The Ruins...

Just got back from seeing it.

'Yup, I'm in Vancouver working and doing my typical 'lets forget that we're alone' go see a movie that wifey would never see thing.

And I realized something.

(and the realization was because I've been wondering why the film didn't do very well at the box office...)

For a film to succeed I wonder if you need to either:

a) Show them something they've never seen before...

Or...

b) Show them something they've seen a million times before and always love seeing...

So, 'a' would be like 'THE MATRIX', the first one, a film that was so special when it came out it became an instant classic.  That film gave us something we'd never seen before (a few things actually but principally...) bullet-time and a kick-ass action movie with a thought-provoking spirituality to it.  Or 'JURASSIC PARK', again the first one, CGI dinosaurs that looked real.  In fact, any great movie probably was great because it did 'a' to you.

Then there's 'b'...

Like 'YOU'VE GOT MAIL' or 'THE DEPARTED' a classic romantic comedy and a classic crime drama.  Genre films.  We know what to expect and we get what we're expecting and we love it for that.

I'm not sure 'THE RUINS' did either.  There wasn't anything really 'new' about it and it didn't really deliver 'classic' horror thrills.  It seemed like the 'torture' scenes didn't register, the audience (in my theater) didn't even really tense up, you couldn't feel the hackles rising on anybody.  There might be some who'd say we're over saturated with that type of thing ('SAW', 'HOSTEL' etc...) and so there's little 'shock' left in it.  It also didn't really deliver the 'skin' you'd expect from a 'college kids on vacation' movie.  

Nothing special, nothing surprising, nothing comfortably familiar.

So a lesson to me and to other would-be storytellers (stage or pulpit)...

If you're going to try and create something memorable make it fresh or make it familiar.

Anything but common or confused.

Point taken.

T

The List...

O.K, so I was reading 'the trades' today...

('the trades' are various magazines that connect to show business and pop-culture that I read to help me stay 'with it' in more than simply intuitive ways...)

And happened upon the most recent copy of Esquire Magazine.  Yes, it was the lovely shot of Jessica Simpson that caught my eye.  I wanted to see the shots of her and read the kind of story Esq. was going to do.  I find her an interesting gal.  One I imagine my wife and I could be friends with...

I know.  Weird.

Anyway the article was cool, but what really got me thinking, and now blogging, was another piece in the same issue about '75 things every man must be able to do'.  I read it all the way through realizing full-well that there were a few things at work in me at the same time.  

On one level I was just interested but on a deeper level I was eager to see how I 'measured up'.  I wanted to see how many of the 75 I could check off my list.  Funny how boys (and I can't speak for girls 'cause I'm not one...) are always measuring (!) themselves against perception, against expectation and against each other.

I'll leave my 'results' to me and let you go read the article yourself if you're curious as to how you stack up but I wanted to add my own 'twist' to the idea.

So without further ado...

"16 THINGS EVERY PRODUCER OR PREACHER MUST BE ABLE TO DO"

1. You must have VISION.  That uncommon ability to see beyond the first layer of a passage of scripture to what might be.  You must be able to see the potential of a story from just a few simple pieces at first then expand out from there into the eventual small-universe that is 'making a movie'.

2. You must have PERSEVERANCE.  A producer is usually (after the writer) the first person on the show and almost always the last person on the show.  Long after everyone else has moved on to their next picture and their next and their next, the Producer is shepherding the thing through post, marketing, release and ancillaries.  You have to be built for the long-haul to truly 'produce' a picture.  A preacher must put up with years and years of study and accumulating life experience before he has something to say worth saying.  He must further put up with years and years of stupid people not listening to him, claiming to hate him or what he says, or with perpetually-needy people trying to kiss up to him for what he says and must remain humble before God and strong before people and content to be lonely.

3. You must be INSPIRED and INSPIRING.  Anyone can pull a 'to do' list from the Bible.  Anyone can connect said 'to do list' to any inane aspect of pop-culture by way of application.  But a real preacher must be inspired by the Holy Spirit to find the 'magic' in the text and to apply said 'magic' to his audience's lives in a prophetic manner.  Anybody can pick up a video camera and film their kids playing in the backyard.  That's not a movie.  A real producer must be inspired to devote ten years of his/her life to bringing a story to life for the screen and for an audience.  Real producers inspire others to pour their talents into helping make that happen. Real preachers inspire others to listen to the Holy Spirit for themselves.

4. You must be able to be CREATIVE.  Only the very good preachers can surprise even the most intelligent members of their audience.  Don't tell them what they're expecting to hear, blow their mind with something they've never thought of.  That's a real preacher.  Only real producers are creative--they know art, artists, creatives and creativity.  They recognize the genuine article when they see it.  I'm not saying that all producers are 'painters' or 'musicians' but they could sure talk to a painter about music and about how those two disciplines are going to make his movie 'pop off the screen'.

5. You must have BUSINESS SENSE.  Only real preachers understand the business of Church.  They know that if they preach well their Church will grow and they're not shy of what that means for their employees and their congregants and their community.  Only when you fully appreciate the ripple effect of what you do in that pulpit each Sunday can you begin to become a preacher worthy of it.  Real producers know that film is the most expensive type of expression. They know when to spend and when to scrimp; they understand the financial consequences of their decisions.  If you don't know the dollars you're not the producer.

6. You must have COMPASSION.  The best producers love their cast and crew and creative collaborators.  They love having lunch 'cause they love people.  In loving people they find the nexus of their calling.  We tell stories to people.  Same goes for preachers.  If they don't love people they have no business being on that platform.

7. You must be BRAVE.  Producer's have to fight.  So do preachers.  Fight for the truth, for what's right.  Fight timelines and budgets and distractions and the culture to find your way through to that deep place of transparency and truth where you're creating magical content for your audience.  'Fraidy-cat preachers (I was going to use another term but some old habits die hard...) stop telling the truth and start regurgitating other people's content.  Wussy producers back down from confrontation or cave to outside pressure.  

8. You must have CONFIDENCE.  Different from bravery this.  In fact, I should have put this first.  You must know that you're right, that you've 'heard' right, that your 'take' is the correct one.  If you aren't totally sure you're going to be in trouble.  Once you're sure then you have to have the bravery to act on it, but we've already addressed that now haven't we?

9. You must be able to be HUMBLE.  This is always thorny 'cause the first two types of people you think of when you say 'humble' aren't typically preachers or film producers.  My sense of it is that many preachers are misunderstood.  Because they have to be confident and brave many people think of them as proud or arrogant.  I think what people miss is that to truly preach  the preacher must come 'naked' before God to have the Holy Spirit breathe life into the pages of a text through the preacher's imagination, intellect, training and communication ability.  Any real sermon is born of God in the broken heart of a servant/preacher who's half-terrified God's going to kill him as he writes.  You'll know this kind of preacher because they're typically very alive in the pulpit then quiet or reserved out of it.  Arrogant producers don't seem to work too well with other people and this whole business is about working with other people so chances are the 'big shots' you think are arrogant as hell probably aren't as bad as you think, or at least they didn't used to be.

10. You must have VULNERABILITY.  This is one of the most important in my view.  Coming up with something from your heart then putting it out there for people to react to is the stock in trade for preachers and producers.  Most of the time you get rejection by way of thanks. Only those who do this for a living truly understand how hard it is to keep doing this again and again without getting bitter.  Most of them don't talk about it too much which is why most people see them as aloof and arrogant.  Probably they're just gathering themselves to get ready to put something out there for you to stomp on all over again.

11. You must be able to be HONEST.  The truth hurts.  So if your preacher isn't hurting you with what he says, then telling you the story of Jesus to comfort, encourage and inspire you, he probably isn't really preaching to you.  As a producer one of the things you always have to do is keep telling people 'it's not good enough' until it is.  It's very hard to do that 'cause people hate being told what they've done isn't good enough and they typically lash out at you and you're so tired of it that your tendency is to accept something less than 'right'.  You have to be honest about it.

12. You must have SHOWMANSHIP.  "Honesty and showmanship?  What's this guy talking about?"  Exactly that.  'Honest showmanship'.  Church is 'entertainment'. (Oh boy...I could take some heat on that) People come to Church for many of the same reasons they go to the movies. To escape. To be inspired. To forget. To remember. To learn. To explore.  To see.  To be encouraged.  Moviemaking, from the first pitch meeting to the last table read is a show.  Setting the stage for a sermon done right is a show.  You have to know how to show people a good time.  It's just part of the gig.

13. You must have EGO.  You've got to believe (preacher or producer) that what you have to say matters.  If you don't, why bother?

14. You must be able to summon a WORK ETHIC.  The hard truth (from my limited experience) is that many preacher are lazy.  They enjoy getting paid to think and write and have coffee with people.  Great preachers work like dogs to pull glory from the stone.  They bend their entire will and week to creating (under God) a 45 minute journey that's worth the trip.  If your preacher's not blowing you away week after week he's probably shoplifting the pootie.  I've never met a real producer who doesn't work like a maniac.  The industry is set up to not allow you access until you learn this lesson.

15. You must have TALENT.  Doesn't matter how hard you work, at a certain point you've got to have that 'je ne sais quois', that little bit of fairy dust that makes your work stand out.  You can't make yourself any more talented than you are so don't sweat it.  Just figure out what your particular area of 'talentedness' is and focus on it.

16. You must have ACCESS.  You're not a preacher 'till someone gives you a stage.  You're not a producer 'till you've produced something that someone paid you money to distribute to an audience.  You can't wait for someone to hand you a stage or a slot at a cineplex.  You have to figure out the things you must do to get yourself access and, until you get it, you must work on points 1-15 so that when you do, you're ready to do work worthy of your title.

T 

If we all work together...

Together, together...

Any of you remember that song from Sunday school?

Man.

Interesting couple weeks since last I've written here.  Had a 'whoops, your TV show might be cancelled...' moment, worked through it (along with my intrepid executive producing biz-partner) pitched past it and closed a final 'yes' with a real 'whiz bang' pitch meeting with the top execs from the network.  I could tell within minutes, by the temperature in the room, that things were going to be o.k. 

And they were.  The execs were really happy, we got a final 'greenlight' and lived to fight another day.

Had the final set comps for both shows approved and boy oh boy do they ever look awesome.

Oh, and in other late breaking news, (and this is confidential so don't go talking or blogging about it or anything...) it looks like I might have found a key partnership in L.A to help us get 'THE STORM' distributed and explore setting up some of our other projects.  I realize that's an awfully nebulous comment, but I'll give you more once things lock down on that front.  Needless to say, I was very encouraged to get some positive feedback on our first wee feature-film.

As part of our development process I've currently got three scripts in the works; here's what I mean by 'in the works':

One is being re-written by a screenwriter I know in Austin.  He's been working on his interpretation of a script I wrote a year and a half ago or so, for the past month.  We decided to have him start work on it after he and I talked at length (and he gave me pages and pages of notes) about what he thought was working and what wasn't.  I really felt like he had a good 'sense' of the story and a good 'take' on where it should/could go.  So I'll see his first draft end of this week.

The second film is at concept stage right now, with ideas being batted back and forth between a Seattle-based screenwriter and I.  The story that is taking shape is based on an idea I had four years ago and shared with him recently.  He really took to it and we've been sending lengthy emails back and forth with things getting more and more exciting with each email.

The third script is one I'm writing based on an idea I had a few years ago and which got a bite out of L.A last week.  I'm currently outlining, locked the first pass at the story structure today, will expand on it tomorrow and maybe start writing end of the week.  Fun to be back at it as a 'writer' for a bit.

The reason I'm blogging on this is to simply testify to the amazing experience of working with talented people, people who are smarter than me, more creative, and willing to bend their talent to craft a story that I've been part of birthing.  I'm very thankful to be starting this process.  It feels like I'm starting to play with 'the pros' and I deeply appreciate the opportunity.

What's interesting to me is how, so far, the collaborative process seems a little more streamlined in show biz than it is in Church work.  I've always thought (and others have written) that the volunteer-based nature of Church is what makes it particularly difficult; the idea being that when you're not paying people it's hard to demand things of them.  I'm not sure if that answer is totally sufficient.  See, on the second script I'm working on, the other writer and I are working for free, simply because we love it.  We have interest in giving birth to the story to be sure, but at the root of it we're in it because we love this.  He's an atheist, I'm a preacher turned producer and we're getting along great, finding shared passion in story crafting trying to build something that 'speaks' on a deep level, and it's a beautiful thing.

I wonder sometimes about passion in the Christian community.  I wonder how hot under the collar our preachers and congregants are.  I wonder how much their faith MATTERS to them, cause, to the people I'm working with, what we're working on MATTERS and I find that tremendously humbling and challenging at the same time.

T

O.K, sometimes it is cool...

Right?

Isn't that cool?

I mean, I freaked when I saw it.  My Director on the series hadn't said 'boo' to me about it, he'd just been quietly implementing the idea he and I had had together a month back while we were trying to figure out how to build a set that we could afford while still making it cool and full of possibility.

We had a 'eureka' moment on the phone call, he ran with it, and that was the last I heard of it.

Until yesterday.

We were at 64 Steps, the production design firm (and it's a real honor to be working with them, they're a bunch of serious dudes...) having a meeting on our two shows and at the end he took me to his workstation and dropped THAT on me.

Holy frickin' smokes.

It's a wonderful thing to work with talented people.

First I punched my director, then I punched my production designer, then I called my wife, then I called my 'other wife' (aka: my executive producer), then I sat at home and stared at it for a bit.

I do realize it's just a set.

But the thing is, it's not.

It's the beginning of the fruition of an idea, the realization of a dream, the fulfillment of a decade's worth of work getting to this point and then (DV) moving beyond.  And the lesson I continue to learn from this biz is the lesson I've been learning this week as my contractor has built us a second bathroom (yes, we've been living for years with four kids and one toilet...pretty awesome...) and a workspace for me that's something other than an IKEA desk next to the water heater.

Every time I made a suggestion he said one of two things.

"That would be better..." (insert Polish accent please)

Or...

"That would not be better..."

And I realized that that's how I need to continue to embrace criticism and comment from the people I work with.  I don't have to take it personally (which is hard for me, I'm a 'personal' kind of guy...) I just have to take it, then throw on my best Polish accent and hardened construction worker attitude and figure out if implementing the idea would be a "that would be better..." scenario or a "that would not be better..." scenario.

Simple as a bathroom in a basement or a smokin' set in a studio.

Simple as better is better and sometimes even awesome.

Like that set!

T

Just so you don't get to thinkin'...

That this 'being a producer' business is all sugar cones and lollipops...

It's 3:23am as I write this, and I'm working.

Just finished a 'big time' email to a couple of key collaborators on one of the new TV series I'm producing.

Why?

Because I can't sleep.

Why?

Because my baby girl woke us up at 2am and I started thinking.

Seriously, when it gets this busy most of my challenge is about using my brain wisely and well during the day then allowing it to to slowly shut down (food, red wine and good sex with your wife helps tremendously, but don't tell her I told you our 'trade secrets'...) at night so that I can sleep.  Just tonight my wife was mentioning that we need to take a good drive together 'cause that's the only time I'll talk to her about what's going on.  She tries to talk to me at night, but I clam up 'cause I know that if I start talking about it, I won't be able to sleep.

Tonight being a case in point.

It's now 3:27am and I'm still awake.

So instead of lying there stewing, I just got up and friggin' plowed through an email to my guys, rhyming off every concern I had, putting it to rest so that, hopefully, I can get some.

Rest.

So long as I can stop worrying that I was too 'curt', 'direct', or 'mean' in my email to them...

'Cause it's 3:28am!

Dang'.

There's no business like this business.

T

Ooh Baby, Baby it's a...

Sad world...

Oh man.

So I watched "THERE WILL BE BLOOD" yesterday and "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN" today.

I'm in Vancouver, working, which means I'm staving off loneliness with work and movies.  I called my wife this morning, like, six times in an hour and a half.  Little things I wanted to share with her, like the new egg sandwich at Starbucks, the sunshine, things like that.  I told her yesterday that I forget what it was like living alone.  I find myself looking at people trying to figure out which ones are single, which ones are together.  

I was wondering if it's wrong for me to feel 'sad' for the ones that seemed lonely--wrong because I'm only thinking about it from my side of the fence, y'know, like I should cut them some slack because what they know is all they've ever known and who am I to assume that my way of life is better, or more whole, than theirs--then I stop being politically correct and it seems to me that alone is just that, alone, and if asked whether it's better to eat a chicken burrito with my wife and four kids around our dining room table or on the floor of a hotel room with the coffee table replacing our harvest one, it's very clear to me that together is better.

It's what we've been made for.

Together.

And the common denominator in both these 'critically lauded' movies is a bone deep loneliness. So bleak.  I'm sitting there watching the last moments of TWBB and I can't believe what I'm seeing.  Then, I get to the end of NCFOM tonight and I'm feeling the same thing.

Pointless.  Bleak.

Sure, both were impeccably constructed.  Beautifully shot.  Wonderfully acted.  The writing was superb, everything about both films was essentially flawless.

Except for the lack of hope.

"Blah, blah..."  "Go home 'preacher boy'..."

Yeah, I get what you're saying.

I'm not saying anything but that I missed the light.  And I understand why all stories don't have to be happy stories, but I'm really struggling to figure out what the 'value' was in those films. Did they make any contribution to my life?  

TWBB spoke to me about the danger of ambition, the deep evil of dishonesty and a lust for power.  So, o.k, it spoke to me.  But, man, the whole, "I'm a false prophet.  God is a superstition..." thing.  Wow.  So dark.

"Some would say 'honest'..."

Yeah I get that too.  But I wonder if that kind of bleak experience is truly universal or if our artists just 'think it so...'  I wonder if they've been conditioned by years of mounting disillusionment in western culture (our books, our popular culture with all its attachments, our schooling system...) to believe that life is, at its root, hopeless.

Do all people feel hopeless?

One of the near closing lines in NCFOM was little less virulent but still played the 'God card'. "I thought that as I got older God would eventually just come into my life, but He hasn't..."  That felt more authentic to me, yet still hopeless.  And I wondered if the writers, in creating that moment for their character, really felt that people long for an experience of God's life in theirs. I wonder if they think an encounter with God is life's zenith.

Seems like it could be.

Because if God exists and is interested in us then to have some (any) kind of 'communion' with God is to cease from loneliness.   I was reading "I Am Legend" this week too and, again, the central issue in the story was that of loneliness.  

Then I'm walking through Vancouver's streets looking at all the street people and they're so alone.  Nobody (including me) looks at them.  Then I imagined them railing at me for not looking at them and I thought to myself; "It's because you only want me to look at you so that you can harangue me for money!  If you wanted to look at me just to smile and say 'hi' I'd love that, but that's not the case now is it?"

So they're alone sitting there under the lamp post and I'm alone hurrying by.

All of us, divided.

(and before my brother-in-law stops reading this 'depressing' post lemme' try and turn the corner)

Then I saw a commercial with a child asleep in the back seat while her parents drove her to the beach and I thought that maybe there's hope.

Hope in giving oneself away.  

Hope in spending one's life to give to others.  And I don't necessarily mean some kind of 'altruistic' giving but maybe just the simplistic kind, the kind that gives a rose to your wife or a smile to a stranger.  The kind that gives your life to build one so that you can provide one for your kids.  The kind that lays itself out there, risking rejection and pain again and again, for the sake of speaking or making something 'good' that brings life into the existence of another.

'Cause it occurs to me, in the midst of all this loneliness, that it was selfishness that was really the killer in those movies.  And the only antidote for selfishness is selflessness.

To 'find your life' you've got to 'lose' it.

And that's not wisdom I came up with, it's wisdom that came to me.

Like a gift from the blue.  Like water to the desert.  Like a wife to a husband.

Like my kids to their daddy.

Like a new country for all men for whom there was blood.

T

Finally...

So the trailer for my first film is (you said it) FINALLY up online.

You can check it out at www.thestormiscoming.com then select 'THE FILM' then 'TRAILER' and it's all yours.

The thing about it that's both incredibly satisfying and deeply humbling at the same time is just how friggin' long it's taken to get from 'there' to 'here'.

I wrote the film October 2005.

We set it up November December 2005.  Shot it February, March 2006.  Cut it summer 2006. Finessed it fall 2006.  Screened it for the first time February 2007.  Took in the reaction and tweaked some things March 2006...

Then we ran out of money.

The rest of 2007 was about the most insecure, difficult, 'beats taking' year I've ever experienced.

Throughout it (and in the midst of trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do about that pesky little thing called 'feeding your family'...) I kept working on it, little by little, pushing it ahead one inch at a time.  My business partner (everybody needs one of those, f'real...) kept pushing too, working like a madman to try and get our tax credits back from the government.  

Three audits later, we got the money and I was able to get people working on the thing again.

That was fall 2007.

Between then and now we've had the site built and launched, and have toiled through three versions of the trailer (from concept, to rough cut, to final cut, to sound design, to scrapping it, to new concept, to rough cut, to final cut, to sound design, to scrapping it, to third concept, rough cut, fine cut, mastering cut [where it really started to come together], to the final two passes at a sound design that would make my business partner AND my wife happy).

Now that's a tall order.  Anyway, I sat them down (one at a time) to watch it.  And they liked it. Felt that we finally had something worth proceeding with.

That was two weeks ago.

And today it went out to a bunch of folks in 'the biz', real decision makers who were going to decide whether or not to work with us in helping to take the film to market based on whether or not they liked the trailer.

Can you feel the tension?

It's about the craziest, most prolonged period of uncertainty and stress I can remember.

Then tonight, sitting with my wife watching 'American Idol', I popped into my office to check my email and there it was.

A response from L.A.

(let's let the anticipation build a moment...)

And...

They LOVED it!

Want to take it into their contacts at two major studios.

How awesome is that?

Trust my wife to be a 'wife'.  She's like; "Why can't they just say 'yes' and cut us a cheque already?"  Poor baby, this whole journey has been so hard on her.  She looks at me.  "You always knew, didn't you?  You knew the trailer would be the thing."

How can you do this if you don't 'know'?

If you don't believe in your story (and your 'belief' is double-minded at best 'cause you doubt then believe then doubt then believe at least seven times a day)  If you don't love it.  Nobody else will.

Keep in mind now (all you would-be filmmakers out there) that I'm not saying that the thing I love is the best thing ever.  I love my kids.  When they're good.  When they're bad.  I love them just the same.  I love my movie.

My simple, humble, not all that it could be... (or as my outspoken script supervisor told me on set night 17 of principal photography; "Good enough but far from good...")

--Yeah, thanks.  I needed that.  On second thought.  SHUT UP!--

...Movie.  I love it.  For what it was going to be.  For what it isn't and, most of all, for what it is and for all the people who made it that way.

I love it and I love them.

And L.A (in the first small, but oh-so-important way) loves it too.

Can you believe it?

Cool.

So, having passed that first (after so many) test, we get to live to try and fight another day.

Day 775 of deciding to make a movie.

Oh boy.

T