150 and counting...

Y'essir, yes Ma'am, you read that right.

This is my one hundred and fiftieth post.

Not bad for a committed non-diarist huh?

Here's what I'm up to today...

Just sent a copy of a script to a writer in L.A.  The script is one I wrote back in 2005, three years into my quest to write/direct for the big-screen.  It was 2002 when it occurred to me that I better start bending my life (right NOW) in the direction of the silver screen or else my dream was going to pass me by.

So I bought this book.

Wrote my first screenplay, "THREE NIGHTS AT SEA" then proceeded to write seven or eight more.

Somewhere along the way I wrote the one I sent out today.

The reason I sent it out is 'cause I'm hoping said L.A writer will do a re-write on it for me.  Why another writer?

Well, for one, I've realized--along the way--that I'm not really a 100% pure, unadulterated, writer.  I'm just not.  I can write.  I 'get' story and have enough literature I.Q that I can recognized bad from good from great when it comes to words on paper.  But I'm not 'just a writer'.  For another, the best thing you can do to make your work great is work with people who are better than you at a thing.  Also, especially with the creative arts, it's very important to get unbiased, outside eyes on your stuff--eyes connected to big mouths who are going to tell you exactly what they really think.

I'm also not 'just a director'.  Directors come in all types.  The thing with Directors is that they don't work that much and, when they do, only work on their own stuff or on stuff someone pays them to make their own for a year or two.

That navel-gazing approach to life isn't enough for me.

I figure story--redemptive storytelling in particular--is important enough that I ought to spend my life not just finding ways to do it myself but finding ways to help others tell their stories as well.  

Which is why I'm a 'Producer'.

If I had to pick on thing to do it'd probably be to Produce.  For one, Producers 'work' a lot more than writers and directors.  For another you've heard it said that 'the director is king'...  Well it's also been said (often in the same breath) that 'the producer is god...' (don't believe me? who--pray tell--accepts the 'Best Picture' Oscar?  Oh yeah, that would be the PRODUCER...) and that kind of power appeals to me.  I just have a hard time knowing that someone else is in direct control of my destiny.  I tend to need to be in charge.  I (like M. Night put it) have a need to lead.

I (if you're reading this here blog for the first time) sound like an egomaniac.

Hope not.

What I'm trying to get across here is the importance of 'knowing' yourself.  Knowing who you are and what you want to do.  I read an Oprah quote (kind of by accident) the other day where she commented on the fact that most of the people she meets who are flabbergasted by her success can't answer her the standard question she lobbies back in response.

"Well, I've been successful because I know what I want.  What do you want?"

And they can't answer her.  

They say they want to be rich or happy but don't know the specifics.

And without the specifics--and the 'why' behind 'em--you probably aren't going anywhere fast friend.

Why do you do what you do?  What is doing what you do going to get you?  What is doing what you do going to give back to the World around you?  Would you like your kids to end up doing what you do?  If asked about the details of what you do could you go on an on about it or would you be boring yourself?  Would you do what you do for free?

If not, you're not living your passion.

Do you want to be in love or not?

Repeat after me...

My name is ___________ and I'm a _____________.

Now go figure out why.

T

Next...

How you like that?

There it is in hardcopy.  Yup.  'ONE SUNDAY MORNING'.  A contemporary romance, designed for a Valentines Day release.

How does February 2011 sound?

Sadly, that's how far ahead of these things we've got to work.

It would look like this:

March-July 2009 Executive Production--> where we raise the funds, set up the foreign distribution, do a domestic release partnership.

September-December 2009 Development--> where we storyboard, production design, cast, lock principal crew, scout and lock locations, do our vendor deals, get the website built.

January-May 2010 Pre-Production--> start crewing up, start building sets, start getting wardrobe sourced and sized, start table reads, start meeting with actors, lock in all vendors and crew and take a deep breath.

June-August 2010 Principal Photography--> shoot the thing.  45 days of actual on-location filming.

September 2010-January 2011 Post Production--> cut the film, do some re-shoots, do the sound design, score it, visual effects, color correction, online, mastering.  At the same time go into high gear with marketing, promotion, positioning.  Get all artwork done and locked and out.

February 2011 (Valentines Day) Release.

February 2011-December 2018 sell the crap out of the thing.

Just another indie-film production.

That's all.

Oh, and take the above structure, and repeat every two years.

T

Slumdog...

So first things. 

The positive side.

Wonderfully directed.  Danny Boyle is the man.  I've been a fan of his since way back.  Trainspotting.  28 Days Later.  Sunshine.  'Nuff said.

Encouraging for me as a young director is the style of the film.  Fairly simple compositionally, not impossible to do like--for example--a Michael Bay film.

Wonderfully acted.  The casting department deserves a big bottle of expensive vintage red.  The acting was superb.  Naturally that has a lot to do with Mr. Boyle and with the actors themselves but man, they were nicely cast.

Finely--if classically--structured.  Nicely paced.

Two things about it that left me a little less than totally blown away.

1) Since I saw it this late in the game, what with all the hype around it, the Oscar's sweep etc. I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be.  This has happened to me before.  It's like I'm the jury influenced by the news.  I was prepared to be AMAZED and wasn't.

2) Much of the tension is built around watching the show unfold and I caught myself thinking several times, "Man, I've already seen 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' on TV.  Why am I watching a feature film version?"  

I did, however really like the fact that the interrogation is revealed to be on the day of the big night.  That was a nice touch.

The subtextual, 'shit happens/it is written', theme was maybe part of the reason the film didn't blow my mind.  I tend to respond a little more strongly to stories that don't have 'fate' or 'blind determinism' at the root of their 'why'.

But enough negativity.

Certainly a very worthwhile theatrical experience.  I was totally immersed most of the way through.  And considering their 'indie journey' and the great struggle they've endured to reach this point I'm certainly a fan.

My problem is 'The Curios Case of Benjamin Button' left me totally flabbergasted and that's what I was expecting of 'Slumdog'.

Very enjoyable though, certainly worth experiencing.

The cityscapes and child actors will blow your mind.

T

Working...

On set several years back.  Probably spring 2005.

I'm at the monitor with my man Chris Stacey on the VariCam at the wall with singer Joel Auge up against it.

We're shooting 'LOST' my first music video as a director--based on a song off an album by Joel's band Hewit.

You can see it here.

What struck me about the shot is how 'ghetto fabulous' getting it was.  I mean, we're just walking around--outside a rundown old warehouse with rats and everything--telling Joel to do stuff.  Chris is rack focusing like crazy, Joel's emoting, I'm watching it all and telling them to re-do this, re-do that, let's try it this way and so on.

It's not 'till later, once you start putting it all together, that the thing starts looking like something.

And all along the way, you've got to trust.

Trust that your concept is going to work.  Trust that your ideas are actually good.  Trust that the shots are going to cut together.  Trust your collaborators, trust the process.

Trust.

It's one of the toughest things to find and keep.

And the reason I thought I'd put that simple shot up there is to remind me (and possibly you) that in most things (regardless of your particular industry) you have to start very, very small.

If I fast-forward from that day on-set with 'LOST' to a night in the middle of the winter 2006 where we had the central intersections of Hamilton Ontario shut down (twelve cops in all) so that we could shoot the climax to my first feature film it's quite the trip.

Then I'm reminded of how small that first film was and the steps we've taken since then.  It's like you need to keep a childlike fascination with the work you're enabled to do--staying wide eyed and bushy tailed--while embracing the fact that, as you look back on it in a year or two, you're going to be very humbled by how small you were when you thought you were so significant.

It seems to always come back to the 'children at play in the fields of the Lord' analogy.

We're just a bunch of kids playing.  We're impressed with ourselves sure, but we do well to remember that we're very, very small in the grand scheme of things.

No matter how big things get.

T

Us...

It occurs to me that I often reference my wife on this here blog but don't often show you any shots of her.

That's her, on the left, the good looking one.

And I'm not really that fat, it's just my wife's friggin' chap-ass camera and the lens at wide angle.

We were out on date night this week, a real nice treat.  We've got four kids under 9 so have been pretty much in baby-land for nigh-on ten years.  Just recently we feel like we're starting to get some time back to ourselves.

Pretty nice stuff.

We went to 'The Keg' for our date.  We've only been once before, more than ten years ago. What we noticed was how full it was.  The lounge and bar were packed, the dining room as well. Over our bottle of cheap (but satisfying) wine I said to her, "Recession?  What recession?  This place is rammed."

And that statement just came back to bite me as I watched CNN reporting on 31,000,000 Americans who are now on food stamps.

Did you get that?

Thirty one million.

That's basically my entire country, on food stamps.

And I realized that I'm rich.

Sure, I've got insecurity, sure I've got stress.  Yes my cars are leased, not owned outright and my home isn't paid off.  

But I'm rich.

I went out to dinner with my lovely wife and ate food someone else cooked for us and drank wine and watched the fireplace.

Frivolity.

Definitely NOT food stamps.

Important to remember to be thankful for the mercy that's active in our lives.

(and for neo-socialism and government-accountable banks...)

T

Movie time...

So I got the completed script yesterday.

It's for 'ONE SUNDAY MORNING' a script I wrote a while back, like more than a year ago, and had a writer in Austin (the great Phil Daay) do a re-write on.  I've had the second pass in my hands since the summer and have been needing to do a 'dialogue pass' on it.

I just never got around to it 'till this week.

It just hit me.  I worked my day to the bone one day, got done ahead of time and just decided to finish the script with the time remaining before dinner.

Sat down.  Did it.  Sent it to Phil.  Got it back two days later.

Printed it today.  Tomorrow Niki will read it, then my business partner will read it.  Then we'll raise the money for it, then we'll shoot it.

I mean, that's the simple (REALLY SIMPLE) version.

My business partner has a distribution/financing meeting tomorrow and I'm supposed to talk to a big U.S distributor tomorrow as well.  We're trying to get all our ducks in a row before we really start to push.

(and I haven't even STARTED talking about 'HARVEST' a sci-fi thriller we've got percolating that's going to ROCK!)

This year is the 'year of the pitch'.  We feel like we really need to take the next twelve to eighteen months to set up a bunch of TV and Film deals.

We want and need to be busy.

The whole reason I'm mention all this to you is because I've had the script in question for more than a year.  I haven't 'done' anything with it 'till now.   I haven't been putting it off on purpose, it just hasn't risen to the top of my mind.  

I've found that you can't force that rising.  Like yeast and bread, it's just got to run it's course. Certainly there's some guilt to be fought off of the 'gee whiz man, you're so lazy!  Why don't you just get to it already?' nature but I've discovered that forcing it is never the right thing to do.

You have to let it rise.

But once it's risen, once you feel that pressure to get the thing done and out there, you need to push, push, push like crazy to get 'er done.

In other news, the domestic distribution deal on our first feature is looking more solid by the day (we've been in negotiations) and it looks like we're getting very close.  The foreign deal is also proceeding nicely so we might have that deal sewn up this month as well.

What's really interesting about all this is how things tend to stretch, stretch, stretch then BOOM! come together all at once.

You just have to be able to wait it out while it rises then rise to the occasion and kill it once it's ready.

I'm starting to feel a little excited about all this.

Just a little.

(really, JUST a little...)

T

One of our favorite things...

Is relaxing with our friends by candlelight with a bottle of red and some Sting ('All This Time Live') playing in the background.

Life can be real simple sometimes, and it's pleasures even simpler.

If you let it.

Happy Saturday night everybody.

T