Blowing Away Clouds Of Doubt

Aeons ago, before the fires, I wrote this post about pitching my screenplay. That was an exciting afternoon.

Not nearly as exciting as this one turned out to be.

I should begin by saying that I spent that week and a half working on what I thought would be a very good pitch. I read a book on selling your story in a minute. I wrote and rewrote my pitch, refining it until everyone I gave it to (read as: "subjected to it") responded with an honest, "Wow, I'd love to see that movie."

And then I got to the Screenwriting Expo and took a seminar on pitches. Round out my education, I thought. Oh, no...the seminar contradicted everything in the book.

Shit.

Okay, I'll take another seminar on pitching. Same thing.

Another seminar, another writer who disagrees with the book I read.

It turns out that sixty seconds is too long a pitch.

So last night, I sat down and rewrote my pitch from scratch, and by the time I went to bed, I still hadn't gotten it to the point of wow-I-would-love-to-see-that-movie. It didn't pop.

At 4 am, I woke up with the solution: There's a tragedy in the story... That's my pop.

So, here's how it goes:

Everything In Between is a multi-plot drama about how we all experience love the same way. When the lives of four very different couples cross at a gay wedding, they must face a tragedy that will ultimately change each of them -- for the better.

Spoken aloud, slowly and clearly, it takes about 20 seconds.

"I get it! It's Crash, with love! I love it!" said one agency executive. Exactly. I'm going to send her a thank you note.

A drama is a hard sell. Look at the list of movies at your local theater... It's late in the year, so the awards season has begun, but that is the only explanation for movies like Michael Clayton and Things We Lost In The Fire. What's an easy sell? Horror. R-rated comedies. Male-driven romcoms. Seriously, Saw VI is actually being written. I'm absolutely certain that I don't want to know what body parts you can cut off after the fifth vivisected appendage. I mean, really, once you've cut off all four limbs, how much thrill can be left? Here's an idea for the tagline for Saw V: "You're going to need help for this one."

I am not going to say what responses I got or from whom; I'll just say that I did better than I hoped.

Apparently, I've got game.

The Fat Lady Ain't Even On Stage, But...

I'm proud of my neighbors here.

San Diego claims to be "America's Finest City". If you live anywhere else and take pride in where you live, you might look at that as mere bravado.

I don't.

I called my best friend Bear when I saw his house was surrounded by the mandatory evacuation areas, and he answered his cell phone from his friend's front lawn, miles from his own house. His friend is out of town, but the friend's house is located closer to the Harris Fire, so Bear was up there to break in and get the guy's belongings out if the fire got too close. Just hanging out on the front lawn with a hose.

Thousands of people spent last night at Qualcom Stadium, where there is no shortage of food, water, and bedding being brought in by voluntary donation. In fact, several local bands set up there and kept folks entertained, while dozens of area massage therapists offered free massage to evacuees. The atmosphere there has been described as "festive" by the press, and though people are worried about their homes, they're calm and well-behaved.

A local company which makes respirators and face masks donated 30,000 masks to the Office of Emergency Services, which will allow responders to work more comfortably in the hardest-hit areas, and provide an opportunity for damage assessment teams to go in earlier.

As of noon today, 513,000 people had been evacuated from their homes... Roughly one in twelve San Diegans... And there have been exactly zero reports of looting or mayhem. Zero.

We still have several days of fire and destruction ahead of us, but right now? Right now, I'm so proud of my neighbors.

This truly is America's Finest City.

Ring of Fire

There is one pair of numbers that I think illustrates just how scary these last two days have been: Between 6 pm and 10 pm last night, the county estimate of the size of the Witch Creek fire went from 20,000 acres to 145, 000 acres.

At the moment, the only way out of San Diego is to the east, via the I-8. Or, by air.

My eyes haven't stopped watering since Sunday.

145,000 acres. And that's just one fire.

Depending on where you get your information, there are between 5 and 7 fires burning, and the city of San Diego is very much surrounded.

How badly stressed is our emergency services system? For most of the day yesterday, there was only one fire engine for the entire city of San Diego.

The scariest thing about all this is that friends and loved ones are in those areas evacuated, and I've lost contact with them. I called Sihaya yesterday and got her machine. If she went to work yesterday, then she's clear of the fires, but her cats are not. I called this morning again, and got her machine again, so her house is still standing, at least. For now.

Because bloggers are fond of lists, here are a few things I'm tired of:

1. Itchy, burning eyes.
2. TV journalists comparing burned neighborhoods to "a war zone".
3. Network television preempting local coverage
4. Network television's entertainment spin on our losses
5. The phrase, "the (absolute) worst that could happen"
6. The growing sense of helplessness
7. Video of fires and firefighting efforts that are so tight they don't show anything
8. Video of fires and firefighting efforts when what we need are maps
9. Matt Lauer
10. Smoke

Half An Hour's Jubilation Before The Doubt Rolls In

I was finally able to choose which companies I'll pitch to next week. It's not an unexciting list, including Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Creative Artists Agency, and Kennedy/Marshall.

For those of you who may not know, Brillstein represents people like Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, and a host of others. There are some great screenwriters at Brillstein.

Creative Artists Agency is huge. The in-house networking that could happen here would almost certainly get my picture made.

Kennedy/Marshall. I guarantee you have seen a film produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, because basically, if you've seen a Stephen Spielberg film since E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, you've seen one of theirs. These are the people who produced Poltergeist, Indiana Jones, Back To The Future, The Color Purple, Jurrasic Park, Schindler's List, and The Sixth Sense.

You might, if you look with me towards the horizon, see the dark clouds of doubt roll in.

I am going to pitch to Kennedy/Marshall.

Next Saturday, I am going to pitch to Kennedy/Marshall.

I may not sleep for a week and a half.

Moving Ahead

As I sit down to write this, I'm struck by the feeling that posting about the process of writing and moving ahead with my screenplay just isn't all that compelling. Would it help if I mention that I'm considering getting new living room furniture?

I didn't think so.

On Friday, I registered my screenplay with the Writer's Guild. This was a big step, as it meant my screenplay was actually finished.

Or so I thought.

Last week, I discovered that there is a San Diego Screenwriters Meetup group. (Meetup.com is a great idea, by the way.) Last night, I went to my first meeting, and brought my screenplay. I'd printed out four copies of the first ten pages in case they were open to reading it, but I went without expectation. They turned out to be an interesting group, struggling with some of the same things I struggled with. They were a bit skeptical when I said I'd written my way from outline to completed rough draft in just 3 weeks, but they were hooked by my pitch. (I use Michael Hauge's idea of how to sell the story: instead of telling the story, I start with how I got the idea for the story, then move on to give a little teaser that describes the style of the story.) I got the question I wanted: "So, what happens?" They then went on to shred my first ten pages, nitpicking it to smithereens. Yes, smithereens.

I am learning that Improv training helps when you're presenting your writing to strangers. When someone offers a suggestion, it helps to embrace the suggestion, something that does not come naturally for a writer. (We tend to think, "Well, that's your opinion, but since I wrote it, might I suggest a few places where you can put your notes?")

I am also learning that when people give notes, there is a sort of wheat-from-chaff processing that's required. You can almost always get one really good kernal of a note from the deluge of it-would-be-better-ifs and I-would-have-done-it-this-ways. Last night, I got one of those.

It was a "crap! you're right!" kind of moment.

All of this leads, of course, to the conclusion that a screenplay is never actually finished.

As a case in point, Paul Haggis (Oscar-winning screenwriter of Crash, Million Dollar Baby, and the current In the Valley of Elah) tells the story of working with Clint Eastwood on Flags of Our Fathers and partway into the filming, becoming convinced that a rewrite was needed. In spite of Eastwood's assurances to the contrary, Paul went ahead and did the rewrite.

Eastwood continued filming.

With the original script.

The film is brilliant anyway.

The best part of my weekend came when my parents called on Sunday evening to tell me that they loved the rewritten story. I'd wrestled for days with their notes, and finally arrived at a solution that both tightened the fourth plot line and delivered satisfying resolutions for three of my main characters.

But not for me, because apparently, I still have some tweaking to do.

Next week, I'll be headed to the Screenwriting Expo in LA, and pitching the story to at least five agencies.

It's a start.

And I Was Naked

My brother-in-law called on Sunday with notes on my screenplay. His first comment? "Font's wrong, Dude. You've used 10 pitch and it needs to be 12 pitch."

Crap.

One note, and 109 pages (acceptable) becomes 139 pages (so long no one will ever look at it).

He had other notes, mostly formatting, sort of redirected from things he got about his own screenplay from his former room mate, who is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter.

So, I sat down with my laptop and mercilessly ripped through the rough draft. I followed William Shakespeare's lead and got rid of all the stage direction, except where it's essential to the story.

And then I went through it again.

And again.

By Sunday night, I'd shortened it by ten pages, and by Monday afternoon, another seven pages. Have I mentioned that I hate rewrites? My elegant descriptions and scene setups had been reduced to cursory shorthand designed to evoke a visual in as few words as possible. Nothing remained but what was essential to the story.

And at 122 pages, I was still 2 pages too long.

Another note regarding a villain who never gets his comeuppance. I shredded a scene to give him that comeuppance, and damned if it didn't make the whole screenplay better. The writing was tighter, so it got me down to 120 pages. Another scene rewrite and it's down to 118 pages.

118 pages.

And the news this morning is that Hollywood is hunkering down for the writers' strike. There's a hiring freeze, and few production companies are reading new work.

Yikes.

Here's The Wind Up

It's been a week since I finished the rough draft of my screenplay, sent it out to readers, and realized I hadn't read it myself.

I have now.

The morning after I wrote that post about sending my screenplay out for other people to read it, I printed it out, bound it with brads, and took it to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a donut.

I brought along a pencil.

I wrote in the margins; feverishly scribbled, barely legible notations I would later struggle to decipher.

And I discovered that I like sitting in Starbucks alone, reading and people-watching. There is now a 'bucks within walking distance of my apartment, and I may have to take up spending my Saturday mornings there, reading and people-watching, people-watching and reading.

Had anyone asked what I was reading, I'd happily have pitched the story to them, doing what I could to get that all-important response: "Wow. I want to see that movie!"

Since 7:55 am on Saturday morning, the notes and comments have been dribbling in from my readers. The first came from a friend married to someone in the Industry, who called in tears and thanked me for making her cry on a Saturday morning. "Amazing," she said, "Wonderful!" It's become something of an inside joke that the "high concept" description of the screenplay is, "It's Crash, with love!" Her honest opinion was that it's better than Crash. She offered some tremendous insight, leading me to make a couple changes even before I printed the thing out for my trip to Starbucks.

On Sunday night, my parents called. I could tell from my dad's tone of voice that they were not looking forward to telling me what they thought. They didn't like it, and found some of it disturbing. There were parts they did like... The coffee shop was nice, and the dialogue was spot on... But they wouldn't go see it. They also offered some excellent observations, and I am still struggling with them. As difficult as their comments were to hear, they will undoubtedly help tighten the "weave" of the four plots.

On Tuesday, I heard from another reader, who called it "honest" and "profound".

Over the course of the week, I've gone back over it half a dozen times, and made quite a few minor changes. I've also made one or two major changes: added a scene that whimsically brings things full circle, and toned down the scene my parents thought was most troubling. I can feel the thing getting better, but it still needs work.

One of the most surprising things about the process is how low on the priority list this seems to be for people I'm counting on most for solid notes. A couple people I've sent it to haven't even acknowledged receipt.

Even as I work through the process of rewriting, I am shifting my focus to the other part of screenwriting: selling the script. I have three weeks to develop and refine my pitch. It isn't going to sell itself.

The pitch is the part that worries me. Albert Einstein failed his math exams twice. I could be sitting on a wonderfully written script with a brilliant story, and still blow the pitch.

I'll keep you posted.

Oh, Get Over It

Aboard my last ship one evening in June of 1998, at around ten minutes after eight, a group of young petty officers came knocking on the Chief's Mess door with a complaint and a demand: Ban the movie "Blazing Saddles", which was the feature being shown that night.

It seems they were deeply offended by the opening scene in which the redneck cowboys demand of the black members of the track laying gang, "Sing us a nigger work song." These young petty officers were, to a man, black. And they found the scene offensive because of the use of the word nigger.

Being the good leaders we were, the chiefs present listened to the complaint, restated it to ensure we understood it, then pointed out that the scene showed the rednecks making fools of themselves attempting to demonstrate what they wanted after the track gang feigned ignorance. That the point of the scene was to poke fun at racists was lost on these young men. It didn't matter that one of the screenwriters was Richard Pryor. All they saw was that a white actor had used the word "nigger", something for which there could be no justification.

Our command master chief called down to the ship's TV station and had the film banned. While he was on the phone, he asked our young petty officers what movie they'd like to have shown in its place. "Friday," they said.

Ten minutes later, the command master chief called down to the TV station and banned that movie, too. His rationale? If a word is so offensive that its utterance in a film is sufficient reason to ban the film, then all films in which the word is uttered are banned. Periodically, for a period of about two months, he'd call down in the middle of a movie and have it banned. Eventually, the group of young men had enough and came back to the Chief's Mess to retract their demand.

Personally, I don't think they ever got the lesson he was trying to teach, nor did they ever grasp the concept that one of the greatest powers of comedy is its ability to illuminate evil. I wish I could have sat those men down and shown them that scene over and over until they understood it. "Look, here...see this group of hard-working black men stroking their chins thoughtfully, pretending not to know the requested song, and refusing to behave in a stereotypical manner? Now, see this group of white cowboys, prancing around, kicking up dust, flapping their arms like chickens? Which group looks idiotic to you? And in the next scene, when their white leader considers a piece of equipment more valuable than the lives of two hard-working black men, doesn't he get thumped over the head for it?" Would have been wasted breath.

Flash forward: present day. The government of the Philippines is seeking an apology from the producers of "Desperate Housewives" for a racial slur. Apparently, during the season premiere, Teri Hatcher's character asked a medical professional, "can I check those diplomas, because I want to make they're not from some med school in the Philippines."

The government of the Philippines. The government.

This is not a group of young men taking on the mantle of disenfranchisement. This is a government. Presumably, these are people in power.

Now, I am not a fan of "Desperate Housewives", and have never seen even part of an episode. However, I have seen an occaisional advertisement for the show, so I know that it is a comedy-drama, and if the ads are any indication, the main characters in the show frequently deserve a comeuppance, and very often they get it.

I don't know Teri Hatcher's character, but I know the type. For the character to say something of that nature, it had to be a setup for a later, well-deserved slap.

This is one way that comedy works. We see a despicable character (a character we "love to hate") get their just desserts and it points to their behavior as inherently wrong. An object lesson is thus delivered to the audience.

You don't have to be an intellectual to grasp this concept, and yet, many smart people miss it entirely. They hear the words, but miss the point.

Worse, the mainstream media reports on such objections as though it's the correct point of view. Over time, many people have come to believe that the context in which something is said is immaterial, that a word uttered must naturally have been chosen for its most hateful definition.

As a writer, I am dismayed by this trend. It assumes the worst of the speaker (which in the case of television and film is the writer), who is often in agreement with the individual who claims offense.

In one widely acclaimed and Oscar-winning film addressing the subject of racism, a white, off-duty cop (a nice guy, by any standard, and who we think is color-blind until this scene) blows away a young black man who, it turns out, is unarmed after all. We see the white cop torch his own car to destroy the evidence of the murder he's committed, including the victim's body.

And no one points to it and says, "See? SEE? That's racist! I'm offended by that scene! The producers should apologize!"

Some advice for those who would cry foul over things like these: Stop. Listen. Think: What is the context of the "offensive" language?

Not everyone is out to get you.