Posts Tagged ‘Chasing Mist’

Didn’t get over here to Guided By Wire,  last night. As the world is aware, it was the LOST finale. Which clocked in at a whopping, and captivating 4 and a half hours. Right after, I sat down for what I thought would be a quick turn on the boards with the climatic scene for my play, KEPT. Alas, it was not a quick turn at all. Which meant another late, late night as I hammered and chiseled my way through the eleven page scene.

I will make this observation regarding writing for the screen versus writing for the stage, or at least how I write for them. When it’s for the screen, the drafting is primarily about execution. You are constructing something. It has a plan, intrinsic principles, mitigated by the intended medium, that must for all intents and purposes be adhered to, in some degree. You can subvert them, but you can’t completely ignore them. So, the oft used analogy of building a house becomes quite appropriate. You are constructing and at every turn is the question as to how you execute the plan and how you alter it to better construct, always working towards the intended final piece.

In playwriting, at least for me – playwrights if you’re out there, pipe up and join the discussion, or if you have a thought, one and all, please speak your mind – I find the its much more of a discovery. So, when writing for the stage, I find I am on a excavation. An archaeology dig of character, plot, theme and its understanding. I know what I hope will be there, or, let me amend that, what should be there; then I dig – slowly, methodically, always parsing the same patch. Eventually, I reveal and remove, then clean up, polish and present to the world what I’ve been fortunate through my diligence to recover. Where am I excavating? In my experience, not necessarily always my life, but rather my experience of the world and what I come into contact with. Does that make sense? I can extend beyond my immediate place, if I’m willing to do the brain work and legwork (even) to travel there. I don’t mean just to go there, but, rather, to inhabit it – to know it as if it were my own immediate place right now. This can be done for either stage or screen. It’s what “write what you know” means to me. You can know anything, if your willing and driven and daring enough to learn.

So, I was excavating last night. Moving back and forth of the lines. Teasing out points of view and reactions, truths and lies, in the space of a dinner. There’s a different magnetic pull to that kind of work. It’s much more sneaky and circular to me, than drafting on a screenplay or TV pilot, which always feels like forward momentum. Building it up, harnessing it, then driving on the power of it to FADE OUT.

Wow. This isn’t so much a brief update is it?! Ha! (Welcome to what I spend far too many of my days contemplating!)

What I had intended was to let you know, with thanks to quotes that Jason pulled  and posted on his blog, that the junior producer that we did the desert feature screenplay with/for read the first draft and responded in a series of texts:

“Holy f@ck the first 35 pages rock! Gallo is very very cool and shady.”

“You guys did a phenomenal job.”

“You boys write fantastically.  The language is loaded with image and expression yet its lean and my eyes blow down the page with ease. You guys did a beautiful job so far and I really believe this could play.”

“F%cking brilliant. Mother f%cking brilliant. Bravo. I loved it.”

Not bad, huh? Means, in the first of three steps, we’re doing pretty good. Always a huge relief to connect that first time up to the plate, makes the rest of the game seem so much smoother. We’ll meet with this producer Wednesday night. Those comments are over several reads that he did, not just one. So, that’s good as well. We’ll get his notes. Hopefully they won’t be involved. Then, we’ll go to his boss, the director of development who worked on the developing the story with us. If he’s on board, then we go up the ladder to the head of the company to see if it’s a go or no go. It’d be great if we sell the script at that juncture, but most likely it won’t quite go that way. At some point though, I’d say we have a decent shot at getting this one across, at least in terms of a sale. Well, actually, I always think that at this stage. We’ll see where it heads from here, after Wednesday.

Have A Beautiful Day….

Some good news today.

Jason and I optioned our one-hour drama pilot script. It’s been a rocky couple of weeks as our manager and their V.P. of Development negotiated in true Hollywood style (two conversations on the phone, each twenty minutes long, that took three weeks to unfold and probably involved more small talk than business talk.) This is how it works. We trusted the process and our Manager is, as I’ve said before, an old hat at this whole dance. So, we were in pretty good hands overall.

If you click on “Jason,” up there, it’ll take you to Jason’s blog, where he does an excellent job of breaking down what it all means, where we are exactly in the process, and why our excitement seems a tad bit muted. The key, I think, is to do exactly as Jason suggests in his post – celebrate and acknowledge the achievement, but keep writing because that’s what we do.

I’ll run through this more in the coming days. It’s late tonight and I just got home from a marathon day on campus, that ended with a festival of excellent one acts that ran three hours. Key points to keep in mind: there are many walls left to scale, this is only the first. The nice thing is that this will put us on the “actual field of play” as our Manager likes to analogize. We’ll be live with this one, pitching with the production company who optioned it, to networks and that’s a first. We haven’t been paid anything, which means now Writer’s Guild – yet. That’s the nature of the beast in T.V. these days for the unestablished. Basically, when we go out pitching, we want a network or cable channel to get real excited and spend money on the idea – that’s when we get paid, or a promise to get paid. Lastly, we’re probably going to need some attachments – a showrunner would be really key, or a name actor never hurts. Hopefully, we’ll find that attachment before we go to the network, because it’ll really make the pitch a lot more appealing. Though, the production company who optioned the script is also a finance company and will be pitching as a co-financier of the show to the network (we’ll pay half if you pay half.) In today’s economic climate, that’s an ace up the sleeve. That and a respected showrunner would be hard for a network to pass up taking a flyer on.

I’m getting ahead of my self though. Jason and I have a screenplay due at the same company, plus a bunch of other stuff that needs to happen (writing wise) lickety split. So, we’ll put our heads down and keep working – which is the key overall. Keep moving forward. Also, once we got word the deal memo was in place and once the Lawyers had all taken a read, we received word that the Production Company’s principals (the VP of Development and the President) were jetting off to Cannes (for the film festival of course) and would be out of the country for three weeks. So, yes we took that first step. But we won’t get down to work until late May, at the earliest.

It’s a good start, though. A pretty good start.

It’s running late and I’m overdue to hit the sack; so let’s dive right in:

- I highly suggest you check out Jason’s blog entry for tonight. In it, in the highlighted section, part way down he lays out our process, which is fairly unique for writing partners, and details a wonderfully clear sense of the actual back and forth. The entry’s a must read, if you’re curious how we do what we do. Which arguably allows us to write more, better, faster in a much less stressful fashion. That might be the catch – the less stress. Either way, it’s an ace up the sleeve for us, in a big, big way.

-Trying to get to sleep earlier and wake up earlier. I am tasked by my sleep psychologist to get into bed at 11 p.m. I’m sure everyone is having a real good laugh at the thought of that. Let’s just say it’s 1:30 a.m. now, so it’s not exactly happening yet. But, then, I’m to be lights out, no later than 1  a.m. and up at 8 a.m. Then (this is the key part) I’m to go outside first thing, take a twenty-thirty minute walk, in the sun so that I can reset my biological clock which should lead to a more regular sleep pattern.

- Cardinals are on the west coast, but didn’t stop in L.A. It’s like they’re taunting me. That’s completely unfair.

-We tentatively resolved the situation around our TV pilot which is with the production company where we’re doing the screenplay. Our manager got in there today, and while we have not heard from him yet, officially, we did hear from our friend who works at the company and was privy to the mood post conversation between the director of development and our guy. It’s not a big staff, as most of these companies aren’t, so it’s pretty ground zero.

-This is good news, right? Yeah. (He begrudgingly says.) It’s tough to get too excited. This is just another climb up on the rollercoaster – there will be, sooner rather than later, a screaming descent. It’s just the nature of things, especially in this business. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, we want to hear from our Manager and get his thoughts, first person, on the whole thing.

-Need to get back to the gym, soon; or take more walks!

-Jason wrote the first sixteen pages today on the desert screenplay. So, I am really jazzed by that. They were fantastic as expected and really launched us into the story in a perfect manner. So now we’re off and running on that project along with the others. We may have to do work next week on the TV Pilot at the production company. Somehow, though, this desert movie is really number one with a bullet on our slate of projects. Just something about the story. Can’t wait to see where we take it.

-Going to get to see an old, dear friend this weekend. She’s out with her boyfirend, visiting a bunch of folks she knows. They’re in from Chicago. I haven’t had a chance to see her since I left Chicago. So it will be lovely to see her.

-What’s your favorite color?

Hahaha. That last one, I just thought I’d slip in. My answer is orange. I’m not sure why, but always has been. Though, I would never wear an orange suit; I have painted an entire kitchen Orange in the first apartment I shared with my ex, and still good friend, Nikki. It was a bold color choice, for sure.  We liked it at first, but then realized it was a little….intense?  Tough to say. It was a garden apartment, so not much light.

Good night and Good day!

Though we haven’t reaped any concrete gains yet, if you get some distance and look at the past few weeks, Jason and I have done quite well setting ourselves us to reach that next level, sooner rather than later. That next level = working, paid writers.

We decided today to go with the old school, veteran Lit Manager with the corner office in the skyscraper on West Sunset Boulevard. So that means we’ve got two high-powered A List representing pieces in place – our Entertainment Lawyer and our Lit Manager. Both guys who don’t normally take on new talent and break them in at this point in their careers. But they really, really believe in the writing and respect us for it, so they’re willing to invest their time, influence, and resources to make that happen. That’s a heckuva a place to be in, so quickly after leveling the old team. This is what the Lit Manager emailed us today, in part:

Also, as we all discussed, D**** and I are going to get ready to notify several agencies to begin laying the ground work for meetings. We will talk with the both of you to go over this in more detail, so you have a clearer sense of the plan.

Something about that reads as truly comforting to me. They, as two-thirds of the team – are going to go out to the town and sell us to the right agency. That means one of the bigger agencies with a decent stable of talent and a good reputation for getting projects set-up and/or off the ground. With an agent in place, we will be as loaded with representatives as we can get. Work should follow from that kind of momentum.

To that end, though, we had the meeting with the production company that’s interested in one of our pilot scripts today. They expressed their official and full interest for the script, ready to attack the town with it and make it happen with the right package. Unfortunately, true to form, their is no money up front. When it sells is when we would get paid. The exec feels like he can make that happen in three months or so. We hope so. It’s hard to totally buy into those statements, but I think he can pull it off with his contacts and relationships. He’s in a particularly good place to do this particular script, he gets every last nuance of it, and is really determined to make it a top priority – if we give him an option on the property.

Which I think we’ll do. It’s a tricky story with a big, huge world that’s some people don’t quite respond to, right away. In other words, it’s audience is a little more specific than your average network show. The company, according to plan, is ready to invest time and money into the pitch materials, which with this idea is saying a little something. As long as we’re willing to commit time to further developing the story and world with them, honing it for the industry. All in all, it’s a good situation. Do we want money up front? Of course. But it’s not the norm, sadly, because we have no track record of past successes to point to in asking for it. When you’re established, then you get paid in advance. You really don’t need it, but that’s the system. As Jason commented, walking out of the building, and in his post tonight: “It’s amazing how this whole industry is set up to not pay people.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

I know I said I was going to get to a couple posts yesterday, maybe do a little catch up on the week; but yesterday was a pretty heavy duty (but excellent) work day. So I went with the full post on the meeting with the lawyer last night, instead of just the Randoms post. This is actually one of my favorite posts, weekly, thus I still try to get it in – even on Saturday. This edition comes to you from the front patio at the Coffee Bean on Wilshire in Santa Monica, just blocks from the Third Street Promenade and the Pacific Ocean. It’s a partly sunny, breezy 66 degrees – a little cooler her in Santa Monica thanks to the ocean breezes. Just another day in paradise.

Here we go:

- Got our 434 assignments for the quarter yesterday in what I believe was the fastest time in the three years that I’ve been here. I’m in a Thursday section with John Sweet, who wrote the Hilary Swank vehicle, The Affair of the Necklace. He seems quite invested in teaching at the moment, has worked and gotten something made, is on the younger side, and is laid back. So, I’m quite happy. John is relatively new, so he was a bit of an x-factor, but I only pitched him (which is not a good strategy and was unplanned) and after I knew he was my number one – so it all worked out.

- Everyone’s talking jobs. Because it’s looming. Strange to say this, but I haven’t really worked – worked (for a steady paycheck) in about three years. So, I have a little trepidation about what I’m going to need to do to bridge the gap between the end of school and the actual start of this career, which I am feeling fairly confident should happen sooner, rather than later (within a year, as opposed to another five years.) And therein lies the rub, especially since Jason and I partnered up, the train has truly left the station. We are all systems go towards life as working writers. But that’s not something – the when of achieving that – which you can set hard dates for. So planning around the unknown, leaving room for the work that needs to keep happening to keep the train moving towards the right destination, is tricky and always seems to be a work in progress or demands unforseen sacrifices. It’s not like I haven’t been, to some degree, here before. I think that’s where that trepidation comes from, the deja vu of it – those there’s a much more positive light at the end of this tunnel.

- That being said, Jason and I turned in the outline for Dead Man’s Hand at Nala/Right Brain Films, yesterday at about 4 p.m. – basically with barely an hour to spare. The outline came in at an extrmely muscular 31 pages – but puts us in a great place to right the draft from. Hear from Alan first thing this morning, that seven pages in, he was deeply impressed with it – the detail, the care in putting it together, how we had really brought the story to life. That was good to hear after a long, hard, but quite satisfying week of work putting it together. We did a lot of work in those story-breaking meetings in their office with Alan and Seth, so it really bore fruit in the outline.

- I must also say that this writing partnership with Jason, while a bit unexpected and not really something that was planned, but just came to be, is proving to be the wisest decision I’ve made in a while. We are fast developing an excellent working language, the results have all been beyond our expectations, not to mention the expectations of those who we’re usually working with. When we stopped, recently to discuss our thoughts on John Doe or Dead Man’s Hand, we have been in the same place as to what needs to happen, or what needs to be fixed. That kind of synch/trust is worth its weight in gold.

Anybody watch HGTV? I have been a lot lately, when I’m not watching a show or movie for work. Usually I catch an episode  of House Hunters or Holmes on Homes (which is always uplifting), but there’s another show, a Canadian one, that you should check out if so inclined – Sara’s House. Sara, the host/star, buys a house and then in each episode with her team redoes a room or portion of the house. She sets a renovation  budget and sticks to it. Something about it, more so in how the show is constructed, just hooks me in.

Cardinals just played the Minnesota Twins in Minnesota at the Twins brand new stadium, Target Field. They split the brief series to inaugurate the new digs. Which means one thing: Opening Day on Monday!

Saw the Sleep Psychologist about a week ago, have another appointment with him coming up. He feels I’m just a short sleeper, not stuck with Insomnia. I’ll defer to him, he’s the expert, but I wish I were at least a medium sleeper. Lately, I’ve been waking up after five hours for about a half-hour to an hour and then falling back asleep for about an hour and a half. That hasn’t been fun for me.

My dear, dear friend Tiffany has officially decamped for Prescott. I have one thing to say about that: Boooo! I know it was a wise choice for her, but as soon as she cleared the city limits, L.A. got a whole lot quieter.

Need to get back to the gym/or on a better routine. I’ve done okay with the eating, so that’s been good, but I need to work some movement or exercise back in to the day to day.

I think that’s it for now. More soon!

FNR bids you sweet adieu, March. You came in like a lion, but it seems like you’re heading out a lamb. Next time we see the random train swing into the station, it’ll be April and spring should be in full swing.

-I’ve kind of not been posting much on the career side. Though I would love to, some things have been afoot on our side of the table. Sure, we’ve been developing a ton of stuff and getting ready to go on an epic writing tear (seriously.) I’m not talking about the creative side of things. That’s all I’ll say right now. (And, trust me, I don’t say this in an “I’ve got exciting news that I’m going to tell you soon!” kind of way. It’s not, unfortunately that, either.) More, when I know more.

-But, along those same lines, I have entered into an official writing partnership with one of my closest friends here in L.A, Jason Latshaw. He’s written an eloquent blog post on it and some of the fantastic benefits we’ve found in making this leap. Please check it out. It’s extremely insightful look at some attributes to the “strength in numbers” approach we quickly discovered in various meetings on various projects this week.

-For a bit of history: Jason, his wife Darby, and his wonderful children Lyric and Ollie, were literally the very first people that I met in Los Angeles, shortly after they arrived from the east coast (No joke!) From there, Jason and I were in the fateful first quarter 431, out of which the 431 writer’s group sprung. Jason and I have always been on the same page creatively. We’ve always been able to deliver key notes and insight on each others scripts, along with our good friend, J.J., who’s also in the 431. Not to mention that I really cherish Jason’s wife, Darby,  as one of my dearest friends. (She’s an extremely talented  musician.) Though, I don’t get to see Darby on a regular basis, when we do see each other we have the most fabulous conversations.

-As one last note on this, I think it’s safe to say that Jason and I didn’t quite imagine this happening, necessarily. But, it kind of crept up on us, and then, after we did Clipped together and everyone who read it was truly and deeply impressed, it was something we felt worth exploring more. Then we got into the meetings, kind of merging projects and slates over the last few weeks, and it just clicked extremely naturally, especially after we saw the effect it had in story meetings (Which you should read Jason’s post to hear more about!) Everything, in other words, seemed to happen to this point because it made sense. That, alone, to me, gives the endeavor a certain strength I don’t think you can plan on, which is invaluable.

- Opening Day is nine days and seven hours away. Get ready. It’s gonna be a wild summer at the yard.

-My dear friend Tiffany is departing, far too soon, for Prescott, Arizona. I am officially sad. It’s hard to watch such a good egg go.

- The last quarter starts Monday. Back into the fire with the second half of the playwriting class. Act Two and a rewrite before it’s all over. Plus I’ll do a celebratory 434 class this spring. Kind of a farewell tour.

- I started the outline on the Right Brain project Jason and I are on. It felt good after all the hashing out of the story to dive right in.

That’s about it. Be good to yourself.

As the first week of our too short break ends, post Winter Quarter, I’ve settled into a nice, comfortable, but busy rhythm. Part of that’s probably the fact that we’re in the varying stages of development on several projects, so their isn’t the day to day press of pages. But, more so, sadly, I have to admit that part of this more comfortable rhythm has to do with not being in school or held – even if it’s lightly – to those pressures. Which, as a good friend pointed out, means it’s probably time to leave the party.

All right, onward and upward!

- Chris Carpenter got rocked for seven runs in the first inning of his third to last start of spring training, before taking the mound for the Birds on the Bat on opening day – now about two weeks away. Our starting shortstop and $130 million dollar left fielder have yet to play an inning, too. Not to mention that the bullpen has yet to take shape and is pitching with all the stopping power of a fine mesh sieve. Should I be concerned? I haven’t decided yet, but I will know in a week. This could really affect the next seven months of my life, people.

-Slowly, but surely projects are wheeling onto the runway in proper order, seemingly lining up right now at a busy, but attackable pace. There’s some exciting stuff in the works on the feature side, especially.

-It’s been hot, in a very lovely way, lately. It’s kind of unseasonable, but not quite. We’re definitely verging on the border of a consistent Sunny and 70s for the next four or so months.

-The sudden spikes though in temp, plus that little tremblor (which I slept through), has people whispering “earthquake weather” out here. I know that probably has more to do with Haiti and Chile, etc. But, I guess it was odd that there were no tiny after shocks that followed that most recent one. Makes folks believe it’s just a precursor to the main event. Let’s just say I’m starting to consider the value of having an “earthquake kit.”

-The ipad is coming soon. Several hundred thousand sold already and the consumers haven’t even gotten to touch or try one out. That’s pretty amazing. Talk about a strong brand name.

- You may notice I haven’t mentioned Boss, or any other TV projects lately. We’ve been in the dark on those, honestly. Which isn’t great, but it’s not horrible, either. I think we’ll have to make some overall decisions regarding that whole are pretty soon, but for right now we’re just waiting and watching how the next couple of weeks unfold.

-Saw Justified’s pilot finally today. I LOVED it. It really does have the feel of a modern western and I thought they nailed the much lauded “Elmore Leonard tone and pace.” Timothy Olyphant gave a star turn as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. I feel like it’s a sharp show with a lot of legs. I’m definitely tuning in next week.

- Also, been racing through the second season of Breaking Bad, On Demand. Another great show, extremely well written. This will probably make some folks laugh, but it’s awfully dark. Almost too much for me. It just kind of wallows in it’s pitch black tone – which is one of it’s strengths actually. That’s kind of why I don’t really recommend that one. It’s not easy to sit through. Dexter, is a much more light and aerie show to me than Breaking Bad.

-Not much on the movie front lately. I saw She’s Out Of Your League (did I mention this yet?) and while it was recommended to me, I thought it was pretty horrible. In fact so horrible, that I still feel guilty for dragging my buddy, JJ, and his girlfriend, Cheyna, with me to see it.

-Just read an outline (for John Doe) that Jason did a pass on. As you may recall, Tony (the director) and I had been developing the idea for awhile. Last week the three of us had that meeting to bring Jason on board. Thank God we did! Jason’s pass on the outline really pushed to another level. This is what I love about this partnership. We really are able to get deeper and stronger on a lot of different elements – the emotion, the theme of a story, the character development. All the really tough, elusive elements that elevate a story to make it really stand out. His pass was excellent and exciting. Now we’ve really got something potentially special.

All right. It’s time to watch some TV, before bed.  Be good to yourself.

Regular posting will resume tomorrow. Tonight, I need to drown my sorrows in some frozen waffles or an omelette. Maybe even some yogurt later. All while watching a mindless movie or three.

Why, you ask? I was all set to go see this awesome panel tonight in North Hollywood. What panel?

This panel.

That’s a good friend’s blog. He made it. Me? Thwarted. By a car that had died. Yes. My car.

We’ll see what my mechanic has to say in the morning.

Check this out when you have a moment. It’s a ten minute short that a good friend made. Really well done, top to bottom. Love the way the Red Camera footage looks. It’s up on the web site Funny Or Die and it’s a hilarious ten minutes. Remember to vote for it after you watch it. Enjoy!

(Well, early Saturday morning actually)

Don’t quite have a full post in me. Just bits and pieces.

- Got a new trainer today at the gym. Not quite sure how I feel about it yet. He wants me to come twice a week and while I am committed to my health right now, that’s a tall order. Don’t know what happened to my old trainer. I’m getting the odd feeling he was fired, though everyone says he’s on vacation. I wanted to wait for him to get back and the head trainer wouldn’t let me. I was enjoying the gym before, achieving some nice consistent results. My old Trainer never felt the need to overwhelm me and he would keep track of when I was coming in on my own which kept me honest and on track. This new guy and the head trainer believe in making you hurt for days after. Not my style.

- Found out this week that I’m supposed to meet with Michael Nozik again at HWY 61. He’s Paul Haggis’ partner in the company. I had hoped that I would get a chance to meet with Paul, too; but he’s still in New York for the time being, probably working on the cut of his next film, The Next Three Days. It’s still a great development, though. Michael’s a great guy, and an big time producer. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to talk about – I thought that we were on hold for the next big TV pitch window in July.

- Read this blog by Mr. Latshaw. Go down to Number Four in particular. Two words – UNDERWATER ROLLERCOASTER. I’m not even a fan of rollercoasters and I want to see this happen. Why hasn’t it? They put a rollercoaster on a rooftop in Vegas and one in the Mall of America. This should happen, right?

-My dear friend, and a truly gifted playwright, Tiffany Antone is departing L.A. for Arizona for what we’re all hoping is an extended sabbatical. I’m personally quite sad. Though I know Tiff is feeling the change, so that’s good. Still sad!

- Saw An Education. It should win best picture, but it won’t. You should see it as soon as possible.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Take care of yourself. Do something sweet for someone else.

Spring Training starts MONDAY!