After effects...

There I am, on-set, filling in the slate, getting ready to shoot take "Only God knows the number we're on..." last week.

It was exhausting.

I try to not be too much of a whiner when it comes to workload etc.  I remember hitting the level where everyone was tired all of the time because they were hustling their butts off trying to find a way to 'make it' in this crazy industry and I just realized that I should stop commenting on my fatigue level.

So I just say, "I'm well..." when I'm alright and "I believe I shall be well..." when things are looking bleak.

Then you have a day like yesterday, where your philosophy/faith butts up against the requirements of your body.  

I got home Sunday, chilled with the family Monday, then yesterday I was supposed to go right back to work.  So we did breakfast, did our coffee, then I came downstairs and tried to start working.  I got through my email and crashed.  Seriously.  I had to stop, walk upstairs and lay down on the couch.  I fell immediately asleep for an hour or so.  

I did that three times yesterday.

Just couldn't go on any longer.

Strange to feel that kind of weakness.  Like at the end of a battle or something.

And that's what the last two weeks have been like for me.  Principally, the issue was shifting our studios.  See, for the past year on the main show I produce we've been shooting at a fabulous mainstream studio in the heart of downtown Vancouver.  It's a pro place full of pro people and pro gear.  You basically walk in, they've already got our set in place, we get the hosts dressed and made up and off we go.

Simple.

And expensive.

Yes we had a great deal.  Yes, the team there were a wonderful bunch (and we do miss them...) but, at the end of the day [as my EP loves to say] we just couldn't afford it.

We had known for some time that a cash crunch was going to hit us later this year and we'd been exploring various options all year long, trying to find the best way through it.  Eventually, my EP and I had a sit down at his office (while our wives and kids hung out upstairs) where we crunched the 'actuals' budget in real time and I did my best to estimate the 'moving forward' budget and we realized that we had to act NOW.

Here's where it gets miraculous (or strange--depending on your worldview...)

So, I get home that night, and while Niki and I are sitting on the couch watching CNN and she's surfing Facebook, I'm on Craigslist looking for office space rentals.  I find like ten of 'em that look like they might work.  Email all ten.

Next day.  I get one response.  The guy sounds nice and his space, in the perfect location, is still available.  BOOM, I book a flight, fly in and out in the same day--see the space and spend the evening working on a mock trailer with my Vancouver editor.

Oh yeah, on the way to the space, I walk through the neighborhood where it looks like we're going to live for the first few months of 2009, just checking it out on-foot to make sure it's 'suitable for the wife', and it turns out to be as awesome as we'd hoped.  

So, I get downtown, to the prospective space.  Meet the owner.  Walk into the space.  Look at it for ten seconds.  Tell him we'll take it.  "What just like that?"  Yeah, just like that.  "But how can you be so sure so quickly?"

When you know, you know.

(and that's near miraculous, finding the 'perfect space' just like that, with one call...)

Fast forward to last week.

I arrive on the Saturday.  Sunday the race begins.  Turning an empty space, with walls in all the wrong places, into a space we can actually use.  Then I find out our set (from the studio) won't fit.  Actually, I find that out AS the movers arrive (I'd been worrying about it all week though). They call me downstairs to see for myself and I'm standing there, in the rain, with a thousand other things [like figuring out how to shoot this...] going on at once all around me, and I have to improvise.

Think, Todd.

So I ask the movers if they can keep the set in storage for a day or so.  They say sure.  I tell my guys to bring in everything that will fit.  They do.  I talk with my associate producer (the brilliant Karl Richter) about the issue, we spitball some solutions, I keep working on getting the space set.  That night he calls me.  

"Yo', it's done."  What do you mean 'done'?  And he proceeds to explain that our Toronto-based Production Designer is going to have one of his west coast guys go to the mover's, take the set apart, pack it, deliver it then rebuild it in our space.

Just like that.

And that's how it went down.

The set came in, got rebuilt, and ended up looking great.

Thanks Jer.  Thanks Karl.

But that's just one of the several dozen crises I had to deal with all week.  Never mind that I had to re-shoot my stand up sequences for 14 of the shows we shot in L.A over the course of two days and never mind that the two days following I had to direct 100 segments for 25 new episodes of the main show I produce and never mind that we were shooting it film style and switching to shooting it ALL in HD (can you say 'render time'?) and introducing two new assistant editors into the mix and a new DP and new shooters...

See, a film set and a TV studio are two different beasts.

To borrow 'preacher speak', a TV set is like a Church building.  It's there, it works, it looks good and does exactly what you need it to do.  You just show up and do your thing.  A film set is like a Church Plant except worse.  You bring everything you're going to need with you, you set it up in a blank space, turning it into the kind of space you're going to need, then when you're done you tear it all down again.

It's crazy.

And you can imagine the things that can go wrong.  Everything you can imagine does, in fact, go wrong, and then some, and as the guy in charge you've got to make sure that the train keeps rolling 'cause not doing it is not an option.

So you push through and you get it done, then you come home and you crash and you feel silly and 'weak' for crashing.

I guess the only SFS 'applicability-oriented' thing I've got to say is:

If you want to do something difficult with your life, remember that it is going to be difficult. Remember to leverage your relationships in such a way that they're going to help you do that difficult thing.  Don't expect your life to be 'normal', 'cause it won't be.  Push yourself as hard as you can when it counts, then listen to your body when you're done, in case you need to take a nap.

'Cause you don't want to push so hard that you push yourself right over the edge.

T

New shizz...

Sittin' in my (our) new studio (it's super tiny and humble), with my Editor to my left and one of my hosts to my right. The set you see is right in front of me.

Four days ago this was a big empty room.

I've been shooting for four days straight at this point.  I'm so burnt that this morning, I was scarfing down an egg sandwich while catching the last few minutes of 'Jerry Maguire' and my wife called.

I was so moved (and so sleep deprived) that I started sobbing--uncontrollably.  I had to tell Niki to give me five minutes and call me back.

That's the cost of show biz-ness my man.

Missing your wife to the point that you dang near lose yo' mind...

I'll post a detailed retrospective in the next couple days.

Peace,

T

Living life in ten-minute increments...

So this is the building that houses our new studio.  You're looking at the corner of Richards and Smithe in downtown Vancouver.  The neighborhood we're in is called 'Yaletown' and is considered one of the best urban neighborhoods anywhere.  The location is totally central to everything and will be a five minute bike ride downhill from our new house.  Pretty neat.

As is always the case, however, nothing is ever easy and our space required a lot of work (that's still ongoing) to get it ready to shoot.  The above shot has our contractor (Stephen--the man--Goldman on the left) arguing with our director (Karl--THE KARL--Richter on the right) while I (in the background) field one of the hundred phone calls I got that day, putting out some fire, working some magic, doing whatever it takes to keep things rolling so that we'd have somewhere to shoot.

Then the crew arrived and we began working to set up for the first round of shooting.  The white wall on your left was one of seven walls that had to be removed.  The black walls are the white walls you see in the second shot. Since the contractor wasn't going to be able to remove them until Thursday morning, we just had to find a way to shoot around them on Wednesday.

And here's the end result.  Me, on-set, having just wrapped the first day.  I'll try to post a little web video for you here so you can see what the real 'end result' looks like.

The thing to realize in all this is the crazy level of madness that we're living through right now. My Executive Producer called me this morning to ask how it was going and my response was, "Well, it's varying degrees of mass mayhem and planet-wide panic..."  Then he freaked out a bit 'cause for me to say it that way means it must be really bad.  I told him to calm down 'cause though it's certainly crazy here, it's a controlled crazy.  Like running a military campaign.

I like that analogy.  If you don't keep moving forward you die.

And that's relevant for you.  

If you don't keep moving forward you die.

So no matter how hard it gets for you today, try to do your best to just keep moving from moment to moment.  I've seriously been living in ten-minute increments this week.  From one ten-minute segment to the next.  Not thinking too far ahead, just focusing on the immediate task at hand, doing what it takes to survive long enough to get to the next ten minutes.

If you do that, almost no matter how hectic the scenario, you'll probably end up being alright.

Take it from me, I'm livin' through it right now.

T

I'm having to pay for it for a really long time...

Okay, so I'm an inveterate pop-culture guy.

Yes I am.

And I like Britney Spears.

So I watched her bio-flick tonight, an hour and a half of it.  What struck me about it was her loneliness and sense of isolation.  Very interesting to see her comment on how long it's taking her to 'pay off' her bad-times-debt.

I feel a deep sense of empathy and compassion for her.

As I walked to the bathroom during a commercial break, here's what struck me.  She had expressed a deep desire for 'normalcy'.  She said that the things she really wants are the little things, "To be part of the people..."  To be able to go for a fall walk.

So two points for us to consider.

1) Once you've got more money than you can ever spend, your desire, sense of need, will transition to whatever it is that you don't have.  We must recognize that a certain 'emptiness' is part and parcel of the human condition.  Recognize what will fill it and what won't.  Remember to keep the things that won't fill it in their proper place and don't allow yourself to move from fixation to fixation.

2) She wants a fall walk.  You get to go for fall walks.  Be thankful for the small graces you have.  Truly, deeply, deliriously thankful for all the little beauties in your life.

She said her fantasy is an island getaway with her babies and a man.

A man.

We're all looking for someone to love us and to love.

If you have found that person, remember to hold hard to them.  Resist your selfish impulses. Stop being a dick.  Love her.  She's glorious.  She could be gone in a flash.  Millionairesses want what you have.

Love her.

Remember that the people around you, those you pass on the street each day, are suffering just like Ms. Spears.  Sure in different ways.  Sure on a different scale.  But pain is pain and the World around you is full of it.

So, if you get to preach next week, remember that pain and remember to find and preach (from your heart) an answer to it and for it.

If you're writing, producing, directing a story, remember that pain and address it.  Show it, speak to it, deal with it, kill it, bring your audience through to the light.

'Cause 'aint nobody as wants to stay sad.

No you, not me, not our girl Britney.

T

The life of a (mini) mogul...

So that's about what my night's looking like...

NFL football in the background, some 'two bite' desserts in the foreground, and a bottle of australian shiraz in the middle of it all.

(no I'm not going to drink the whole bottle tonight)

All I need now is my wife...

Problem is, every time you combine my wife and I with a bottle of vino rosso, you end up with:

Four o' them rats right there.

Yes, I'm back in Vancouver, getting our new studio set up.  That's right, 'our' studio.  We've moved out of our digs at Shaw (and lasting love and respect and thanks go out to the ENTIRE team out there...) to a new spot in the heart of Yaletown, the coolest neighborhood in downtown Vancouver.  

I'll take some shots of it this week and post 'em for you to see.

There are a couple of things that are interesting about this transition that are, I think, SFS worthy.

First, the whole thing of our 'own' space is a 'trip' in and of itself.  For so long (nearly ten years) we've been way on the beggars end of the 'beggars can't be choosers...' spectrum.  We've been living and working in borrowed space on what seemed like borrowed time.  The very 'permanence' of a space that we've leased is a whole other level that I've often thought about but, now that it's here, feels weird.

Part of that is due to the fact that with the space comes a whole host of new headaches (like re-building it, re-powering it, figuring out how to light it, realizing that our set probably won't fit into it, etc...) and that goes to prove to us all, once again, that you never truly 'arrive'--there is no 'OZ' there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  Just another hill to climb.

Granted, said hill is in 'new territory' and that's exiting, but a hill is--after all--still a hill.

Second, whenever you do something for what you think are the right reasons you add heartache to the mix.  What's funny is that we've been working this whole studio angle to SAVE money but, I'm guessing that the very nature of our 'own' space has the people I work with suddenly thinking they can jockey for more money.  It's as if they psychically think that since we're getting our own space we MUST have more money somewhere we're not telling them about that they're determined to get their hands on.

Seriously, I've been fielding non-stop requests for more cash from my people for the past few weeks.  And what gets me down about that (and, some of them read this blog, so it's clearly not a point of 'personal' contention or something that I don't want out in the open) is that I don't have any more to give.  And the issue with that is that it's hard to keep people feeling happy and valued when your tangible ability to give them anything actual is severely limited.

The thing for all of us to consider here is that, ultimately, all the people around us see life ONLY from their own perspective.  And that's not something that ever changes.  Most people (all of us by times) are functioning on the level of 'self-interest' most of the time.  Sure, sometimes we do the right thing just for the sake of doing the right thing but, my sense of it (and, granted, my sense is limited...) is that we do the right thing mostly because we think it will help us out.

And it's okay (or maybe not 'okay' but natural...) to feel like we need to help ourselves because life is hard and we feel scared much of the time as we stare the urge to survive right in the face.

But, man, facing all that self-interest (in myself also) gets tiring and can make you very jaded very quickly and jadedness ultimately leads to loneliness because you feel like it's you against everybody else.

And if you let an adversarial attitude creep in you're in trouble.

The only thing I keep thinking of is that I need to try and stay humble and to give others the benefit of the doubt and to trust the process and (full disclosure) the Lord of the process who (I hope) is leading us in the right direction through it all.

The thing that I've learned sixteen years later (yes, I started doing this when I was 18) is that there's no point stressing too much about all the little things you can't control.  When it comes to showbiz and the business of building a Church or a life or a career the 'thing' you're working towards will generally happen because is HAS to.  If you just keep showing up, keep putting in the hours, keep bringing your talent to bear on the task at hand, keep doing your best in every given situation to do what you know in your heart (and with your mind) is the right thing, you'll generally be okay and the thing you need to have happen will, generally, happen.

It really does come down to hanging around long enough that it just starts happening.

Of course, nobody's going to let you hang around very long if you suck at the thing you're trying to do, but--assuming you're not totally useless--if you can stick it out long enough, you'll generally find yourself advancing as each year goes by.  Looking back you'll find that you know more, have experienced more, have suffered and survived more, have met more people who can positively impact your life and from whom you can learn, and generally you'll find yourself better equipped to do that thing that you've been built to do.

So long as you keep at it.

And keep at it.

And keep at it.

T

Such a hell of a day...

No, not that day.  That day was good.  That's why I'm putting the shot up here.  To remind me. That some days are better than others.  You do actually have a good day once in a while.

Yesterday was not one of those days.

Not a good one.

In fact, it was a hell of a day.  Really.

See, I forget that we're 'cursed'.  "Cursed?  What do you mean cursed?"  Well, I'm referring to the 'Eden Narrative' where our first parents, Adam and Eve, 'fell' into rebellion and were 'cursed' as a result.  All of a sudden, childbirth became much more painful and the Earth would conspire to yield thorns and rocks instead of compliant crops for Adam the farmer.

Basically a God-sized can 'o whup-yo-ass got opened on our parents and things have stayed that way ever since.

Even if you don't believe the old stories (which is totally fine, I'd be less than worth my salt if this blog was read only by people who all believe in a certain way...) you've got to admit that, most of the time, life seems to be much more difficult than we 'feel'--deep down in the guts of us--it ought to be.

It's just so damn hard sometimes.

Like yesterday.

It started out great, I had a wonderful post audio session with my composer putting sound to the pitch video for 'DEATH'S DOOR', the dramatic TV series we hope will be our next big narrative project.  The pitch is going to be powerful.  I'd be very surprised if it didn't make a strong impact on the Network we're pitching.

So I drove home on a cloud then descended to my basement office.

Might as well have been walking down into the abyss.  'Cause all hell's (literally) breaking loose in my talk-TV world.

See, here's the thing, (and these are 'trade secrets') every year around this time my Executive Producer and I get into our 'once a year fight'.  It's typically about money.  The reason is that it's this time of year that we're facing utter destruction on the one hand and an increase in our productivity on the other.

We, literally, might be ten-times busier in 2009 than we were in 2008, and that'd be great and terrifying at the same time.  There's also a chance--and figuring out how great a chance is a constant mind-game--that everything we're doing will fall-through leaving us, essentially unemployed next year.  And I have to plan--actually plan--for both eventualities.  

We all love planning for success, but how about planning for your utter demise?  How'd you like to spend your days doing that?

So You Think You Want To Be A Producer, Canada?

I mean, it's almost ridiculous to think that we could have done all the work we've done this past year to come up with a big 'ol goose egg in return.

Right?

But the thing is.  It's possible.  I remember the garden and that we're cursed.  I think about entropy and the fact that most things never seem to go your way.  I think about all the people out there who'd love to see me take a fall and wonder why they feel that way and shudder to think that I'm the kind of guy who might elicit that kind of reaction in people.  I think about God and His supposed goodness.  I say 'supposed' to let you in on my honest-to-goodness state of mind yesterday.  I'm sitting there, facing it, thinking to myself "Well, you know, really you've got no guarantees.  God didn't promise you a job.  God didn't promise you ease.  And, anyway, you might be deluded with this whole 'God-thing' anyway."

(I don't really think I am, but want to be 100% transparent in this forum re: my internal dialogue)

So I sit there really troubled and concerned.

And the trick is to get past it and get back to work.

You sit with your wife and watch 'So You Think You Can Dance Canada' and you eat some cereal with blueberries and you drink some red wine then you go to bed.  When your baby daughter wakes up at 2:30am you pick her up and carry her to Mommy then leave your bed to the both of them and crawl into the bottom bunk in your older daughter's room and spend a good half-hour trying to stop thinking about all the things you need to do and all the things that seem to be going wrong and all the things that might still go wrong and you, eventually, fall asleep.

Then you wake up troubled.  Not quite grumpy, but very pensive and afraid.  You make breakfast, clean up from it, have a second cup of coffee with your wife then go back down into the abyss to see if you can find some light in the midst of the darkness.

You work your way through in faith.

Believing in something you can't see.

Believing that you've been given what it takes to do the thing you've been given to do.

Believing that, in spite of how bleak everything looks, there will come a day again when the sun shines and the sky blues and the mountains look fake they look so good and you smile crookedly 'cause you know it's good now but probably won't be forever.

And that's life.

Woooo...saahhh...

T

Always learning...

So I'm always learning.

Today I'll be scouring the above book as I prepare for 1) a story meeting tonight 2) a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of feverish writing 3) a post-audio session Tuesday night and 4) a Network pitch Friday.

The book is all about creating dramatic TV series'.  This next step (providing it actually 'happens'...) is an interesting one for me since most of my 'show business' work has been in talk television series production with one produced feature film under my belt.

So with this new project I'll be mixing my years in talk-TV with my love for the narrative form.

I was reading an online resource the other day, one of those sites that claims to help writers 'make it' in TV, and noticed something about the 'checklist' they'd provided re: the steps necessary to getting your own TV series on the air.

Among the 'must-haves' listed:

1) Strong, long-standing, working relationship with the Network you're pitching to.

2) A proven track-record.

3) A great, or at least 'catchy' concept.

4) An infectious passion for the project.

And the thing that struck me was that I have all those things.  Very strange to find myself in that position.  I remember, like it was yesterday, deciding in 2002 that I was going to start writing for the screen.  I remember buying Syd Field's 'THE SCREENWRITER'S WORKBOOK' and reading it once like a book, a second time with a pen taking furious notes, and a third time doing the exercises and, like he said, I ended up with my first screenplay by the time I'd finished actually working my way through the book.

The script was called 'THREE NIGHTS AT SEA'.  I'll try to post a shot of it for you.

I also remember, Summer 2004, saying to my Dad that I thought it was time to make my break into directing.  Two winters later (Feb 2006) I was on-set directing my first feature-film from a script I'd written.  By that point, 'THE STORM' was the sixth or seventh feature-length screenplay I'd written.

Two years after that, just last month in L.A, I sat in a distribution meeting on said film and I may have some interesting news to report on that front very soon.

The Network that I'm pitching on Friday is one I've had a working relationship with, off and on, for ten full years.  It's only now that I'm in the position, after all of the above, where I have even a snow ball's chance in Cabo of this pitch being anything other than a colossal waste of time.

I was reading on Wordplayer, a wonderful screenwriting community, another post on how 'hard' it is to break into screenwriting.  Terry Rossio (genius screenwriter of 'Alladin', the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' franchise among so many others along with his writing partner Ted Elliot) was, again, saying that if you ever want to actually see your story made you basically need to become a director.

I believed that ten years ago.  It's very funny to be in the place today where it looks like that's starting, just starting mind-you and very tenuously at best, for me.

And that got me thinking, as it often does, about you.

What do you want to do?

Do you already 'know' the gatekeepers in your industry?  Have you been 'part' of their mix for a certain number of years?  If the answer is 'no' then you need to put yourself in that position now so that a few years from now you'll be able to answer 'yes' at which point you'll need to be sure that you...

Have the track-record to back your dreams up.  This doesn't mean you need to have done what you're looking to do, at the highest level, 'cause if you'd already done it you wouldn't be knocking on that door now would you?  So don't assume you need to be a 'pro' to get that gig. You do, however, need to be able to demonstrate that you have the proven ability to follow-through.  One of the problems with 'dream making' is that almost anyone can have a dream that they're passionate about.  Very few people have the ability to stick with and to that dream for a decade or more to see it birthed.  The gatekeepers will need to know they can trust you to follow through on whatever tangible investment it is that you're hoping they're going to make in you and they're only going to even start considering giving you that investment if...

Your concept is catchy.  This means you have to have something they want.  Something that's similar to what they know (historically) 'works' in their arena but still different or unique enough that they feel it'll have a chance to punch through all the pop-cultural 'noise' out there. You'll know your concept is catchy when you can't sleep at night 'cause the ideas keep coming and when everyone you tell it to responds with a 'Wow!  When can I see it?  That sounds GREAT!'  When even your classically taciturn business partner gets excited about it (something he NEVER does...) you'll know you're onto something.  Your final test is your wife.  If she thinks the thing's got legs (and mine still thinks it's a bit confusing but worth pursuing...) then you're good.

And if you get that far you'll have demonstrated that you have an infectious passion for the thing 'cause you'll have gotten all the above people excited about the thing you're thinking of birthing.

Needless to say, all of the above is true of launching a TV series or making a movie or planting a Church or starting a business or launching a new venture at work or taking that new job, whatever.

It's just important to realize that we're involved, here, in a process and that process is really the whole point.  Whether the pitch is picked up or not, whether your idea gets off the ground or not, the process you have to go through to get to the point of acceptance OR rejection is a process that will leave you the richer (as a person) for it and more able to impact those around you in a way that's hopefully a couple of degrees up from vacuous.

You get 'depth' or 'weight' as a person by doing the things you're dreaming of.  There is no such thing as wasted effort.

T