Jack and Bobby...and Thom and Don

REAL WORLD NOTE: Final revisions to the screenplay should be finished by the first of next week (from my lips to God's ears) and on Wednesday, I will make a final story presentation to the PSA at their monthly meeting. The major concern we have right now is whether or not we can use Garth Brooks' name without his permission. I had been operating under the "public figure" idea that makes it impossible for celebs and politicians to sue comedians, etc. who make fun of them for purposes of parody, but apparently that doesn't always apply. One piece of good news, however. I was reading USA Today this morning and the LIFE section included a review of a new doc called, "My Date with Drew" which is about some guy's harmless obsession with Drew Barrymore. Drew's name is in the title and she is not in the film, so that's a good sign for us. Of course, I have no idea if anyone approached her asking permission to make the movie, so that's something we'll have to check out. Plus, Drew Barrymore is a fairly easy-going celeb from what I hear, while the G-man, for all his talent is known to be extremely protective of his image and reputation. We'll run it by the lawyers and see what happens. It may be that we'll try to get permission or maybe we'll just wing it in the "it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission" tradition. If nothing else, I'll just create a fictional country singer, but that will cause significant re-writes and besides, Garth is just so damn perfect for this story. I don't want to lose him.

BACK TO OUR STORY: As I mentioned last time, my good friend Carol Kahn Parker played Sugar Mama for me and paid my way into the 2nd annual Writer's Conference in Fort Walton Beach. I wasn't sure if anything was going to come out of it, but what the hell, it couldn't hurt, right? And it didn't.

It wasn't a bad conference. A little too slanted toward the legal end of things, ie: contracts, agents, etc. and not that much about how to actually ply the craft, but that's to be expected, I guess. If folks didn't keep putting the cart before the horse, then we'd have no need for the cliche, now would we? Anyway, the big draw of the event were the "pitch sessions" in which you got to show your ideas to real pros with the actual ability to get your work in front of a publisher. The two most in demand were some New Yawk literary agent and a Hollywood producer named Thom Gossom, Jr.

Now, I don't think Thom would disagree with me when I say that his being an actual producer is more of a dream than a reality at this point. Thom is primarily an actor, having appeared in a number of TV shows and films. He was in the great HBO movie, "Miss Evers' Boys" and, when I met him, was a semi-regular on "Jack and Bobby", a new show on the WB about two brothers, one of whom was destined to become President of the U.S. Thom played the part of Jack's boss, the owner of a local BBQ restaurant. I was a big fan of the show when it was on Sunday nights opposite "Desperate Housewives" (I taped it so I could see them both), but lost track of it when it shifted to Wednesdays because there was just too damn much already on Wednesday to watch, what with "Lost" and "Alias" and "Smallville" and "West Wing" and "Law and Order". I didn't have time for another Wednesday show. Anyway, as a producer, Thom has a Christmas show he's trying to get out there and it's a good story. I don't know what the status is right now, but I'm sure you'll see it someday.

Unlike the agent, Thom was very open and gracious. I didn't pitch "Garth" at him, but took an old comic idea I had once played around with called "The Adventures of God", about...well, God and he really liked it. Thought it was very original. I mentioned that, in tone, I found my idea to be quite similar to an old movie called "Powder" and Thom said he knew the director of that film and if I worked up a synopsis he'd send it to him. (I have since written the synopsis and Thom has suggested some corrections which I will get to eventually). Anyway, Thom and I really hit it off and we talked for quite a while. At the banquet that night, he introduced me to his lovely wife, Joyce and we made arrangements to have lunch when Thom came back to town after finishing up the "Jack and Bobby" season. Thom and I have had that lunch and I plan to go see him when he performs his one-man show at UWF in November.

As for the rest of the conference, I managed to get some interest from one publisher for a novel I've been working on off and on for about ten years (good luck on my ever finishing it) and a children's publisher, Dianne Hamilton from Onstage Publishing got very excited about my artwork, insisting that I sell her my only copy of my children's book "Lettres Acadiennes" so that she could take it back and show some folks. She has yet to offer me work, but we stay in touch and I remain hopeful. We'll see.

NEXT: Casting about for a hit!

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Ok, first a little "real-time" info. Steve has read the screenplay all the way through and LIKES IT! Thank God! Of course, he has notes; I never met a creative person that didn't have notes, but he thinks we have a movie here and I am thrilled/relieved/over-joyed to get his approval. We are going to try to schedule a read-thru with the cast by the end of August at Steve's studio and we'll outline the production schedule and get a verbal committment from the cast then. I'm beginning to get excited.

Now, back to my historical discourse...

While I was working on the screenplay for "Garth", I was busy doing other things as well. After a two year break, I returned to the stage as an actor as "King Henry II" in "The Lion in Winter" at the Pensacola Little Theatre (one of the best parts ever written for an actor of my age) and "Smudge" in "Forever Plaid" at Stage Crafters in Fort Walton Beach. "Plaid", in particular took up a lot of my time, having to learn tight four part harmony to 22 different songs, plus lines and coreography. we rehearsed a brutal five hour a day, five day a week schedule and I was never so glad for a show to be over in my life! I also directed three mainstage shows in FWB, "Sylvia", "Never Too Late" and my current project, "Run for Your Wife". I was also trying to write during this time, not only working on Garth, but also finishing up "The Avalon Hills Trilogy", a trinity of one acts surrounding residents of a retirement home. "The Boys of Summer", the first part of the trilogy was the winner of the "Best One Act" in the Emerald Coast Literary Guild competition in 2002 . Parts one and two of "Avalon" were produced as a director's thesis (not mine) by my great friend Miriam Merriwether, who also directed me in "Forever Plaid" and the entire trilogy is being considered for the Studio 400 stage at PLT. I also knocked out this little piece of fluff called "Moments Like These" for an evening of one acts sponsored by the Santa Rosa Literary Guild and I'll be damned if it hasn't turned out to be my most performed work so far. I also wrote a monologue called "Broken", which hasn't been performed yet, but remains one of my favorite pieces. In other words, I've been busy.

In the middle of all this, I got a call from another good friend, Carol Kahn Parker, who runs the Carol's Curtain Call website, a repository of all things theatrical for Northwest Florida. Carol also is one of the female leads in in both "Run for Your Wife" and "Garth" and is one of the most talented actresses I know. Anyway, Carol calls and asks me if I intended to go to the 2nd annual writers' conference sponsored by the Emerald Coast Literary Guild. I tell her that I really hadn't thought about it, but probably not. Most of my experience with other writers and book people was that were 1) boring as hell and 2) not very good at networking, promotion or even throwing a party. I remembered the book conferences and signing appearances that I had to attend when I was stumping for "Lettres Acadiennes-A Cajun ABC", a children's book I wrote and illustrated that was published by Pelican Publishing back in '92, and they were, almost without exception, tired and dreary affairs. Carol assured me, however, that this didn't look like that would be the case this time around. The Guild had rounded up a decent slate of guest lecturers and she figured that I ought to be able to meet someone who could steer me in the right direction, even if it was by accident. I told Carol that sounded great, but the price for attending the confab was a little rich for my blood. And that, Carol said, is why she was calling. As a token of friendship and of her belief in my abilities as a writer, she was willing to pay for my registration. I was stunned. Not only had I not considered going to the conference, I would have never thought of asking someone to pay my way! After talking to Carol long enough to ascertain that this was, indeed, something she wanted to do, I accepted and sent in my registration. Carol and I had had a "Medici Moment".

NEXT: Producer with a Heart of Gold...I meet Thom Gossom, Jr.

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!

The Script is the Thing...

Actually, what Shakespeare said was "the play's the thing", but we aren't doing a play, are we, Milhouse? We're making a movie and that means the most important thing, more important than an "edgy" director or an A-list star or a fat distribution deal is the script...the Story. I don't care how big your budget, your star or your studio, if you don't have a good story, you are shit outta luck, my friend. Trust me.

Now, I consider myself a writer. Others may not, but I like to think I'm pretty good at weaving an interesting yarn with solid characters and an interesting conflict. So, as I began to cast about for a framework for what I was calling my "stalker story", I took a look at what other amatuer film makers were doing and the first thing I realized is that there are one HELL of a lot of amatuer films getting made out there. The second thing I noticed is that 95% of them seem to be horror flicks...really BAD horror flicks.

What is it about horror flicks that make them so attractive as first films? Well, aside from the fact that they are incredibly popular, I sorta get the impression that a lot of people think they are easy to make. Imagine this outline (and I have seen amatuer horror scripts put together this way): A half a page of wooden, unbelievable dialogue and a gruesome death. A half a page of pointless screaming and a gruesome death...you get the idea. I think that some people believe that as long as you throw in a lot of blood and gore, no one will care if it makes sense or not. Then again, maybe not even the blood and gore. I recently semi-auditioned for a horror movie called "Freezer Burn" and they were nice enough to send me the script, even though they weren't nice enough to schedule the audition. Thirty to forty-five minutes of running, jumping and hiding from some butt-ugly something living in an old ice-packing plant and nobody died. nobody even got hurt. nobody even got a hangnail. I wanted to call these guys and ask them if they'd even SEEN a horror movie. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make (other than the one on the top of my head) is that is doesn't matter how much money you have or how good the acting is, or the effects or how good you are with the editing software, if the story sucks, the movie sucks. period.

So, the first thing I decided was NO HORROR FILM. Even if it turned out to be the "stalker story" I had originally conceived, I wanted it to be more of a character study than a fear fest. Actually, the story was never really about stalking in the first place. My original, unworkable idea had revolved around this kid, Todd, not retarded or challenged or whatever they're calling it this week, but very slow and extremely naive. Because Todd's home life is not one to foster a positive self-image, he fixates on his idol, country singer Garth Brooks and becomes convinced that if he can just talk to Garth his life will change dramatically and for the better. I called it "Looking for Garth Brooks".

Now, you can see the problems already, right? You're talking about massive amounts of location shooting in Nashville and possibly Oklahoma (where Garth lives) which means hotels, meals, all kinds of crap I don't have the money to pay for, plus with that story, at some point, you have to have Garth Brooks himself. I mean, you can't have the guy take off on this quest to meet his hero and then not have them meet, can you? Can you imagine, first of all, how hard it would be to get the script to Garth? Can you imagine how hard it would be to get him to agree to be in it? Can you imagine how much money he'd want to be in it? This idea went immediately into the dumper...that is except for the title and the main character, Todd. Something about the idea of this redneck Don Quixote tilting windmills and looking for a little respect really appealed to me. I kept working.

I won't bore you with all the details of the writing process, of all the ideas I considered and tossed in the trash. Suffice it to say, I ultimately came up with an idea that I found interesting, funny, shootable and most importantly, affordable. It is still called "Looking for Garth Brooks" and it still features my slo-mo hero, Todd. In the current version, however, Todd has managed to get his hands on one of Garth's actual guitars (pinched at a concert, probably) and invites the singer to his hometown of East Jesus, Arkansas to retrieve it. Garth accepts the invitation (or so he thinks) and the whole town gets in on the act, planning a huge Garth Brooks Day celebration. Act One deals with the events leading up to the Day and Act Two deals with the comedic and tragic aftermath of what comes after.

It's a good story, if I do say so myself. I wrote it first as a play and called in a bunch of my theatre friends for a read-thru so that I could see how it sounded. I made notes and then did a second draft. I did another read-thru with another group of theatre friends and made more notes and did a third draft. I came to some conclusions about the script on my own and did a smaller fourth draft and then, once the play was in good shape, I turned it into a screenplay, which involved yet another draft of the script.

Now along the way, I knew that I could get my theatre friends to act in this for free, but I still needed technical help. The group, and the one guy in particular who saved my ass, comes next.

NEXT: Steve Baker to the Rescue (really!)

Together Again for the First Time

Well, it's been a YEAR since I last posted. 'Told you I wouldn't be any good at this. Of course, the first thing I did upon returning to these pages was to read my previous blogs AND DELETE THEM FOREVER!!! What a load of self-pitying, self-serving crap! Sometimes I should simply not be allowed out among people.

Now, I'm back and ready to try this again. No more whiney bullshit about lost love (women? fuck 'em all! And if you can't, then just bug the shit out of them until they get a restraining order), just some thoughts about my life and the really big questions, like: "Is there an after-life and if so, can they change a twenty?" (sorry, stole that from Woody Allen).

HEY KIDS! LET'S PUT ON A SHOW!

I'm making a movie. I've been writing stories and plays and poems for years now and I'm finally doing what I've always wanted to do, which is put it all on film. If you must blame someone for this, blame Kevin Smith and Robert Townsend. You remember when Townsend burst on the scene back in the early 8O's? He financed his first film, "Hollywood Shuffle" by running up his credit cards and then blundered about the studio system for a few years until "Meteor Man" pretty much ended his career? As slices of the American pie go, it's filling, perhaps, but not very inspirational (not made from good old American apple, but perchance some lesser fruit, like boisenberry). Anyway, I took the Townsend story and filed it away thinking, "Hey, great idea, but my credit already sucks. There's no way I could ever get that many credit cards!" Besides, I kept thinking about the other side of that story; for every Robert Townsend who runs up his plastic and then makes it all back in a juicy distribution deal and boffo box office, there are ten guys who are just up to their eyeballs in debt with nothing to show for it but a two hour celuloid dream that no one wants to see. I chickened out and life stumbled on...

Then came Kevin Smith. Well, actually, first came the personal computer revolution and top of the line editing and special effects software that would enable you to do a shitload of Hollywood quality FX in your laptop for a tenth of the money, then came Richard Linklater and a film called "Slackers", which breathed a gale force of second wind into the indie film industry and THEN came Kevin Smith.

Smith, who was actually inspired to persue his dreams by "Slackers", was a film school drop out who (once again, using credit cards) put up about $28,000.00 of his own money to make a little stoner flick called "Clerks". It blew the competition away at Sundance and, after a small stumble with "Mallrats" (misunderstood and underappreciated at the time, it has gone on to have quite a following), led to a profitable relationship with Miramax and Harvey "The Beast" Weinstein and subsequently, a string of successful films, "Chasing Amy", "Dogma", "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and "Jersey Girl" (which I thought was much better than most other folks). Anyway, Smith made it really clear that you could make a career out of your own vision; that you didn't necessarily have to have this USC Film School pedigree and monster blockbuster resume' to get people to give you money to tell the kinds of stories you wanted to tell. A lightbulb began to burn way back in some seldom-visited corner of my mind.

Cut to (that's a movie term, you know): June of 2002. My wife left me on Sunday and I lost my job on Monday. Two days "which will live forever in infamy". As depressed and bereft as I was, I also had to scramble. I had house and car payments to make, not to mention child support payments to yet another ex. Oh yeah, and food...somewhere in there, they actually expected me to eat. Anyway, as I scrambled about collecting part-time jobs in much the same way I have been known to collect ex-wives, I began to think about my future. I am almost fifty for crissake, when am I gonna grow up and do what I want with my life? And out of the gloom and doom, came that tiny light, tucked away in that forgotten crevasse of my mental landscape. "Time to make a movie".

Now, I have always done theatre. I was a theatre major at Mississippi College (yes, Mississippi, get over it fer cryin' out loud!) and had always acted and directed for the stage. I had also written a number of plays back in my college days and in the thirty years since had had some success writing comedy for the various morning shows I had hosted on a variety of radio stations from Mississippi to New Orleans to Florida where I currently reside. I had the skills, all I needed was...an idea.

I have always liked Country music (something else for you to get over, I suppose). And I remembered watching a show on CMT called "Devoted" about the behavior of country music fans. I had also seen that show, "FANatic" on either MTV or VH1 about pretty much the same thing and I got to thinking, "What about a flick about an over-enthusiastic fan? Stalking is always good for a laugh, right?" Well, after three rough outlines of stories that, while funny, were also cost-prohibitive, I got the idea to do a "mockumentary" along the lines of what Christopher Guest had done with the hysterical "Waiting for Guffman", "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind". I could shoot it on video, or better yet, digital video, which would be cheaper than film, and the documentary "after-the-fact" style of story-telling would better suit my budget. Genius! All I needed was a story.

NEXT: Stories, read-throughs and Steve Baker to the rescue!