What did and didn't happen in 2011

Well, it wasn't a great year for me, I didn't make much money, about $2200 in residuals but I didn't sell a spec script in spite of having a fresh credit for 2010. Fresh credits are important to the creative people in the film business, notably being writers, directors and actors.

Anyone whose credits are 3-5 years old will find jobs hard to get. Anything after 5 years and you might as well be dead. 

And I mean that in the nicest way.

Any of the above-the-line people, aka "creative" want to keep their credits current. That means you're working and it's easier to find a job if you have a job. In the same way as it's easier to find an agent when you have one.

The other way to find a job is to know someone who's working.

What didn't happen? I didn't get Casualties of Love made like I thought I would. I did the reading with actors but afterwards something didn't feel right about the script. One could consider this a "writer's block", maybe it is. But it just doesn't feel real.

Emperor of Mars didn't get made as a film, however the book is almost ready to go, I'm getting the 2nd proof version Tuesday and if it looks good, my first book will step out into the real world.

I didn't get much further with my Ghostkeeper sequel and the re-release of Ghostkeeper 1980 will happen in February. It's actually making the rounds of potential buyers but the DVD itself will "drop" February. I've already got a handful of inquiries so I know we'll sell at least 5 or 6 DVDs.

Would be nicer if it was 500-600, but who knows.

I did get a serious offer on another screenplay of mine and at the moment it's being looked at. And given that the town is winding down, I expect to know more by the middle of January. And I still have a few meetings before I leave for Canada so that's a positive.

My Christmas Carole movie didn't catch on in 2011, but oddly enough I have 3 solid production companies in town who all like it. It would be nice if they optioned it, but in this current climate, nobody wants to put out money if they don't have to. One of the companies has asked to take it to two networks so again, I'll probably hear about it next year.

But the Christmas script has also gotten me interest from 2 new agents, which is always nice. However the catch is that since the company above has taken it to 2 networks, the new agents are in a holding pattern.

So all in all, it's been a productive year, especially for the book, but also for a list of a dozen new ideas for 2012, of which I've already started one.

It's a funny thing about ideas. I heard Sting (of Police fame) say that as he's reaching the age of 60 (yes, 60!) he is getting more ideas than he's ever had. I know the feeling.

I come up with at least one new idea or concept every day, sometimes 2 or 3 ideas. Not that all of them are good, of course. Most of the time the ideas fade after one night. But a few of them hang on. I've got a great idea for another Christmas script, you could say "it's out of this world", as the 60's slang went. My idea is literally out of this world.

It's so different that I'm going to register it with WGA and WGC in the next 2 weeks. More on this later.

Also another book; on screenwriting.

Yes... another book on that subject to join the list of around 250 books on screenwriting. But it'll be a little different. For one thing; it'll be written by a real writer with credits (and a recent one too!),  not writing teachers who've never sold a screenplay nor seen a screenplay of theirs make it to the screen.

Believe it or not, there is a difference. When I taught at UCLA extension, most of my students took my class because I was a working writer. I've said this before, Frank, my favorite agent at Paradigm, said to never mention I was doing part-time teaching. Why?

It's the kiss of death.

It means you're finished in the business. You know, those who write, write. Those who can't teach.

Now of course, to be fair, that's not always the truth. But coming from an agent is enough to make you worry about it.

But that's going to be another blog.

What they want.

To begin with, Paranormal Activity, that no-budget ghost movie I told you about last week, opened wide this week and now has made $62 million and on it's way to $100 million. The horror sequel Saw 6 made $14 million, an indication audiences are getting tired of the torture horror genre.

Back to TD (we love initials rather than whole words, began with T2 (Terminator 2) or thereabouts.  Andway we've been at this now for just about six months, considering we really didn't get going until August and I feel we've gone pretty far in the last 3 months, while the first 3 were more organizing than soliciting. At this point, we've had a lot of rejections, some possibilities and some actual commitments. 

But it's still a long way to the finish line, and anything can go wrong, or right at a minute's notice. There remains a strong possibility that one of our biggest funders will drop out for reasons that don't really involve us, rather the general investment tone going on in the country and perhaps some losses he didn't expect. 

My meeting with the presales person went very well with some potential in the future. He has a smart business plan in which he finances his movies by preselling the rights to Lifetime, Italy and France and finally Canada.  But his presales also dictate a certain kind of story, that being the classic women in jeopardy thriller genre, for Lifetime TV.

I feel as he that Travel Day could be the right movie for Lifetime, but difficult to sell as it's not really what their mandate dictates.  But I have always believed that "they" whomever it is, Lifetime or CBS, or Paramount or any buyer, really doesn't know for sure what they want. To quote famous screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, All the President's Men), "nobody knows anything."

Take for example, this lesson I learned years ago.  I had done a page 1 rewrite (meaning basically rewriting the entire script page by page) on a script called Greenmail for David Bixler who worked for a company called Promark, now out of business.  In the credits I am given an "and" between my name and the previous writers.  Because they worked together on the script their credit came first and also had "&" rather than the full word. This is standard credit positions as per WGA.


I enjoyed a good relationship with the owner of the company as well as a producer named David Bixler, who now works for major studio 20th Century Fox. David was one of those producers who really understood what he was doing and he was great to work with, allowing me a lot of leeway in the rewrites and backing whatever I did.

Late afternoon 0ne Friday, David called and asked if I had any "reality-based" science fiction screenplays. This meant sci-fi stories that didn't have huge special effects. Meaning more like Twilight Zone than Star Wars. I didn't have anything close in my shelf of about 20 screenplays that I had written that never sold.

We talked for a while and suddenly I remembered that I had just finished a screenplay called Field of Fire, about two snipers stalking each other in Central Park in NYC. The title comes from a sniper term used to describe where they are targeting a kill. It was a straight ahead action story, not anything close to science fiction.

I decided to tell him about it. What did I have to lose?

A moment passed, David thought about it then said "sounds interesting, why don't you email a copy".  Just like that.  After hanging up I emailed the script.  It was Friday afternoon.

Monday morning he called and optioned it.

The film was eventually made under the title Target, with Stephen Baldwin (that's another story) and I was sole writer and co-producer on it. Unfortunately David left Promark and another company made it, not really well done as I would have liked to see.

Regardless, my lesson here was simply this; he had called for a sci-fi script, I sold him a completely different genre, action film. If I hadn't mentioned it, it would never have been made.  So now, anytime anyone tells me that a company is looking for a very specific film, and if I don't have what they want, I will pitch them at least 2 or 3 other ideas. 

That's the beauty of this business.


You never know.