I would love to work with Nicky Katt, for he is genius.

NICKY KATT in Soderbergh’s FULL FRONTAL:

In response to the quandary “we need to find a new Eva Braun”

You know what? Fuck her. And here’s why. One, anyone who’s offended by drinking blood, obviously doesn’t drink blood. Two, anyone who drinks as much blood as I do knows it has no effect. Three, there is absolutely no scientific connection between drinking a shot of blood a day and being an extraordinary actor. And four, it is impossible to prove Number Three.

Good luck over the weekend L.A. friends!

The most depressing thing about making strictly low to no budget films is the inability to license music/songs.

Everyday I wake up and think, I need to write something great, so somebody REALLY wants it, so they want it enough to let me have creative control, so I can actually use some fucking great songs.

That’s the daily plan. Write pages. Try and make it great. One day…temp songs are actually available!

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THIS

2011 has been a pretty crazy year as far as my personal screenwriting output is concerned.

THE TOTAL NUMBER OF FEATURE FILM SCRIPTS since January of this year:

A PAGE ONE rewrite.

A HEIST film.

A CRIME THRILLER.

A WESTERN.

Another ‘HIGH OCTANE’ CRIME THRILLER.

A (Psychological) HORROR film (Co-written with my friend Paul).

WHY THE SUDDEN FLURRY?

I think the cost of setting up a film means I’m not directing as much as I’d like to be.

A NIGHT FOR DYING TIGERS drained my line of credit and credit cards (which remain drained), so “self financing micro budget style” is a challenge.

My management company are an inspiration. Great notes. Great attitude. Great guys.

I’ve learned the joy of outlining.  A more holistic understanding of narrative story structure, in both commercial films and smaller personal dramas, means less time meandering and more time writing. I’m certain the end result can be the same, whether you outline in great detail or not, but, for me, I find I’m making more productive keystrokes lately, and that keeps me at the computer.

Of course, characters continue to surprise, and often refuse to go where I tell them.

NEW MOVIES

Trying to raise the money to make the next movie. Got the script. The cast is going to be no problem. Just need a bit of dough…

RECOIL

Just working on the Director’s cut. Will be ready very soon!

A NIGHT FOR DYING TIGERS

Working on getting it delivered to all the folks who are waiting for delivery.

VAMLET

Picture is damn near locked. Audio is pretty rough. Waiting for new RAM and software for the computer.

TEXT

Writing LOTS of new stuff, and I mean lots. It would be nice to take a little trip and finish off some scripts, but things are pretty busy around here.

OTHER STUFF

While we transition to a cleaner (non-wordpress) site, if anybody needs to buy DVDs of The Ennead, You, Me, Love, etc…please email Cinemanovel Films at:

cinemanovel (at) gmail (dot) com

Location Scout photo by genius FIRST AD Bryan Knight.

Week three of PREP on RECOIL is in the books.

We go to camera on the 18th. Wow.

Working all weekend to get my preliminary shotlist looking more like a realistic shotlist. More meetings on Sunday.

I’m excited to get shooting!

CASEY, TIJANA, and DAN in “VAMLET”

Thursday/Friday were spent polishing four scripts.

NOW it’s full on editing VAMLET. I’d like to get a rough assembly finished by the end of the week. SO MUCH left to slog through.

Back to it!

A little wisdom from Sandy Mackendrick

For me, this issue is a central question. My writing and filmmaking life is this constant struggle to determine exactly the right time to move the idea from my head to the page or screen. If only there were an easy answer.

Each time, by feel, one idea takes its place ahead of the others.

The idea that demands more time, then demands that those characters are given a voice.

Back to some demanding voices.

Yesterday I took a break from writing to grab lunch and I remembered an email somebody sent a while back. It pissed me off all over again.

This person said they were inspired by the way I just went out and made WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD with myself as the only crew, how I just decided to make a film and then went out and made it. I replied to the message with a thank you and a brief “all you need to do is decide to make a film and then…you make it” message of inspiration.

Then I received a further message, pretty much asking for my help making their film, because, they said, unlike me, not everybody can just go out and make a film.

They pretty much wanted me to take their script and make their movie for them.

THAT IS SO WEAK

Something I learned very early on when making music transferred perfectly to film:

There will always be better filmmakers.

There will always be more talented filmmakers.

There will always be luckier filmmakers.

There will NEVER be a filmmaker who works harder than I do.

It was the only thing I could control, so I decided to control it.

SO, PLEASE

Don’t be a lazy fuck and expect people to create for you.

If you need equipment, find a way to buy it.

If you need actors, find them.

If you need a script, write one, get a friend to write one, remake The Tempest in a high school and shoot it on your iPhone, anything.

If things aren’t working out for you, if you’re not “getting the breaks,” if you’re not working on a new script because, even though nobody’s rushing to make the ONE script you have, you know it’s the greatest thing since Matrix Reloaded…if you spend more time talking about what you’re going to do or reading books and magazines and blogs about what you want to be doing, then you’re not doing anything.

All you really need to do is…something.

Now, I’m going to stop playing around on this blog and get back to writing.

Oh, and I procrastinate EVERY day. I find the secret to good procrastination is to switch back and forth between projects rather than the dishes, playstation, online “research,” etc…

Merry Christmas.

Christmas is that time of the year when everything stops, which is actually okay this year, I think. Normally I hate it, like weekends, and other holidays when nobody is working.

Now, with so much writing and editing to do, if Christmas has to happen (and it seems to happen every year around this time), I suppose it’s a good time for it.

A good marketing slogan, I think:

“Christmas, hey, sometimes it’s not terrible.”

So, a couple of phone meetings, a lot more pages, and then the world stops for a couple of weeks. And that’s okay. This year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

“Jesus Christ, Alison, he doesn’t look remotely Swedish!”

FIRST RESHOOT required. A little out of focus action means a quick reshoot. Should only take an hour or two, only one main character involved. If you have to do a reshoot, this is the type you want.

EDITING

Editing is getting tough. No end to the chaos. No end to the footage. I have SO MUCH writing I need to do, and it’s impossible with all of this editing to get done.

This is the most editing I’ve ever had to do on a film. This is the “roughest” audio, the “roughest” picture, the “roughest” everything. This just means the film has a long way to go. I’ll get it there, for sure, but it’s going to take a LOT of time and work.

I may have to take a break from the edit and run away for a week or so to write. This writing needs to be done!

TIGERS

No word on anything on the tigers front as far as distribution, etc…but we’re hopeful something will come through soon.