Jeunes Créateurs

Montréal, le 9 janvier 2012 - La Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) annonce la tenue d’une session d’information le mercredi 11 janvier 2012 à 16 h 30. Cette session est destinée à la clientèle intéressée à déposer en production, secteur Jeunes créateurs. La rencontre se tiendra dans les locaux de la SODEC, au 215, rue St-Jacques, 8e étage à Montréal.

Cette séance, d’une durée approximative de 90 minutes, vise à préparer le dépôt des projets au programme d’aide en production des jeunes créateurs du 20 janvier prochain. Le délégué à l’accueil des projets à la direction du cinéma et de la production télévisuelle, M. Alain Rondeau, sera sur place afin d’informer la clientèle sur les exigences du programme, répondre aux questions et aider les demandeurs à la préparation d’une demande.

Les personnes intéressées doivent s’inscrire auprès de madame Djina Victoria-Hall au 514 841-2296 ou par courriel à djina-victoria.hall@sodec.gouv.qc.ca. Pour plus d’information, veuillez consulter le site Internet de la SODEC au www.sodec.gouv.qc.ca

If you're a "young creator" in Québec (ça veut dire under 36), whether franco or anglo, this is a terrific program for getting funding for your projects. Definitely check it out.

Grimm

Watched the "3 Little Pigs" episode of GRIMM. Aside from the atrocious, leaden acting, the "push" storytelling, and the way the nominal main character never really had a difficult decision to make, what bothered me most was how little it mattered that the show is supernatural. There are possible perpetrators who turn into sort-of-werewolves and sort-of-werepigs, but the clues are fingerprints, license plates, photographs and blood typing.

If you're writing a supernatural show, the story should really hang on the characters being supernatural, shouldn't it? LOST GIRL is also a procedural about humanoids from the realm of fairy tales; but aside from the distinctive characters, the compelling personal issues and the adorably perky sidekick, there's a whole mythology there, and she can't solve the case without understanding what sort of critter she's dealing with.

Grr, I say. Grr.

Love, Actually

We watched Richard Curtis's 2003 directorial debut LOVE, ACTUALLY again. It is really a lovely movie. There are quite a bunch of things that are incredible about the movie. It feels like an indie ensemble piece, but it has a cast of stars not just in the big roles -- Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Alan Rickman, Rowan Atkinson -- but all the way down to the cameos -- Billy Bob Thornton has about 5 minutes, and Denise Richards about 15 seconds of screen time, while Claudia Schiffer shows up in two scenes, once just in the background. And the music budget must have been killer. So it is sort of a big movie masquerading as a small movie.

So it's partly a lesson in how you make your first movie: you pull in a million favors. Curtis wrote Hugh Grant's big break, FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. He wrote much of the Mr. Bean movies and TV, and there's Rowan Atkinson. The roles are all crisply written, a joy for an actor... and no doubt written for the actors in question.

It's also a lesson in what you can get away with as a screenwriter. Look at some of the little plotholes. Colin Firth writes his novel on a typewriter, and doesn't have a copy. Half of it blows into a pond. Just about when you're thinking, "Who still writes on a typewriter? And doesn't make copies?" Colin Firth's Portuguese housekeeper is saying, "What kind of idiot doesn't make a copy?" And when, later, he proposes, although he's never even had a conversation with her -- well, Lisa was saying, "He's going to marry her? He barely knows her." And the first words out of his mouth are, "I know it's kind of crazy to propose but..." And then he explains why.

Both of these are classic cases of "hanging a lantern" on a plothole. If you play up a plothole big enough, it becomes a character point. So long as it is the character and not the plot that is irrational, you're okay.

Likewise, the movie is a good example of how elastic time can be when you're cutting between multiple stories. This is the first time I noticed that Liam Neeson's kid learns how to play drums in less than two weeks. But you see him play drums (actually you only hear him), and then you go see three or four other stories move forward, and then you come back and he's playing better. It feels like enough time has elapsed for a kid to learn to play drums -- so long as you don't think about it.

Of course, it's mostly just a lovely movie, that always makes me happy when I watch it. But look at it closely, and you'll see quite a crafty screenwriter at work.

Contracts Panel in a Month

I'm moderating a panel discussion on contracts for features and TV in a month. If you've got questions, shoot'em to me, k?

What Visual Effects Can Do

Second Guessing the Iowa Caucuses

[POLITICS] The following has nothing to do with story telling or screenwriting, and I'm hardly a political expert. But it's my blog, and this is America. (Or Canada. Or both.)

I'm struggling with how defective the Republican "invisible primary" has been so far. Iowa looks like it will split three ways. Romney, who almost no one believes has the principals he currently espouses. Ron Paul, a libertarian who really could go found his own party, so far are his views from the Republican and Democratic mainstream. And Rick Santorum, a movement conservative with no organization and no charisma that I can detect. Losers: a Texas governor who thinks that Canadian tar sands are good because they're not "foreign oil"; a far-right-wing congresswoman; and a smart, sensible, rather conservative former governor whom the Obama people suckered into being their ambassador to China and who sabotaged his own campaign by claiming to be moderate.

Really? This is the best the Republican party can field?

My feeling is Romney wins the nomination. Who can stop him? Perry, who had the deep pockets, is done for. (Weirdly, he's spent only about $3mil of the $17 mil he's raised. That's a lot of barbecue when he goes home.) Ron Paul isn't really a Republican. Santorum has no money and no organization. He could win South Carolina, but how is he going to take big states like Florida and Michigan?

Enthusiasm seems to be down. Turnout in the Iowa Caucuses is seriously down from 2008.

One big question is: will anyone run a third candidate from the right? That would kill Romney's chances, but the movement conservatives may not care. They may figure they have once again been snookered by Wall Street Republicans. Of course Trump will make noises about it, Sarah Palin-style, but I doubt he'll run, 'cause running is work.

My guess is people make noises and there's a lot of talk, but no one runs against Romney from the right.

So the other big question is: who will be more motivated to get out the vote? Democrats, who feel a bit burned that Obama did not deliver enough HOPE and CHANGE; or Republicans, who may not believe that Romney will really deliver on the Tea Party Revolution.

In an election like this, there's no advantage to going positive. It is going to be an ugly, ugly election. Look forward to a mudfest.

All Publicity is Good Publicity

Q. Do you think a producer can damage you and your spec script talking about it to people (e.g. other producers, tv and funding ceo and so on) before having actually bought it himself?

I don't know why a producer would tell other producers about your script unless it wasn't for him. Why would he? He doesn't control it. If I were a producer, and I was interested in a script, I wouldn't do anything about it until I'd optioned it.

The exception would be producers who have a relationship with a studio, who would take a script to their studio to get money to buy it. I suppose if they have a financier, same goes.

You could be dealing with an "emerging" producer or someone who doesn't have the resources to option your script. They might take your script to bigger producers they know to get money to option it. But they would probably not do that without at least a shopping agreement that attaches them to the project in the event they get it set up somewhere.

Who's On First?

[POLITICS] There's been the usual complaining here and there at the order of the US primaries. Why should 145,000 hard core Iowa voters get to decide who the Republican nominee should be?

Fairness is not really the point in politics. But strategically, the order of primaries doesn't make much sense either. The objective of a political primary is to find the best candidate: the candidate who embodies the vision of the party who is most likely to win the general election.

The crucial fact that the order of the various primaries ignores is that the candidate who is mostly likely to win the general is the candidate who is most likely to win the swing states. It doesn't really matter who pleases the voters of Iowa. Iowa is a fairly blue state. Iowa voted for Gore and Dukakis. By the time a Republican gets to Iowa, he's already riding a wave. A fortiori, South Carolina is completely irrelevant: it's a far-right-wing state that probably wouldn't go blue unless Anonymous hacked its voting machines. (Which, you know, they might.)

The states that either party really needs to win are Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. Win two out of three of these, and you're probably president. Win all three, and you're almost certainly president. Ohio and Florida were pretty close last time, even with Obama winning two out of three electoral votes.

So it seems to me that the parties ought to make sure the primaries for these three states come early.

I go back and forth whether the early states should be small ones. On the one hand, there's something to be said for a small number of voters really getting to see the candidates up close and personal. But up close and personal is not really how you win the general. A candidate that works in a living room may not close the sale on TV.

I do, however, believe in having a few caucuses in there. Caucuses are less democratic than primaries. Caucus voters spend all evening caucusing. They're much more hardcore. But to win the general, you need your party's hard core. They're the people who go house to house and get out the vote. GOTV may not make more than 4% or 5% of a difference, but the most elections are won or lost by that much.