The Rough Draft

I guess I have to be careful seeing as this blog is linked to my Facebook page via RSS. When it was just a private blog (so to speak) tucked away in a corner of Cyberspace, it wasn’t such a big deal. It was like a book you wrote but kept in a library. Sure it could be checked out but there are so many other books worth reading before this one.

Which leads me to the crux of today’s blog. As a writer, when you send your work out into the world, you hope for the best but expect the worst. Even if you sell your screenplay, even if it gets made, you should keep this view firmly in mind. Getting something done, isn’t always the best thing for your career.

A career is a finicky thing in this film industry. Your status can change in a heartbeat from up and comer to all washed up in the space of a few phone calls and you’d never ever be able to piece together what went wrong. Many times writers get labeled as being difficult. Sometimes it’s a true observation but more often than not, it’s the culmination of lack of communication between the producer, director, the actors and the writer. A writer will always fight for the story. If he’s fighting to the point of being obstinate. Maybe the better course of action is to listen to him rather than the knee jerk of firing him.

There’s a real problem these days of having multiple writers come in on a script. Some credited, some not. They twist and they turn, they burn the midnight oil and agonize over the characters and plot. In the end, the submitted script isn’t quite there. And the audience knows it. And look out if your name is still on the thing… you might never work again.

I thinnk a big part of the problem is the way we write movies these days. We all go off by ourselves and tap away on the computer in solitude. Back in the old studio days, there were, “Writer’s floors.” Buildings full of writers. If you got stuck you went down the hall and had a chat with some of your buddies and spitballed until you got a fix worked out for that tricky scene. Hey, we’re all hell on wheels in the scene but sometimes it’s a bit rough getting in or getting out. It’d be nice not to write so much in a vacuum all of the time.

The other problem is we’re seldom given enough time to get to heart of what we write. If the director isn’t getting the right vibe off the page, we need to be able to talk and work through it. Either we rewrite the scene to the Director’s satisfaction (within limits) or the problem lies with the director and the producer needs to know (quietly so you can disavow any knowledge). More often than not, the director is your best ally, the producer is the problem. Scratch most producers and underneath you’ll discover a failed writer or film maker. So, automatically they don’t really like you. Sure they make way more money than you but deep down they resent your ability to succeed where they themselves have failed. The only person you’ll find is more bitter and soul twisted is in a critic because they don’t even have the talent to produce. I of course exclude Roger Ebert from this as he wrote a successful cult film and has a general love for film which comes through in his writings.

Anyway, I’m begining to meander, so I’ll sign off.

No seriously… this is a blog entry about shoes. They being a personal fetish of mine (not that I want to walk around in size 12 pumps). You see, I’ve always had an affinity for really good footwear. Ask my wife, I’ve got a pretty good eye for nice leather. In fact, if there’s three things you should know in life, it’s your wife’s birthday, the date of your anniversary and her shoe size and taste). The first two will keep you out of trouble, the last one will get you out of trouble.

So, the other day I was out looking for a pair of shoes. As a rule in winter I wear boots. I like boots but they get a bit heavy to wear all of the time and it freaks people out if you wear big honking leather boots with a nice suit (they think you’re weird). Now I’ve got plenty of good leather shoes but what I don’t have is a nice casual walking shoe. I’m pretty much done with runners. I don’t run, I’m not planning on running and basically, I hate running unless I’m carrying my paintball gun and am going for cover.

You would think, that buying shoes would be easy. you walk into a store, pick out your shoes, buy them and walk out. This is not always the case. As I was wanting something casual, yet rugged, I figured I’d try out Coast Mountain Sports. They had a nice wall of semi hiking boots and rugged walking shoes, just the sort of thing I was looking for. Trouble was, I couldn’t get service. Not because they were too busy. I was the only guy in the place and there were two sales people behind the counter at the other end of the store but I guess they were scared of me because short of setting off a flare, they weren’t coming out. I guess it’s an Ontario thing (this has happened more than a couple of times to me now in this province). So no dice that week.

It turned out my daughter also needed new shoes. She’s funny in that unlike most teenagers she has an inate sense of style that doesn’t require her to spend huge sums of money on her clothes. She reserves that sort of cash for video games, anime and manga. Off to the Dixie Mall we go. Now any of you who know me, know I’m not so good with huge crowds and I’ll be honest, the Dixie Mall freaks me out a bit. I also don’t have my usual musical barrier because I actually like to talk to my daughter when we’re doing stuff together, so I’ve got to suffer the ambient white noise of the crowd (something that sets my teeth on edge). Anyway, she find a nice pair of black runners for herself almost imediately and their pretty cheap at fifty bucks but I’m a harder buy and so we go through five more stores with no luck until I pass a shop window which has a, “Clark Shoes,” display.

Back when I was a little boy in Scotland (yes, a very long time ago), Clark Shoes were the shit. They had their very own comic strip and every pair of, “Clark Commandos,” (I shit you not) came with a set of really cool army type stickers that unlike the cheap crappy stickers you’d get today would stick to just about anything a stay stuck and I mean stuck, you couldn’t take them off with a chisel. Best of all, I never wore out a pair when I was a kid I just outgrew them. So in I go and check them out. They’re not cheap, over a hundred a pair. And this place’s sales guy was on the ball. He was at my elbow in a heartbeat. I tried on a couple of pairs but they weren’t really in my extra wide size until he thrust this brown pair at me. Brown isn’t ever my first color choice but I tried them on anyway. Unbelievable. I’ve never had shoes that got more comfortable the longer you wore them. He made a sale and I got an awesome pair of shoes.

If they’re any bit as good as the Clark’s of old, I do believe it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

She emailed me back and offered me more money. Can you freaking believe that? And I thought I was clear about the whole never working with her again issue.

I guess with some folk you never can tell.

Oh yeah, I told her to go away in the best way possible, I told her to contact my agent. If I can’t get a hold of the guy, how well do you think she will do?

I just got an email, not terribly noteworthy in and of itself but as you know, it’s the contents of the letter that count.

It was an apology of sorts from a certain producer in Vancouver who shall continue to remain nameless saying she had

finally read

the script I had submitted to her in its entirety, the one that she felt was too descriptive and met none of her needs. The pass that had me terminated from the project and generated a followup email to the termination notice stating perhaps I should, “Read a few more scripts,” before attempting any more writing. But then we’re all really tough when standing beside the shield of email. You say that to my face, you’ve got an entirely different scenario. I’m 6′2″ and 240lbs and as one guy once remarked, “Watch out for him, he’s big but he’s really fast.”

But I digress, she went on about how the script really was very good and that they’d still like me to do a polish. Can you believe this shit? I mean writers are whores and I’m as much of a whore as the next person but even the dumbest of whores doesn’t get into the car of the same guy who beat the shit out of her to get his rocks off on their last, “Date.” Even I have limits to the ego pounding I can withstand.

She offered an appology, which I accepted.

She asked for forgiveness, which I will not offer. Life has consequences. You make a decision good or bad, you live with the outcome. She made an enemy, not the day she fired me, that was a welcome relief. She made an enemy the day she wrote an email, the core of which stated I can’t write. Strange considering I could write just fine three months previous when she hired me.

Not that I’m dedicating any of my time to, “Getting her back.” People like that self immolate all you have to do is stand back and warm your hands on the fire. You do have to distance yourself from them, lest you find yourself singed by their flame. After all, all you have is your rep after that, it’s the day job forever.

But she did make me very angry and believe me, you have to really piss me off to raise my ire to this level. Angry enough to finish the spec that’s been languishing on my computer for the better part of five years, set aside while I worked away on other people’s shit and not my own. It’s doing the rounds and so far the feedback is good.

So I replied to the email. Wished her well and declined any further involvement with her or her project. It might seem petty but there’s nothing petty about staying sane. As much as I enjoy the therapist’s chair, I’d rather spend the money playing paintball.

Caught Grindhouse last night. I’m not going to talk about the film because I don’t want to spoil it for anybody but I will say this. It was bloody, gory, gross, sexy and all around fucking awesome. Sure some people are finding Tarantino’s section a bit talky but lets be honest, you play to your strengths.

I laughed out loud, clapped and yelled at the screen, tell me the last time a movie made you want to do that. Also nice to see some favorite actors who don’t get enough screen time up there. Guys like Micheal Biehn and Michael Parks.

It gives me hope. Hope it does huge box office this weekend and shows the suits that it doesn’t always have to make sense to make money but it sure does have to be fun.