Phone Call
MORGAN
(quoting;
remembering the
words)
"A man who fights with
monsters
should be careful,
lest he become a
monster. And
if you gaze long enough
into
the abyss, the abyss gazes also
into
you..."
- from the new
spec
I've known this
guy for a couple of years. He was a peripheral member of a group of actors and
theater people my ex-wife and I used to hang out with. The associations are
complicated and relatively unimportant. This guy now writes with my ex-wife's
boyfriend, Matthew. He also directs B-Movies for a company with studios in
Bulgaria.
It seems he had been
hired to direct a creature movie for this company which would air on the Sci-Fi
channel. He was to leave in two weeks for Sofia to begin three weeks of
pre-production. There was just one little problem: the script he had SUCKED!
Everyone hated it. No one knew quite what to do about the
problem.
So, at Matthew's
suggestion, this guy -- Tripp -- calls me out of the blue and asks me if I'm
busy. I've just turned in my umpteenth rewrite of my new Serial Killer spec
script to my agents and have no idea when I'm going to hear back from them, so,
no, I'm not busy. He asks me to please help him fix his movie. We agree on a
very reasonable price for which I will turn around a new first act in a matter
of three days. The goal is to take these pages to the production company and
get me hired to replace the original writer. If this works, I could get a
nominal writers' fee to finish the movie. If it doesn't work, I get to keep the
cash Tripp gave me for the first act and we would part
ways.
I meet with Tripp on a
Monday night over coffee. He gives me a quick sketch of what he's looking for
and provides me with a rough outline he has drafted, a list of characters, and
copies of the other writer's drafts. He needs the pages by
Thursday.
Thus begins my week in
hell. But, Curt and I are used to living in Study Hall and the girl I've been
seeing for the last few months is VERY understanding of my professional needs.
I burn through the pages in the time allotted. I e-mail them to
Tripp.
Tripp loves them! He's
psyched! I'm glad. It's a fun little project and I need the cash. I make a
few changes and Tripp sends the pages off the B-Movie's producer on
Saturday.
On Sunday, I get
another call from Tripp. His voice doesn't sound so good, even though I know he
loved the work I did. He says, "Well, the original writer did some clean up
stuff on his second draft and, well...the producers hated it. I showed them
your pages and they thought there were fantastic, so, I guess you need to figure
out how much money you need to feel comfortable cranking the rest of this thing
out in the next week or so. We'll talk on
Monday."
So I got the job! It's
a little B-grade genre horror movie but I'm finally being paid to write for the
first time in years!
On Monday,
while running errands as part of my day job, Tripp calls again. Everyone loves
the pages and would like me to please show up at a story meeting in Burbank at
4:00. I tell him I can do this. I call my office and tell them I'm doing this.
They don't seem to have a real problem, so I schlep over the hill to Burbank
where I sit in a 'story' meeting with Tripp, the producer and TJ, an executive
at the prodution company (who I already know as he is a friend of Curt's and
I've met with him about writing B-movies on the cheap before). The meeting goes
well and is really about making sure we're all on the same page with regard to
what the Sci-Fi Channel people will be expecting from the new script --
particularly as I've made it clear that I never even read the other writer's
work and just started from scratch. They also seem to love
this.
As I'm leaving, I'm told
that I'll need to have a quickie conference call with a guy at Sci-Fi, just to
introduce myself and make him feel comfortable, and then I'm dragged into TJ's
office to hammer out the details of my
mico-deal.
At this point, I
don't care what they're paying me. It's more money than I'm making as a runner
(although not so much that I can quit being a runner -- at least not yet). As
promised, the fee is nominal -- but still in the thousands, and includes a
guarantee to write another movie for them at their full rate, which will be a
five-figure check when it finally
comes.
I have no illusions about
what this is, but it still feels pretty damn good, I gotta
say.
I leave the meeting and
head back into Hollywood for a coffee and a quick nap -- I was up until
three-thirty the previous night editing a teaser trailer for another project I'm
gearing up to write and maybe set up to direct or
co-produce.
One Ice Blended
Mocha, an order of rolled tacos from Benito's, a couple of cigarettes (I sort of
started smoking again, but hopefully not for long) and a fifteen minute power
nap later and I'm off to meet Tripp again at yet another coffee place to really
discuss the story and the writing of the
script.
The meeting is quick as
he knows what he wants and I have a good handle on how to give it to him. I
take the notes home and decide that tonight, I will not write -- I will digest
the material and start on the new stuff
tomorrow.
I meet my friend Drew
(who is editing the teaser for me) for a Diet Coke and a cigarette, rent a
couple of movies, pick up soda and KFC and go
home.
Curt's up watching "The
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" on DVD and I promise I'm not staying up late
because I did that last night and I have a helluva lot of work ahead of me
because Tripp leaves for Bulgaria on Friday and needs the script the following
week.
And so I proceed to sit up
until two in the morning blogging and smoking and NOT sleeping. So it goes.
Tomorrow, I start writing the last 70 pages of the movie.
Posted: Tue - May 18, 2004 at 02:00 AM