Densetsu!

Wanna Be An Extra?

My director friend Jim writes:

We are nearing the end of this journey called 3 Saisons and we need people to join us in a few scenes that occur in public spaces. If you have any desire to come, even for a few hours, please drop me an e-mail and we'll direct you to the right place. We are looking at Sunday the 3rd of June, and Sunday the 17th of June.

This is a film made on a shoestring that has grown into a beautiful adventure. We are now working with Remstar and Alliance for distribution. So if you'd like to see yourself up on that silver screen next to Caroline Néron, Frank Schorpion, Romano Orzari, Dan Bigras and others, please come on down!

So if you're in Montreal, and you'd like to be an extra, drop him a line!

Rewriting Movies You Just Saw

Q. In Crafty TV Writing you mention that you and some friends "fixed" A Knight's Tale after you watched it. Can you share what you did to it?

Oh lordy, no. That would involve remembering the movie.

I did watch Nine Months last night, as research. (I'm adapting a book in the same territory.) It seemed to me that the Big Thematic Problem -- Hugh Grant's character's unwillingness to change his life for a baby -- was resolved about 15 minutes before the end of the movie, which was about 10 minutes too soon. 'Cause after that they had to have a wedding, and then some comic stuff that went nowhere in a restaurant. I thought Hugh Grant's big speech about how he wants her back ought to have taken place in the car driving like crazy toward the hospital, so she's screaming and going into labor while he's proposing to her. Trying to propose to a woman in labor -- now that's comedy.

And I thought The Return of the King ought to have ended when Frodo and Sam come back to the Shire, and it's exactly the way they left it, and no one has any idea that a monstrous power nearly conquered and enslaved it, and Frodo and Sam are extremely happy that they don't. Because the whole reason they went on the adventure was to save the Shire just the way it is.

What are your movie "fixes"?

FYI

I thought you might be interested in my blog called 'Carolina Flicks' that features films and filmmaking in the Carolinas. As part of this blog I have some software I wrote called ShotList Manager that is free and helps make shotlists.

Carolina Flicks
ShotList Manager

Y'all feel free to check it out and report back!

Twenty Seconds, or, No Harm, No Foul

Q. In your book, "Crafty Screenwriting", you mention that it's best to send out query letters first, wait for responses, then write the screenplay. It sounds like a great idea, but I'm a little confuddled. Once I pique the interest of a production company's reader (assuming that I actually do), how long is this person going to wait for me to write the thing before he loses interest?

First of all, if it makes you nervous, by all means, write the screenplay first.

The reason I suggest querying first is that the vast, vast majority of query letters I read when I was a development exec described scripts that are commercially doomed. Even if they were brilliantly written, they just don't have a hook. If you don't work in showbiz, it's hard to get a good sense of what showbiz is looking for in a script. If you query first, you get a sense of whether anyone's going to want to read your script once you've written it. If you fire off 50 queries, and you don't hear back from anyone, you've just saved six months.

What you have to understand is that the development person (or agent) who reads your query is not going to wait for you at all. They will read your query and shoot off a response or delete it within 15 to 20 seconds. Then the whole thing will vanish from their brain entirely. 99.99% of the time they are not going to give your hook another thought until you send them something.

To reiterate: they will read your query at the speed you are reading this sentence. If they don't like it, bam, gone. If they like it, they might spend 20 seconds thinking "Am I really interested?" Then bam, they respond, and it's gone from their brains like a feminine hygeine commercial on your TiVo.

To be effective as an agent or producer you have to be very effective at forgetting things you don't need to keep track of, and what queries you responded to is definitely something you don't need to keep track of.

When your script shows up eventually, they likely won't remember when you queried. If by some miracle they remember it was a while ago, they will probably still want to see it. Maybe 3% of the time they're responding to your query because they just heard that Paramount wants something like your idea -- but that kind of interest rarely helps you, because they're only interested in making the one submission. The other 97% of the time they just think you have a commercial concept and they could potentially set it up at any number of different places. So if they wanted to read it then, they'll want to read it now.

That's the logic behind querying before writing. But hey, it's just a strategy. Whatever works for you. I personally don't write a script until I've pitched it to some of my professional friends, and above all, asked my agent if she thinks she could sell it. If you don't have friends in the biz, and an agent, then querying first might be a good substitute. And again, yes, you're fibbing a bit when you write the email.

But it's showbiz, Punky. You think agents and development execs don't lie?

And if it results in a script they can sell, then where's the harm?

Our Crew

Many thanks to our superb crew on "TWELVE WAYS TO SAY I'M SORRY". If you're shooting in Montreal, you should hire them! (If you want their phone numbers, feel free to ask.)

Our Unit Production Manager, Greg Nicod. He has ulcers so you don't have to.

Our Director of Photography, Mark Adam. He takes the pictures out of your brain and puts them in the camera.

Our Production Designer, Annika Krausz. She makes your set look like somewhere else entirely.

Our Sound Dude, Pablo Villegas. Without him, you're shooting a Buster Keaton movie.

John Easterbrooke, Digital technician. The new cameras are wacky. You need someone who can speak their language.

Phil Harrison, trusty 2nd Assistant Cameraman

Myriam Doucet, Asst PM.

Audray Adam, makeup. She mops your furrowed brow.

Young Patrick Lanthier. Willing and able PA.

Matthew Cope. Snappy fellow with a still camera. Plays a mean hand of poker, too.

Not to mention...

Michael Solomon. Diligent, meticulous, honest producer. Get him before he's hot. And rich.

Laurie Nyveen. Indispensable Associate Producer. If you can't figure out who's in charge of it, put him in charge and it will happen.

As a Writer, You'd Think He'd Choose His Words More Carefully

Director Mike Figgis spent longer at LAX airport than intended. He'd arrived in Los Angeles, along with half the acting and directing world, for what is known as 'pilot season', when the big studios try out new scripts, directors and actors in a two-week frenzy of auditions and career make-or-breaks. When Figgis was being grilled by airport immigration, he was asked the purpose of his visit. Unthinking and tired after a long flight, Mike replied: 'I'm here to shoot a pilot.' After five hours in an interrogation cell (yes, really), he finally made it into town.

The Guardian Unlimited

What Would You Want to Do? What Would You Want to Know?

I'm teaching a workshop for TV beginners out on Prince Edward Island in mid June. If you were attending a workshop I was teaching, what would you want to come away with? What would you want to do in the workshop? What can I give my participants that they can't get from my book CRAFTY TV WRITING?