Learning to Fly
Now, while I was stumbling about creatively, trying to finish my screenplay, I also began looking for tech staff, camera folks, lighting, that kind of stuff...people who had some skills, but more importantly, were willing to work for free in exchange for the resume credit and possibly some million-to-one shot remuneration on the back end. Being the semi-contol freak that I am, I kept trying to come up with ways to do it myself. I had taken a cinematography course back in college and aside from the time the lab over-exposed my final project, forcing me to spend an insane two days re-shooting an entire thirty minute film, I did ok. Still, one class did not qualify me to act as Cinematographer on my own film, at least not if I wanted anyone to take it seriously. Sombody (and I forget who, at this point) gave me the name of a very talented local guy, Earl Newton as the possible answer to my dilemma, but aside from a couple of interesting telephone converstations and the fact that Earl seemed to enjoy my script, we just couldn't seem to find the time to hook up and person and make this deal work. Still, I'm serious about Earl's talent. His short Star Wars tribute film "The Fall of a Saga" (starring another bud of mine, Bruce Collier) is a mainstay of the ifilm website and reportedly has received a thumbs up from Mr. Lucas himself. You should check it out.
Anyway, while Earl and I were playing phone tag, I was directing a play, "Never Too Late" for Stage Crafters Community Theatre in Fort Walton Beach and amongst my cast was a talented young actress named Jessica Morris, who had quite a bit of local TV experience. Jess worked with R.J. Murdoch on some shows on the local Beach TV cable access channel. She reminded me that I had met R.J. a couple of times through the theatre and offered to not only reintroduce me to him, but to also introduce me to R.J.'s new tenant, Steve Baker. Steve is the chief cook and bottle washer for SB Video and has years of experience doing video work for CNN, HBO and probably all of the other letters of the alphabet as well. Steve is also the president of the PSA (Professional Services Association), a collection of local media professionals who spend their days shooting weddings, industrial films and low budget TV commericals and dream of shooting real live honest-to-god movies. You'd be amazed at how many big time Hollywood tech guys have retired to Florida. I'm told that there is a guy in Gulf Breeze who was one of the cinematographers for the unbelievable "Angels in America" on HBO and another guy in Panama City who used to be a fairly well-connected producer and most of these guys are members of the PSA. Anyway, Steve and I (being of a similar age and temperament) hit it off immediately and he expressed an interest in my project, on the basis of hearing the story and the fact that he had been wanting to find a project he could shoot entirely on digital video and this looked like it could be it. He scanned the current draft of the stage play and strongly urged me to get to work on the screenplay, stressing the importance of putting it in the correct format.
Now, I've never been a stickler for arbitrary structure. If I'm making an outline and want to list my subpoints as 1,2 and 3 under roman numeral one and as A, B and C under roman numeral 2, so be it. Who gives a damn, right? Well, apparently Hollywood for one. According to Steve, production assistants (who are apparently the ones who weed through new scripts that arrive through the mail), first place them into two stacks: the ones that are formatted properly and the ones that aren't. The ones that are formatted properly get read first and possibly moved on up the line. The ones that are not formatted properly apparently make great scratch paper.
Thus convinced of the importance of appearances, I asked Steve to provide me with an example of the format to follow. He did even better than that. Apparently the amatuer script-writing business has gotten so huge that you can actually buy software for it online. Now, I am told that there is software out there that runs into the hundreds of dollars, but I have no idea what you get for that kind of cash since I've never seen one. My friend Jim Poule got one of the expensive ones in conjunction with a screen-writing class he took and he says that it makes a great coaster. At Steve's urging, I went online and picked up a shareware program called Script Maker for just $15 and unless they come up with a program that actually comes up with the idea and writes it for you, I can't imagine that I'll ever need anything else.
Once you get the proper tools, it's all up to the talent. I guess time will tell on that one. Steve is currently reading the final draft of the screenplay and I should find out what he thinks this week. Once the script is approved, we'll schedule a final read-thru with the cast and work out a budget and start looking for financing. I still predict that this will be the least expensive film ever made. Hopefully, it won't be the least watched.
NEXT: I get a rabbi and make friends with a real-live Hollywood guy!
Anyway, while Earl and I were playing phone tag, I was directing a play, "Never Too Late" for Stage Crafters Community Theatre in Fort Walton Beach and amongst my cast was a talented young actress named Jessica Morris, who had quite a bit of local TV experience. Jess worked with R.J. Murdoch on some shows on the local Beach TV cable access channel. She reminded me that I had met R.J. a couple of times through the theatre and offered to not only reintroduce me to him, but to also introduce me to R.J.'s new tenant, Steve Baker. Steve is the chief cook and bottle washer for SB Video and has years of experience doing video work for CNN, HBO and probably all of the other letters of the alphabet as well. Steve is also the president of the PSA (Professional Services Association), a collection of local media professionals who spend their days shooting weddings, industrial films and low budget TV commericals and dream of shooting real live honest-to-god movies. You'd be amazed at how many big time Hollywood tech guys have retired to Florida. I'm told that there is a guy in Gulf Breeze who was one of the cinematographers for the unbelievable "Angels in America" on HBO and another guy in Panama City who used to be a fairly well-connected producer and most of these guys are members of the PSA. Anyway, Steve and I (being of a similar age and temperament) hit it off immediately and he expressed an interest in my project, on the basis of hearing the story and the fact that he had been wanting to find a project he could shoot entirely on digital video and this looked like it could be it. He scanned the current draft of the stage play and strongly urged me to get to work on the screenplay, stressing the importance of putting it in the correct format.
Now, I've never been a stickler for arbitrary structure. If I'm making an outline and want to list my subpoints as 1,2 and 3 under roman numeral one and as A, B and C under roman numeral 2, so be it. Who gives a damn, right? Well, apparently Hollywood for one. According to Steve, production assistants (who are apparently the ones who weed through new scripts that arrive through the mail), first place them into two stacks: the ones that are formatted properly and the ones that aren't. The ones that are formatted properly get read first and possibly moved on up the line. The ones that are not formatted properly apparently make great scratch paper.
Thus convinced of the importance of appearances, I asked Steve to provide me with an example of the format to follow. He did even better than that. Apparently the amatuer script-writing business has gotten so huge that you can actually buy software for it online. Now, I am told that there is software out there that runs into the hundreds of dollars, but I have no idea what you get for that kind of cash since I've never seen one. My friend Jim Poule got one of the expensive ones in conjunction with a screen-writing class he took and he says that it makes a great coaster. At Steve's urging, I went online and picked up a shareware program called Script Maker for just $15 and unless they come up with a program that actually comes up with the idea and writes it for you, I can't imagine that I'll ever need anything else.
Once you get the proper tools, it's all up to the talent. I guess time will tell on that one. Steve is currently reading the final draft of the screenplay and I should find out what he thinks this week. Once the script is approved, we'll schedule a final read-thru with the cast and work out a budget and start looking for financing. I still predict that this will be the least expensive film ever made. Hopefully, it won't be the least watched.
NEXT: I get a rabbi and make friends with a real-live Hollywood guy!
posted by Don Goodrum at 5:28 AM
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