Archive for the 'Projects' Category

08.13.08 Aquaman is a Pescepublican
Recent articles about the political leanings of popular comic book characters got me thinking about the uncanny valley between fictional and real-world ideologies. We’re happy to have characters speak in broad terms — “With great power comes great responsibility” — but the minute they start referring to specific issues, we become very uncomfortable. [...]
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08.06.08 Time jumps and oil drilling
I’m writing a movie that makes a time jump about 90 pages in, meaning at the beginning I’ve got a couple of 10-year olds who’ll be about 18 at the end. That’s not my problem though, since the jump is unavoidable and casting different actors actually makes sense in this case.

My question is: What’s [...]
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07.29.08 Why it’s called “Go,” and not “Call”
IMDb has message boards for every film and every filmmaker. I would strongly advise you to never read them, and in particular, don’t read them for any film you’ve worked on. You will walk away feeling a little worse about yourself and humanity.

But today, while looking up the name of an actor in Go, [...]
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07.25.08 Packing light
I’m headed to Seattle tonight for a quick screening of The Nines. I’m packing almost nothing: my iPhone, my Kindle, toiletries and a change of undies. Over the past year, I’ve found I am packing less and less, to the point that it’s become a sport to see how little I can get by with. [...]
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07.21.08 Five quick questions
I have lots of questions, but by all means choose two you’d like to answer.

– Ric New Zealand

1) What’s the commercial potential of movies without happy endings? I’m tired of every movie having to end in a good way, even if that’s a main character surviving a slasher flick. Does a movie automatically fail if it [...]
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07.16.08 Simple is better than accurate
A story in today’s LA Times about chocolate-making got me thinking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and an error I deliberately introduced. Early in the tour of the factory, Wonka says…

WONKA The cocoa bean happens to be the thing from which chocolate is made.

Wrong. The right word is cacao — it’s [...]
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07.15.08 A look back at Go
This Distracted Globe has a new look back and review of my first movie, Go.
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07.06.08 Short questions, short answers
In the Big Fish Sequence Outline posted in the Library, you have boxes around certain sequences (i.e. sequences 3,5,8 etc.), but not around others. What do these boxes reference?

– Gerald Mississippi

The boxes indicate which sections of the movie are Edward’s stories. I wanted to show the balance between real-world stuff and fable.

Why did Edward Bloom leave [...]
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06.30.08 Sundance, The Nines, and the death of independent film
A quote from Mark Gill in the LA Times last week would seem discouraging for independent filmmakers:

Of the 5,000 films submitted to Sundance each year — generally with budgets under $10 million — maybe 100 of them got a U.S. theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of [...]
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06.18.08 How to cut pages
One page of screenplay translates to one minute of movie. Since most movies are a little under two hours long, most screenplays should be a little less than 120 pages.

That’s an absurd oversimplification, of course.

One page of a battle sequence might run four minutes of screen time, while a page of dialogue [...]
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05.27.08 Are animated specs worth the time?
I have been tossing around an idea for an animated feature film. I have a ton of notes, character breakdowns, beat sheets, outlines, etc., etc. Now its just a question of putting it down on the page. My question is fairly simple and straight-forward: Am I wasting my time?

I’ve read that writing specs for animation [...]
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05.19.08 Writing silent scenes
I have a question about formatting for a script I’ve been working on. The concept involves some scenes being completely silent, but with an occasional sound coming through (i.e. everything’s silent, including speech, until someone breaks a glass and the shattering is audible).

I’ve tried a couple of different methods of formatting this but I’m [...]
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05.12.08 How not to choose a movie title
I’ve written about the importance of a good title before. A great script with a crappy title faces an uphill battle. That’s why I always make sure I have a title I like before I type “FADE IN,” even if I later change my mind.1

So yes, I’d pay for a great title. Today’s LA [...]
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05.02.08 Secret history of the Kleinhardt Gambit
In the second Charlie’s Angels, where did the phrase â€œKleinhardt gambitâ€? come from?

– Duane Mount Pleasant

Duane is referring to this scene, near the end of the movie:

EXT. HIGH ROOF - NIGHT Madison finds herself alone on a high, empty roof. Reeling, confused. A giant, blinking â€œLOS ANGELESâ€? SIGN flashes. A single telescope has been set [...]
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04.14.08 Return to Spectre

Derek Frey recently traveled back to Montgomery, Alabama, and took some great shots of the remaining sets from Big Fish. You can see them all here.
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04.11.08 The Nines on iTunes
Just noticed that The Nines is now available for rental on iTunes.
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04.10.08 Northeaster
I spent five days in Maine, writing and researching my next project. A few observations, in bullet point form:

Part of my motivation for visiting Maine was that I’ve always claimed to have visited all 48 contiguous states, thanks to endless summer roadtrips with my family growing up. But my mom recently told me that we’d [...]
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03.25.08 Rethinking motivation
I’m in the planning stages of my next project, which is honestly my favorite part of the writing process. There’s no emotional cost to killing unwritten scenes, no niggling logic flaws, no exhaustion at page 72.

Plotting a movie is mostly figuring out who the characters are, and what obstacles they’ll face. In film school, [...]
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03.24.08 Shot an indie pilot. What’s next?
Back in 2005, you were generous enough to offer me some thoughts about whether to go to NYU or USCâ€™s screenwriting program. Now, a few years down the line, I am a freshly minted Tisch graduate hoping for some advice on a different topic.

I recently won a modest grant to shoot a [...]
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02.28.08 Test screening questionnaires
We have the first cut on a historical drama we eventually want to try to get on History Channel or Lifetime. It’s about a group of young Quaker Girls who create an anti-Rebel/Pro-Abolutionist Newspaper in the middle of Confederate Virginia.

We want to have a test screening to determine plot comprehension, pace, etc. [...]
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02.26.08 Post-strike update
Last night I went out for beers with my picketing team from the Van Ness gate. I hadn’t spoken with any of them since the end of the strike, so it was nice to catch up, and see them in clothes not specifically chosen for walking in the cold.

Remarkably, it was the first conversation I’d [...]
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02.20.08 Saturn Award nomination
Matt Venne emailed me this morning to point out something I would have otherwise missed: The Nines just got a Saturn Award nomination for its DVD.

It’s a clichÃ© to say, “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” but really, it is. And surprising, too. The Nines isn’t an obvious choice at all.

The Saturn Awards are [...]
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02.15.08 Pack-saddles to listen
After reading this Italian blog review of The Nines, I’m convinced that the translation technology behind Babelfish is actually Icelandic singer BjÃ¶rk.

I confess. They are remained struck by lightning from the film The Nines, of which for other I do not have news regarding the distribution in Italy. To the foreign country it is already [...]
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02.14.08 Facebook, a hive mind question
Once upon a time, I had a MySpace page, to which I happily added anyone as a friend. But right around hitting the 1,000 friend mark, I realized my patience for the site’s embedded idiocy — the 1998-style formatting, cheesy graphics, junior high demographics — was finite. I left it sitting fallow,1 even while recognizing [...]
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02.11.08 And I barely know who she is now
At the Grammy Awards last night, my friend Jen pointed to presenter Miley Ray Cyrus and said, “You know she was in Big Fish, right?”

I insisted that was impossible, and immediately tried to pull up IMDb on my iPhone in order to prove her wrong. But the network inside Staples Center was massively [...]
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02.08.08 Strike, days 94 and 95; Production, day 3
Our final day of shooting consisted mostly of chasing actors with cameras, my brief homage to Point Break. We also had our first and only company move — just two blocks, to a tiny medical clinic in Eagle Rock. One by one, we wrapped our actors, until we were left with just one regular and [...]
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02.08.08 The Nines drinking game
Saw a link to this in the comments section at IMDb.

1 drink â€“ every time someone drinks 1 drink â€“ every time someone says â€œNineâ€? 1 drink â€“ every time you see the number nine or can make the number nine from something on screen 1 drink â€“ every time you see a pug dog or a [...]
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02.06.08 Strike, day 93; Production, day 2
With all eyes on yesterday’s primaries, the announcement of the big, bi-coastal WGA membership meeting this Saturday was easy to overlook. But it’s certainly a welcome development. It’s widely expected that the WGA boards will discuss the status of the agreement with the AMPTP, and outline the steps needed to get back to work.

I anticipate [...]
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02.04.08 Strike, day 92; Production, day 1
Instead of picketing, I spent today in production on the short-film-slash-web-pilot, details of which I’m keeping infuriatingly mum so that there’s some tiny bit of surprise when I can start showing it to people.

Today went really, really well. We’re shooting two cameras — the HVX-200’s I was all a-twitter over before they came out — [...]
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02.03.08 Seeing other people
As I write this on Sunday afternoon, I have no confirmation whether a deal has been reached to end the strike. Rumor and reality have been scrambled and beaten throughout this ordeal, so now seems a particularly bad time to be counting unhatched chickens. (To strain an egg metaphor.)

For any writer — WGA or otherwise [...]
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02.01.08 Shucks
“Every now and then itâ€™s nice to encounter a movie that just cracks open your skull and has rough intercourse with your brain.” — Jason Adams on The Nines, via JoBlo.
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01.29.08 The Nines on DVD
In North America, The Nines is now available on DVD. So I thought I’d explain what’s on the disc and why, and the process behind it.

The cover art

The original one-sheet for the movie featured Ryan Reynolds tying the green string around his wrist. Even as we were preparing for the theatrical release, we [...]
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01.29.08 The Nines, Unboxed
I’ve never tried Amazon’s Unbox service, which works with PCs and TiVos. But as I was checking the stats this morning, I noticed a few readers had clicked through and purchased the Unbox version of The Nines.

I’m assuming the $14.99 gets you just the movie, without any of the special features or alternate languages/subtitles. But [...]
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01.25.08 Upswing
IMDbPro’s MOVIEmeter charts how often people are looking for a specific film. This week, The Nines climbed from 1539 to 11 on the charts. Since we’re not the only DVD coming out this week, I have to assume that means a lot of people saw the torrent and wondered what the hell the movie [...]
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01.25.08 Charlie on ABC
In the U.S., ABC will be “network television premiering” Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Saturday, Feb. 9th. Theatrical movies aren’t showing up on free television much anymore, but Charlie should work well. It falls into TV act breaks fairly naturally.
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01.25.08 The Nines quiz on Facebook
How awkward is this: I got a 93%. It’s full of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to bookmark this for later.

The Nines quiz

Based on the syntax, I think it’s made by a non-native speaker. And I’m still not clear what the final (and missed) question is referring to: the [...]
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01.19.08 Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The LA Times has a great article about my friend and former assistant Rawson Thurber, whose adaptation of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh debuts at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I’ve seen the movie five times, and am ridiculously proud of Mr. Thurber.

Trivia: If you’re watching The Nines, that’s Rawson’s house which gets burned down at [...]
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01.17.08 More on the torrents
There’s been a lot of feedback and reaction on this site and others about my c’est la vie attitude towards The Nines showing up on BitTorrent. Some felt I was tacitly endorsing piracy (no), while others wondered if I’d feel the same if I had financed the movie, rather than writing and directing it. So [...]
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01.15.08 The Nines on BitTorrent
Since well before our Sundance debut last year, I’ve been curious-slash-paranoid about when The Nines would start showing up on the BitTorrent trackers, the online repository of pirated movies and a few legitimate wares.

It was inevitable that the movie would get bootlegged at some point. The timing was the delicate issue. If it showed up [...]
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01.08.08 Blu-ray on a cold day
With Warners picking Blu-ray, and Paramount rumored to have an escape clause letting it follow right behind, I finally bought my first Blu-ray disc: Big Fish. And a PS3 to play it on.1

Movies I’ve written are available on both formats, so I didn’t really care who won in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray battle. I [...]
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12.21.07 For Your Consideration
One of the perks of being in the WGA is that you get sent scripts and screener DVDs for many of the year’s best movies. Just this week, I got Juno and The Savages. My Christmas holiday to-watch list keeps getting longer.

WGA members are sent these scripts and screeners in the hopes that they’ll [...]
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12.11.07 The Nines, as planned

Digging through the files this afternoon, I came across this document I’d written for The Nines three years ago, which outlines a lot of my production philosophies at the time. To complete my process-geekery, I thought I’d annotate it to show what we did versus what we planned.

You can download it here (.pdf). Note: [...]
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11.28.07 Tin Fish
I knew that the Tin Man poster looked familiar.

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11.27.07 Frankenweenie
Although IMDb says otherwise, I’m not writing Tim Burton’s recently announced Frankenweenie feature.

Here’s the long-ish version: I had a meeting with Disney Animation about a year ago, in which they pitched the idea of doing a feature version of Tim’s Frankenweenie short film. They even had production art for it. Then, separately, I had [...]
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11.27.07 The Nines, U.K.
I spent the morning doing phone interviews for The Nines, which gets its theatrical release in the U.K. this Friday. We’re playing at three locations in London…

West India Quay Cineworld Cineworld Chelsea Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue at The Trocadero

…plus other screens throughout the country. It’s a bit frustrating that in this age of Google, it’s so difficult to [...]
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10.31.07 Heroes: Origins: Gone
I can confirm that the plug got pulled on the six Heroes: Origins episodes, one of which I was slated to write and direct. The possiblity of a WGA strike1 made NBC hesitant to prep a series they might never be able to shoot.

I had literally just hit “Print” on my revised outline when I [...]
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10.09.07 The Nines, scripted
I promised that as soon as The Nines had reached its widest U.S. opening, I’d be putting the script up in the Downloads section. That time has come.

You can find a .pdf of the screenplay here.
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10.09.07 Summing up The Nines
We have a bunch of overseas dates coming up for The Nines (starting with the U.K. on November 30th), but in terms of North America, we’re basically done. There are some one-off screenings on the books, but nothing resembling a true expansion.

We ended up playing in Los Angeles, New York and Austin.

Am I [...]
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10.03.07 Easter Eggs for Halloween
Although we’re still in theaters, we’re busy at work on the DVD for The Nines, which should hit store shelves sometime after the New Year.1 There are going to be quite a few special features on the disc, but it’s the Easter Eggs that have me blogging today.

My question for the DVD gurus out there: [...]
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10.02.07 The Nines in the U.K.
The U.K. release date for The Nines is apparently November 30th. More info when I have it.
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09.29.07 Remembering the Alamo
The Alamo Drafthouse is what you wish every movie theater could be: laid-back, but on its game, and run by people who genuinely give a shit about movies. Plus beer! My thanks to them for hosting The Nines last night. (And every night onward, as long as people keep coming to see it.)
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09.26.07 Trailer Competition: The Winners
We had 57 official entries. That’s a lot, and it’s about the most I could handle without my eyeballs exploding.1 I’m happy to report that many of the entries were quite good, and it was genuinely a pleasure to watch them. Most of them.

I feel like I should pad this opening bit with [...]
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09.25.07 Trailer competition judging in progress
Wow, that’s a lot of entries. I’ll be announcing the winners tomorrow morning.

Erik Beeson, who so generously helped with the hosting and torrenting, sent along stats:

total torrent file downloads for both torrents combined: 808 (includes search engine crawlers) dv torrent: 162 completed downloads mpeg4 torrent: 79 completed downloads mpeg4.zip: 242 (the direct download) total completed (torrents+direct): 483

Thanks [...]
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09.24.07 T-Minus one day
The trailer competition is nearing its end, and entries are starting to stream in. Some are quite good.

If I have one general observation, it’s that many of the trailers are trying to be respectful to the (supposed) tone of the movie. That’s fine, but it’s hard to distinguish yourself when aiming for the same [...]
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09.24.07 Reminder: The Nines in Austin
If you’re in the Austin area, be sure to check out The Nines when it begins its run at the Alamo Drafthouse this Friday. Ryan and I will be on hand for a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screening on opening day.

Since Austin is sort of ground zero for film geekdom, we’re [...]
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09.20.07 Trailer competition FAQ
What should the tone of the trailer be?

Whatever you prefer. It can be funny, scary, dramatic or simply weird.

How long should the trailer be?

Most trailers are between one and three minutes, but if you feel like cutting a 30-second spot, or a half hour masterpiece, go for it. I reserve the right to [...]
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09.19.07 Trailer competition details
Call in sick, ignore your loved ones, and put on a pot of coffee: the trailer competition for The Nines begins today.

The delay in staging the competition has probably led to some over-thinking: What about people who haven’t seen the movie? What about film school students? What about people who are [...]
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09.18.07 Trailer competition, teaser
Tomorrow, full details of the long-gestating trailer competition will be announced here (and at the lookforthenines site). You’ll have two versions of footage to choose from: DV and MPEG-4. The DV is big and beautiful. The MPEG-4 is small and nimble — and not as bad as you’d think.

To get ready, Erik Beeson [...]
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09.12.07 Quitting, and the age question
I know the ultimate answer to every quitting question tends to veer towards, “If you can quit it then it wasn’t meant to be.” But I think there are many people out there who have yet to find some singular passion. The best I’ve been able to muster is finding things I really enjoy doing [...]
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09.07.07 String theory
While in Venice, I had dinner with several journalists, buyers, and Gabriele Veneziano, who is the father of our international sales rep.

Veneziano, a physicist, is one of the pioneers of string theory — which is ironic, considering some of the related issues in The Nines. In fact, there used to be [...]
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09.06.07 The Nines expands
We did well on our opening weekend, racking up a per-screen average of $14,586, the highest of any movie in the country. That, along with some really good reviews, is allowing us to expand to new theaters for week two.

For Los Angeles:

Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in West Hollywood Landmark’s NuWilshire in Santa Monica Laemmle’s One Colorado in [...]
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09.06.07 Back from Venice
I’m back from the Venice Film Festival, where The Nines had its international premiere.

The movie screened three times, but the main public debut was 2:30 p.m. on Monday. At lunch that day, both the sales agent and the publicist separately pulled me aside to say, “So, John, you should know that if [...]
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09.01.07 The Nines soundtrack
Since Sundance, we’ve had a lot of questions (and compliments) about the music in The Nines. We didn’t end up making a conventional soundtrack deal, mostly because the film distribution situation was complicated enough. But you can find most of the music online. Alex Wurman has a lot of the score available for [...]
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08.31.07 Nines news, reviews and updates
Briefly, because there’s a lot going on and I haven’t started packing for Venice.

1. Sellout at the Nuart

The 7:30 p.m. Q&A tonight with me and Melissa (and others) apparently sold out yesterday afternoon. But there’s also a 10 p.m. show that I’ll be introducing. I haven’t gotten an update about the NY screening at [...]
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08.30.07 The Nines audio commentary
If you’re going to see The Nines this long weekend, you’ll be in a movie theater. You’ll have the benefit of a giant screen, good sound, and fellow patrons with which to partake (and debate) the film. There’s nothing like watching a movie with a crowd: it’s participatory and immediate.

One of my [...]
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08.28.07 The Nines opens Friday
I feel like I’ve done so much publicity on it that everyone probably sick of me talking about it, but here’s the direct appeal:

My movie THE NINES opens this Friday, August 31st, in Los Angeles and New York.

Please come see it. And if you can’t, keep reading to find out how to get it [...]
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08.22.07 The Nines trailer, HD
The super-deluxe HD version of the trailer is now up at Apple. Me like.

Check it out.

It’s not showing up on AppleTV yet, for whatever reason. I don’t know what subset makes it through, but I presume it’s coming at some point.
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08.22.07 Trailer competition, second update
Just so you know, the radio silence around the trailer competition is not for lack of interest or intent. Stuff got very crazy, very quickly, and we had a hard enough time getting the real trailer finished up. (Plus there was other stuff going on.)

We have all the clips ready to go, but we’re [...]
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08.20.07 Press Day
Today was press day for The Nines, which meant six solid hours of talking about the movie. And it was fine. I conducted all of my interviews sitting next to Melissa McCarthy, so it was a good excuse to exercise our pact of mutual appreciation.1

The event was held at The Four Seasons. [...]
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08.19.07 The Nines in Austin
I’m happy to announce our first expansion outside of New York and Los Angeles: Austin. The Nines will be starting at the Alamo Drafthouse (South Lamar) on September 28th. There’s a Q&A in the works for that weekend with me and Ryan — most likely on the 28th — so be sure to [...]
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08.16.07 Cannibals in canoes
Honestly, I feel like I’m cheating on all of you when I guest-blog for EW.com. But I did it again.

And then there are the non-Nines variables: babysitting grandparents, geriatric pugs, and the Tim Burton retrospective I want to attend. Plus eight more lessons of Pimsleur Italian, so I can politely explain why I’m [...]
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08.16.07 Me in Men’s Health
I have a long essay in this month’s Men’s Health, the one with Jamie Foxx on the cover. It’s not specifically about The Nines, but that’s the main reason I agreed to do it. To buy a single-page ad in the magazine would be more than our entire marketing budget. But for a [...]
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08.10.07 The Advocate
Ryan and I did an interview for The Advocate about the movie, the business, and our trip to Malawi. It should be on stands now (or soon), with Ryan on the cover.

Yes, the headline reads, “Hollywood’s hottest young star runs off with his gay director.” They conveniently left off, “…to help paint an [...]
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08.10.07 The Nines at the Nuart
Wow. That was quick. Tickets are now available for the exclusive LA premiere of The Nines at the Nuart.

It’s three weeks away, but when you’re playing on one screen in a city of four million people, there’s a fair chance some of those screenings are going to sell out. So if you’re [...]
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08.09.07 The One-Sheet

At last. There’s a long blog post to be written about how this all came to be, but I’ll save it for a future edition.
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08.08.07 Technical details on The Nines
As promised-slash-threatened, here’s a not-brief write-up of some of the technical aspects of making The Nines.

The movie is made up of three distinct sections, each of which was shot in a different format. That was always part of the plan. The movie is really like three short films back-to-back, and each of them [...]
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08.02.07 The trailer for The Nines
It’s up. IGN has an exclusive first look. Stop reading and…

Click Here

Then come back and tell us what you thought. Or better yet, check out the Forum at lookforthenines.com.

Update

There’s a YouTube version as well. Not as big or sharp, but handier.

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08.02.07 Getting shot
I have another post up at EW.com, this time about being photographed for the New York Times, and the parental decisions therein. You can check it out here.
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07.30.07 Look out! He is a Spider-Pig
I saw and quite enjoyed The Simpsons movie this weekend. But having just gotten the MPAA rating for The Nines (”Rated R for language, some drug content and sexuality”), I was a little surprised-slash-envious to see the official rating for The Simpsons:

Rated PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout.

I’m fine with PG-13. There is yellow [...]
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07.30.07 Location scouting vs. reality
Looking through my YouTube account, I realized that I’d actually posted (and blogged about) our location scouting footage more than a year ago, shortly after we’d wrapped shooting.

I thought I’d go back and grab screencaps from the movie to show you what some of these places looked like as shot. (The following are in [...]
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07.27.07 Guest-blogging on EW.com
Because I’m just not busy enough, I’ve started guest-blogging on EW.com’s PopWatch blog, detailing some of the madness related to launching The Nines. You can read the first of these entries today.

One observation so far: I’m snarkier on other people’s blogs than my own.
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07.27.07 Three from The Nines
In preparation for the trailer competition, I wanted to see how footage from the movie would hold up when subjected to the Flash compression of YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. So I uploaded three clips in various formats to experiment.

The results? Two clips look surprisingly great. The third looks like ass.

The difference [...]
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07.24.07 Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician
Daniel Wallace, the dashing and talented writer who wrote Big Fish (the novel), has a brand new book in stores for your purchasing pleasure: Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician. I read it a bazillion years ago — books take a surprisingly long time to go from manuscript to shelf — so I’ll let [...]
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07.23.07 The Nines goes to Venice
A reader alluded to it in the comments of an earlier post, but today we can officially announce that The Nines was chosen to play the Venice Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week.

(At least, I assume we can announce it. We were sworn to double-super secrecy, which is presumably now over, since it [...]
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06.15.07 Prince of Perhaps
Several sites have reported that Disney has picked July 10, 2009 as the release date for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. My guess is that this got written on a whiteboard at some strategic planning meeting, in answer to the question, “Hey, if we made that Prince of Persia movie, when would [...]
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06.12.07 Changes while directing
When you were directing The Nines, did you find that you wanted to change some of the action and dialogue because it didn’t come across in production the way you thought it would when you wrote it. And, if you changed things, was it because you were maybe hypercritical of your own work and saw [...]
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06.05.07 Trailer competition update
Thanks to many readers, I think there’s a pretty clear game plan emerging for how to do The Nines Trailer Challenge. Several people have offered specific help, both advice and hosting. Bless you. Your email addresses have been duly noted for future follow-up.

Here are the questions I asked, and the answers I [...]
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05.22.07 Calling on the hive mind
One advantage of having a brilliant and devoted readership like mine is that I can occasionally reverse the Q&A process and appeal for your insight. Here’s the situation…

At Sundance, I talked about my plan-slash-pipe-dream of releasing the underlying footage of The Nines simultaneously to its DVD release. Essentially, you could load it into [...]
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05.15.07 The Nines at Cannes
In case you’re wandering La Croisette, wondering where all the interlocking three-part dramas with unexpected science-fiction elements are, you might want to check out The Nines, which has three market screenings scheduled this week:

Wednesday, May 16th at 12:00pm - Palais K (Market) Friday, May 18th at 8:00pm - Palais K (Market) [...]
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05.07.07 Fish food for thought
One benefit of leaving the comment threads open is that sometimes a long-dead post gets a surge of new activity. Over the past month, I’ve noticed a few new comments on a 2004 post featuring this photo…

…which is, according to Snopes, probably real in the sense that it’s not Photoshopped — though it’s probably [...]
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04.11.07 The Nines gets all domestic
Ever since Sundance, when I announced that GreeneStreet scooped up international rights to The Nines, I’ve been faced with many questions. I knew the answer to the big one but couldn’t say. The answer to all the others depended on the first. So I’ve been sitting patiently, feigning detached acceptance, when I [...]
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04.09.07 On the topic of old things sucking
My post on Captain Marvel/Shazam! generated a lot of comments, both on this site and AICN, primarily because of a single observation…

If I were writing a dissertation on the evolution of the Captain Marvel character, [hardcover anthologies] would be invaluable. But Iâ€™m not. So every time I read one of these, Iâ€™m struck with the [...]
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04.06.07 A Captain Marvel Reader
Ever since I announced that I’m writing Shazam!/Captain Marvel, I’ve gotten some great questions and comments from longtime fans of the character, many with detailed pleas to include a specific cherished piece of the mythology.

But when I tell people face-to-face that I’m writing a Captain Marvel movie, I often notice a specific micro-reaction. Their eyes [...]
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04.01.07 Goodnight Moon, Hello Movie
I’m happy to finally be able to announce the next thing I’m writing after Shazam!/Captain Marvel — an adaptation of one of the best-selling children’s books ever: Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown.

Anyone who’s ever had a baby has probably read this book, so it’s no surprise that Hollywood’s been trying to adapt it [...]
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03.29.07 Renumbering when moving a scene
Letâ€™s say youâ€™re doing revisions and are dealing with scene numbers, and a scene gets moved up/down. How do you format the scene number?

Say scene 70 moves up in front of scene 69. Do the numbers read: 68, 70, 69? Or: 68, 68A, 69, 70 OMITTED.

Technically the scene still exists, i.e. was not [...]
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03.16.07 Regarding the Gyllenhaal rumor
According to the internet, Jake Gyllenhaal is playing Captain Marvel. I’ll be sure to let the studio, producers, and director know.

Sigh.

It’s frustrating how in the digital age, random speculation turns to fact in about .003 seconds. And once it starts, it’s like a tire fire: any attempt to extinguish it merely [...]
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03.15.07 Publicity 101
Last night, the Writers Guild Foundation held a panel discussion about publicity. I was one of the panelists, but I ended up learning a fair amount myself.

For example, according to a Variety editor, it’s perfectly okay for a screenwriter to pick up the phone and call a writer at the trades when [...]
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03.09.07 The Big Red Cheese
And now, the answer to speculation about why I was busy reading up on DC Comics mythology. As announced today in The Hollywood Reporter, I’m writing Captain Marvel. And I’m very, very stoked.

The movie is set up at New Line, with Pete Segal attached to direct. For those who aren’t rabid fans [...]
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02.22.07 The Week in Review
It’s been a busy week, and the next few days promise to be equally action-packed. So I thought I’d do a quick recap before two weeks go by without any real updates.

Boulder

I gave a lecture on screenwriting at the Boulder International Film Festival. It’s always weird going back to your home town, and even [...]
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02.12.07 GreeneStreet acquires The Nines
At the Berlin Film Festival this morning, GreeneStreet Films International announced that they’d picked up the movie for all markets outside North America. It’s news I’ve been sitting on since basically the day after the Sundance premiere. The company really dug the movie and were very aggressive about getting it, so I’m happy [...]
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02.03.07 Nope, not my Barbarella
A few readers have written in asking about the announcement by Dino De Laurentiis that he intends to make a new Barbarella. Specifically, will he be using my script?

As far as I can tell, no. The rights to my script are incredibly murky–it was a shared project between Warner Bros. and Fox 2000, [...]
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02.01.07 Music of The Nines
Alex Wurman, the composer for The Nines (as well as many other great scores, including March of the Penguins and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) has posted five tracks from the movie on his website.

Of them, “Cold Turkey” is probably the most interesting without a visual to go with it. The “Knowing Theme” is [...]
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01.30.07 MTV Overdrive on The Nines
Josh Horowitz from MTV News wrote in to point out that The Flash business wasn’t the only thing they ran from our Sundance interview. In fact, the full version, now up on MTV Overdrive, succeeds in making both Ryan and me sound coherent, which is no small feat.

Here’s what you can’t see in the [...]
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01.25.07 Sundance, expanded edition
Throughout the week, I’ve been trying to convey the Sundance experience with the Twitter feed, but there’s only so much one can communicate in a sentence or two. So I thought I’d fatten out a few entries to give a better sense of how Sundance really went.

Checking through the itineraries and packing lists. Do [...]
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01.23.07 Best editors
In this morning’s Oscar nominations, I was delighted (but not surprised) to see Doug Crise and Stephen Mirrione nominated for Babel. Stephen Mirrione cut Go, and Doug Crise followed up his work on Babel with a little movie called The Nines.

Huge congrats to both of them.
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01.21.07 Some of The Nines
As promised, here’s your first look at The Nines, as scripted. The following represents roughly the first three pages of each section.

Part One: The Prisoner

A MANâ€™S HAND unwinds a short length of green string. Weâ€™re extremely close, with a shallow, blurry focus. Itâ€™s like the first moments after a dream — just fragments. Scissors [...]
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01.16.07 The Nines, in script form
Since some most readers won’t be able to catch the premiere in Park City, I’ve decided to give you the literary equivalent by posting the script online. Not the whole script, mind you, but enough of it so that you’ll get a sense of what you’re not seeing.

The script will be available on this [...]
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01.15.07 That’s one expensive paper clip
Sundance frowns upon selling festival tickets on Ebay. But looking through the ads, I’m heartened to find that most sellers are technically selling “Sundance guides.” And when you buy the guide, you get one free ticket!

The best disclaimer, however, was this one:

Note: These tickets are free with the purchase of the paper [...]
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01.15.07 Forums are fun!*
*Unless you have to moderate them.

Over at Look For The Nines, the official-for-now site for The Nines, I set up a forum to handle discussion about the movie. I had deep ambivalence about doing this.

Forums pre-date blogs, instant messaging, and even email as we understand it. Stretching back to their BBS [...]
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01.11.07 Sell out
No, that’s not my advice to aspiring screenwriters.

The Nines sold out its first three screenings at Sundance, including the 1300-seat premiere. As of this morning, the only tickets available are for the final screening on Sunday, January 28th at the Rose Wagner.

Keep in mind, everything sells out at Sundance. That Ukrainian [...]
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01.10.07 MTV News on The Nines
As we get closer to Sundance, I promise not to besiege you with blurbs about The Movie–that’s what the other site is for. But here’s one. From MTV’s “Ten Most Anticipated” list:

6. “The Nines” Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis star in this “Magnolia”-like drama, praised by some Hollywood insiders as the best script [...]
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01.06.07 Found 12
12.29.06 Sundance catalog is out
The catalog for this year’s Sundance Film Festival came this week, which was my first chance to see what everyone else’s first impression of The Nines would be. The festival organizers write the descriptions for the films, so you’re sort of at their mercy. Fortunately, John Cooper wrote up a very nice blurb [...]
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12.23.06 Seeing The Nines at Sundance
I’m not going to suggest that devoted readers fly thousands of miles to see The Nines at Sundance. But I’m not going to not suggest it.

I’ve long been of the mindset that there’s no reason to go to Sundance unless you have a movie there. I haven’t been since Go debuted there in [...]
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12.18.06 Lost Rooms and American Zombies
I set the TiVo to grab SciFi Channel’s “The Lost Room” mini-series, largely because it co-stars Elle Fanning, who is also in The Nines. The two projects seem to overlap thematically: in my movie, Elle plays the key to a dark conspiracy; in the series, Elle is a player in a dark conspiracy [...]
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12.16.06 I would have gone with “catfishscan”

This from Daniel Wallace, the author of Big Fish:

Big Fish is taking over a small town in Alabama (link). And in this spirit when, just the other day, someone caught another one of those big catfish you hear about. They took it to the hospital and put it under a catscan. I am [...]
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12.14.06 I heart WriteRoom
For the past few weeks, Iâ€™ve been working on the production notes for The Nines. The document will end up being about 20 pages, detailing the backstory of how the movie got made, from inspiration through editing, along with everyoneâ€™s bios. Itâ€™s part of the press kit for the film, helping the journalists [...]
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12.08.06 Clive Cussler really, really dislikes Sahara
Today’s LA Times has a lengthy article about Clive Cussler’s lawsuit over SAHARA. It’s a fun, gossipy read, partially because I’ve had beers with many of the people involved:

Josh Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly are classmates of mine, James V. Hart often works at the same Sundance labs, and the estimable Josh Friedman’s anal [...]
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12.05.06 The Nines screening schedule at Sundance
The good folks at Sundance just sent out the screening times and locations for The Nines. Their website doesn’t show the schedule yet, but I presume it will be up soon.

Sun. Jan 21, 9:30 pm Eccles, Park City

Mon. Jan 22, 8:30 am Prospector, Park City

Tue. Jan 23, 9:00 pm Sundance Village

Sun. Jan 28, [...]
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12.02.06 Why isn’t The Nines in competition at Sundance?
I was wondering if you could explain the difference/reason for competitive and non-competitive categories at Sundance and why you chose the latter?

– Steve Lakeland, FL

It’s the Festival’s call. They decide whether or not they want to show the movie, then which category they’re going to put it in. They don’t explain their logic, but [...]
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11.30.06 The Movie is premiering at Sundance
After months of vague hints, I can finally reveal information about The Movie I wrote and directed this summer.

It’s called The Nines.1 It stars Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy. It’s a drama. Funny in places, suspenseful in places, but basically a drama. It will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.

This last point [...]
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11.28.06 When do you walk away?
So I’m doing it again. Writing on a project that I feel in my gut is doomed. It’s paying me money and I know many writers are looking for that first paying gig. This is my umpteenth paying gig, and somehow I’m not really that much further along in my career than I was four [...]
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11.10.06 Is the Slamdance script competition a bad idea?
I am a writer who has multiple scripts entered in the Slamdance Horror Script Competition.

Recently, Slamdance announced the new Grand Prize: $10,000 and acquisition of all rights and title by an independent production company. In said acquisition, the production company plans to produce a feature motion picture from the grand-prize winning script.

The winner will be [...]
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11.05.06 Chicago: The Musical. No, not that one.
I spent a few days in Chicago1 to see the premiere of my friends’ new musical Asphalt Beach, which is workshopping at Northwestern University. The show was terrific, and vindication for my decade of belief in my friends’ talent.

I took advantage of being away from L.A. to start writing something brand new. That’s my [...]
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10.26.06 Movies look nothing like reality
While at Austin, I caught a screening of Susannah Grant’s new movie CATCH AND RELEASE. Since I sorta-know and definitely admire half the people in it (Jennifer Garner, Tim Olyphant, Kevin Smith), not to mention producer Jenno Topping, I’m hardly an unbiased viewer. So I’ll leave the reviews to more neutral eyes.

But [...]
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10.13.06 As it turns out, I could care less
I fired an eight-year old girl.

It was the third day of production on The Movie, which had already endured freak rains, poison oak, rattlesnakes, bee swarms and a mountain lion. None of which could compare to this little girl.

The soon-to-be-fired pre-teen was a stand-in for our eight-year old actress. As a stand-in, her [...]
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09.30.06 Do screenwriters get a chunk of foreign TV money?
Do writers ever get a percentage of the substantial profits from the studios’ licensing their films to international TV networks?

– Marilyn Mallory via imdb

Writers do get a portion of the revenue, in the form of residuals. These payments are roughly analogous to the royalties songwriters and novelists receive, but with some important distinctions. (For [...]
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09.25.06 How to Revisit Fried Worms
Ten years ago, I got my first paid screenwriting job, adapting Thomas Rockwell’s How to Eat Fried Worms into a script for Ron Howard and Universal. I went through four paid drafts over more than a year, and loved it.

Thomas Schlamme signed on to direct it. At the time, he was a mid-level [...]
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09.17.06 Previewing score with GarageBand
Alex Wurman is busy writing the music for The Movie, which in this digital age means a lot of files shuttling back and forth. Rather than tapes, we have QuickTimes for each reel, with timecode burned in for reference. When Alex wants us to listen to a cue, he sends an mp3 with [...]
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08.29.06 Helicopter day
Today was the first and only day of aerial photography for The Movie. We rented a helicopter, a Wescam mount, a pilot, an operator, a camera and burned two thousand feet of film. Minute for minute, it was the most expensive part of the entire production.

How was it, you ask?

Pretty effin’ [...]
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08.22.06 Additional photography
In Hollywood parlance, “additional photography” is the polite term for what used to be called reshoots. It’s a rare case where the new word is better. Most of the time, you’re not reshooting anything. You’re getting new things you didn’t know you needed the first time around.

Woody Allen is famous for [...]
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08.06.06 Test screening The Movie
Last Monday was the first time I put The Movie in front of an audience: thirty friends and colleagues recruited to help figure out whether the film was appropriately funny, dramatic, and comprehensible. (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not So Much. We’re working on that last part.)

Screening a work-in-progress is just as nerve-wracking as [...]
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07.27.06 Temp Music
This week’s work on the The Movie is largely about music. Our composer, Alex Wurman, has already composed one piece that plays on-camera, but most of the music at this point is temp — stuff grabbed from other soundtracks that roughly approximates what we’re going for.

There’s one piece of temp music that works really [...]
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07.15.06 Monovision
About halfway through shooting The Movie, the propmaster asked, “Hey, where are your glasses?” I had taken them off to check my email, and left them sitting on the dining room table. It’s part of his job to recognize continuity issues, so it’s natural he noticed something was off.

But it was [...]
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07.08.06 Because really, he should drive a Chrysler LeBaron
My question concerns referencing branded objects in a screenplay. Iâ€™ve read that including name-brand references should be avoided in screenplays because you would need legal clearance in order to feature them.

That being said, what if my character drives a Chrysler LeBaron? Canâ€™t I say he drives a beat-up Chrysler LeBaron? And not just as a [...]
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07.07.06 Update on the promiscuous player problem
My plea for a DVD player with loose morals and low standards was answered by many thoughtful readers. I ended up picking the Philips DVP-642 ($49 at Amazon), which not only zips through questionably-recorded dailies, but even Peixe Grande e Suas HistÃ³rias Maravilhosas, the Portuguese version of Big Fish.

Thanks again.
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07.06.06 Location scouting
One of the first tasks in getting The Movie on its feet was picking locations. We spent about three weeks scouting — almost as long as we shot.

I didn’t think I’d written a very location-driven movie, but it ended up being a bit of a monster. Part of that was budget — if [...]
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06.28.06 What’s it like being the writer and director?
Being the writer and the director on a project it seems that you both create the story and then bring it to life. What are the biggest struggles in doing this? And how much liberty do you allow an actor to take with the lines?

– Steve Lakeland, Florida

For readers who don’t know, I just finished directing an indie movie [...]
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06.24.06 So I made a movie
My extended absence from johnaugust.com can now be explained: I’ve just finished shooting a movie, an honest-to-God feature film. A tiny film, to be certain, more likely to be seen at festivals than fourteen-plexes, but a movie nonetheless.

Officially, it’s my directing debut, but it hasn’t really felt like it.

As screenwriters go, I’ve always [...]
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04.12.06 Writing what can’t be shot
I was wondering what your thoughts are about occasionally adding exposition into action lines, when it canâ€™t be explicitly shown on screen.

For example:

The room bursts out in laughter, which quickly turns into applause. A few EXECS standing at the back of the room smile to each other, and nod their heads in amusement. [...]
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03.24.06 Cut-scenes do not a videogame make
Screenwriter and videogame developer Jordan Mechner, who is writing the Prince of Persia movie I’m executive-producing, has a [great opinion piece](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/story.html ) in the new Wired magazine. In it, he argues that videogame-makers need to stop trying to ape Hollywood blockbusters, and instead focus on creating playable stories:

In a movie, the story is what the [...]
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03.22.06 How accurate is the page-per-minute rule?
Every screenwriting book I’ve read, class I took, and basically the first rule I learned says:

ONE PAGE OF A PROPERLY FORMATED SCRIPT = APPROX. A MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME.

I know one page of say a battle can last five minutes whereas one page of quick dialogue my last ten seconds if the actors talk fast… So my [...]
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03.09.06 Prince of Persia retrospective
Jordan Mechner forwarded me this Ubisoft-created look back at the Prince of Persia series. It’s in sucky .wmv format, but does a nice job showing the evolution of the franchise from its humble PC roots.

Anticipating your inevitable questions:

No, I don’t know when the movie will come out. No, we haven’t cast anyone. Yes, the movie is [...]
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03.08.06 The answer is…Bob: The Musical
When I spoke to classes at Trinity University last week, a frequent question was, “What are you going to write next?”

It was a well-timed question, because I wasn’t entirely sure. There were two projects on the radar screen, both of them rewrites. I had a week to decide whether to do either.

The first [...]
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01.24.06 Ops stops
One strange aspect of writing a blog is recognizing that one’s online narrative doesn’t always match up very well with reality. There is a lag between when events happen and when you write about them.

Take for example Josh Friedman’s recent and scary brush with kidney cancer. As his real-life neighbor, I knew he [...]
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11.24.05 Armageddon is bad. Near-Armageddon? Damn entertaining.
Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S., a refreshingly under-commercialized holiday set aside to acknowledge the many things in life for which we’re grateful. I’m home in Colorado with my family, doing the traditional activities: stuffing a turkey, setting a table, and wondering how many minor celebrities they can squeeze into one Macy’s Thanksgiving Day [...]
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11.15.05 Two sides to the story
Right now, we’re starting casting for Ops, the Fox pilot we’ll hopefully shoot after the holidays. Since most readers out there have never been through network casting — or any casting — I thought I’d talk you through the process. Or at least, the start of the process.

The first thing we had to [...]
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11.08.05 Charlie out on DVD
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is out on DVD today (at least, in North America). There are three versions available: a widescreen version, a full screen version, and a two-disc set with bonus features.

Obviously, don’t get the full screen version.

It’s frustrating that they even sell one, much less call it “full screen.” [...]
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11.07.05 Does Corpse Bride have a happy ending?
I know you were brought in late on Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and from what I gather, werenâ€™t responsible for much of the story, but Iâ€™m curious about your thoughts on one particular story element.

Is the ending a happy one for Victor?

The way it plays, it seems as though it is intended to be a happy ending for him when [...]
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11.03.05 Where I’ve been hiding
My blogging-to-actual-work ratio has tipped decidedly to the things-I-get-paid-for side over the last few weeks, as a number of projects have commanded a lot more of my time. So I thought it only fair to explain what’s pulled me out of my beloved bent-brad bunker.

Here’s an update on my previous post, about my current [...]
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10.24.05 I am a white male of European descent
My last normal job — the 9-to-5 kind — was as an assistant at Oliver Stone’s production company. At the time, he was in post-production on Natural Born Killers, and developing future projects, one of which was a remake of Planet of the Apes.

Any version of Apes must tackle the basic question of, “How [...]
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09.18.05 Why is Charlie so passive?
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, why is Charlie so passive in the movie?

As the main character I would think he would do something during the big adventure in the factory but he does nothing. He faces no challenges. He is not tested in any way. He doesn’t even have the opportunity to make [...]
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09.16.05 Corpse Bride has risen
<img class=”alignleft” src=”http://johnaugust.com/Assets/corpsebride_small.jpg” alt=”Corpse Bride /> Corpse Bride is in theaters starting today — if you live in Los Angeles, New York or Toronto. For the rest of North America, and other parts of the world, you can begin seeing it next week, September 23rd.

Last night, I spoke at USC’s 466 class, which screens [...]
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09.01.05 Corpse Bride article in Script magazine
<img class=”alignleft” src=”http://johnaugust.com/Assets/corpsebride_small.jpg” alt=”Corpse Bride />The new issue of Script magazine has a long-ish article about Corpse Bride, interviewing both Pamela Pettler and yours truly about the story and process. Pamela, Caroline Thompson and I share writing credit on the movie, but I was never really clear who wrote what and when. From [...]
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08.22.05 Project update
After a month of baby duty, it’s back to work. This seems the perfect time to take stock of all the projects I have out there, and figure out exactly what their status is.

★ ACTIVE ★

Prince of Persia Jordan Mechner, who created the videogame, wrote the movie adaptation, which he and I are [...]
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08.11.05 Big Fish’s Karl the Giant has died
Matthew McGrory, who played Karl the Giant in Big Fish, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 32.

While his character in the film was about eleven feet tall, in real life, Matthew was “only” a bit over seven feet. While he was big, you didn’t really sense he was a giant until you [...]
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07.21.05 Two big debuts
This past weekend, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opened to strong reviews and a hefty $56.2 million at the box office. I’m happy, of course, but that good news was eclipsed by even better news: the birth of my daughter on Monday.

Her long-awaited arrival explains my lack of posting this past week, and the [...]
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07.14.05 Is that how the line was supposed to go?
Something that’s always bothered me about Go. When Ronna is in Todd’s apartment she says “Todd, I would never fuck you like that.” And he says, “How would -you- fuck -me-?”

Like, how would a nothing like you ever screw over a big drug dealer like me? But he just explained how she could fuck [...]
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07.07.05 New, longer Corpse Bride trailer up
There’s a new trailer up for Corpse Bride, which tells a lot more of the story than the teaser trailer did.

I have mixed feelings about the new trailer. Visually, it all looks great. This one shows a lot more of what makes the animation so distinctive. For instance, pay attention to Corpse [...]
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07.05.05 Ton of Charlie clips online
Reader Francois just pointed out a large selection of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory clips hosted at IESB. I’m sort of surprised Warner Bros. made so many available, but they all look authentic and authorized. (CUT TO: Me furiously deleting any reference to their existence after WB says they’re not allowed.)

Presumably, these [...]
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06.29.05 I didn’t get here on my looks
The summer issue of Written By magazine is out, and the cover story is about my involvement with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

First the good news. The story by Mark Olsen is terrific, everything I could have hoped for. Often with reporters, you hold back a bit, because you’re nervous about being misquoted [...]
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06.28.05 Back from the Charlie press junket
This weekend, I travelled to The Bahamas for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory press junket. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a press junket is a two or three day period during which the stars and filmmakers of a movie meet with the press (both domestic and international) to answer questions about [...]
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06.24.05 Deciding which parents get to visit the factory
I have a question about your upcoming film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What made you decide to have each child bring only one guardian to Wonka’s factory, and how did you choose which one would go?

–Michael Daphne, Alabama

In Roald Dahl’s book, each of the four rotten kids (Veruca, Violet, Augustus and Mike) brings both of [...]
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06.07.05 Cheaper Charlie shirts
Reader “Bri” was thoughtful enough to point out that Hot Topic has started selling less-expensive Charlie and the Chocolate Factory t-shirts. They’re perfect for your your rebellious kid sister who wants to express her individuality in a completely conformist way.

The “Life Had Never Been Sweeter” shirt comes from a line of dialogue (narration, actually) [...]
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06.02.05 More Charlie goodness
A sharp-eyed reader wrote in to point out that the flash site for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now open for business. You can find a lot more downloads, but still no “Cast and Crew” section yet. Ahem.

Also, the full trailer is now up at Apple, without any of that AOL baggage [...]
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05.26.05 Holy Buckets! It’s the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory trailer!<

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