Monday Morning!

I decided to start letting people read my final draft of my script for feedback. I worked real hard to close every plot hole I could think of however sometimes there might be one I didn't think of pop up. So far no one has found any and generally think of it as good and would be a good movie. Which is good since that is what I want to do.

Yes I know that I shouldn't trust friends with feedback like this because they probably don't want to hurt my feelings with a bad opinion but I did anyway. I have also sent it to some online friends who will be very honest with me. So I am confident that between them all I can discern what is good and what needs work.

Yeah, it was a strange weekend. It was a good holiday weekend and I wasn't at work but I'm about ready to go there now. I do look forward to the day when I can take off my uniform and sit in a director's chair. I know its a longshot but I think that this could break through. Why not?

It is probably one of the best examples of no budget filmmaking I could come up with that can be shot with no budget. Believe me that if I had a budget someday I could make some amazingly good stuff however this will be good with no money so....

Rewrite Finished!

Yes I was planning on it taking about 3 days however I am happy to say that it is now done!

Basically once I had the basic story I wanted down with one rewrite I just went through and made the dialogue better. Taking away words here and adding them there. I went through line by line and gave some lines to other characters and took some from others.

I am happy with it in this current state. I know it will evolve a bit here and there once it is rehearsed and then a bit more when it is filmed.

OH! I also got the WGA registration back already! I am happy about that too! I now have a registered treatment and draft! I feel protected!

I have a get together later on with my friends to discuss this and I am excited about that! I honestly think this idea has potential to be something bigger and maybe get a small amount of attention. At minimum I think it will help propel another project, which is what I am really after!! I want to keep working at being the best filmmaker I can be!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My four day weekend begins this morning! The rewrite will get started after I get home from dinner. Well maybe, depends on what creature feature is on Scifi today...

Some friends and I will be getting together this weekend to discuss the project and see a movie or two. I am looking forward to this!

I know it seems my posts are shorter and shorter but believe me when there is more to report I will be doing a lot of posting! I think this blog might be included in the press kit, I'll have to think about that.

Rewrite Ahoy!

Despite a lot of personal drama in my life lately (actually probably one of the roughest patches I've been through in a long long time) I have decided to do the rewrite myself.

I think I am going to use this to accomplish a story with lots of feeling and emotion and I hope it comes through the way I intend, there will be some therapedic value to this project now.

I think I can accomplish the rewrite this weekend in about 3 days. I am off work Thursday and the only one working Friday so I plan on taking my laptop to work and starting this again and have it carry on into the weekend!

Long Evening/Day

Went to see The Grudge last night with a good friend. He liked it but I found myself wondering why they don't make scary movies anymore.

I can't remember the last real scary movie I saw.

The script's rough draft is done now. Now it is time to sit back a little bit and see what I need to do with it. I have two options
1. Re-write it myself.
2. Hire a re-write.

No, I'm not sitting back and relaxing in the least. I just have to make a decision about where to go next with it!

Finished?

Well I think I am finished with the rough draft. It isn't my target length at all. It is almost 50 pages so yes it still needs work.

Can I make a 70 minute movie out of a 50 page script?
Well the script for Once Upon A Time in the West was less than 40 pages and it was a epic nearly 3 hour movie...

Yes I think I can do some things to help the length of the movie and I believe that I can do a very very good job to make this a very scary movie! The one I have in my mind!

Am I still excited? You betcha!!!

Writing Every Day Is Paying Off

And to my surprise I am now over 40 pages!

It is tough but I am making myself stay at it! If I continue to do this I should have my 60-70 pages by late next week! Then I will decide on what to do next, either re-write it myself or hire it done and see where that takes the story.

Excited? Yes!

I know the past few posts have seemed very similar, however I feel that progress is being made and that is good for me!

Still Working!

Yes it is still coming along! I have found a way to use a childhood game in a very eerie way that should really effect people! It is very cool!

I am happy with it so far. I'm trying to get it written once and then after that I'll get the rewrite done. After that, if it is better, then the casting gets done!

I am so looking forward to this project, it is better than my last project right now.
This one is going to be big!

Even More Progress!

Yes progress has been made in writing the script!
Is it tough?

Toughest thing I've done in a while, which isn't saying much, I have a union job....

Is it getting better? YES! The story is coming along well! The only problem is getting the required amount of pages out of the story. Yes I am still shooting for 70 minutes which roughly equals 70 pages of script. I know how to film it and it will take up screen time but for the most part I am still shooting for 70 pages, any minute above that is frosting!

Progress!

I have written 6 pages and rewritten a few more from the 31 page draft my former writer gave me the other day. Is it done? No, it needs work, hard work but it is coming along!

I feel I need about 70 pages. The script is now up to 37 so only 33 pages left!
One character has been killed off already! Now all I have to do is kill off 4 more in 33 pages of script!

I am having a blast doing this, from the responses I have received from some of the writers on the Yahoo groups list, this is a very hard to impossible script to write. I think I will keep the emails that say this as motivation! Yes the hardest part is coming up but if I get 70 pages then I know I can make a 75 minute movie!

33 pages left to write and 15 pages left to re-write.

A DIY Script?

Well after sleeping on the fact that I am again scriptwriterless it might just be better to try to write this myself.

Yeah it will be tough but in the end its sucsess or failure will be mine and mine alone. it might be better that way.

So first step is first, write a 70-75 page script.

Primer, a 2004 Sundance winner was about 70 minutes long, I can do that, I can create this story in one small location with six characters and keep it interesting for that amount of time!

Until.....

The next roadblock comes up. My writer said he wasn't the right writer for this job. He did a good job for what he gave me but said he just wasn't able to give me what I asked for.

So back to square one? Nope, he gave me some good ideas and took some ideas in a direction I wasn't expecting and they might work!

So if square one was divided into, well four squares, this would be square one from square one.

Am I shaken? A bit but I've had worse happen but this is minor compared.

Well away we go, onward and upward!

Faster than expected!

The writer I have hired has already turned in a first draft, although it was much shorter than I expected it was good. It was short film length, the problem is that no one will buy a short film for distribution.

I am in the process of typing out some notes to send back. I think that hiring a writer instead of doing it myself might be a very good way to get a shootable script!

Writer Hired!

The first step has been taken and is now complete! I have hired a writer to give me two drafts of Locker! First is due by first week of January.

Yes this is exciting!

This is the first time I have actually hired someone to write something for me. I sent him my treatment and some of the high points I want in the script and a rating to shoot for. So now we'll see how it goes!

The Crossroads

Hello World,
I find myself at a crossroads so I thought I would start this blog so you can follow my progress and see how things turn out in my personal and professional lives.

So here is the situation of Blugill, filmmaker. No it isn't my real name and yes I know it doesn't have an "e" in it but that is intentional, maybe someday I'll get to that story.

About a year ago I became friends with a man named Chris, he had a script ready to shoot and I had the equipment. He set up the auditions and we had a very good cast of local actors. We shot his movie and we even had a rough cut "premiere" of the movie. It was a lot of fun! I don't believe I worked harder on a project and had as much fun! So I decided then that I was going to give it my best to be able to be a filmmaker full time!

So when you live in a small Oklahoma town it is very difficult to find like minded people. Believe me it is very tough to get a project off the ground. I just canceled my first project last night in fact. Yeah, that is one of the reasons for my need to vent right now and pour some things out to you. So I have this idea to do a episodic comedy that would be shot about every two weeks. It would be similar to Clerks but take place in an Internet Cafe called The Hard Drive Cafe, cute right? Yeah that is what I thought too! The episodes would be small enough that they could be shot in about 2 hours so I wouldn't demand a lot of my actors or their time. Well time passes, I have scripts ready to go, I make up fliers for the auditions and put them up all over town and finally the day for the auditions comes AND.......No one shows up. No one except for my friend John who was in Chris's movie and someone I have become pretty good friends with. So do I get down? Yeah for a little bit. Then I decide "screw it" I'm going to do it anyway! Yeah without a cast I can still figure out some way to make it work. So I start hitting people up in person to become a part of this project. I fill out the cast and then lose my main character.

Alright another set back but not a problem. I ask around and find another actor who would be interested in being in the project except he works every other Saturday. Not a problem! I think it will work now! Well now it is November, the Holiday season is coming up and my lead actress is about to go back to New York to school. Another set back. At this point I believe that a feature film project would be better to work on.

I believe that I can shoot a feature film in less than one day! Yes you read correctly! ONE DAY!
Yes it will be shot with a Canon XL1s and not with film but still it will be about 75-80 minutes long and will be good! Well better than the small indie film fest darlings that have done well this year like Open Water and Saw which was just stupid! I enjoyed Open Water though, the girl in that was hot! Worth watching for her alone!

Let me go back a little bit, the Oklahoma Film Commission sponsored the Dov Simens seminar in OKC. Instead of the normal 400 dollar fee it was a mere 50 bucks! It was a very eye opening experience that I would recommend to any filmmaker....er....Producer out there. His best suggestion for no budget filmmakers out there such as myself was to get a great script in one location, add drama and tension and shake well. I came up with a pretty good single location idea where everything is stacked against the characters. Six main characters stuck in a bad location with no hope of getting out soon.

Now with the help of Chris and a few others I have told this idea to (who like the idea a lot) I believe I will be able to get enough people to shoot in this feature film! I honestly don't think the location will be that big of a deal. I plan on hiring a Gaslight producer to run my rehearsals. I think that what I am going to do is this, rehearse my actors for about 1-2 weeks so that they have this DOWN COLD! Once that is done we will go to the location and shoot this at one time. The majority of it takes place in one fairly small place and well pretty mcuh be self edited except for the beginning scenes. Simple right?

Well the ultimate plan is this:
1. Get the script written (looking for a writer now)
2. Cast and rehearse.
3. Shoot, edit, and finish.
4. Start looking at the film fests that are available when this is completed. Dov says you should only give your premiere to those fests that the acquisition executives attend, Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, Tribeca, etc.
5. Hopefully it is a bigger hit with the audience than Saw was to me! I make a great distribution deal, get my name promoted and sign a 3 picture deal. Yeah the Robert Rodriguez dream!

So what is the status now? I have put out my request for a writer on two Oklahoma Yahoo group film lists. Have had two replies and have sent my treatment to them (yes it is registered with the WGA per Dov's suggestions so I am protected) and have yet to hear back from them.

If there is no writer up to the challenge then I will give it a try myself, I'm not the best writer but I'm not THAT bad.