After a few months in the post production oven…VAMLET is almost ready to be unleashed on the world…

Look for VAMLET in FILM FESTIVALS in 2012!

Lesli Brownlee is ALISON in VAMLET

There are so many helpful blogs out there. I thought it might be nice to post a link to a good one every once in a while.

So, instead of the usual rantings and updates (although they follow)…

John August

Great tips and inspiration for screenwriters (working and aspiring).

WHAT IS NEW?

Writing, spec script went out. Fingers crossed.

Editing VAMLET, getting there…

Re-edit on THE RED ROOSTER, new music, shorter version. It’s a lot stronger now cut down from 84 to 74 minutes, and, with the Darling Music artists on the soundtrack, it actually feels more…grounded, somehow…the way the music of SOLARISTS works with the landscape is perfect.

Prep begins on RECOIL in two weeks!

Working on a bunch of new spec material.

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!

These are the undisputed best films of the year.

1. Dogtooth

2. Blue Valentine

3. Ondine

4. Black Swan

5. Fish Tank

6. The American

7. Solitary Man

8. The Father of my Children

9. I am Love

10. The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

Of note: Easy A, Catfish, The Social Network, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Another Year, Animal Kingdom

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…

WRITING: Been doing a lot of it, A LOT.

I finished the first draft of I THINK WE SHOULD SEE YOUNGER PEOPLE a week or so ago. I think it’s by far the best thing I’ve written, but I still need to take the requisite time away to reflect. I need to put it in the drawer for a month and then check back in with it.

I’m also currently at work on two more commercial scripts, one very stylish caper/heist film, the other a contained caper/crime/thriller. I hope to have them finished by the new year.

Things don’t always happen this way, but I came up with the idea for my latest film on Dec 11th. As of right now, Dec 17 at 10am, I’m on page 43 of the script. 

EDITING: Not much.

I took a shot at getting back into the VAMLET edit, but I didn’t quite have the resolve. It’s just such a HUGE chunk of footage. I love it, of course, but it’s a killer. SOON I shall return, perhaps as soon as I’ve finished my first draft of this new script.

I thought THE AMERICAN was brilliant.

I’m hoping to do some “director-for-hire” stuff asap.

I hate the waxy, creepy, puffy-lipped look of actors who have had plastic surgery.

I drink more than three cups of tea a day while writing.

I watch (and more likely re-watch) at least three movies a day.

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.

American film tends to be sentimental and rarely depicts the soul of its citizens. And if the film doesn’t have guns, it isn’t an action film. But for me, the real turnoff is in the final scenes. The experience is often wrapped up in a pretty consumer package guaranteed to show us that life is good and people finally see the light. Foreign films tend not to have this denouement. The chips fall and lay dead and buried if need be. Think of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, Ingmar Berman’s great films Fanny and Alexander and Cries and Whispers, or Fellini’s 8 1/2. The stories are not skewed for the happy ending. The studio system is geared to make money, not to tell stories. American films generally cost too much to make and cost millions more to advertise so that the product can open as many pockets as possible.

-Irvin Kershner

DAN and WES

UPDATES ON THE FILMS:

A NIGHT FOR DYING TIGERS

Still waiting to hear about any sales.

VAMLET

I’ve taken a week off from editing. I was really burnt out and needed the break. I’m looking forward to getting back into it with a clear and inspired head. Hmmm the words inspired and insipid aren’t that far apart…

UPDATES ON THE SCRIPTS:

CINEMANOVEL

Working on a rewrite/polish. Planning on shooting Summer 2011.

I THINK WE SHOULD SEE YOUNGER PEOPLE

63 pages in and I know the ending! Now I just need to work on the last half of the middle bit (what some folks might call the second act).

FAKERS

70 pages in and, because a caper film has so much more plot, a lot of work to do. However, I know what happens next…and I know how it ends!

I think I’ve watched just about every crime/caper film ever made this week. Whew.

PORTSIDE & ABEL

A complete re-imagining of my 2004 script. Now, I’m writing it as a one hour television pilot. Come on cable. Let’s do this.

OTHER STUFF:

Rob Leickner’s (very funny) film Everything Louder than Everything Else screens at the Whistler Film Festival on Dec 2nd!

Iron Bowl starts in twenty minutes…