CINEMA FIST

Writing a blog isn't always the easiest thing in the world to find time for. There are plenty of other activities that can occupy my life fully, such as work, family so on and on and on....

Not to mention other things I'd rather be doing than writing about movies, like watching them. But in these past few months even my compulsive film viewing has taken a backseat to a more ambitious cause....

I, like so many others in this world, am writing a feature length screenplay. I know, I know, I know. Take a number. Right? Sure. But for every thousand unproduced screenplays you have a keeper. That one stack of papers that's actually worth a damn. I certainly don't like the odds, but I'll play'em. What's the worst that can happen?

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When I was a kid I watched a lot of movies. The first hundred times I saw JAWS I was convinced I wanted to be a marine biologist. After TEMPLE OF DOOM it was an archaeologist. I wanted to be a detective at some point, and even a fireman. A radio show host. An astronaut. You name it.

I can't pinpoint exactly where or when this happened, but I had a realization:

I don't want to be any of those things. I just want to make movies.

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The most difficult part about writing and directing a feature length film in comparison to a short is tone. You must control the tone. How the characters speak, act and think. That's part of tone. It must be true throughout the picture. The pace of the action. The length of the dialogue. That's a huge part of tone.

Jason Reitman in a recent LA Times article describes it like this:

"Tone is the hardest thing to explain to someone. It's like how you know you're in love..."

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After seeing JURRASIC PARK at Woodfield Mall with my brother I remember asking him, "How does someone get to make movies for a living?" He told me, "They have schools you can go to." I thought to myself at the time, "That's doesn't seem very practical," and put the idea out of my head.

In the coming years I dreamed about doing something I thought would be a more viable profession. COMIC BOOK DRAWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then I realized I couldn't draw. Okay, I rationalized. I can still write... right?

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Getting in the habit of writing everyday is just as hard as working out. It's peachy keen for the first two weeks when you're actually acomplishing something, but like trying to loose weight, once you hit your plateau, interest wanes.

I first got the idea for this screenplay 2-3 years ago. Plot points of the story have been bouncing around in my head since then, but not until September/October 2009 have I tried to put it down on paper. So far, I've done four drafts...

DRAFT ONE: Got 30 pages in and decided to start over...
DRAFT TWO: Got 30 pages in and decided to start over...
DRAFT THREE: Decided to write out each scene seperately, out of order. Got 35 pages in and decided to start over...
DRAFT FOUR (current draft): 83 pages in and thinking about starting over.....

Writing in such a long format allows you to explore different options from time to time within the screenplay. When this happens it opens up new and interesting possiblities as to where the story might go. The problem is, you constantly want to go back and rewrite from the beginning, causing you to enter into an endless cycle.

Like yawning into a mirror....

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In high school, when I was introduced to mini DV and the AVID, I began to think about filmmaking again. The tools seemed to be coming down in price and suddenly it wasn't so implausible that a kid from the midwest could write, shoot and edit a feature film.

(This only has gotten more and more true throughout the years. So much so, that I believe one can make a feature with minimal equipment that would rival the picture quality of the major studios in Hollywood.)

Jean Concteau, the famous French filmmaker, was quoted once saying:

"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."

With electronic photography and NLE's, I think we're there.

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For the past two years I've been working on a short film with my friend and colleague, Elliott Traeger. The credit sequence is being finished this week and then it will be done, leaving my mind time to focus purely on this new script.

It's called HELL FOR THE COMPANY and it is in the vein of BLOOD SIMPLE, KILLER'S KISS and TOO LATE FOR TEARS.

With a little luck, we'll be making this movie by the summer of 2011. Give or take a month or two.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I should probably finish a draft first....

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The trailer to FRAME WORK. Shot with a Canon HV30. Starring Tim McCarthy & Cassandra Kramer and created entirely by Elliott and myself....