Sunday, January 29, 2006

Week One

It's going to be tough to keep up with this blog, and I say that knowing that I didn't do a very respectable job when I was positively unemployed, but maybe what I'll try and do is update the major comings-and-goings of the week, once a week. Let's see how that works. So...

Week One:

We fixed up episodes two and three, and "broke" episodes six, seven, eight, and nine. By breaking, I mean we all sat in a room and stared at the writer's assistant poised with his pen in front of a dry erase white board. Then we teased out story lines from the past episodes and tried to figure out what Had to happen, Should happen, and Could happen in the following episodes, in order to make it believable, entertaining and dramatically plausible. This sounds very academic. Really it's a guessing game, it's six or seven people pitching ideas out to the crowd and doing a lot of head scratching and coffee sipping and saying "well what if he..." and "maybe she could..." and "fuck that, that's retarded." It's totally unscientific and completely entertaining in and of itself. I have to say that the show is very plot heavy and thus extremely confusing... and we're the writers. But for me, the new guy, it's fascinating to see how it's done.

I'm a screenwriter by trade and for the most part it is a solitary, lonely process. This is collaborative, and it is collaborative in the most crucial phase of writing, the phase when nothing makes sense and you need someone else to tell you if your idea sucks or the direction your taking is boring or if the way out of the jam that you came up with is totally implausible. It's great. Plus, the lunches are catered, so it's really a pampering.

There are some great people on the show, and I'm going to have to start being very careful about names and places and specifics on this blog from now on; it was one thing to be chatty about this stuff when I was a nobody, but now that someone might actually read this stupid blog, I'm going to have to figure out how to grant the people I work with the respectful anonymity they deserve. Plus, several of the "consultants" on the show are reformed criminals. I don't need to be stepping on any toes and unreforming their criminal tendencies. I could very well wake up in the trunk of a car somewhere far from the Mexican border.

So that's where it stands right now. We're going to be breaking more shows this week, so it will probably be more of the same: confusion, laughter, great ideas from everyone in the room, and lots and lots of coffee...

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Life of Crime

Last Thursday I began work on Mark and Robb Cullen's newest TV show "Heist" (which the New York Times incorrectly credited as having been created by Doug Liman; he directed the pilot). It's stars Dougray Scott, and is a one-hour drama about a jewel caper that will unfold over the run of an entire season, like Prison Break or 24.

This is big news for me. Huge, actually. Primarily it's big because the cold, rusty door of poverty was creaking open to let me in. With only one somewhat depressing employment opportunity looming, I realized I had overestimated my checking balance and, whoops, thought I had three grand more than I did. Sort of that feeling like you're the pilot and you look at the fuel gauge and suddenly it's dipping into the red, and the plane's over the Pacific Ocean.

Needless to say, for reasons of survival and all that, I'm thankful for The Job. As for The Career, getting on this show is an amazing change of pace for me. It's a set direction for at least the next 20 weeks. It's an opportunity to get paid to write. It is an opportunity to learn. It is fucking thrilling, frankly, to meet other writers (one from The Sopranos) and get to sit in a room and talk out story lines with them. It's great.

A few things have come together, too. I finally finished Air Conditioned Jungle and it's going to go out to a few close personals, then to a larger group of folk. Also, agents are calling and it looks like I might be getting an guy at one of the big places. Also, I met with the author of a true crime book about adapting it and he gave me his blessing to see what I could do with it. And we just got the final piece in the puzzle to find out about financing for the Duvall movie. Now we just wait for two weeks to see if the financiers are legit and can come up with the money. In two weeks, I could have a motion picture in the works (and another paycheck in hand).

I'll get more than just news bulletins down in the next post, I just didn't want to sit on the news. So stay tuned, as they say in the TV game...

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

I've been BLACK LISTED!!!

A nice little driplet of benevolence came across the wire just now. My manager sent me something called The Black List, a compendium I've never heard of. Quote:

"THE BLACK LIST was compiled from the suggestions of over 90 film executives and high-level assistants, each of whom contributed the names of up to ten of their favorite scripts that were written in or are somehow uniquely associated with 2005 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year. THE BLACK LIST is not a “best of” list. It is, at best, a “most liked” list. Enjoy."

And along with heavy-hitting screenwriters like Paul Haggis, Chris McQuarrie, Aaron Sorkin, Eric Roth, Robert Benton, Richard Price, Kenneth Lonergan, and Bill Broyles, right there on the list, right there on pg. 7 is my name.

Not too shabby...

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Road Ahead

This could be a big week. We're supposed to hear something from an investor in Get Low. This is an investor that could potentially have the production up and running in a few months - a pretty drastic turnaround from a few short months ago when everyone involved was thinking the thing was dead. What we're talking about here is this person (or company, or whatever) dropping a $10 million dollar check on our doorstep. As stated, it could indeed be a big week.

Also this week I should have word about a job. It would be a network thing, writing on a TV show, so it would be great credit on my resume and it would probably be pretty handsome pay. Thing is, I'm not much of a TV writer, so I don't know how much capital the bosses have to burn with the network people (since they decide and they don't know me from a hole in the fence). But everything I've heard has been positive, so I am going against my nature and trying to believe in the power of positive thinking.

More later, when I have some news and I'm not hungover.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Sleepless

Oh, this city. What have I done? Eight years.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Broke Hack Mountain

Today is an anniversary for me. This is the day that I moved to L.A. eight years ago, in 1998. Flew in, didn't road trip as I would have liked. Flew in eight years ago. I gave it a half-hearted four years, then left for good in 2001 when my grandfather was sick. I returned three months later. They were shooting my movie, you see. I was subletting a place back then - every intention of leaving again. That was just about five years ago.

They say that out here it takes five years to achieve some success and ten years to get yourself a career. It couldn't be truer for me. I got the indie film shot in my fourth year here, and as I pass the eight year mile marker, I see things lining up to (potentially) set me up for a future in the writing game. It's a good feeling to know you're "on track" although I suppose written into the program is the possibility that the track can give way at any moment and you can be totally derailed. I can't think about those things. I have sacrificed closeness with my very close Italian-American family back home in pursuit of a dream/goal/life-of-my-own, and I don't want to and can't really dwell on the possibility that that sacrifice may ultimately be in vain.

But don't get me wrong, this New Year finds me in light spirits. I have finally, FINALLY removed the hairshirt better know as my screenplay, and I feel god damned good about it. Not the script itself, mind you - who knows if it's any good - the fact that I'm done with it. Truth is, I remember beginning it in that sublet apartment back in the summer of 2001. Back then it was called Cul de Sac (before I knew there was a Polanski film of the same name) and it was a turgid, dramatic snooze-fest a la Magnolia, which is not to disparage Magnolia, rather to say that I admired it so much that I essentially ripped it off. Thankfully, over the years I abandoned all pretenses of trying to Say Something and just worked on telling the best story I could as funnily as possible.

The multi-year gestation would have you suspect the thing is a five hour masterpiece with a hundred locations and a cast of thousands. I'm proud to say it's not that, actually, but a lean little comedy with about 6 principal characters and 20 or so incidentals.

I plan on "going out" with it in the next two weeks: work with my manager to send the script to all manner of producer, talent, and/or production company people in the effort to 1) get my name out there, and 2) get some fans of my work. The byproduct of this, best case, is that someone loves it and wants to champion it and get it made (it's squarely and indie film and therefore of low interest to Big Time Hollywood People and in need of a heroic supporter-of-the-arts). So I feel good.

I am, as ever, broke. Actually, post-holiday travel and general expenses, I am beyond broke I'm, like, Brokeback Mountain. I am in a new realm of destitution, they need to invent new syntax for me. I am bruke, broyken, brkxkn. I'm flat-busted, maybe-won't-make-rent, gonna-have-to-move-in-with-the-girlfriend-and-become-a-mooch, start-suckin-dick-on-the-side-to-make-ends-meet, BROKE as a JOKE. And yet I feel alright. Got a few job prospects in the wings, success is finding my friends (...what's good for the goose...), and there may even be some financing heading toward the Duvall script. How about that. 06 might not turn out that bad.

Someone please remind me of this optimism when I have my head in the oven, say, mid March.