The point-counterpoint debate going on over at LATimes.com makes for good reading, with Craig Mazin and Matt Edelman discussing the strike.
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenweenie). They even had production art for it. Then, separately, I had a conversation with Tim about doing another stop-motion animation project like Corpse Bride.
But they’re not the same thing. And as far as I know, I won’t be working on either one. (That said, I didn’t think I was working on Corpse Bride until I was halfway on a plane to London, so never say never.)
To further confuse matters, there’s a different and as-yet-unannounced Tim Burton project (live action) which I almost certainly will be writing post-strike. And yes, I’d love to tell you what it is. But I can’t.
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](http://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/westindiaquaycineworld.html)
* [Cineworld Chelsea](http://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cineworldchelsea.html)
* [Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue at The Trocadero](http://www.londonnet.co.uk/cinema/cineworldshaftesburyavenueatthetrocadero.html)
…plus other screens throughout the country. It’s a bit frustrating that in this age of Google, it’s so difficult to come up with a master list. (Part of this is my difficulty with U.K. postcodes, which are more specific than their U.S. equivalents.) So far, I’ve been able to find listings (but not showtimes) for Glasgow and Edinburgh, but if readers discover other locations, by all means share.
The British site for the movie, lookforthenines.co.uk, is better than the American one. (**Update March 2011:** The UK site is no longer active.) We’ll be re-doing ours in the next few weeks in anticipation of the DVD release (January 29th).
Should I change my name?
I’m Italian (and living in Italy). I’ve written my two first screenplays in Italian, basically ’cause they were college assignments, but my true goal is to have a career in the U.S.
My English is pretty good, so that’s not the problem. According to my teacher, the problem is gonna be my name. My name is Pierluigi Bellini. He says that with my way-too-Italian-to-be-understood name there’s no way someone’s gonna read my screenplays outside Italy (or Europe).
Is that really that important? Should I change my real name for a nickname? He suggests that if I wanna get my scripts read in US I should at least sign them as “written by PJ Bellini.” It sounds really stupid to me to change my name ’cause of that, but he says that it’s a pretty common thing for foreign writers. What do you think ’bout that?
— Pierluigi Bellini
Rome, Italy
As a writer who legally changed his difficult-to-pronounce German name to the calendrical moniker August, I gotta say your teacher is right.
(I can’t just throw out that bombshell without answering the obvious question: my family name is “Meise.” In German, you’d pronounce it MY-zuh. My family pronounced it MY-zee. But for my entire life, every stranger, every restaurant hostess, every telephone salesperson has pronounced it Meez (or occasionally, MEE-see). And I can’t blame them. It’s a name that doesn’t particularly announce its ethnicity, or give you any clue what to do with it. I didn’t envy another 70 years of correcting how people pronounced my name — it’s a terrible first 15 seconds of conversation — so I legally swapped it for my father’s middle name before moving to Los Angeles. The last time I heard myself called “John Meez” was when the court clerk called my case before the judge.)
You’re in a much better spot, my Italian friend. There’s no need for you to legally change your name. If I were you, I’d just trim off the “luigi” part when you write professionally. “Pier Bellini” is an awesome writer’s name. It sounds like an apéritif you’d be offered on a yacht in Cannes.
Five years from now, when you have a movie in theaters, we’ll see your name and remember you wrote in to the site. That’s the mark of a cool name.