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.

All of my Wordpress websites were hacked.

I’m deleting everything, including the Cinemanovel Site, sadly.

It will take a bit, but I’ll have something up very soon.

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!

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…

Can you imagine yourself going down with just a cameraman and sound man and half a dozen people and shooting a film?

Sure I can. In fact, any contemporary story is best done just that way. The only time you need vast amounts of money and a huge crew is when you require complex special effects, as in 2001, or big battle or crowd scenes, as in the Napoleon film. - STANLEY KUBRICK

I was walking home from the store yesterday and got to thinking…if religious idiots (Christians/Muslims, et al) don’t destroy our species, PUNCH DRUNK LOVE is going to be remembered as such a great fucking movie. It seems to get better every year.

KRISTINE COFSKY

CASEY MANDERSON

GAELLE JEGO

PRISCILLA FAIA

PAUL MENDEL, GAELLE JEGO, AND I

DAN RICHARDSON and WES SALTER

ROB LEICKNER

I suspect there will be more DREAM TEAM photos to come (including team members like Rob C., Michelle, Tristan, etc…!)

Is this day four?

As I’m typing this I can’t remember if I did this already.

I suspect not, but I can’t be sure.

Shot our “Nice Restaurant” scene today. It was the first scene with Tristan, and he did a fantastic job. Gaelle brought two lovely French girls, Michelle Kim and Gillian Cofsky showed up, and it looks like a restaurant where people eat. This shit is real!

We had some colour temperature issues (all will be fine) and some shadow issues with the halogen lights, but, overall, it’s going to look pretty great, I think.

The amount of footage coming in with two cameras (and no timecode) is…good, but problematic if you feel like editing as you shoot (which I love to do).

I need to make some playback stuff for tomorrow and take a look at the scenes.

Priscilla’s first day!