Friday, January 16, 2009

Jeopardy Design Work Locked Down

With the exception of the horrible log line I scratched up for now, here is the layout I did for the Jeopardy DVD sleeve and poster. Sorry the print work would be much better but we're out of money for this film so I'm, (shocker right,) doing the rest of work myself. Though, I'm getting better and better at the InDesign stuff in my defense. I have addresses, and shit loads of things to send to shit loads of people.... Bear with me. Everybody will get everything I promised very soon. Hope to see you at the premiere.... We may be close to setting it in stone.


Thursday, January 8, 2009

Three Decisions Away

OK, you’ve heard me say it a couple times but this is huge. My jig is about to be danced. (Like seriously, a week or so away.) No, I’m no better financially or sure of the future of my film but I DO KNOW THIS. I am three decisions away from putting Jeopardy behind me. On December 23rd, I thought I had finished but like the cuts before something was missing. Well, I figured out what that was and fixed it but ran into a situation where many people enjoyed my first cut better than my definitive cut so I got a little worried. Then Mark mentioned he was having the same issue as I was which meant, (if you know Mark,) I had to go with my gut and adjust. I spent a week tweaking my cut ONE MORE TIME and bada bing, I got the reaction I wanted, so here it is. MY CUT has 35 votes, MY CUT BEFORE MY CUT has 29. Well, 10 votes of MY CUT’S are crew and cast members of the actual movie which really mean alot. BUT-- Ryan, Rick and my good friend, Nathan, in Miami who I trust to give me an accurate critique, have not seen either cut. I sent the DVD’s out today and as soon as I get back the verdict from the three, I’ll make a decision and LOCK DOWN THE FILM, DANCE MY JIG and MOVE THE F%#@ OWN.

The Proof of the Movie being.....99% done.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

The Writer's Journey Begins with THEE BLUE PENCIL

Man, I’ve written some stinkers in my day. When I was 17 and 18, I was writing “indy” films that mostly revolved around small towns, and were driven by drama/characters. The problem was, my characters weren’t very dimensional. They all sounded like the same person-- Me. I was terrible at dialogue, story and well, I just sucked all around.
I ventured off into more action based and fantasy/adventure scripts and I believe some of the elements of my writing improved. I began getting really good with “building story.” My “concepts” were fantastic, but my dialogue was still horrible. Scratch that, my characters were not very multi-dimensional so I couldn’t find their own voices. Well, I began sketching cartoons and drawings of what my characters looked like and for some odd reason, that little exercise helped me hash out my different personalities. So with my new process in tact, I wrote ‘Epic’ and ‘The Dirty South.’ This was eight years ago. I’ve written several things since including, attending Screenplay classes and seminars and well just writing and writing. Well, since Meter, I have not written anything from scratch. I like to think I really began understanding the “story” and learning creative ways to tell it with all the practice. So now, with Meter being two years past and Jeopardy being more a film about camera rather than page AND a first draft of maybe the coolest script I’ve written put on ice due to our budget, behind me, it’s time to do something else. In between breaks from the kids I’ve been slowly rewriting Epic using my new sense of maturity in screenplay writing and it shows in the first twenty pages already. As far as ‘The Dirty South’ is concerned, well it is gone. There is one copy of it on a zip drive somewhere between here and Los Angeles and my friend had a hard copy at his house-- He moved out of six years ago. Is it good enough to rewrite? Then, probably not. Now, absolutely. It was a great concept and I even had fantastic characters, but it just needed some tweaks and a more maturing writer to fix the holes. On top of that, I have “Bunktown Asylum” under my belt. (The B Horror Movie Script I wrote in two weeks, that actually has a lot of potential with the exception of it being way too big a movie for our alloted $300K.) --- But there’s no reason to touch this script for awhile because well, I won’t be in a position to pitch nor shoot it anytime soon. Then there’s ‘Blood on Ansel River’ which is my ode to slasher flicks that ran completely stale about 20 pages in. I think I just got busy with Jeopardy, the opportunity in LA and life so my urge for writing a slasher flick kind of got lost in the shuffle for now.

So to make a long story short, with a some time in front of me, I want to do some writing but I am torn. There are three scripts, (one written already,) that would be great “specs” considering I may get some agent/professional attention come festival time with Jeopardy..... And those would be good ways to break in the door or do I do like I’ve been doing for the past 4 years and write with the intent to shoot myself. (All more low budget stories.) There’s only two of those I would consider and I honestly think I would only want to do “Debauchery” if I were to go that route. It’s a script I’ve written half of but in the four years that I haven’t touched it in, has figured out all the holes I had been missing in it and am ready to go at it again. I have to make a decision before I begin the venture into the next writing project because I cannot work on five projects at once, hell, two at once is tough. I am a focus on one thing at a time. It has seemed to work over the years, so make a decision on what to write and stick to it.

So you are wondering what “Thee Blue Pencil” is? It’s simple. Any script, story, drawing of mine is done, (or at least started,) with a 2H Sanford Turquoise Pencil. My first script’s first draft when I was 18 was written in a notepad with that pencil and the first 20 pages of my latest ‘Bunktown’ was as well. It’s a superstition and Carolina Office has a box of twelve for me reserved at all times, so when I say it is an Obsessive Compulsion of mine, I mean it. Everything is done with it. If I do not have one on me, nothing creative is accomplished until I do. That’s where “Thee Blue Pencil” comes from.




So the Writer’s Journey begins and here like my Production Diary, I’ll lay it all out to you from where I find inspirations, articles and insight I read on the craft as I go and who knows, maybe somebody will lend me a hand with their intelligence and ideas.

For now, let’s start at the absolute beginning. Below is the first “script” I wrote the summer of 1994. The whole script is here, but trust me... You won’t get past the first 5 pages without understanding why YOU MUST PRACTICE, PRACTICE, AND PRACTICE SOME MORE. The script-- Eddie’s Lawn.

CLICK HERE

Thursday, January 1, 2009

2009...... Can't wait.

It’s New Years Eve.... I have no job. Jeopardy is done... I guess. We’re now deciding between two cuts of the film. Honestly, I could careless at this point, I’m so burned by it. The last three days I couldn’t get myself to sit in front of the computer long enough to cut the DVD Bonus Features and even that doesn’t matter cause don’t have a dime to my name to send one to Rick and Ryan. And damn sure don’t have any money for duplicates, DVD Sleeve Printing, Promotions and most importantly, film festival submission fees.... So fuck it. This one was a wash besides the fact that it’s a good film. But guess what, nobody’s gonna’ see it because advertising and marketing cost money. I ain’t got a dollar. Even a premiere’s gonna’ cost me $300 so even something simple like that will not happen at this point. I tell you what, in 17 years, I’ve never considered doing something else with my life-- Right now, I’m actually reconsidering.... No shit.

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