John August

John

Lost Rooms and American Zombies

Prince of Persia, Projects, Psych 101, Television

elleI 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 about a key.

It’s a giant relief to see The Lost Room, because it’s very similar to a show I nearly pitched this season — which would have involved Elle getting kidnapped, a cult, and mysterious goings-on. Since The Lost Room effectively precludes my idea, why do I classify it as a relief?

Because now I don’t have to write it.

Many of the projects I write — and the majority of the projects I produce — begin because an idea will present itself and I’ll think, “Wow, someone should really do that.” I’m sure a sizable portion of the American public has similar “why doesn’t somebody…” ideas. The difference is, I am that somebody. I can call up ABC and pitch a show and get a fair chunk of money to write it. But it’s not always the best use of my time.

“Someone should do a crime show set in Alaska” — six months writing and shooting the Alaska pilot

“No one’s ever done a show about private military contractors” — a year and a half writing three different versions of the pilot for Fox

“Prince of Persia would make a great movie” — going on three years executive producing an adaptation, which still doesn’t have a start date

So that’s why, sometimes, I’m delighted when someone else has the same good idea. I recently had 30 projects on my “To Write” list. Now I have 29. Actually, 28…

I just saw in the Slamdance catalog a listing for American Zombie. That’s a title I’ve had on my list for three years, without any real story to go with it, just a sense that, “Someone should make a movie called American Zombie.”

Now someone has. The director’s name is Grace Lee. I hope her movie’s terrific. Either way, I thank her deeply.

I heart WriteRoom

Projects, Rave, Software, Sundance, The Nines

For the past few weeks, I’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 everyone’s bios. It’s part of the press kit for the film, helping the journalists at Sundance remember who the hell was in the movie they saw three days ago.

Ultimately, we’ll end up formatting the notes in Word or Pages, but for raw text I lean heavily on TextMate, which is what I use for all of the writing for the site. It’s unbelievably powerful, if occasionally maddening.To wit: If you use command-z “Undo” to fix something you shouldn’t have deleted, TextMate will replace it one letter at a time, undoing each backspace rather than the whole chunk. Apparently, the software creator feels strongly that this is the logically correct behavior, and while I disagree, I fully respect his decision to say, “because that’s how I want it!” I have TextMate set to automagically generate a lot of the formating markup, and the tag-wrapping feature can’t be beat. But on a lark, I decided to try a new application for writing the production notes: WriteRoom.

It’s deliberately, refreshingly bare-bones and retro. When you open a window, it takes over your entire screen, including the menu bar. All you see is the words, complete with a blinking cursor. Perhaps nostalgic for my years writing on an old Atari, I’ve chosen a dark blue background with almost-white 18 pt. Courier. Give me a kneeling chair and a dot-matrix printer and I’m in junior high again.

Other writing applications are picking up this full-screen meme — honestly, it’s hard to figure out why it took so long. Apple’s Pro apps (Final Cut Pro, Aperture) have had no qualms grabbing every available pixel of real estate, although they don’t completely banish the common interface elements. (Except for Shake, which also requires a blood sacrifice to Ba’al.)

The big-screen treatment is the digital equivalent of closing the kitchen door when company comes over: Never mind the mess in the sink, let’s have a nice dinner.

WriteRoom 2.0 is in beta, but there’s nothing spectacularly different or better than plain old 1.0. Either version is worth checking out.

As for the inevitable question: Could I write a script with it?

Yes, no, maybe.

I’ve actually had conversations with two gurus of web markup about creating a simplified screenplay markup that could be imported into “real” screenwriting applications like Final Draft. WriteRoom and its ilk support tabs and external scripts, so it’s conceivable to build a system like ollieman’s screenwriting with TextMate bundle.

But for now, I have an actual paid rewrite to be doing, and it’s a Final Draft job. Sigh.

Because nothing says quality like a cow

Film Industry, Los Angeles

In an article in today’s LA Times about his collaboration with Laura Dern, director David Lynch bemoans how expensive Academy Award campaigns have become:

So in what must have looked like a scene from one of his own films, Lynch recently made a “For Your Consideration” sign touting Dern, hired a piano player and a cow named Georgia and sat for about four hours at Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue and another four in front of the Tower Records store on the Sunset Strip.

“It was the greatest cow,” Lynch said.

“People would come up wanting to pet the cow and talk. So many people came up and said they wanted to help. So there is a part of us that can see through [the hype]. All I want is to try get the word out.”

Follow up: What job should I beg for?

Directors, Film Industry, Follow Up, QandA

follow up
Continuing the tradition of readers following up on previous answers, we hear back from the guy who wondered what the best job on a movie set would be for him to learn more about filmmaking.

Here’s the original question and answer:

A friend of mine is a writer whose work has been lucky/funny enough to make it to the big screen. The sequel has been greenlit and he just shot me an email letting me know that he’s signed on as the director! I am an aspiring screenwriter and I understand how valuable it is to be on set and get a bird’s eye view of the process. So my question is this:

What job should I beg him for? I’ve got no on-set experience and I’m not sure how much staffing power the director has, or in what areas he has it. I don’t want to ask for something completely unrealistic and appear foolish. I am, however, eager, ambitious and a very hard worker. I’ll carry their luggage, haul equipment or simply make sure the toilet paper is properly stocked — if I can just get a peak at the process, write during my down time and make friends/connections. I’d kill for this opportunity. I just need to know…um…. what opportunity exactly, I’m killing for.

— J.R.

If the budget allows him to have an assistant, that’s the job you want. By shadowing him, you’ll get the broadest perspective of preproduction, production and post.

Maybe he already has an assistant, or the budget won’t allow him to have one. Then it gets a little harder to figure out the right spot for you.

Assuming you can drive a car, answer a phone and work long hours, you can be an office PA. You’ll learn a lot about the logistical side of filmmaking, but won’t have a ton of on set exposure — you’re running back and forth from the office a lot. You’ll be taking orders from a production coordinator, who will generally send you for a pickup in Santa Monica when you just got back from Venice. On the plus side, you’ll get to know your LA geography a lot better, and become familiar with the various vendors and production houses.

While an office PA can learn on the job, an on-set PA actually needs to know what he’s doing. There’s a useful guide you can download, but a large part of the job is simply anticipating what’s going to happen next, and that only comes with experience. But everyone has to start somewhere, so if you can convince the first and second AD’s (who oversee the PA’s) that you’re a quick learner, they might bring you on. But always keep in mind that you’re working for them, not your buddy the director.

If you’re competent with a videocamera, another possibility is to shoot the behind-the-scenes footage. That certainly gives you access. Just make sure not to step on the toes of the actual filmmakers.

If it’s not possible to get a real job on the movie, it’s absolutely worth asking your friend if you can visit set a few times during production. Just make sure that when you do, you make yourself a ghost. The best set visitors aren’t just invisible — they’re almost immaterial, and never in the way when you turn the set around. The safest place to hover is generally near craft service; they pick that location to be close to the set but never in the way.

JR wrote back yesterday…

In October of this year I wrote you asking what job I should beg my writer-turned-director friend for on the set of his new movie. After reading your response I immediately went to beg for an assistant job — preferably on set since that would obviously be the biggest thrill for me — but made it clear that office PA would be terrific as well (naturally, no begging and choosing). He already had an assistant, but promised to do what he could to get me on as a set PA. He also informed me that since the film is shooting outside of California, he’d have to speak with the executive producer to make sure that I wouldn’t jeopardize any tax credits they’d be receiving from the state in which they are working. Lastly he’d have to speak with his ADs to make sure they were fine with a quick learner with no experience.

As it turned out, the assistant directors were cool and I didn’t kill the tax credits. I’m a set PA!! The ADs have been extremely friendly. They’re communicating as much information as they can before production begins in January so that we can lessen my learning curve as much as possible. The PA handbook you shared has also been invaluable. I’m truly grateful for your help and insight.

In January I’m leaving my 9-5 to go on set for 3 months and play a (small) part in creating something that’s been an indescribable part of my life. I’m beyond ecstatic. What little downtime I have will be spent writing, conning the right folks into reading it, and trying to network my way into my next job. I’d appreciate everyone’s tips and or experiences in accomplishing these things if you’d care to share.

Thanks again,
JR