Iceland!

If you've been following us on Instagram (here and here) or Twitter (here and here), you probably know we were in Iceland recently. We have been wanting to go for a couple years now, and it was just as crazy amazing as we had always imagined. 

Can't wait to finish our Cuba posts so we can share about Iceland! Here is a preview...

Calendar Sale

In between school and work and a couple recent trips, we entirely forgot that we have a few calendars left! If you didn't get a calendar for the new year and then thought it was too late, here's your (last) chance to grab one for just $8 (originally $20). Even though the first few months have passed, you can still use them as postcards. Head over to our shop to get one before they're gone for good.

Havana Street Performers

While in Havana, we really wanted to photograph some locals and were on the lookout for something interesting. We bumped into a gal from San Francisco who had been living in Cuba (and ended up spending an entire day together), and she connected us with her friend who is a local street performer. We were able to meet a whole crew of street performers who make a living dancing and singing in the streets of Havana on a daily basis. We joined them one morning in a crowded dressing room tucked inside a beautiful old building. The walls were lined with fantastic costumes, silly hats, musical instruments, and a ladder to reach them all. We watched the transformation as the performers became twice as tall and much more colorful. The girls strapped on crazy tall stilts like it was no big deal and teetered down the stairs on them. We followed in their footsteps around the city, joined by a crowd of tourists who followed the music out of curiosity. It was a beautiful way to experience the life of a street performer.

- Julia

Bad Monday

Not in a good mood, my book has to be re-done to fit margins correctly, meaning another delay. I was hoping to have it done by January past, but waited too long for some of the elements - my fault.

Also the WGA forgot to send me a nice fat residual check and I had to remind them.  The check is for foreign levies, which I've dealt with before but for anyone new here, it's money that's collected in Europe primarily for any time my movies or TV shows are shown there. It's based on copyright which, as an "artiste" I own. 

Not so in the U.S., as the producers buy my copyright because they're greedy and found a loophole called "Work for Hire" in which they buy my script with copyright and I am simply an employee. Nice guys, eh?

Regardless, I am not complaining as writers get money from heaven in sort of a way, checks arrive from movies or tv shows I've forgotten about. Of course some of them can be for 78 cents so don't get too excited.

Next my gas heat went off and I have to wait till Friday for a gas-person to fix it. It's not a big deal as this is southern California and cold for us is 65F. Actually I turn off my heat for the summer as it isn't needed until October or so when the temps plunge to 65F.

Also having problems with my TV procedural pilot script by running into corners, or as some might say "writer's block". I prefer the term GDSOB, coined by my brother who abbreviated our dad's two favorite curse words.  I get testy when I'm stuck in a corner and usually have to just get outta the place and hit Chili John's or the Farmer's Market for lunch. 

Tomorrow will be a better day.

 

Weekender: 2 Movies 2 see

As I rarely go to a movie theater to see movies, mostly because I get screeners at home which save me driving somewhere and spending $12 for a ticket. But this week I actually saw two movies that really worked for me (as in I liked them).

Both, oddly enough, were very similar in many ways.

"The Sapphires"  is a true story about four Australian aboriginal girls who form a group based on Motown and the Supremes as well as Aretha Franklin. How's that for a movie idea.  The story is set in late 1960's as a loser and drunk manager sees the girls sing in a tiny town in Australia and decides they  have talent. This leads to them learning Motown songs in hopes of getting work entertaining U.S. troops in Viet Nam.

Their act works and they travel to the warzones entertaining troops and falling in and out of love and the movie works very nicely, going for comedy to drama and heartfelt moments. It's very corny in some ways but it really brings you into the struggles and successes of a group hindered by racism and yet coming out better. My director friend, who hates almost every movie out, saw it and loved it. 

Try to find it, it's on Netlfix, I think, and it should be out on dvd somewhere. You won't regret it.

Then there's Starbuck.  

The moment I read the logline to this I wish I would have found it first.

It's about a guy who donates sperm to a sperm bank and through some accident, has fathered 543 kids.

How's that for a storyline. And, like the Sapphires, it's a TRUE STORIE!! 

Starbuck is the code name the donator uses to remain anonymous and after learning of the mistake by the clinic, he is shocked. And it gets better. There are 142 people who want to meet their birth-father.

This is one of the best movie ideas I've ever seen. The potential is huge. But let's hear more.

The donor, named David Waznicki decides to spy on one of "his children", who's a soccer player in Montreal. The film is Canadian by the way and made in Quebec. It is all in French with sub-titles.  The "children" are of various ages, mostly early 20's by now.

David visits another of his children, a girl who overdoses on heroin. He realizes then that spying on his children might not be a good idea. But he can't help it, he wants to see more of them without revealing himself. The movie is essentially a comedy but with drama as he finds another of his "children" autistic and unable to function by himself. Those moments are tear-jerking.

It, like the Sapphires, depends on the actors and in both movies, the lead actors are all great, people you've never seen or heard of and that makes the movies better. They play like movies made in the 70's with feeling and heart and sadness making for a full experience.

Starbuck has already been remade in America with Vince Vaughn and should be out later this summer. But try to see the original one first.

Have a great spring week-end, eh?
 
  

Likely Scenario

While I was hoping to start my Heart screenplay I got some attention to another project I played with last year. I wrote a 3-page outline for a series about a Hollywood screenwriter who gets hired by Homeland Security to offer the wildest ideas that he could come up with to show what terrorists could possibly do.

While it sounds a little crazy, I read an article that said exactly that and it wouldn't be a surprise nor would it be the first time writers were asked to write crazy ideas.

I had forgotten about the project for the time being until someone emailed me and asked to see a script. Sometimes I say script, other times screenplay, script suggests TV series and screenplay suggests movies on the "big screen".  But sometimes the screenplay is referred to as "the script". So go figure.

Anyways... 

The problem is that I don't have a script for the idea. Just 3 pages. So last week I watched a bunch of "procedurals" and a couple of scripts I got from the internet. FYI the word procedural refers to, among other things, a TV show in which the content is mostly a procedure.

This would include Law & Order, NCIS, CSI and any others in which the story is told by stages, ie, person murdered/NCIS get clues/technology appears, etc. That's it.

So I banged out a 4 page "beat sheet" with ideas and today I begin to write the damn thing. Should take a week but it might be longer. This always happens when I think I get a great idea and then other stuff, as in $$, gets in the way of the great idea, for which I don't get money unless someone buys it.

So that's my week. And of course, hopefully, the book will go back to Amazon and they send me another proof and it's perfect and then it will go up for sale.

Unless there's another flaw in the book. Like a typo. Makes me crazy.

But work is work and there are a lot of writers out of work.

But that's another blog.

      

Weekender: "That'll Be The Day".

Just a few more notes on The Searchers movie I rave about. There is a line in the movie that John Wayne repeats several times during the movie. That single line was used by another movie maker, an English rock band and Buddy Holly. And it happens when Jeffrey Hunter and Wayne come back to the ranch after searching for his niece for several years.

As they approach at night, it seems a party is going on ahead of them, people gathered. Hunter asks Wayne what's going on, "are they having a party for us, Uncle Ethan" he says. Wayne answers in only four words;

"That'll be the day".

He says it another few times in the movie. It was sort of an early version of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry when he says, "Go ahead, make my day".

The movie was seen by 50's iconic rocker Buddy Holly who wrote a song with that title. The song was one of his biggest hits before he died in an airplane crash.



 













And there were a couple other aspiring rockers who also heard the song and sang it on one of their first albums. A little group called The Beatles.


   It also inspired another British rock group who actually changed their name to... "The Searchers". 

 
And it became a movie in 1973 with British rocker David Essex (Rock On) . The movie was called "That'll Be the Day". Movie also starred Ringo Starr.

All from four words said by John Wayne.