Presenting Game Night, a short film

After years of not really doing anything with the short film I produced/co-wrote/directed in 2007, I finally posted it to YouTube. Everyone in the credits knows more than I do, so I thank them so much for contributing their expertise, and I apologize for being such a lousy producer.

I'd change a few things if I were to shoot this now, but I'm proud of the work we did, and I learned so much about the whole process from start to finish. Nothing teaches you more about filmmaking than making a film.

So here it is, after years of hiding on my shelf, Game Night.

Game Night - the home stretch

Well this has been the most stressful week ever.

One of my students has threatened me so hopefully I won't be shot any time soon. He's probably full of shit, but it's scary enough to keep me awake at night so I haven't been getting much sleep. I've alerted my boss. I hope she'll do something about it on Monday.

Game Night is finally done. We shot our first frame in September of 2007 and I should have final cut in a couple of weeks. I should be excited, but I'm just exhausted. I'm not sure I ever want to do this again, but maybe after I screen the film I'll feel differently. I still wish I could have shot The Corner, but all the people who donated to the project have gotten thanked in the credits of Game Night. And I thank you now. And I'm sorry, I just don't have the money or the energy to make that project right now. I need to remove it from my sidebar.

There's another project I may do because it can be done for $100 in one afternoon with minimal effort, but I'm just so damn tired. I mean I feel tired all the time now. I get a vacation in three weeks. I think I'll spend my first week off just sleeping.

In the meantime, I owe a lot of thank yous to people. My DP did a terrific job, although his advice not to use slates on set was wrong as hell and I shake my fist at him over that. But his shots were great and he was very supportive. My AD did a great job guiding me and making sure I knew when to say things. Both the DP and AD were very respectful on set even though I had no idea what I was doing.

I thank my cast, most of whom were awesome and have been terribly patient. I thank my sound guy, who traipsed up on the roof in the pouring rain to cover the stovepipe with a dirty blanket. I thank my lighting guy, who saved me a shitton of money by bringing so much equipment and worked so hard to make everybody look as beautiful as they are. And I thank my set coordinator who manned that air conditioner like the pro that she is. All of these people made shooting fun and made me less nervous.

And of course, my editor. Oh, Editor. The drama.

Editor is talented. Enormously talented. He has a good eye and sees what needs to be changed and has very good advice on how to change things for the better. I've always thought that. I haven't always agreed with his methods or his way of putting things, and I often resisted his ideas, but in the end he made my footage look terrific, even if it took him a year and a half. It got a lot easier about March of this year when I just said Fuck It and decided he'd get to it when he got to it. But when he got to it, it looked great.

I said some things on this blog that upset him. Understandable. From my perspective, I waited for months for him to finish the edit, and then when I finally heard from him he told me a bunch of people I'd never met had seen the footage I hadn't and they thought my story sucked and I should reshoot scenes. So I was pissed. From his perspective he worked on my film and got some feedback and then gave me advice and I got angry.

Here's what I learned: I am not a good producer because I don't like having to be an asshole. I also don't like having to juggle everybody's ego. Producers have to lie to people a lot and be really mean. Like, really mean. Lots of people kept telling me to be meaner. But then when I was meaner I hated it. This whole thing has put my shoulders up around my forehead. And I'm not talking necessarily about Editor either. He's actually a really amiable guy.

I did this whole thing because I wanted to feel like I'd accomplished something. Initially I was just going to do a little something with some friends just for fun, but then it became this whole huge deal. I'm glad I did this. I'm glad I now know what this whole process is about, but I have now learned that I need to stick to telling stories on paper.

Game Night: The VO session

Yesterday I drove over to Editor's studio for a little voice over session. Since it was daylight savings time, the actors were not there at the agreed upon hour, which was cool because that meant Editor and I could make some notes on the existing film and discuss what we wanted out of the voice over session.

The biggest problem is still Former Writing Partner's tendency to look like a wussy face during his manliest moment. He has a gun to his head and he's supposed to push against the gun and tell the other guy aggressively to put the gun down. But in every shot, he's tilted back and the gun presses into his head while he cringes in fear. Even if his voice says "I'm a man now," his face says "please don't hurt me!"

But without that shot of him cringing we get only shots of Lead Actor's arm holding the gun and there's just no tension. And the music in the background is kind of happy, so you're completely certain that nobody is about to get shot.

We were talking about how to fix that, then I realized something. I have no idea if anyone watching thinks he's about to get shot anyway. I wrote this knowing he never gets shot and I directed it knowing that, and I've seen the footage so many times now that my perspective is completely off. At this point I have to take the advice of others on this because I have no idea how the film looks anymore.

So anyway, we did the VO. Lead Actor showed up and had some fun ad libbing a bunch of scenes about how much he wants to have sex and get money. It is really fucking hard not to crack up in the middle of a VO session with that guy.

Chinese Guy who was supposed to VO my Chinese actress' dad did not show up. I can't blame him for not showing because it's not the greatest acting gig ever, but I was kind of pissed that he didn't at least call to let me know he'd changed his mind. Editor said he knows an old Chinese man who can probably do it. We tried using Lead Actor, but it was horrible. Hilarious, but horrible. At one point I volunteered to try it, but Editor nixed it. Too feminine, apparently. Chinese Guy emailed me later and said he'd overslept, so maybe we'll try again.

We also needed one of the girls to do some VO oooohing and ahhhhing over her boyfriend's erection but the actress couldn't make it so I stepped in. Before I got in front of the mic I could imitate her voice perfectly. The second I stepped in front of the mic I suddenly became Candy the porn star with the high pitched voice. This is why I should not be an actress. Still, there were a few usable lines.

So now we're rounding home. Any day now I'll schedule a screening and we'll get this show on the road.

Game Night: Things I wish I'd done differently

Yesterday I watched the rough cut of Game Night. So far, so good. There are some parts that really work and some parts that need help.

I've learned some things. First, we have to do some voice over. There's one section of voice over built into the script so I have to call in an actor to do it. He was recommended to me by one of my actors and she promised he'd be cool. He has to play her dad, shouting at her from outside the door. On a normal day I'd have been able to pick any one of my actor or even non actor friends and make them do it, but I had to be miss fancy pants and hire a Chinese girl to play Sheila so her dad has to be Chinese too, and picking someone who sounds like Mickey Rourke in Breakfast at Tiffany's is not an option. I just hope this guy's okay with doing an hour's work for no face time.

Without his voice over the story is completely confusing. Even with his voice over, it may be a bit confusing. So I decided to change one line. Lead Actor says at one point Nobody's leaving until we get what we came for," but it's not clear what they came for. So I'm going to have him come in and say "Nobody's leaving until we get our money." Problem solved. Just changing that little bit will fix the confusion completely, I think. I just hope we can get the audio to match. We're doing the VO at editor's studio where we have professional equipment, so that should help.

Watching the finished product makes me both happy and annoyed at myself for not seeing more problems while we were filming. Former Writing Partner never stops making a cringing face. Like, every single scene he's cringing. And in the end when he's supposed to be manly and take on the other guy by staring down the barrel of a gun, he's still cringing. On set I even mentioned that he needed to butch it up, but he said the other actor was pushing the gun too hard into his head. So ever shot, he's still cringing. Editor had to keep the shots on the other guy almost the entire time, which makes it difficult to get the intensity of the scene.

And the big reveal at the end, where we see - well, we see a big bulge in his pants because he is a man now - the reaction from the girl who's supposed to be impressed is not significant enough. I wish I'd lingered longer on that and let her ad lib some stuff.

But you live, you learn. I still think it will be a solid first film when all is said and done, and I'm proud of it and the people I worked with.

Game Night trailer

Look what I did!

This is my first trailer for Game Night. As you can hear, I am a shitty, shitty audio editor. A few of these transitions bother me too, but overall I am proud or my accomplishment.

Not Safe for Work Language largely because of the liberal use of the word "fuck".

Also you can get a nice look at my lovely well-lit apartment.

Also this is the first thing I've ever edited in my life.

On the cutting room couch

Okay after I finally got my computer problems squared away I went through all my footage and labeled it and moved it into different files so I could begin to make a video for my actors.

I learned some things.

1) Ex Writing Partner is not a very good actor. I thought he was at the time, mostly because he kept talking about how great he was and he got some lead role in a shitty horror movie in Kentucky so I gave him the part. Hell he wrote the damn part, I figured he'd be perfect for it. But he anticipates everything. Lead Actor's character, Billy, constantly threatens or throws things at Ex Writing Partner's face. Every single time, Ex Writing Partner cringes before the threat appears. You can't go directly to him in ANY take because he always makes a scrunchy face in preparation of the hit. And there are a lot of hits because this is a film largely about what a wussy face his character is.

2) I wish I'd done more with one of my characters. I feel like the character Sheila doesn't have enough depth. It's not the actress' fault, it's mine for not giving her some more surprising personality traits.

3) I need to say "action" louder. I like Clint Eastwood's method of being gentle, but I realized when I was trying to cut footage together that when you quietly say "action" it's harder for the editor to know when to set the start point for the clip. Or at least it was for me. Plus it really doesn't make sense to be all quiet and sensitive when the scene is two guys slapping each other.

4) Every goofy mistake is one more scene I have to label and more space to take up on my hard drive. That said, It was pretty funny watching my leads dry hump on my couch. The scene where we looked at the ceiling for four minutes, not so much.

5) The labels on my scenes make it look like I'm making a porn movie. "Close up on the pussy," "Eric's penis," "Let's fuck on this table." Yet there is no nudity in the film.

I'm going to try to cut some kind of amusing mock up. Perhaps a blooper reel. So far, though, all I've done is connect a series of shots of Sheila for her reel and I still managed to fuck that up by leaving a giant black hole in the middle.

I don't think I have a future as a professional editor.

24: Revenge of the Codec

I used to have a massive head of thick, blond hair. Then I tore it all out in the last 24 hours.

See, the footage for Game Night was exported directly from the camera into a Mac with Final Cut. Then it was put onto disks and sent to me, at which point I handed them to Editor, who imported them directly into his Mac in Final Cut. Then he put all the footage on my hard drive and handed it to me, where I attempted to open it in Adobe Premiere on my PC.

Yesterday I didn't know what a codec was. Now the word "codec" has pushed out every other thought I ever had. What are zombies? Are they some form of codec?

After a friend confirmed that the files operate fine on a Mac, I knew it was a hardware issue, apparently a missing codec, which is some kind of thing used to do some kind of other thing. Something about videos and languages and whatnot. I dunno, but apparently the codec is the single most vital piece of software to come along since the squiggly lines that tell you when you misspelled words.

I even made it so the kids were working at their desks all day so I could figure this out while they drew up character sketches and took periodic assessments. When I say this is all I've thought about today, I mean the only time I wasn't thinking of codecs was the hour I was running suicides on the roof of the parking deck at the gym with Trainer. I've never felt so happy to be running suicides.

So finally I found that there is only one codec that will render Mac files viewable in Quick Time or Premiere and it cost $95. They're having a sale on it though. $23 off. Weeeee.

Just now I transferred one of the disks to my hard drive because - well, in the process of trying to fix the whole thing I kind of fucked up my files and had to reload them - and I was watching season 1 of 24, which is AWESOME and also much slower paced than the current season, and I suddenly looked over and realized it was past my bedtime.

Jack Bauer's 24: saving Pre-President Palmer from certain doom. My 24: Codecs. It was kind of like 24 from Chloe's perspective if she never got shot at or gassed or watched anybody die or had to quit her job in the middle of the day on principle or if she didn't actually know that much about computers. But otherwise it was just like that.

Anyway, the good news is I've figured it out and tomorrow I will finally, FINALLY be able to cut my own footage.

Bad Girl

Today classes ended early so we could do professional development. Last time we did professional development it was Socratic seminar and I like the guy teaching so I paid attention and got something out of it. This time, I missed the sign up so the administrator in charge of scheduling put me in Classroom Management.

I have like zero classroom management problems. I am a master at classroom management. Other teachers ask me for advice on Classroom Management. So as you can imagine, I was not looking forward to this experience.

So I went in and sat at the back and right as I was sitting down the dude running the seminar told me to move up front and sit with this other dude so I could be his partner. I pulled out my laptop and began working quietly on my screenplay.

I've gotten some new notes that make me feel more optimistic because I feel like this is an attainable task and it will make my script stronger. I'm to take the protagonist and focus on her internal conflict as I rework only the first ten pages. Sounds like a perfect task to complete while I'm avoiding boredom in the Classroom Management workshop.

So I worked on the script and got a lot done. I stopped to do a stupid ice breaker activity - my partner insisted on sharing out, too, which annoyed me. I really didn't mean for the entire class to know that I don't drink milk - and then I went back to what I was doing. And every time we were told to do an assignment I did it, then went back to typing.

The dude's wife was also instructing us - mind you, neither of these two has been in a classroom for a decade and the man was barely in it at all - and he came over and made some indecipherable pantomime.

"Excuse me?" I said.

He did the same pantomime and mouthed something.

"What?" I said louder.

"Close your laptop," he said.

I wanted to remind him that I am an adult, but I shut my laptop loudly and pulled out a pen and paper, where I began to work on backstory for my male lead. This was pretty terrific because I only had one piece of paper and lots of time to kill so I wrote really tiny and filled up the paper. Lots of good stuff came out of me in my effort to avoid paying attention.

Some time went by. I did another activity with my partner, then resumed my writing. I doubt anybody in the room even noticed what I was doing, and I was in no way disturbing the class. Plus, they were boring.

Dude's wife came over and observed me for a minute, I guess thinking that since she was sitting right next to me I would pretend to care. I did not. She leaned over and whispered that she'd like to speak to me outside. So we went into the hall.

"What you're doing is clearly very important, can you do it somewhere else?"

"I'm here because I'm getting paid," I said.

"You clearly don't care about this."

"Look, I missed the sign up so somebody threw me in here. I'm not a new teacher and I don't have any classroom management problems. I'm bored."

"Oh. Well I understand that, but you clearly don't care about this so I was wondering if there was somewhere else you could be doing whatever you're doing."

I walked back into the room, packed my shit, and left and hour early. I drove to Burbank where I picked up my footage from Editor as we buried the hatched and came to an understanding. Now that I have my original footage back he can still work on the short while I get the footage to my actors and have something to play with in my ongoing effort to learn editing.

I was able to leave work, get the footage, go home and complete my afternoon emails all before I usually get home on weekdays. Because I was bad.

Bad kid 1, Classroom Management People 0.

So in conclusion, Emily at work = big brass testicles. Emily at the grocery store = massive wussyface.

Spinning my wheels

24 is back on Sunday. The commercial has lots of explosions and a cool song so you know it's gonna be awesome. Don't forget to set your Tivo. So there's that.

Welcome to today's pity party. I'm super optimistic. I'm a person other people call when they feel bad because they know I'll find the silver lining somewhere. But I think in order to not explode I occasionally have to renorm. So a couple of times a year I am overwhelmed with crippling depression. Right now people are dying in Gaza and America has 7% unemployment and I'm teaching Holocaust literature, so it feels like as good a time as any to let the sad run rampant.

I spent the last two days seriously reassessing myself as a writer. I made a short film like thirty years ago and it's still not finished because the editor is... well I don't know what's going on there. I finally said that if he couldn't get the job done, just give it back to me and I'll finish it, but he won't have that. So I said, well at least let me come over and get some of the footage so I can send it to my actors for their reels so they don't stab me to death, but he won't have that either. On top of that he says he thinks it needs some changes because he showed 8 minutes of a 12 minute film to some buddies and they didn't get the surprise ending. And the sound guy he said could help us with the audio adjustments? He got laid off.

At this point I just want my footage back. I have a couple of friends who are professional editors who I didn't know a year ago and they would gladly help me finish this thing myself. I'm thinking if I offer this guy some money maybe he'll let me have my footage back.

Don't get me wrong, the guy's good at editing, but come on.

In the meantime, I'm getting to that frustration point in the overall process of the writing career.

You and me both, I know.

I've been writing stories since I was nine years old. I started thinking about writing as a serious venture in seventh grade when I won a contest with a sob story about how much my dad sucks. I got a masters degree in creative writing and I teach creative writing as part of my job.

Yet here I am, decades down the line, still unable to write one single script that can compete in the market.

I should have been a plumber. That Joe guy got a reporting job out of it. Next year he'll probably get his memoirs published, then somebody's going to buy his life rights and make a movie called Leaky Pipes and it's going to make a bazillion dollars.

Are you frustrated? Because I'm hella frustrated right now. It feels a bit like I've been spinning my wheels. Notes and more notes and more notes on into oblivion. I mean I know I said I love zombies, but I was kidding about wanting to write this script until the day I die. I'd actually like to finish this and write something else. But I refuse to walk away from this script until it's good, even if that means I'll be at this in fifteen years.

Actually if I'm still working on this script as a spec in fifteen years, somebody stab me.

I guess if you're going to be out here you've got to have supreme confidence that victory is just around the corner. One more edit, one more party, one more try. Then I can quit my day job.

So here we go. One more edit.

Okay, pity party over.

Game Night Update, part 376

Previously, on Game Night Update...

Over a year ago I shot my first short film, Game Night. A few months later my editor said she couldn't finish the project so I found a new editor. And he did like a minute of footage a month. My actors have been emailing me, asking where the hell the footage is so they can update their reels. Then last month I told my editor I needed a rough cut by December. Period.

The following is paraphrased.

So last night I got an email from Editor saying Oops! Sorry, but I couldn't get it done for December but I'll get to work on it as soon as I get back from my trip in January. And there's some problems. I showed what I have to a test audience of friends and they didn't get what was going on so we should probably add some voice over or reshoots.

I took a sip of my eggnog.

I stared at my computer.

I typed my response.

I will be by when you return to pick up my footage. I'll cut the rest myself, but thank you for your time.

To which I got a response of Sorry! I swear I'll finish it! I'll work harder. I'll get it done.

I stopped being mad and finished my eggnog which helped because a third of my eggnog was actually Bacardi and realized how to solve the problem with the short.

I emailed Editor and told him to move one line of dialogue up five minutes in the short.

Then I sat back and thought.

Okay this guy has put most of the footage together. He has nine of the twelve minutes done, and he really cares about this project. He's doing it for free and it looks pretty good and he's an all around nice guy. I know he isn't delaying on purpose.

But good grief. We shot this thing in 2007, it's 12 minutes long and it won't be finished until 2009. That's embarrassing to have to confess when people ask me how the short is going.

Now I'm faced with a choice. Do I believe him and keep waiting? Or do I try to edit the rest myself even though I've never edited anything before? He also has access to a recording studio for some voice over work and a sound editor to polish some of our audio issues.

And yes I realize several of you offered to edit my shit before and probably would have been done by now had I taken you up on your offers.

Oy ve, you guys.

Weekend Update

I saw The Dark Knight of course. And it was good of course. I did not see Mamma Mia.

Friday night I went to a gay and lesbian film festival and watched a documentary about Jack Wrangler, a gay porn star from the seventies. It was interesting. It was prefaced by a short film made by some gay dude who killed himself a while back, and the short was designed to showcase his boyfriend's acting abilities. I'm not sure if anybody got it because it didn't really make a lot of sense, but it had a lot of shots of seagulls in it so that was cool.

I might like David Lynch more if he used more seagulls.

Also, going to see a movie at a gay and lesbian festival means there's never a line in the women's bathroom. In fact there's never really any women in the women's bathroom. The men's room is a different issue.

I watched Be Kind, Rewind. It was okay. It was a bit silly, but a fun movie all in all.

People who I am supposed to read your material and give you notes: I swear I'm on it. I got kind of distracted this weekend by a big dude with muscles.

I've seen the first third of Game Night and it made me laugh my ass off. What made it so funny was how seriously Lead Actor took that shit. On set he had to lock himself in the bathroom, snort a couple of bumps of Ibuprofen and then act s though he'd just done some good coke. There's like 15 minutes of material and he gave it his all - absolutely serious. And everybody on set silently watched, mesmerized and somber and moved.

Except when editor did a bunch of quick cuts and added some spunky music all that seriousness became a fucking riot of hilarity. And now I realize what is going to end up being the best thing about this film - ALL my actors played it straight. Well, sometimes the Tardnut who used to be Writing Partner got a little goofy, but mostly everybody was deadly serious about playing Taboo with a coked-out whackjob. So I am excited.

Now it's Sunday night and I'm doing laundry. And here's a message to people who live in a building with 30 apartments and three washing machines: If you decide to do your laundry on Sunday night, please do not take up all three machines and then forget to come and get your clothes for half an hour. That's how people get beaten to death with bottles of detergent.

And that's how I spent my weekend.

There was also some karaoke.

Game Night exists

Hallefuckingluia!

Nine months - that's right, I could have gotten pregnant and had a baby by now - after we shot Game Night, I finally saw the first two scenes put together today. I knew I chose Editor for a reason. So far it looks really good. Even the temp music is excellent.

So far I got some unexpected laughs. I had everything pretty set in my head, so seeing cuts I didn't expect was kind of cool. I laughed at things I wasn't expecting to laugh at because of the way they're cut.

For instance, there's a scene where Billy passes a gun to his girlfriend Valerie. That scene is in slow motion, and then it cuts to Sheila, who's watching the gun pass take place and I'm not sure what she was actually looking at, but the look on her face is hilarious. When you watch the footage straight through her facial expression at that moment is not even something you think about, but coming off that previous scene it keeps making me laugh every time I watch it.

So even though it took a million years, I'm really glad I had someone else edit my film because it's allowing me to see the way you can put a few shots together to really alter how you see the film.

Hopefully I'll have a rough cut in a week or so.

I'll tell you one thing about waiting this long to see your movie - it really makes you appreciate its awesomeness.

Emily the editor

As I thought about my next film project I started to piece together a crew in my head. I was going through my mental rolodex, trying to find all the DPs I know (2), all the sound guys I know (1), all the gaffers I know (1), all the composers I know (3), all the PAs I know (378), and all the editors I know (3).

And then I stopped a bit on that editor thing.

Game Night was filmed in September. And I plan to shoot again in September or maybe sooner. And I don't want to spend another year waiting for somebody else to edit the film.

The main reason I had someone else edit Game Night is that I didn't want to practice editing on something that cost me a grand to make. I wanted it done by somebody who knew something. And that has been the bane of my existence ever since.

If I'd bought an editing program when I shot the film I could have learned how to edit my own stuff by now.

So the lightbulb zapped me in the face and yesterday I ordered a copy of Avid so I can use my Game Night footage to teach myself how to edit.

But Avid is eight hundred bazillion dollars! you say.

Nope. Not if you're a teacher. Just like I got MovieMagic at a steep discount, I get Avid for like 90% off or something if I can prove I'm an educator. Just like I get a discount on car insurance. I guess they have to do something to make up for the fact that I spend all day putting up with your children.

Just kidding, I love your children.

Anyway, it's time this lady learned to do something for herself. So pretty soon I will be adding Editor to my list of qualifications. I have no idea how to edit so I hope I don't suck.

Just like riding a bike

This has nothing to do with screenwriting.

Some time ago Bill Martell wrote a post about wanting to get a bicycle and when I read his post I was like - hey, why don't I have a bicycle? I live near tons of stuff and gas has gone way up and because of my foot I still can't run but am still supposed to get five days of cardio a week, so I should have a bicycle.

So I went on Craigslist and found this lady who bought a $130 bike but discovered her body couldn't handle it, but accidentally damaged the back reflector so she couldn't return it. She sold it to me for $75.

I've turned it into the bike version of a souped-up Honda. I put on a bell, whose purpose so far has only been to fill me with glee when I ring it as I cruise downhill yelling "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

I got a fancy lock so it won't get stolen easily and I added a basket I can take right off the front of the bike and go into the store and put groceries in it and put it back on the bike and ride home. And I bought a stupid looking helmet. So all in all my accessories are worth as much as I paid for the actual bicycle.

Every few days I've ridden it further than I rode it the time before, which has made riding easier and easier each trip. Today I rode it to the rental office to pay my rent and made it there just before everybody went home. My building Manager, who was shocked to find I lived in his building since he didn't recognize me even though he's the guy who came to check up on me when some jerkwad complained about the crew in my apartment to film Game Night. Anyway, Manager was all amazed that I'd ridden the bike such a long distance.

And it probably seems like a long distance to someone who isn't all that physically active. Hell, it seemed like a long distance before I started riding the bike. But once I got into the habit I found that I didn't even feel tired when I rode. What I thought would be difficult was a piece of cake in the end.

When my mom first taught me to ride a bike she put me on one and told me to ride it to the Stop sign before I was allowed to come in and eat dinner.

I haven't ridden a bike in like five years, but of course you know the saying about remembering how to ride a bike. I found myself instinctively posting as I hopped over potholes and weaving around obstacles like I'd never been away. Because once your muscles and your mind know how to do a thing they never forget. Then it's all about putting on the little bell and knowing you can do it.

And there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Waiting

Once upon a time Emily and a Craphead wrote a short film together called Game Night. Then in September Craphead, Lead Actor, DP and some other incredible people all got together to film this magical story about a dude who snorts coke and wields his gun around while everybody's just trying to play a game. And everything was good and Emily was happy.

And then AD didn't have time to edit the film so Emily looked for a new editor. And lots of nice people volunteered to help but most of them were out of town or didn't really understand the story. But Emily found a new Editor who did have time and resources and talent and lived nearby and said he could get it done soon and would definitely keep her posted. And Emily was happy.

And then Editor was so swamped at work that he didn't have time to edit anything so Emily offered him $100 to speed things up and Editor was very excited. And three months went by.

And Emily emailed Editor and said, Hey. Dude. Where's my movie?

And Editor swears he's working on it and that he now has time and will show her a rough cut soon. And it's May now and Cannes is about to come and go. Then Austin will come and go. And the LA Film Festival will come and go.

And Emily will still be here, waiting, sadly staring out the window hoping that one day her short film will return to her.

Game Night keeps on keepin on

I originally shot Game Night, the story of two couples in the middle of a game of Taboo that turns sexy and violent, in September of last year. I lucked into a terrific crew and some really great actors and shot it in my apartment on a weekend.

We had fun and we made some great shots. Preproduction and production went beautifully. It's post that's been a massive hassle.

My script supervisor/AD was volunteered as my editor. I screwed up there. Someone else spoke up for her as my editor and she never disagreed, so I stopped thinking about it. I didn't budget for an editor because she was going to do it for free.

Then my DP and my AD started to get real jobs, not free student shorts that would never make any money. And I certainly can't blame them for moving on because they have to make a living and they did a lot to help me through this process.

So three months after we shot all the footage my would-be editor told me she didn't have time to put the footage together.

I went looking for a new editor, but I hadn't budgeted for one so I knew it would be tough to get a good one to volunteer. I was lucky enough to get a recommendation for a guy who actually works in a professional studio. The downside is he's busy as hell and doesn't have a lot of free time. So I still have no completed footage almost 8 months after we shot it.

I missed some deadlines. My actors are very politely harassing me about footage for their reels, my composer has probably forgotten I exist, and I don't have any scenes to put up on my website.

But it's getting done.

I learned from this process that next time I need to set aside enough money to pay a professional editor and insist they edit quickly. In the meantime I might pick up some software and learn to do it myself so I don't have to rely on others in the future.

And tomorrow I'll talk about exactly what that next project is.

Closer to the itty bitty stage

I'm officially on vacation but I still have lots of work to do on the yearbook so I'm not really done yet.

Still, I have eight weeks ahead of me with no major obligations so I'll be finishing Not Dead Yet then trying to crank out another script before I have to go back in May.

Last night I went to see Lead Actor perform as Larry in Closer. I really appreciate Lead Actor doing a gig in a theater within walking distance of my house. That was nice of him because it allowed me to drink copious amounts of champagne at the opening night party without fear of consequences.

I found the play to be much better than the film because I felt like the film was trying to justify the camera in a story that really only needs four people and some props. Then again, what do I know. I prefer films where people get shot.

Sometimes in LA you go to a play in a tiny little theater and pray for the end. This was not one of those times. First of all, Lead Actor is the Fucking Shit on stage. At one point the friend sitting next to me said, "Wow. I've never seen him yell before. He's usually so quiet."

"Then you've got to come to the premiere of Game Night. He yells and throws things and threatens people with tiny knives."

He's really good at measuring his emotional swells. During his big emotional eruption scene I was actually craning my neck to try to get closer to the stage. It didn't work very well.

The other actors I'd never seen before, but they were also very good overall. And the director chose to play them a little less sad at the end, a little more hopeful about the future, which I thought was an interesting and effective choice. One of my problems with this story has always been how much you just kind of feel disgusted with these people and their self loathing, but I kind of got a vibe of desperation coming off them last night too. And I mean that in a good way. They're desperate to be loved, desperate to figure out how to live in this world and figure out how to calm their raging emotions.

So if you're looking to see a show over the next month I recommend it. Tickets are available here. Don't watch the trailer though. It makes it look like a melodramatic crying fest, which it is not.

But if you go please don't whine. One lady whined because there was no biography of the playwright in the program. Another lady whined because there were people smoking in the outdoor grotto where they were selling snacks. Suck it up, it's a itty bitty theater in Hollywood. Quit your bitching.

Also, don't steal people's seats. These French people got up during intermission and went outside and two people who came in late and had to stand because the theater was sold out took the French people's seats. When the French people got back there was almost a fight. We were disappointed to see the situation resolve itself peacefully. Dammit, French people, in America you have to start a fight when somebody steals your seat at the theater!

These seats are pretty tightly arranged so if someone needs to sit on the inside please stand up and let them pass. The French lady refused to get up so she made me climb over her, which in turn made me almost faceplant when my boot caught on my coat as I was trying to step over her knobbly knees. Not cool, French lady. Not cool.

Incidentally the French lady was the one who complained about the playwright biography. Maybe the solution here is to just not invite French people to plays.

Anyway, go see this play if you get a chance and tell Lead Actor I sent you. But don't bring any French people.

The Awesome Award

As you know it's Oscar day. I've got a couple of people coming over to watch it with me. I'm making finger food but first I have to go back to the store to get the damn cream cheese I forgot yesterday.

Anyway, I'm not going to make predictions because I have learned from posting on Scott the Reader's weekly box office prediction posts that I am lousy at making predictions.

I haven't seen most of the films this year and I've only read a few of the scripts anyway, so I'm in no position to judge.

However.

I feel like we are missing a category at the Oscars. That category is Most Awesome Film Ever Since the Last Awesome Film.

What defines an Awesome Film? You're watching it and you think to yourself: this is the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

You can do it in a Butthead voice too. That makes it cooler.

Payback deserved and Awesome Award. The Transporter deserved an Awesome Award. But not the second one. The second one was crap. But the first one was Awesome.

This year I bequeath Emily Blake's Awesome Award to Shoot 'Em Up.

I watched it last night and have decided it's the best movie ever since the last time I said that, which was like two weeks ago when I went to see In Bruges.

It's riddled with ridiculously cool and impossible action stunts that just flat-out rock. Plus, there's a baby and a hooker and everybody's got a little hinted backstory that lets us know there's something else under the surface but we don't have time to go there because we're too busy shooting people while fucking freefalling in a skydive.

And the carrot thing. The first scene of Clive Owen's character you see him chowing on a carrot (which I especially loved since the badass in Game Night also eats carrots). But it's not just a character quirk, it also serves a purpose. He uses a carrot as a weapon like eight times in the movie. I didn't know you could shove a carrot through the back of a guy's skull but apparently you can.

See? Awesome.

This year two of the top contenders at the Oscars are blood baths, but I still feel like there should be a separate category for those that manage to take out all that sappy meaning shit and leave with all awesome, all the time. I want an Awesome Award.

You suck. Now fix it.

Like every other aspiring screenwriter with a little know-how, I occasionally get asked to read a friend's script and give them notes. Now we all know I'm not an A-list writer or anything but I do think I'm pretty good at figuring out what's lacking in a script and suggesting ways to fix it. It's a lot like what I do at work.

When I give notes I never make any observations without also giving a suggestion, because "this doesn't work" doesn't help much without "but it could if you put it in the first ten pages."

Sometimes I think you can tell a person's writing experience level by how they handle notes. About a year ago a newbie writer friend gave me a script to read and when I told him it required deep, fundamental changes he shrugged and thanked me and let me know he would be taking none of my suggestions.

Even though I told him he was wasting his effort, he submitted the script to Austin. Surprise! It didn't win anything. Then he gave up writing altogether and moved back home.

Not that I've won anything either, but I do always try to listen to the criticism if I've asked for it and I refuse to submit a script to any producer or contest unless I feel comfortable with the reception it gets from others as well as me.

I have one exception. A few people don't get Game Night. I decided long ago that after making many changes and feeling good about the state of the script I love the story too much to worry about those people who still don't understand. I stuck to my guns on that, but I know why I was sticking to my guns and I'm aware that there will be people who will continue to not get it. If David Lynch can do it, so can I.

And man, don't get me started on Mullholland Drive and the aneurysm it gave me.

Anyway.

Once in a workshop class in college there was a big dude named Elton. I knew he'd be trouble the very first day when the prof had us write down the names of our favorite writers. Elton raised his hand and asked "Can you put yourself?"

Oh lord.

Every time we workshopped one of Elton's stories all he did was argue. We didn't understand his genius, see, and if we only understood we'd see how great the story is. Sometimes he would shout.

Then the professor told Elton we couldn't workshop any more of his stories unless he shut up. So Elton shut up and we finally were able to tell him just how much his stories sucked.

But if nobody tells you your stories suck, how are you ever going to make them not suck?

It's a miserable feeling when you spend all this time and energy and love writing a screenplay that everybody tells you is crap. You cry. You panic. You try to start over but it seems hopeless. You tell yourself you're a lousy writer. You tell yourself they don't know anything.

And that's where you see what you're really made of. Because at that point you have two choices - 1) admit that you're not a genius yet and fix the problem so you can become one or 2) tell yourself they're idiots and they'll be sorry when you sell this brilliant piece for a billion dollars.

If you choose option 2 you have only yourself to blame when you fail.

If you want me to read your screenplay expect me to give you notes. And if you read my notes, expect them to be brutal. I'm not a gentle note-giver. I will tell you what's good, but I will rip that bandaid right off on the bad stuff because I don't have time to worry so much about your feelings when I'm trying to figure out why your script is so boring. And yes, I will use the word "boring".

But I will always give you a suggestion on how to fix it.

That doesn't mean I'm right about everything, but I am right about a lot of things, and if I have a problem with a part of your script I guarantee an agent or producer will too.

Never give me a script expecting me to glow over how wonderful it is. I care about you too much to let you live in denial. And I expect you to burst my bubble all the way in return.

Because I frequently suck, but I'll suck a lot less if somebody points out my suckitude and tells me how to fix it. So buck up and thicken your skin and take the notes like a man. And mix your metaphors if you want to.

But the only way to get awesome is to figure out why you suck first.

I'm doing stuff

Whew. I wrote twelve pages today. I didn't mean to. It's just a really gloomy day and I don't have to go to work and I didn't feel like getting out of my pajamas and I need to clean my apartment, grade papers and write zombie pages along with a few other obligations I don't want to get to right now.

And killing zombies was the most fun thing on the list.

I put on some music and just started writing. I'm almost at the climax now and that makes it easier. Usually the first few pages and the last few pages come together quickly.

I killed some people too, finally. The next writing session I get to set a castle on fire with a flame thrower.

More good news. This morning I finally got myself and editor for Game Night. He's talented and has equipment and doesn't need me to pay him and he liked the script. So there you go.

Now I just hope to God my former editor gets me the footage soon so he can start working.

This whole thing has taught me that I need to take some classes and learn how to do everything, especially the editing. Right now I have all this footage and this great movie waiting to be made but no way to make it. I don't even have my footage at the moment. So I'm helpless until somebody else sends me what I need.

Next time, though, I hope to have money. That will help.

So I guess I either have to learn to edit or be able to pay someone. Because money is power.

But I've been very lucky throughout this whole process and now I feel lucky to have found a quality editor. Hopefully we'll be able to privately screen the film in a couple of months. Ideally sooner, but I'm being patient.

Also, my company logo is almost finished and I'm meeting with Lead Actor tomorrow to talk about putting together my website. That's what he does to make money and he's willing to help me out because he's my Johnny Depp.

So pay attention. This blog will be moving soon. Not tomorrow or anything, but we're getting official up in here.