark, sometimes very dark, nasty, misanthropic side gets to come out here and there. I guess it's all about balance.

Finally, if I get through these two projects and I don’t get another paying gig, I might actually have time to work on something of my own, something that, of all things, balances dark and light, humor and horror, just like me, just like life, right? That’s what I like.

AN UPDATE on various projects:
The Mumbai trip seems to have been a bust. Nobody was interested in the projects that my director friend was pitching. Too bad, actually a bit of a surprise but I guess that’s the way it goes.

The family film is now in crisis. The investor just backed out so it is unlikely to shoot this summer. Of all things, a former student who is now working in L.A. contacted me to see if I knew anyone who might be interested in working on some family films. I have put him in touch with the director of the film that just lost its backers and.... who knows?

However, if I do my job well and finish the “Twin Peaks” meets “Touch Of Evil” screenplay, it could shoot later this summer.

Oui. Non. Oui. Non.

2010-06-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

I should be looking for some work now because, as of this past Tuesday, I have taught my last class and I am basically unemployed until September.

I should not be looking for screenwriting work.

I should not be entertaining new screenwriting jobs, especially jobs that might only sort of "pay" somewhere down the line but, once again, this is where I find myself.

I have projects. I am doing a radical overhaul on a creepy, supernatural/religious thriller, making more "Twin Peaks" meets "Touch Of Evil." It is a good screenplay to begin with and making it better has been a lot of fun, it's like adding more icing to the icing on the cake.

There are the Indian projects that I am waiting to hear about: two films, one is an original story and the other is an adaptation of a novel. The director is in Mumbai pitching them right now.

So, why did I respond to an ad for a writer? I guess I thought I might get paid.

They got a lot of responses from writers, narrowed it down to me and a few others and picked me. Nice.

Details emerged. The film is a foreign production set in the U.S. but with an international flair. That is, these guys have a lot that they want to tackle in this film, big issues that make the news every day, topics that involve the U.S., other countries and the relationship to the U.S. and these other countries -- not to mention the cultural/ethnic element.

They are unhappy with the screenplay that they have and they want me to fix it. They sent it to me, I didn't like it, found it heavy-handed and, even worse, not compelling and I told them so. I passed on the job. End of story. Or so I thought.

So impressed with my perceptions about the screenplay and my brutal honesty, they asked me if I would write a radically new version of the screenplay, incorporating their agenda and "whatever it needs" to make me as a writer interested in writing it. I agreed.

Then I got their agenda.

Notice that I have not mentioned what issues they want to deal with?

Sure, I have political views and thoughts about society but I have never been one to wear them on my sleeve per se. Yes, you can tell that I am an earthy crunchy liberal democratic Jew just by looking at me, you really can.

I appreciate the need to be vocal about issues and push the agenda but I not the one to do it and the producer and director of this film have a lot of things to express in no uncertain terms and I am not 100% comfortable giving my voice to them. I agree with some things, disagree with other things but, no matter how I feel about their message, I do not think that I am the one to deliver it for them, certainly not as emphatically as they want to have it expressed. I backed out of the project, told them that I am not up to the challenge --- and politics or not, it was a challenging project (no female characters allowed???) and really more than I think I can handle at this point. Give me a good haunted church any day and I'll be happy.

They have responded with another e-mail, this time appealing to me as an artist who should stretch, who should challenge myself with this project. I haven't responded to the e-mail.

They have already called twice today. I let the machine get it.

What now?

2010-05-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

What now?
I don't think I have posted anything here for about a month. Bad blogger, bad!

As usual, I am deep in a little of this, a little of that, hoping some of it sticks, blooms, grows, does something productive etc. There have been so many projects that I have worked on and, yes, gotten paid for, that have not gone anywhere and it's tough because everything is out of my hands.

I get hired to write something, I get paid (some of the time anyway, even if it is less than minimum wage) and, naturally, I want to see it get produced. No, actually, it is not enough for me to get paid to write screenplays because a screenplay in and of itself is nothing but a pile of paper until someone turns it into a movie. A symphony is nothing but lines and dots on a piece of paper until musicians perform it. A blueprint is just a picture until contractors use it to make a building.

So, no matter what I am working on --- yes, I wrote a screenplay about a vegetarian who becomes a cannibal --- I give it my best shot, make it as good as possible because I want to satisfy the client, I want to get hired again and, yes, because I want to see the movie but once I deliver the script, I am usually out of the game. I am not a producer, I can't get a film made. Similarly, if a film of mine does get made, I am at the mercy of those who are making the film, hoping that they take care of my baby. Don't get me started on this element of cinematic childcare --- let's just say that I need to explore other options. For the record, the cannibal film was produced but without, so I am told, my script because, in the words of the director, my "dialogue was too good for the caliber of actors we can afford." Yes, I got screwed on that one.

So, as summer 2010 approaches, I eagerly anticipate, once again, the actual production of one of my screenplays. "The Scare" (their title, not mine), a psychological thriller that I did a major overhaul on, is supposed to be shooting this June in New York. "Painted", a family film that I was hired to write, is in pre-production according to the website, as of May 17th and expected to shoot in California during July and August.

Finally, word from L.A. is that, after being on the back-burner for a few months, "Aftermath" is moving up to the front-burner in anticipation of a fall shoot in L.A. and I can only hope that childcare does right by me this time.

After way too long, I am coming to realize that I shouldn't be such a baby about people screwing with my work, re-writing my screenplays in production etc, because so much of my work these days is re-writing other people's screenplays or taking their ideas for films and turning them into my idea of how to turn it into a screenplay.

So, as mentioned before, I am deep in it, reading screenplays for people, doing a major overhaul on one for a director who has people ready to hear his pitch, waiting for word from Mumbai about a project that is being pitched there right now, working on a treatment for an adaptation of a book that I can barely get through and reading screenplays for former students who both plan to shoot their films this summer.

The mail just arrived and in it was a rough copy of a new film by Benny Mathews, who wants my opinion. Years ago, I reviewed Benny's film "Santeria" for Home Media Entertainment Magazine, really liked it and he sent me a "fan" letter, thanking me for understanding his film so well. We have been friendly ever since and hope to collaborate on something one day.

(I also got a "fan" letter from "Shoot 'Em Up" director Michael Davis because I raved about his previous film "Monster Man", because I was the only reviewer who "got" the film and, on the strength of my review, he speculated that it would get a theatrical run in Europe, which would then pave the way for a bigger budget follow-up, which wound up being "Shoot 'Em Up.")

I am also expecting an advance copy of "Green", the second feature by my former student, the wildly talented Nick Gregorio. Nick co-wrote, produced, directed, starred in the wonderful "Happy Birthday Harris Malden" which made a little splash in the indie world a few years ago and I am really eager to see this new film, having read the screenplay last year. Nick stopped by my class yesterday to say "hi" and that the DVD would be coming soon.

If I can't yet see my own work produced, it is genuinely gratifying for me to see other people in my circle get to see their work produced. They know that I'm here for them and I know that they're here for me. Now, that's good care!

Has it come to this?

2010-04-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Read the attached article here, "Has Hollywood Finally Killed The Screenwriter."
Yikes but, the fact is, it's pretty dead on.
People hire me to write screenplays for them, I write the script and they tell me to make changes and I make changes until they stop telling me to make changes.

In my class yesterday, a student whose script goes into production this weekend as a group project, had to sit and watch in horror as he officially lost control of it, as the producer said to him, "I have to play producer here and say that the script is finished, there's no more time to tinker with it."

Brutal, yes. Heartbreaking for the writer, yes. Hard for me to see it happening to another writer, yes. But, I have to admit that that producer did the right thing. The script had been revised by committee several times and the production was two days away from the first table read, six days away from shooting. Sometimes it just has to be like that.

Of course, in my experience with "Aftermath", the producers optioned my 80 page screenplay and hired me to do re-writes. Over the course of six months, I turned in numerous drafts, I got over 120 pages of notes, the page count eventually rose to 106 pages and then, of all things, began to decrease to, guess what....82 pages, where it now stands.

Last week, I turned in first draft of a screenplay to the producer/director who hired me. He took out some of my stuff, added in some of his stuff, sent it back to me for another pass and then, after that, asked me to change/add/replace some more material.

I don't know what I am exactly saying here but this is the way it is: Go strong or go home(?).

http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/features/j%E2%80%99accuse-has-hollywood-finally-killed-the-screenwriter.php

Who, what, where?

2010-04-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

I have a screenplay due on April 15th. I am not even at 50 pages into it yet and the goal is 90. Am I worried? Not really. I have a solid treatment and lots of notes to work from. It should be a breeze. Of course, it won't be and I will be scrambling late into the night, early morning and, quite possibly, the late afternoon to finish it.
Why? Because I just finished doctoring another Bollywood screenplay, I am doctoring a thriller and, because the muse hit (and when she hits, she hits hard), I paused to write a short film for a director who is looking for material.

So, I am having trouble keeping track of what I am working on, where it's going, who I am supposed to be working for and what I am supposed to be doing next/now --- so I blog.

Back to the real world --- one of the guys who I am writing for is im-ing me on fb.

Paranormal trend

2010-03-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, big surprise, when a movie hits it big, everyone wants to do their own version of it. Case in point, in the space of about an hour yesterday, I was asked to work on two different "Paranormal Activity" type screenplays by two different producers and this is in addition to the one I already worked on back in January. Whatever works.

Just say "yes"?

2010-03-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Moments ago, I got a Facebook comment from a nearby filmmaker who has a Sundance-backed feature brewing. He says he could use my help with something --- presumably this feature with the pretty decent budget. How can I say "no"? I need to get something out there that has my name on it. I need to make some money. Simple, right?

I am currently doctoring a US/Bollywood screenplay, writing a family film and a short sci-fi political allegory. On top of all that, I recently dusted off a pet project, the treatment for a screenplay that I'd started last year and now think could be a viable project for me to produce --- much like "Aftermath", the script that was optioned to an L.A. producer last year, it is a grungy, low-budget real time piece.

The question is: How do I do it all?

There is one school of thought that says beginning screenwriters should not work for free or deferred pay because it sends the wrong message to producers who think they can walk all over us -- which, to some degree, is true. On the other hand, I have to start somewhere, get my name out there so that, maybe, someone will hire me.

So, I guess that's why I do it, say "yes" to everything, even if it kills me.

I have the Indian script due on 3/31 but it's going well. The family film is due 4/15 and it's going well. Will I ever get to the point where I can write one or two screenplays a year and be happy? If I do get to that point will I be happy or will I miss the days when I had to run around, chasing down gigs that might or might not pay, might or might not get made?

Or will I just get a real job?

Blahg! What am I doing? Where am I going?

2010-03-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

In my defense, I read scripts all day and when I am not reading them for students or friends, I am writing them, so if it seems that I barely blog it is because I barely blog.

What am I doing? Well, in January, February and the beginning of March, I wrote a book on the history of photography. Okay, I didn't write a book, but I contributed 45 250 word articles on the subject to a general book on photography. Fun!

At the same time, I was doctoring a screenplay, a creepy psychological thriller set primarily in an old apartment. Since, I love Polanski's creepy apartment films "Repulsion" and "The Tenant" and, sure, why not, "Rosemary's Baby", I used this opportunity to attempt something like one of those. Of course, I was working from an existing story, had little time and even less hope of actually getting paid for this thing so I did what I could with what I was given to work with. I hear that it is supposed to be shooting now but, what do I know, I am only the writer/co-writer/doctor.

Now -- it should be now, I should be writing right now -- I am working on a family film. More fun! Next up, a re-write of an Indian film.

I better get back to work.

something like a bio?

2010-02-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, my parents were beatniks/hippies who more concerned with saving the world through progressive education than they were in earning a living and providing for their family. They separated when I was 10, divorced when I was 13 --- that year (1978) my father took me, my sister and twin brothers cross-country for six months. Fun!

I returned to the alternative private high school that my father had started (private school free for me, why not?). I developed a crush on classmate back then and we have been married for almost 18 years. We have two daughters.

My parents had both been show-biz oriented as kids. My mother was actress up through college (she found out that she was pregnant with me two weeks before her graduation, thus the end of her acting career) and my father was a professional tap dancer as a teenager.

So, I guess I got the show-biz genes from them, started acting as a kid and also became a movie junkie, not just watching them but reading about them and the behind-the-scenes of production, finally starting to make my own Super 8 films when I was 9 at elementary school. Have you seen "A History Of Violence"? The Oscar-nominated screenwriter was two years ahead of me in school. Quentin Tarantino's executive producer was in my class from nursery school to sixth grade. The producer of "Lost In Translation" was two years behind me.

So, from an early age, I wanted to be a filmmaker and I always just thought that I would grow out of it and get a "real job." Never happened.

I always say that screenwriting or filmaking is like drinking, smoking or doing drugs ---- it might look appealing to some people even though we all know that it usually only winds up being destructive and we know we shouldn't do it, do it anyway and, by the time we decide that we want to stop, it's pretty hard.

I was a film major at Temple, an unremarkable student. I worked on two feature films back-to-back a year after college. I went from working (for free) on a low-budget indie film where everyone did everything for three or four months, finishing on a Saturday and going to work on a big budget Hollywood film on the following Monday, working one boring job day in and day out, making buckets of money and the study in contrasts was really life changing.

I saw so many inflated egos and so much financial waste on the Hollywood film that it really turned my stomach. It was during this time that the whole 'independent film' movement was becoming more high profile and I drifted towards it creatively and philosophically. I liked those kind of films and I wanted to make those kind of edgy, offbeat films.

I took a bit of time off between 1988 and 1990 to be the primary care-giver to my mother when she was terminally ill. When she was diagnosed with cancer in 1985 she became an AIDS activist, working as a volunteer to help patients because she felt that like cancer had been when she younger, people were afraid to talk about AIDS. People Magazine did a story about her, she was on the cover of the Philadelphia Inquirer and was ABC News' Person Of The Week in 1988.

In 1991, a screenplay of mine was a semi-finalist for the prestigious Sundance Institute's screenwriter's lab ---- out of 500 applicants, they chose 24 semi-finalists and from them, 12 got into the lab.

In 1995 my short film, "The True Meaning Of Cool" won an award from the American Film Institute. The art of film is getting people to believe that they are seeing something when they are actually seeing something else. So, when I say that I have an award from the AFI, people are impressed. The reality is that I entered the film into 30 festivals, was rejected by 29 and was a runner up in the AFI sponsored contest. So, sure I have a hunk of plastic on my desk that says AFI but the illusion I've created is less impressive than the reality. Everyone does this!

Really, the bulk of my adult life has been in retail, much of it in video stores, something I loved for quite a long time. I was the movie guy in an extremely high profile, popular store, part of a staff of wacky characters, all of whom were incredibly knowledgeable about film. I drifted into teaching in 1999.

Now, I am an adjunct instructor, barely earning a living, always scrambling for work. My original screenplay "Aftermath" was optioned by an LA producer last year, I got a chunk of change (most of which went to pay for my daughter's bat mitzvah) and I am waiting to see if they actually make it, give me more money and, hopefully, see my career launched. I have written or doctored 20 (give or take) screenplays since 2006, one of which was produced but with a script radically re-written by the director and the rest of which are either in various stages of development or just gathering dust in the office of the person who hired me to write it.

My hope is that one or two of these scripts will be produced, take off and launch me so that I can make a living as a screenwriter and eventually direct my own stuff.

I left a lot out but I guess that's it. Any questions?

Rated PG? Me?

2010-02-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

So, it looks like I am going to be writing a PG family film. NOTE TO SELF: No matter what, climax cannot involve the kids riding their bikes REALLY FAST in order to save the park/school play/wildlife preserve/grand old building/mythical creature/magic animal etc.

Pre-sold franchises

2010-02-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I think that they're going to keep going with the super-hero movies because they are pre-sold franchises, known entities with built-in fan bases that will come out in support or out of curiosity.

It's so hard to introduce anything "new" these days -- which is why we see so many movies based on TV shows, comic books, video games, toys or other...

See More movies, ditto Broadway plays based on movies and now, more and more, pop music.

Apparently ticket sales are brisk for the Green Day musical opening in April. Of course, things like this have been going on for years.

Great as it is, "Singin' In The Rain" was conceived a venue to showcase the pre-existing music and that's what begat "Mamma Mia", "Tommy", "Movin' Out", "Jersey Boys" and so on. The concept is really being taken to the extreme with the "Spider-Man" play with music by U2 -- if that ever winds up happening.

My 2 Star Movie

2009-12-22T20:00:00.000-08:00

Last week, one of my better students asked me if I would read his senior thesis screenplay, one of the biggest projects of his college career and it really got me thinking. Here is my response:

Did I like the screenplay? Basically on one level, yes. If this was a movie, I would enjoy it but I think I would enjoy it in the way that I enjoy a candy bar or pizza, it tastes really good going down but, in the end, I know that it is empty, pointless, worthless and, ultimately bad for me.

So, as a guy who likes trashy, junky B movies about hot girls and bad guys and stuff blowing up, I liked it.

As a screenwriting teacher, I feel that it is my job to inspire art, to get students to aim higher than writing screenplays for movies that appeal to the lowest common denominator audience.

Of course, there is something to be said for movies that appeal to that demographic because it encompasses the highest number of people and, of course, the biggest possible box office for your product.

So, honestly, your screenplay feels like a lot of other movies by people of my generation and the generation after mine, are movies that are based on stuff we know from having seen lots of other movies, not stuff that is based on our observations of the world around us.

When Scorsese made "Mean Streets" he was really drawing from the stuff he saw happening in his neighborhood. When Tarantino made "Reservoir Dogs" and Rob Weiss made "Amongst Friends" and Troy Duffy made "Boondock Saints" and all of those other people who made films about young tough guys they all had this detached from reality element that felt Scorsese inspired, like it came from watching films rather than from watching real life and I feel the same thing about "----."

Yes, it is entertaining and fun. I do feel that the cyborg element really comes out of the blue and all of sudden, 3/4 of the way through your tough, whimsical crime movie it becomes a science fiction film. What if, in "Goodfellas" when they go to whack Joe Pesci and shoot him, wires and sparks fly out and he turns into the Terminator?

The hardest that I can be on you is to say that I know that you can do better. "---" with its glorification of sex and violence feels rather juvenile to me, it's a fourteen year old boy's wet dream.

I think the story you told me about concerning the @#$^*** really demonstrated a hint at an ability to do something more original, to put a fresh spin on a familiar situation, entertaining while also commenting on an aspect of the human condition.

Look at your project and ask yourself if it is a 4 star movie, if it is a Grade A screenplay.

If produced, does your screenplay have the potential to be “Citizen Kane”, “The Godfather” or some other movie that historically gets 4 stars?

So, the point here is to be realistic about our work.

If you pick up the movie section of the newspaper, you will see that there are maybe 50 different movies playing in town

In the past three years, I have been hired to write or doctor nearly 20 screenplays and I have 3 new jobs coming up next year and, honestly, I do not know if there is a 4 star screenplay in there.

I know structure and I know formatting and character development and I write good dialogue, plot points, act breaks and all that but that’s only the beginning, lots of people know how to do that stuff and that is why there are so many 3 and 2 star movies, because there are a lot of B and C screenplays, in other words, “average.”

I simply don’t know if I am creative enough, smart enough or deep enough to write a 4 star movie and there is no shame in that. The point is you can teach the nuts and bolts but I don’t know if I can teach you to be creative, deep or smart --- that is called talent.

Avant-garde, moi?

2009-12-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, my background is in sort of avant-garde theater. My biggest influences are Ionesco, Pinter, Stoppard and Albee with significant contributions from Steve Martin and Richard Pryor.

In the past, I was striving to approach film in non-traditional ways but, the more gigs I got as a screenwriter and a screenwriting teacher, the more I had to play the game and utilize conventional three-act structure so my tolerance for films and screenplays that don't use it is now diminished and, unfortunately, I find myself less open-minded about unconventional films.

Part of that is practical as well, I know how hard it is to make a film, how much time, energy and money goes into any film and, at this point, to make a film that, inherently, limits its audience and cuts into its potential return on investment, sort of frustrates me --- as much as I am frustrated by the culture in which we live, where audiences have been conditioned to expect one thing from movies and any film that does something different goes largely ignored by the masses.

Of course, all of that said, I am proud to have sold a screenplay, "Aftermath", that does not employ three-act structure in the conventional sense and still succeeds as entertainment. I was not trying to break the rules but I knew that, given the nature of my production, three-act structure was not going to work for this film.

Something Like That

2009-11-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

I have been networking with writer-director who has one well-regarded indie feature to his credit. He has a new story that he is trying to develop into a screenplay and I have been trying to help. Today he sent me a new take on the story and I responded with an alternative approach, which he questioned, wondered if I was really suggesting what it sounded like I was suggesting and this is how I responded, see if it sounds familiar to you:

"Something like that -- maybe not from opposite sides but maybe from different perspectives.

There has to be enough of an initial connection between them that would make it believable for them to "socialize" but maybe they come from different classes, backgrounds etc. so that both their differences and their similarities can be explored, much like, to tell the truth, a romance: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl get back together in the end, following the classic buddy movie formula as well: opposites attract, then repel and then find some other way --- greater understanding of each other, themselves and the situation they're in.

They initially connect on a professional level, then a personal level, discover differences between them and their perspectives on what is happening but, by that time, they're deep in it, sort of need each other to survive, ultimately overcome their differences and discover their core similarities ----

or something like that."

Beyond that, I have been busy teaching the screenwriters of tomorrow -- or, at least a handful of people who might wind up being screenwriters tomorrow or the next day.

After a bit of a drought this year (sold and got hired to re-write "Aftermath", wrote "Bait & Tackle" and "Used To Love Her"), it looks like, after about six months of no new gigs, I have some new projects brewing for 2010, at least 2 and possibly as many as 5 screenplays to write, some good stuff. Here's hoping or something like that.

Experienced vs.Newbie: Infancy?

2009-10-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

Next, regarding a recent discussion of "experienced" vs. "newbie", I don't
come down definitively on either side.

My own two cents, for whatever two cents coming from me is worth is, all due respect to a guy who actually knows me and has graciously mentioned me as an experienced screenwriter, that, to tell the truth, I don't feel that experienced.

Yes, in the past three years, I have been hired to write or doctor nearly 20 screenplays, sold an original, saw one feature written-for-hire get produced, am expecting 2-3 others to be shot within the next year and I have been teaching college screenwriting classes for the past five years.

My point is that I feel like an infant, okay, maybe a toddler, and that I still feel like I have so,so,so much to learn about the art and science of screenwriting, I feel like I have just begun to crack the surface of what it means to be able to write a screenplay. I have seen movies where I just have to throw my hands in the air and say "You know, I could not have written this screenplay. I am not smart enough, deep enough or creative enough to have written this screenplay."

So, I keep going, learning, everytime I sit down to write, hoping to one day get it "right."

I was there and I saw what you did...

2009-09-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

In an early episode of the seminal TV series “Miami Vice”, ultra cool and extremely fashionable cops Sonny Crocket and Rico Tubbs cruise through the city -serious, determined, somber - as Phil Collins’ classic “In The Air Tonight” simmers and builds to it’s famous thundering crescendo. It was 1983, MTV was exploding and Michael Mann’s TV series was one of the first to incorporate music video techniques and, in turn, probably influenced more than a few videos itself. In any event, I think it inspired a lot of kids to drive around in the middle of the night approximating some degree of their own fashionable gravitas with Collins’ song blasting through the sound system.

Not much of this was new to me. The song was actually released in 1981 and, during that summer, the summer that I was 16, and hanging out on Philly’s legendary South Street, on at least one occasion, it was on the radio, playing in the wee, small hours of the evening as I rode in a car, cruising through the city while most of it’s residents were asleep on a hot summer night.

In the ‘60’s, South Street was Philly’s answer to Greenwich Village, the center of all things Hippie. By the late ‘70’s, many of the hippies had sold out, grown up, died off or otherwise moved on but the street remained a cultural center, albeit with an increasingly mainstream commercial vibe.

1981 was a strange time to be growing up I say, fully realizing that it is probably the growing up part that is strange, rather than the era during which one grows up. I have little doubt that, 30 years from now, there will be 45 years olds thinking about how strange it was to be growing up in the early 21rst Century. In 1981 there were still some hippies around but there was also the emerging punk-new wave sub-culture and the gradual cooling off of Disco Fever. I found myself in the middle of it all, still listening to classic rock but eagerly embracing punk and new wave and mixing it up with some beloved 70’s funk and bubblegum – you know, “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ‘70’s”.

A typical night usually began with a terrible movie at a grungy theater on Chestnut Street, an hour or so of video games at Spaceport or Zounds before heading to South Street for a series of long, leisurely strolls up and down the street, taking in the sights and sounds, bumping into friends, hanging out and, well, let’s face it, checking out girls.

Of course, I was not the only one experiencing this activity. In certain circles throughout Philly, this hanging out on South Street period is a time honored tradition, a rite of passage, if you will, even though there was not much in the way of rites or passage. It’s not like I had never stayed out really late or engaged in a bit of underage drinking but doing it on South Street felt so much better, and probably appealed to the budding filmmaker in me. I probably soaked it all in, assuming that it would make for some good reminiscing later on, in the future, when I might be prone to reflect to on my youth.

As in many rites of passage stories of this type (think “American Graffiti”) there was a girl, doing the same thing, being young, sort of free, hanging out on South Street with her friends around the same time. I saw her almost every night that summer, her auburn blunt cut, pouty bee-stung lips and a style that captured the times, not exactly a hippie, not totally punk but an original mix of both that she pulled off effortlessly.

She parked herself beside me, on the car I was leaning on, watching a bassist and drummer rock out. She slipped a Marlboro between her lips and smoked like she’d learned to by studying old movies; her way of saying “You know, you look like a really sweet guy but you have to know, somewhere deep down, that I am way out of your league.”

I, with my cascading Jew-fro and glasses that could have doubled as storm windows dominating my face, looked straight ahead, innocently ignorant to basic boy-girl 101 moves like making eye-contact, much less small talk. I must have been out that day.

Still, she stood next to me, I saw her frequently that summer, never exchanged a word and, writing about it almost 30 years later, I guess it made an impression. I heard later, after asking around, that, if we were all talking about the same girl, her name was Lisa and, within a few years, she had become a model.

I did a play at theater off South in the spring of ‘82 but, that summer, I was sent off to my dad’s place on Long Island where, instead of staying out ‘til 2 or 3 every night, I was getting up at 4 or 5 to work on a farm every day.

Nobody ever said anything to me and while my parents, ex-hippies themselves, were not especially restrictive, I suspect that they might have worried that I was up to no good during those late nights on South Street. Granted, the guy I was spending all of this time with was 19 and had a bit of a reputation ---no names here, he is a successful businessman now— nothing beyond flagrant curfew violations and the occasional public consumption of alcohol by a minor ever took place. Still, this improbable Fonzie-Richie Cunningham-“American Graffiti” dynamic was suddenly put on hold.

As mentioned, for many kids in Philly, hanging out on South Street during summer nights, is a time-honored tradition but, within that tradition, seems to be a built in period of disillusionment: the next summer is never as good as the first and, is often bad, lending itself to another time-honored tradition: talking about how the street had changed from one year to the next, how it used to be so much cooler. Okay, I grant this to the kids who came before me and the kids who came after me but, in my experience, the change from ‘81 to ’82 was like day and night. When I got back to town from my hard labor experience on Long Island, I was eager to hit the street once again even though I’d heard that things were different.

Gone was the sole beat cop who walked up and down the street; replaced by teams of officers who seemed to be on every other corner. The mix of hippies and punks were still around but there was a new element emerging: guys in muscle shirts, shorts and white socks pulled up to their knees who just seemed to be waiting for someone to look at them or one of their short-shorted-high heeled girlfriends the “wrong way.”

My hanging out on South Street officially went into the history book.

I never really spent that much more time on South St. after the summer of 1981. In ’83, hanging out on the street after a David Bowie concert, my friends and I were stopped for violating curfew --- remember that, at 16, I sat on the steps of the TLA dinking a beer at 2 A.M. --- but we were not cited for anything because three of us were in the company of a responsible 18 year old: me.

In ’86, after a semester of college in London, I got together with some of my flat-mates for a proper “glad to be back” cheesesteak at Jim’s. The “malling” of the street was in full swing.

By the late ‘80’s songs like “In Air Tonight” and Steve Winwood’s Madison Avenue bait “Don’t You Know What The Night Can Do?” were the stuff of ubiquitous rain slicked, neon lit, city at night, “Miami Vice”-esque gag-worthy beer commercials. Ever the media savvy lad, I once even caught myself running through the city at night with friends, thinking to myself “Wow, Miller time, I feel like I’m in a beer commercial, cool.”

In 1991, I worked at the TLA Video on 3rd street. In ’92, my fiancée and I went to the Eyes Gallery and bought tons of 1920’s Mexican postcards of happy couples to use as our wedding invitations. Within the past 15 years or so, there have been increasingly ugly incidents on South Street and, yet, I firmly believe that the tradition of hanging out continues.

I never saw Lisa again. In a best case scenario, she went on to have a decent life and got older, like me. I teach college students now and sometimes get paid to write screenplays. For the past 17 years, I have been married to a girl I fell in love with when I was 14 – and, okay, if she is, in fact, in my league, she is a starter while I am, as always, a bench-warmer. We have two daughters who, if I have anything to do with it, will probably never hang out on South Street.

About ten years ago I heard a demographic statistic that said that people, especially men, tend to return to the music they listened to between the ages of 16 and 20. My family doesn’t share my passion for popular music to quite the illogical level that I do, so we rarely listen to it in the car (okay, I’ll admit it, mini-van) but, every now and then, I’ll be driving around alone, “In The Air Tonight” will come on the radio and I’ll turn it up, just slightly, and glance back in time for awhile.

How I Got Into Film

2009-09-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

A guy I went to high school with messaged me on Facebook and asked if his girlfriend’s brother could get in touch with me for some advice on getting into the movie business. How did I get into film? That’s easy. Who doesn’t like movies? Sure, I got hooked early but even that’s not unheard of. When I was a kid, my parents had this huge collage of classic movie stills that I would stare at. This was before vcr’s and video stores so, if my father wanted to show a film in a class, he had to order an actual print from this a catalogue. I spent hours with that big book, pouring over synopsis after synopsis of old movies. That was it for me, the beginning and the end, after that, there was very little else that would captivate my interest, stir my passion and spark my creativity.

How did I get into the film business? Now that's a hard question because I hardly feel like I am in the film business. Yes, I did it, I have now done what thousands upon thousands of people are trying to do, I have sold a screenplay (did not get paid especially well), I have been hired to write or work on screenplays for other people -- again, not very well paying, actually minimum wage or less and that is not an exaggeration.

So, to backtrack, I made my first (animated) films when I was 9, bought a super 8 camera when I was 10 and made films with friends. Around that time, I saw “Jaws” and “North By Northwest” on the big screen, something clicked and I just said something like “this is what I want to do” to myself.

Also, around this time, I saw “Rocky.” Now, “Rocky” means a lot of different things to a lot of people around the world. For a film geek growing up in Philly, the thought that this virtual nobody could write a screenplay set in Philadelphia, shoot it in Philadelphia (huh, not all movies are produced in L.A.?), see it become a big hit and win the Oscar for Best Picture was mind-blowing, exhilarating and inspiring.

I think I always thought I would grow up and out of this silly dream of making films for a living but it never happened.

When I was 16 I found out about film school. You mean, you can go to college and study movies? I did go to film school and I guess I am pretty glad that I did though I am not exactly sure what I got out of it. For someone who loves film, it was total immersion, I learned theory/aesthetics, history, production etc. and I loved it.

A year after I graduated, I heard that an indie film was being shot in the small Maine town where my dad lives. I got the number of the production office and started calling, asking for a job, having nice conversations with the production manager but no job offer. I decided to take a leap of faith and go up to Maine. I walked into the production office and said "I'm here."

I then proceeded to tell the guy about all the classes I took in film school and the guy said, "Okay, can you go put up that tent with those guys?" I put up the tent, came back, he asked the other guys how I did, they said "well" and he said "Okay, you're hired. We don't pay."

I worked on the film for the next three months, pretty grueling, back-breaking work, doing everything from picking up the producer's dry cleaning to hauling equipment to directing traffic to assistant camera to body double and so on. I worked in every department. At one point, I worked 45 hours straight, not going home, not changing, not bathing, not really sleeping, not getting paid and I loved it!!! I was working in the movies.

I finished that job on a Saturday and two days later, started work on a big budget studio film, a wild study in contrasts. I had one job in the set building department that I did six days a week for three months, got pretty bored but made buckets of money.

So, after that, I never worked on another feature film set. I focused on writing screenplays and studying the ins and outs of the industry. I wrote low budget indie type stuff that everyone was doing in the early ‘90’s, stuff that I could produce myself if I could raise the $30-50,000 (which I could not) and I eventually made a short film that won an award from the American Film Institute. Pretty impressive, AFI, right? No, not really, it was a runner up award from a rinky dink contest BUT it was still the AFI, I can call myself an AFI award-winning filmmaker and that opens doors, attracts attention.

Through a contact at a record company, I got a couple of low-rent screenwriting jobs, adapting some non-fiction books into ideas for films that could feature soundtracks by the record company's artists.

I didn't get another job for 10 years and then it was after a couple of years of scoping out production companies and screenwriting classified ads online. I estimate that, since 2003, I have probably sent out 7000 e-mails to various people, most of whom never got back to me. Of those 7000 e-mails, maybe 2% ever responded back to me, of that 2%.....Well, you get the idea. I have had 10, give or take, paying screenwriting jobs in the past 3 years, one feature film was produced (though the director totally re-wrote my screenplay), I sold an original screenplay and a short film was just shot in NYC. Two other features (that I have not been paid for) are tentatively set to shoot later this year.

So, how to get into film? On that indie film in Maine, it was my bosses second film. Prior to getting into film, he had managed a restaurant in Manhattan and, I guess, if you can do that, you can do anything. This guy has gone on to be a huge producer in Hollywood, nominated for a Best Picture Oscar for producing "There Will Be Blood."

A girl who I went to grade school with, who was in my class from kindergarten to sixth grade, is now Quentin Tarantino's executive producer and, while it's been 20 years since I have seen her, I was not aware of her having any film experience. A guy at the same school but two years ahead of me was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for writing "A History Of Violence" and he dropped out of film school mid-way through, moved to L.A. and worked his way into the business.

So, my suggestion to people who want to get into film, is to make films, either put your own stuff together -shorts or features -- make them good enough to attract attention. So that means that you need to know how to write a proper screenplay and how to do all of the nuts and bolts technical production stuff OR you can become a specialist. I am a screenwriter now but at one point, I could take apart a camera and put it back together with my eyes closed. Not anymore. If I wasn’t a writer, I’d be a gaffer.

Do it for love, because you love film, love working on films. You can work on making your own films or you can work on films for other people, just sniff around the local filmmaking scene if there is one where you live. You might (probably) work for free BUT you never know who the next big filmmaker will be, maybe you, maybe someone you meet.

Work hard, have fun.

The Screenplay Is Only The Beginning

2009-09-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, we all have to write a first screenplay to get it out of the way. It is a gradual learning process and I learn something new about screenwriting every time I sit down to write.

Oh, yes, you might think that you sell a screenplay and that's the end but, no, you can be kept in limbo doing re-write after re-write. In my case, the producer who bought it, bought an 80 page screenplay, by the time I made all of the requested changes, it had ballooned up to 104 page before gradually coming back down to 98, 96, 92, 86 and, finally 82 pages! They told me to make all of these changes and then we whittled it all down until it was nearly identical to the original screenplay this process had made it much stronger.

To recall "Pretty Woman" again, remember that the screenplay was originally a dark, gritty drama about life on the street? TRUE STORY! Julia Roberts says that from the time she signed on to do "3000", as it was originally called (referring to the number of dollars it takes to hire her for a week), to the time the film was made, the only thing that did not change was her character's name.

So, something to consider, things to ask yourself before proceeding:

1)What kind of movie is this? What genre does it fall into? Mixed-genre films can be a tough sell because the distributor doesn't know how to market them.

2)What other movies is yours like? This is really important. Nobody wants anything original, they want movies that are like other movies that were big hits. If you are going to be pitching a movie, you want to be able to say "This is 'The Hangover' meets 'Pretty Woman'", referring to two big hits because, the bottom line is the bottom line -- how much the film will cost compared to how much it is likely to make, based on other similar films.

This is just something to consider because writing a screenplay is only part of the battle, getting someone to produce it and then someone else to distribute it are massive mountains to climb and the further and further you try to climb, the less and less control you have.

I sold a screenplay in January, got hired to re-write it, turned in my final re-write in July and now I am done, out of the picture, technically removed from the project. The producer can --and probably will -- hire another writer to work on my screenplay.

I remember seeing the film "Georgia Rule" a few years ago and thinking that, somewhere down the line, it had probably once been a pretty good screenplay but through the development process it was altered, watered down and ultimately diminished

So, my general rule of thumb is that, while it is important to have a really good screenplay, it is more important to have a marketable screenplay.

Writing with my family, bashing "Memento", remembering Blake Snyder

2009-08-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

In the past 3 years, four of my students have been finalists in the Set In Philadelphia Screenwriting Competition. Last year, one student was the winner of the Parisi Award for a screenplay by a writer under the age of 25. This year, another student won both the SIP grand prize and the Regional Award, another prize given to a screenplay that promotes the Philadelphia area. Normally, I am not big on screenwriting contests. They can be expensive to enter and, for the most part, I can think of few – if any – screenplays that were produced as a result of winning a screenplay contest. Philadelphia, however, offers one of the biggest paydays in the screenplay contest world – not to mention a trip to L.A. for meetings with some legitimate industry heavyweights -- and these factors were enough to convince my wife to convince me that, rather than coaching my students to glory, maybe I should be aiming for some of that glory myself.

Easier said than done. I sold my screenplay “Aftermath” in January, got hired to re-write it and worked until early July on a draft that pleased the producer. Along the way, I wrote two other screenplays start-to-finish. The bottom line is that I think I blew my wad creatively earlier this summer. I have shards of other screenplays floating around in various stages of development and I have not been able to make progress on any of them, things just aren’t clicking.

So, how am I supposed to write an SIP winning-screenplay?

With the help of my wife and my twelve-year-old daughter. I said, “Sure, I’ll write a screenplay if someone comes up with a story” and that is what is happening, we are brainstorming, developing a distinctly Philly story, something that could only happen here. While my wife and daughter are no slouches in the creative energy department, this process has been a great opportunity for them to see what David/Daddy does: teach screenwriting.

Speaking of screenwriting teachers, the opportunity to develop a screenplay with my family, has sent me running back to “Save The Cat: The Last Book On Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need” by Blake Snyder. Sadly, Blake passed away suddenly on August 4th.
I didn’t know him personally but I read his books, we had a couple of e-mail exchanges in the past two years and I could tell that he was a really great guy, in addition to writing what will become, if it has not already become, one of the essential books on screenwriting. I know that I recommend it any aspiring screenwriter I meet. I wrote to Blake raving about how much I loved STC and he told me that I had made his day. Wow, I made his day?

In the book, he goes on and on about how much he disliked the film “Memento” – a film which I really disliked. No, lie, I sat there in the theater, 25 minutes into the film, looked at my watch and thought to myself, “Okay, great, he lost his memory, everything is happening backwards but is there going to be a story? Is there going to be a character I care about?” Ultimately, would “Memento” be as remarkable as fans of it feel that it is if it unfolded in chronological order?

How about all of those phone calls, where Guy Pearce sits around and explains the story to someone (we never find out who) on the other line? Huh? When a character has to verbally spell things out that otherwise would not be gleaned from the context of the narrative, it is called “exposition” and exposition is a no-no. Blake hated “Memento”, with good reason but the issue of exposition in it was one that he missed and was grateful to me for pointing out.

“Confessions Of A Shop-A-Holic” screenwriter Tracey Johnson knew Blake since nursery school and her recent blog posts have been fascinating personal and professional recollections of each other and friends and colleagues --- the account of Snyder and Johnson meeting with Howard Stern to work on a “Fartman” screenplay is a must read for aspiring screenwriters and die-hard Stern fans. I am a small fish in a big pond but I decided to join the countless others who posted comments on Tracey’s blog, relating my experience with Blake, our dislike of “Memento” etc. and, about an hour later, I got an e-mail from Tracey, saying, among other things, that my comment was the only one she had responded to, that she, too, hated “Memento” and that was missing Blake Snyder very much.

So, I still have shards of screenplays flying around and more are coming at me since I signed an agreement to be represented by a small agency but I am trying to focus on writing with my family (who are good writers to begin with), teaching them a little about writing for the screen and it’s been nice, a great way for me to revisit “Save The Cat” as well as nice guy and great screenwriting teacher Blake Snyder.

Whew...

2009-07-14T11:02:00.001-07:00

I just turned in the "final" final draft of "Aftermath." Whether it is actually the final draft, the shooting script, I don't know but I am getting a check and, I guess, my job is over. "Aftermath" is now in the hands of the spirits ---well, actually, the producer.

The first draft was about 65 pages long, over the years it got up to 85 pages or so and it ultimately got up to 104 earlier this year before finally settling at a very respectable 82 pages.

I have been watching a lot of 70-75-80-85 minute long films recently ("Wendy & Lucy", "Bubble", Paranoid Park" and so on -- even the 65 minute "Dance Party USA") and I am aghast at the amount of filler masquerading as "story" --- long, long takes of grass blowing in the wind or someone staring into space, zzzzzzzzzzzz.

I am so happy that this 82 page version of "Aftermath" doesn't have a drop of filler --- let's hope that the director is simpatico.

Earlier this summer I wrote two 70 minute screenplays, "Used To Love Her" (yes, based on the Guns N' Roses song and a true story) and "Bait And Tackle" --- also lean, mean and filler-free. "Used To Love Her" is tentatively scheduled to start shooting on 8/1 in New Orleans --- the same day that a short film that I wrote, "Audition", is set to shoot in NYC.

What Is Harder, Making A Good Movie Or A Bad Movie?

2009-06-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

I tell my film students that it is as hard to make a bad movie as it is to make a good movie.

I remember watching a terrible movie on DVD a few years ago, then watching the "making of" special feature and seeing how much time, mental and physical effort went into the production of this awful film, how earnest and hardworking they were etc. ---- I guess the disconnect is at the point where someone or some people all missed the fact that the screenplay was bad and went forward with millions and millions of dollars to sail this doomed voyage.

On a film crew, everyone thinks that their job is the most important but, for me, as the screenwriter, I know that my job really is the most important because without me, nobody else has a job to do.

Of course plenty of films go into production without a screenplay. There was a film out a few years ago called "The Interpreter" directed by Sidney Pollack, starring Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman and I remember reading an article about it when it came out. Sean Penn says that he called Nicole Kidman and said that the screenplay wasn't even finished yet but that he though she had to be in the movie.

So, here is a movie with a big Oscar winning director, big Oscar winning movie stars and, for all intents and purposes, no screenplay -- in this case a screenplay that was apparently being written during production and thus, was, at best, a first draft --- and people wonder why the film bombed.

Of course, when I was working on "Pet Sematary" 20 years ago, I could actually see Stephen King sitting on the set re-writing the screenplay and it went on to be one of the highest grossing horror films of the 1980's.

For my part, though I can't remember the specifics, I do remember reading the screenplay and preferring the original ending to King's revision but who am I to second guess him?

2009-06-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Some blogger I have turned out to be.
At least I can play it off like I have been working on screenplays.... because it's true.

I went on vacation -- a week in Maine, no internet, highly recommended.

I brought 5 screenplays to read for friends, fun.

I also brought half a screenplay to finish writing, finished it, started another one and finished that one too, sweet.

So, I have turned in two screenplays this week, both micro-budget deals that could be shooting this summer and I am about to start on what I expect to be the final polish on "Aftermath."

Too busy to blog?

2009-05-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, some blogger I turned out to be!

Been busy BUT I just turned in the latest draft of my screenplay. It's getting close! I have gotten over 100 pages of notes on a 100 page screenplay but they have all been good notes and now the screenplay is a lean and mean 88 pages. Sweet.

Off on vacation tomorrow, bringing about 7 screenplays by friends, writers, directors, producers and former students to read. Fun. I also hope to do some work on a couple of new projects.

Writing for the producer

2009-04-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Wind me up a little and I can go on and on and on and, because film/screenwriting is really the only thing I know anything about, even when I go off on a tangent, it is usually relevant.

Writing is really my thing. I don't know much about producing but what I will say that might differ from a lot of writers is that I write for the producer as much as I write for the director or the actor.

What that means is that I write and teach my students to write in a very spare, conservative style that results in what I call very user-friendly screenplays.

My philosophy is that the screenplay is the instruction manual or blueprint for a film, and while it, of course, demands a high degree of artistry, the screenplay itself is not a work of art unto itself, it is the foundation of a film --- a jumping off place for directors, actors, cinematographers etc. and so, at the most basic level, it has to be a working document that serves everyone on the crew, not weighed down by verbosity, literary conventions and flowery prose.

Big Weekend

2009-03-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry, been awhile.
This weekend, a student of mine won the Set In Philadelphia Screenwriting Competition and the Greater Philadelphia Regional Award (for a local writer), not a prestigious contest but one of the better paying ones out there and a nice honor all the same. I feel like such a proud coach, got soaked with Gatorade and everything. I had two students make it to the finals this year. Last year one of my guys won the Parisi Award for a Writer Under 25, which is handed out by "Nixon" screenwriter Steven Riviele. The year before that, another student came in third place.

So, I am busy. At this point, "Aftermath", the 98 page screenplay that I sold in January, has gotten over 60 pages of notes from the producer over the course of, now countless, re-writes. It's cool, her notes are great, the screenplay is better than it was when she first started pursuing it three years ago and it is only getting better.

In the meantime, I just got to work on a new screenplay that I was hired to write. A writer friend in L.A. asked me how I got the gig and it wasn't until I started to answer that I realized how wild the story is. I review films for IndieTalk.com, got a movie by this guy, trashed it, really tore it up, heard from him, started a nice back and forth via e-mail, hit it off and he asked me to write his next film. Maybe honesty is the best policy.

Back to work!

movie reviewer/screenwriter: odd combo, strange bedfellows

2009-03-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

QUICK UPDATE: "Aftermath" progresses. I turned in a full re-write last week and am eagerly awaiting notes from the producer but the early word is pretty good. I suspect that I will need to do another pass on it, maybe just a polish but, one way or another, it is closer and closer to being finished.... for now.

That said....

Maybe it was bound to happen.

I have been reviewing films for years now and every now and then I hear from a filmmaker I have written about.

Around five years ago, I reviewed a film called "Monster Man" about a killer in a monster truck. I loved the film, wrote a glowing review and, before too long, the writer-director Michael Davis got in touch with me to let me know how much he enjoyed my review and that he felt that I was the only reviewer who really "got" what he was trying to do in the film. He went on to say that he felt my review would really boost interest and in the film. I hear that it did well in a European theatrical run.

Davis and I corresponded for awhile. He went on to write and direct "Shoot 'Em Up", the Clive Owen - Paul Giamatti....uh, shoot 'em up, a few years ago and I really "got" that one too.

Likewise, Benny Matthews, director of "Santeria" which I gave a good review to, got in touch with me and we are still in touch.

All of this is made just slightly more curious by the events of this week. I have just been hired to write a screenplay for a director whose film I did not like, did not give a good review to -- in fact, I was pretty hard on it. Nevertheless, the director and I formed a lengthy correspondence, cordial, respectful and eye-to-eye on almost everything.

I am really looking forward to writing his screenplay.

Now, if Michael Davis wants to get back in touch....

Feng Sui: Be Careful What You Wish For

2009-02-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I don't feel exactly like Lindsay Lohan in "Freaky Friday" or Eddie Murphy in "Flubber" --- or was that Robin Williams, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish one from another.

Nearly three years ago, April 2006, on the brink of sudden and unexpected under-employment, my wife took my still-born "career" by the horns and whipped up some serious chi inspiring, energy friendly home re-decorating. What was it that I really wanted? To be a screenwriter, I guess.

About a month after the Feng Sui express roared through the house, I got hired to write a screenplay. Granted, Feng Sui is not a passive thing, you do have to work for it/with it. I had been religiously scanning the online screenwriting classified ads for two or three years at that point, sending out, by my estimation 5000 - 6000 e-mails.

So, May 2006, I got a gig, barely any pay and the script had to be delivered two weeks later. Done!

Less than a month after that job, I got another and soon another, more and more and more.

So, at this point, Winter 2009, I have been hired to write and/or doctor somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 feature films ---- one of them, the May '06 screenplay, was produced and is hitting the festival circuit, minus my name after a dramatic and I fear, fatal, re-write by the director.

After three years of asking me to sell, I decided my original screenplay, "Aftermath", to a producer in L.A., made the deal in August more or less, got the first check in January and I am still working on the paid re-writes. I have had to put off a job working on a pilot for some guys with solid ties to the TV world. One of the guys who hired me two years ago wants me to do a re-write. Another guy who has hired me to write two screenplays for him, wants me to write a third even though I told him I was too busy, my brother-in-law/editor wants me to adapt a musical that he wrote the songs for and last, but certainly not least, the producer of the first film, the May '06 job, wants me to write something for him and might even let me direct it.

Now, that's some Feng Sui. Not that I am complaining, I'm just wondering how I am going to get through it all.

My RANT

2009-01-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hi, I review films for IndieTalk.com but I am also a screenwriter, a director and a screenwriting/film history teacher.In one of my recent reviews, I really bashed the filmmakers for having a terrible screenplay but I wrote that I didn't mean to single them out, that bad screenplays are a real issue in many of the films that I review for this site.

I know that the technology at our hands is amazing, cool etc, that the possibilities are virtually endless these days. There are so many great cameras out there now --I have seen the RED up close and it is all that it is cracked up to be --- and there are plenty of really decent, moderately priced cameras out there that do perfectly acceptable work. High quality post-production seems to be at everyone's fingertips.

So, what is the problem? Too many of "us" in the the indie world seem to be too focused on the technology, so much so that the foundation of a film is being ignored. I implore you, the indie film community, to put your camera down, stop tapping your keyboard and invest in what I consider essential filmmaking equipment: a good book on screenwriting.

For $20 or less, you can buy a book that will open your eyes to the magic of plotting out a story, usually in accordance with three-act structure. I know that a lot of technical, creative people are intimidated by screenwriting, that they find it mysterious and daunting to have to learn "the formula" and the formatting but it really helps.

Even if you just learn the basics, it can make your films and your approach to filmmaking so much better and I will not have to sit through films where the inciting incident comes 45 minutes into the story. Learn the basic concepts of structure, conflicts, what makes a strong main character etc. and it might be revolutionary to you.

The classic book on the subject is "Screenplay" by Syd Field but even I find it a little dry. Blake Snyder's incredibly amusing and readable "Save The Cat" will not teach you how to format a screenplay but it is an amazing study in how to conceive of a film ---- in about 200 pages. Even "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Screenwriting" is pretty good.

So, I hate to sound cranky but I am seeing a lot of low-budget indie films made by people who know how to shoot well, light well, edit well, do special effects well but cannot tell an interesting, compelling story and that should not be the case. It is really not that hard to come up with a story for a film. Yes, it is hard to come up with an original, intelligent story for a film but so many of you are just aiming to make basic, ordinary films anyway and there is nothing wrong with that IF the story is strong, the structure is sound and the characters are compelling.

So, by all means, while you are waiting for your RED Epic model to come arrive, pick up a good book on screenwriting, learn the basics and apply them to your next film, please.

This Is For Real

2009-01-12T16:30:00.001-08:00

Wow, after months of discussions and negotiations following a three year campaign by a producer to get me to sell my screenplay, I got the first checks today --- one for the option and another for the first half of a paid re-write.

Now, I have been getting paid to write screenplays for over ten years -- okay, I had one job in 1996 and didn't get another until 2006 but, since then, I have been paid to write or doctor around 15 feature film screenplays.

No bones about it, I am small-time, minor-league -- for now anyway -- getting and taking whatever anyone could offer me and sometimes not getting anything at all, either taking the odd deferred gig because I believed in the project or simply getting screwed by the producer who hired me.

Of course, I have long had dreams of selling an original screenplay to Hollywood -- I have been pursuing this kind of thing for over 20 years. Yes, I hoped for buckets of money from this deal and wound up getting a shot glass but, hey, there are so many people out there who have this dream of becoming a screenwriting and it is actually sort of happening for me.

Getting the checks today really made it feel real. To that end, reality has sunk in. I got the checks, now I have to do the work. I have a re-write due by the end of month.

I can't say I didn't know what I was getting myself into and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Distribution: First In An Endless Series Of Notes

2009-01-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

There are so many different approaches to distribution out there now that the conventional theatrical or home video release are only a couple of the options.

A former screenwriting student of mine, and some of his fellow Drexel film school grads, formed the filmmaking collective Sweat Robot and just released their first film, "Happy Birthday Harris Malden" straight to iTunes and Amazon for download after making some festival appearances to get the word out. It seems to be working out okay -- plus it's a really good film.
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?p=80404

There are something like 4000 indie films made in the U.S, each year, of which 100-200 might get distributed and, even then, what distribution means is relative because some companies will promote the hell out of a film, full page ads in the trades and others just manage to do what they can.

From our perspective, the actors and the filmmakers, we should just keep trying to make the best films possible and hope that it matches the needs of a distributor who can, in return do it justice.

Structure, My Premiere and My Option

2009-01-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

The film that I was hired to write in 2006 premiered at The Beverly Hills Hi-Def Film Festival on Saturday. I haven't heard any reactions to it, seen any reviews etc. Hmmmm.

I have heard that it might screen at TriBeCa in the spring.

I still haven't seen it.

A former student, a fine, fine writer, e-mailed me over the weekend and asked:
"Can't I just turn in a series of biting, poignant gut-punchingly visceral moments that made you want to laugh or cry?"

I don't think so.

Conveniently, I can speak on this subject having just seen "Burn After Reading" last night, a collection of great characters and some cool scenes that, strung together, add up to nothing.

What a waste of a movie! A film needs a narrative spine, it has to have an overall unity to make all the pieces mean something when slapped together.

A great example, one of the major artistic experiences of my life:

In 1980 I went to see Bill Cosby at the York State Fair. He came out and told one funny story, went off on a related tangent, came back to the story, went off on a related tangent, came back to the story and repeated the process for an hour.

It was one of the most brilliant, unified, cohesive pieces of stagecraft I have ever seen, so carefully plotted and conceived that I was truly left in awe.

The act had a narrative spine and everything else grew out of it organically, nothing was random and it all served to support the whole piece, the overall idea. A film should be about something and all the scenes should serve to make your overall point.

My formula:
Screenplay = Idea + Story + Plot
Idea - The overall themes and thoughts that inform the film.
Story - Everything that happens either onscreen or off even before the movie starts.
Plot - Everything that happens onscreen.

A simplified example:

Spielberg says, "I know, I have an Idea that I would like to express - 'War is bad'"

So there is this Story about the four Ryan brothers who go off to fight in World War II. Three of them are killed and the Army decides to find the other one and bring him back alive to avoid a public relations nightmare.

The Plot then follows Tom Hanks and a band of stereotypical caricatures as they hunt for Private Ryan, many of them getting killed along the way and leading the audience to realize how Bad War Is and how brutal WWII was. The three dead Ryan brothers are part of the story but not part of the plot because, for the most part, their deaths occur offscreen before the start of the movie.

You can be structurally sound and accessible without falling into cliche. I was really disappointed with "Slumdog Millionaire" because in the end, it really wound up relying on a seriously old school melodramatic cliche among other things.

My roots are in theater, offbeat, avant garde or absurdist theater. I have been influenced by more playwrights (Pinter, Albee, Stoppard, Ionesco) and stand-up comedians (Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin) than I have been by screenwriters.

I have had to work to fight against my resistance to conventional three-act structure. When I read Syd Field's classic "Screenplay" back in the 80's I couldn't get through it, I was so disgusted by the idea that the art of cinema could be boiled down to a simple formula, X, Y and Z by page 10, An Act Break on or around page 30, Act 2A, mid-point, Act 2B, another Act Break on page 60 or 90 depending on how long the film is etc.

So my early screenplays were, in fact "a series of biting, poignant, gut-punchingly visceral moments that make you want to laugh or cry" as an almost defiant stance against the industry standard. There are filmmakers who can get away with doing this but, for the most part, I am not one of them or, I should say, I was not one of them.

As a screenwriting teacher and a writer-for-hire I have found that I have to utilize three-act structure and I have come to recognize it as a beautiful thing, a convention to work within and to push the boundaries of and I can appreciate when a film hits its marks like a precision instrument as much as I can appreciate the rare film that defies convention and still succeeds.

The film that opened this past weekend, adhered to three act-structure for the most part when I wrote it. The director's re-write did not. "Aftermath" the screenplay that I am selling, does not adhere to three-act structure in the conventional sense. A colleague of mine, screenwriter Joe Stinson, who wrote four screenplays for Clint Eastwood (including the line, yes, "Go ahead, make my day") read "Aftermath" and told me You managed to break all of the rules of screenwriting and still come up with a piece that works." Yay for me.

Let's Get It Started...

2009-01-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

Great, you’re saying, just what the world needs now; another blog about film by some guy who thinks he knows it all, right?

Wrong. I don’t think I know it all, I feel like I barely know anything and I like it like that. If I knew it all, where would the fun be? For me, part of the magic of the movies is the ability to always see things from a new perspective and, if not that, always hoping that the next film I see will become a favorite.

So, it’s a new year, this is a new blog and it is my intention for one to inform the other. I have been a movie guy since I was a kid and, over the years, there have been some memorable years, 1988, for example, when I first set foot on a feature film set as a crew member. More, much more, on that crucially important year as blog goes on.

2009 should, at last, be another pretty big year for film and for me.

On Saturday, January 3rd, 2009, the first film that I was hired to write will premiere at a film festival in Southern California. Yes, I am being vague. I am not saying which film festival it is or what the name of the film is. If you know me at all, you probably have that information. I will say that I was hired to write the screenplay in 2006, wrote three drafts of it, thought it was pretty good and when I heard that it was finally going into production in early 2007, I found out that the director had dramatically re-written my screenplay. I have read his version of the screenplay. I have not yet seen the final product.

By pure coincidence, within the next day or two, I will sign and send in the option agreement for the presumed sale and production of my original screenplay “Aftermath.”
The odyssey of “Aftermath” has been nearly as epic as the famous odyssey of Greek mythology. I wrote the screenplay in 2006, tried to produce it myself on several occasions, eventually relinquished control of it, let the project get adopted by a hot Philly production company, wound up amicably splitting with them over creative issues and finally gave into the L.A. producer who had been asking me to sell it all along --- much more on this situation in a future entries.

So this blog will focus on movies in general, screenwriting in particular and my experiences with both as a fan, a teacher, a reviewer (find my stuff at IndieTalk.com) and, for lack of a better term, a filmmaking professional. Besides weather, I feel like film is something everyone can talk about and my hope for this blog ---other than being a venue for my rants and musings – is that I might say something that strikes readers as interesting, amusing, perceptive or informative.

2009 looks like it could be a pretty wild year for me, beginning with a film screening at a fest and ending up (in September) with the production of another screenplay.

Earlier today - January 1rst! - I heard back from an actress with long list of credits ("Party Of Five" etc) and her boyfriend, who starred in one of the biggest hits of the '80's, who would like to read my screenplay "Payday", a steamy "Body Heat" meets "Wild Things" neo-noir that I was hired to adapt.

Who knows what else might happen along the way?