I guess I flaked.

I heard this from Frank, my old agent. We have been figuring out a dinner together for the last few weeks and between his busy schedule and my lack of one, we rescheduled three times.  The last time he said, jokingly, "I flaked"(as in corn flakes).  I learned that this is the new answer when you postpone or miss a meeting or lunch or don't call someone back. 

Frank meant it as a joke, but I realized it applies to a lot of people today.  Like Dane, the Manitoba producer, I've called him several times and each time he had to go but promised to call back, but did not.  I mentioned it to the sultry Rachel from Eh Channel, who said he does it to her too, and I spoke to another producer who's dealing with him and... yes, he says Dane is a little slow on answering.

My friend Paul Lynch says it's basically that they really don't need you for anything at the moment, and when they do, they'll call back. This is basically a GenY thing, or a blend of Gen X and whomever is 22 now. And I always wonder why they bother having phones and texting and tweets and what comes next if they don't return calls. 

To be fair, Dane is in preproduction on a movie and is busy so I give him a little slack.  But some years ago I was writing a script for Phil Borsos, who also failed Banff School of Fine Arts film school, and who went on to a major career until he passed away at 41. Phil was making Bethune, a movie about a Canadian doctor in China in the 30's when Mao was just becoming the big guy. The movie, starring Donald Sutherland was, by all accounts, a horrible film shoot. 

The Chinese promised everything, crews, studios and camera gear but when they got there very little ever appeared. Even the food was bad. The majority of the crew came from Canada and at one point, actually were ready to walk off and go back to Canada unless caterers came in for real food. They won and it cost overages in the budget.

But back to Phil. He would call me at least once, sometimes twice, from China to Toronto to discuss the screenplay and tell me horror stories. This while he was in the middle of the difficult production.  And if this is the generation of multi-tasking, they sure aren't champions of it.

Multi-tasking isn't really all that hard anyways, and according to research on the subject, we really don't multi-task at all. What we do is coordinate our actions, one following the other, not actually at the same time.  Real multi-tasking is doing two or three things at the same time. 

Those of you old enough remember that old bit where you rub your tummy one direction and rub your head in the opposite direction at the same time. Try it, it's not easy and that's only two things at the same time. That's real multi-tasking, so when you're working on your computer and someone calls and you answer and work on the computer at the same time, that's not really multi-tasking, unless you're talking and typing an important document at exactly the same time. What happens is basically one job defers to the other one, you talk and stop typing, listen and type.
Where does this take us?


Is Paul right?

Do people not return our calls because we're not important enough at that time and space? And if that is so, what does that make them? I return every call I get, every email, I don't tweet or Facebook, although I allegedly have a Facebook page but never try to find it. But that probably comes from my early career in TV news, where I learned  how to compartmentalize my jobs, 10 minutes for this, 5 minutes for that, 2 hours for something else.

I read that Bill Clinton would do that also, although compartmentalizing world peace, the wrath of Republicans, his... ah... private life, and creating a budget surplus is a little more important than me Tivo'ing Letterman while watching Charley Rose and eating popcorn.


I know the calls will start coming back. 


Any day now.

"I am interested..."

 
It was an email that read simply:      

"I am interested and I would estimate we can provide through the Manitoba tax credits, and equity programs, approx 40% plus of the budget.  If you like, we can talk early next week and go the details. "

Short and sweet as they say.  Seconds before the email appeared I saw the sender's name and realized it was one of the Canadian producers who might be considering working with us.  My first feeling was that it was good. But my skepticism crept in. 

He's passing.

But something told me different.  Most companies don't bother to tell you they're passing on your project these days, they just stop communicating.  Maybe he was one of the nice ones who still has some class and wanted to tell you in person that he is passing.  I clicked on the email and as it opened I scanned the sentences for one good word, it took all of 2 seconds. 

"I am interested."

 That's all I needed, and I reread it to get the entire message.  Then I read it a third time.  We did it.  Shirley and I did it. 

We have a movie. 

With Manitoba's minimum of 40% and our initial investor's 50% it suddenly became a reality. I waited for awhile before I would tell Shirley, I wanted to be absolutely certain of what he was saying.  I remembered that Rachel the movie channel exec (Eh Channel)  had asked the producer to look at my screenplay.  I sent a package of both the proposal and the screenplay as I have done to at least 50 other people of whom some never responded and some liked it but weren't interested and some just weren't interested.  Now we had someone who was. 

I knew what he would be doing, using tax credits in Manitoba which can be as high as 65% tax credit on labor from Manitoba.  For every crewmember, actor, driver, caterer, virtually everyone  except Shirley and an American actor, we got back 65 cents on the dollar. 

I think I must have read that message a half dozen times, putting different interpretations ton it, stepping away and walking outside my place, then back again. I knew where he would get his equity, it would come from one or more of those various private and government funding agencies that abound in Canada.  I took an early lunch at Carney's, a railroad car where I would celebrate minor victories with a split &  grilled red hot and a side of chili fries, best in the valley. 

Remember one of my rules;  reward yourself often.


This changed everything. We now, in theory, had the budget for Travel Day.  And if the exchange rate favored the U.S., it could conceivably mean our American money would be worth maybe 14 cents more on the dollar.  Which meant that $400,000 US would be worth $464,000, almost half a million if the U.S. dollar doesn't fall anymore.  

If we still had that $400k.

After my excitement died down I began to analyze exactly where we were.  On paper it looked damn good.  But I had emailed my $400k man a few weeks ago and he had not returned our email. My friend who knows him said he sometimes does that.  Privately it worried me.  I never told Shirley or anyone.  I fell into that mode of "better no news than bad news" when it came to the $400k man.   I re-read his email, particularly one phrase;  "I can probably find the rest". 

What did that imply; will he do it? 
Will he consider it? Is he going to DO IT??

You're probably wondering why I so quickly left behind the good news to dwell more on the possibility of bad news.  Well, I'm not one to play with pop psychology and thinking positive or visualizing my goals, I'm a realist mixed in with a dreamer and an eternal optimist, although sometimes I use pessimism as a cover for optimism. Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed.


I majored in Psychology (encouraged by the lovely Crystal, a grad student four years older than me)  at Henry Ford College and was set to transfer to U. of Detroit.  But I dropped out and into the world of television but always joked that I knew enough about psychology to tell everyone else what their problem was.  So while everything sounded spectacular, there was just one hitch...

One word: experience. 

This is almost exactly what happened with my producer on Emperor of Mars after nearly one year of waiting to fund that movie for $5 million.  Since I was writer and director I was not directly involved in the financing of Emperor.  Like Shirley is now, I was the one who waited for the good news that we have our funding.  We had a similar deal, the majority would come from the U.S. and the balance would come from tax incentives in Alberta (Alberta is the only province to call it's credits "incentives" as it's the most American of provinces and refuses to use the word "tax" anything.)

And the funding came close until, and this is something I can only speculate on, the U.S money fell out.  And the previous year Emperor was nearly funded when the financing fell through again. In fact, Emperor had been the victim of 4 attempts;  one with an Academy winning director and three times with me.  And none of those had any involvement in the funding stage from me.  That's one of the reasons why I am producing Travel Day. 

Because I want to know everything that happens on this movie. 

Every detail from the proposal on to the release.  Now I was somewhat in the same position, except this time I was the producer,  I was the one who knew what was going on, hopefully to do what needed to be done and finally, to get this movie made.  Sensing a backup plan, I had already contacted several other potential investors and Hank, the presales producer who could presell to Italy and France, which could make up the difference. 

But at the end of the day, I was going to relax in the comfort of acceptance.  And I would definitely call Manitoba next week.  I called Shirley to tell her rather than email it.  She was totally excited and said she had a feeling we would be doing this in Canada.  And it took us less than 3 months to get here. But I didn't feel we were there yet,  that there is still a lot of work to make everything go right and that there will be bumps ahead. Big ones.

Regardless, it was a good day for us.

Where are we now?

Still recovering from the positive news of making Travel Day with Canadian tax credits and awaiting any news from the people Rachel contacted who might co-produce with me.  This amounts to the usual fears and apprehension that writers, producers and actors share, maybe directors too. Are the forces going to approve of us, will they like us (in my case, the script), and 100 reasons why they should.

Countered by 101 reasons why they shouldn't.

Rejection, as I've posted before is a daily thing for anyone in the film business, and judged by others, often of less ability.  Actors can get or lose a part just because of how they look, writers can fall prey to envious readers who can't write but who want to punish those who can by giving a bad reader's report.  After all I had 9 original screenplays produced but 24 still on the shelf, all rejected.

There is a lot of envy in this business because so much of it is a lottery. Take the cast of Friends, that hugely successful series from the early 90's.  None of the actors are particularly talented, but for some reason they seemed to click with each other and more importantly, with the audience.  In other words, they won the lottery.  On their own, they're quite unremarkable, as evidenced by their lame efforts at movies.

Joke in LA is "what's the difference between Jennifer Aniston's movies?"

Answer is: "Different titles." 

In the meantime, I studied the tax credit system in Manitoba, where this might be filmed if it all falls together (cup half empty??).  It's not all that difficult as I compared the other provinces incentives.  My main concern is the general lack of good actors in the city, considering that it's relatively small, around 700,000 compared to Los Angeles 10 million. 

And many of those are Canadians who left Canada to be successful here.  And not to belittle Manitoba or any of the other provinces, there simply isn't enough choice in the talent area which means we would have to cast in Toronto and Vancouver.  I remember casting once in Calgary with a Toronto director who privately lamented to me "this is like the Gong Show" relating to a now-defunct game show of the 70's.

And that's not to say LA has all great actors, just more of a choice of the good ones.  Of course, some Canadians will label me as betraying Canadian talent, but the truth is, most of the best Canadian actors are in L.A.  Michael J. Fox once said that in Canada he would do crazy things and people would look at him, in Los Angeles they paid him.

There is one exception though, and that is Quebec.

The French-Canadians consistently make good, if not great movies, one even won an Academy award for best foreign film, Barbarians at the Gate, by Denys Arcand who consistently makes good movies.  I've always thought that it's because the French Canadians have a strong identity and culture whereas English Canada struggles to be somewhere in between England and the U.S. 

Nonetheless I still constantly remind my American friends of Canadian actors, as in "Keifer Sutherland is Canadian, so is Michael Cera (Napoleon Dynamite), Ellen Page, William Shatner, Leslie Neilson, Jim Carrey" and dozens others.  Some people think it indicates that general lack of self esteem Canadians seem to ooze, always feeling it necessary to validate ourselves to our big rich cousin America.  It probably is, but we all continue doing it.

And that's not including the hundreds of Canadians that flow to LA during pilot season in early January in hopes of grabbing a part in a series. There's even specific motels that are filled with Canadians, places like the Highland Gardens on Franklin in the heart of Hollywood, where a documentary was made on aspiring actors and the majority staying there were Canadian.

But how will it affect Travel Day?

With the exception of the "star", the leading role of Katherine, we will cast in Canada, it means more expense and of course, travel and accommodation and of course, per diem, expense money given to anyone from out of town,crew can get around $400 a week for meals and anything else they can get for that much money.  And stars can get whatever they negotiate, meaning a lot more than a paltry $400 a week. And remember hotel costs are extra and meals are usually eaten on the set for free.

The great part of filming in LA is that you simply pick up the actor/star at their home, drive them back at the end of the day. No per diems, no hotel expenses, no first class airfares.  All this will come out of the budget and the way the American dollar is sinking (today 93.48 cents Cdn) the Canadian dollar will be worth the same by February. This means that the U.S. investor's money won't be worth that much more and would cause the budget to go lower even as costs for airfares, etc. remains the same or higher.

So now I have to do a new budget to reflect the exchange rates. That's at least 2 days of work. All for nothing of course.  We don't make money until the money is there.  All I am doing now and for the last 3 months is gratis, free.  Working a good 8 hours a day in the hopes we get the money. Same as Shirley. 

As with many things, a new opportunity presents a few more hitches that mean re-adjusting the budget and the original vision. There are 2 schools here, it can't be done right if it's not what you originally set out to do, meaning location, actors you wanted, etc.

Or you roll your sleeves up and make it work so that you still make the movie you wanted to do.

If  it all works out. Notice a similar theme you hear from me?  

And I'm optimistic.



(Next: The sad state of the film industry)