Who do you love?

I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind,
I lived long enough and I ain't scared of dying.
Who do you love...
                       - Bo Diddley

Relationships. What we all fall into at one time or another. It's what makes us and what breaks us. And in the film industry it's as essential as water is to earth. 

Simply put, you won't get anywhere in the film business without relationships, it just don't work that way. I have accumulated dozens of relationships, some of which last the duration of a movie shoot ("we must stay in touch"), some that lasted 40 years and some that dissipate when my services are no longer required. Meaning that either they've got a shooting script or I've been replaced by another writer eager to show how much better he or she is than I was.

I've been lucky, I've only been rewritten once by another writer. But on the other hand I've rewritten a half dozen or more scripts, called in by producers to polish or fix up or change a script that was written by someone else. Sometimes I got credit, sometimes I didn't. But it was always about a relationship.

In 1998 I wrote two screenplays that were produced by Paramount and rewritten 4 others, in most cases from Page 1, which essentially means a whole new script while keeping the story. If that sounds contradictory, it really isn't, keeping the story but changing 70% of the dialog or action is still possible.

And it all came about through relationships. It started with Steve White, a producer who read one screenplay of mine and wanted to do a movie with me. We got along well, he was accomplished enough that he didn't have any insecurities nor fears, and we got along just great.  I pitched an idea, a remake of a movie I did in Canada years ago but different enough that it didn't conflict and he gave me the go-ahead.

Then he and John Levoff weren't satisfied with a screenplay written by someone else on Roswell, the New Mexico town where aliens supposedly crashed in 1947. Well, it happened that I had been to Roswell with my brother and examined the alien mythology quite well.  So Steve asked me to write a completely new screenplay.

Relationships.

This led to meeting with Levoff, then head of drama for UPN network, a network arm of Paramount. That led to me going to Luxembourg to rewrite two screenplays of other writers in the dubious capacity of "creative consultant". But I was there for more than just writing. I've laid out this story in a previous blog but will repeat the basics; Levoff wanted me to be his eyes and ears to an extent as he was an ocean and continent away and knew he could trust me.

Once I finished the job, I returned to L.A. to find that Steve now had set up my two movies and another one in Winnipeg and I immediately went there to rewrite my own scripts and the other one.

Again, relationships. One thing leads to another. No stranger has ever hired me, only people who were introduced to me or knew me. Relationships lead to referrals and possible jobs. And on that note, relationships won't necessarily get you a job if for some reason nobody wants to hire you.

And there's usually two reasons for a writer, actor or director not getting work.

Either they're not very good or they're hard to work with.

Publicists come up with a lot of reasons when an actor or writer or director suddenly leaves the project, often before it starts. They will usually say "creative differences" which means that the two parties differ on some aspect of the movie, script, actor, etc.  How do they decide who leaves?

Simple, the one who has the best relationship with the studio or producer. They also call it clout, but it remains the same thing.

On a movie I rewrote called Lost in the Bermuda Triangle which was filmed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I had a falling out with the director. To be honest, I do not suffer fools easily, I know what I can do and what I can't, or won't do.

The director, Mario from NYC told me to make some changes in the script that the producer and network had signed off on. The script was ready to shoot. I I asked "what kind of changes"? His answer; "you know, changes".  No I didn't know, and I asked him to be more specific. His answer; "you're the writer, write anything". To which I answered that he was the director and if he wanted a change, he had to tell me what to change and why and to clear it with the producer.

It led to a shouting match and I left to go to the bar and find the dirtiest tequila they had. The director called the producer requesting I be fired, the producer said no. Jim stays.

Was that just because I was being bratty or high maintenance? No, the script was ready to go, sure there were minor dialog changes as he filmed, but otherwise, unless he came up with specific ideas, I wasn't going to do anything. But that's not why I wasn't fired.

Why? Because Bob, the producer, whom everybody on the crew hated (and I still think some of the Mexican drivers would easily have dropped him off in the jungle), liked me.  And I thought he was tough, but good and knew his job. I left before the film was finished, after nearly 6 months of travel I wanted to go home and they really didn't need me anymore. Last time I spoke to Bob which was about a year ago, he said Mario messed up the movie anyways.


Relationships.

Lesson here is if you work on a film crew, on any job, writer, grip, driver, anyone, make relationships. Most will fade 20 minutes after the wrap party, but at least for the filming schedule, you can be a little more secure in your job.

When I worked on a series in Vancouver, I made friends with the teamster drivers. I usually make friends with everyone I can, you get more rumors and gossip that way if they trust you. I had let it be known that I had difficulty finding a new fender for my 1977 Camaro. One day a slightly used fender showed up in the parking lot. The driver walked by and said simply, "Hey Jim, someone left that for you." No questions asked.


Relationships.

When stars fall to earth.

"With today's young audiences, names won't sell a picture anymore.  A great script and a devoted director-- that's what makes things happen."
                             - Charles Bluhdorn


Sounds true enough, right? The studios are constantly complaining about huge salaries for overrated stars, $20 million for a movie and attachments like their agents, hair dressers, cars, drugs and whatever else they can demand.  How many movies this year with big stars made the big bucks. Paranormal Activity has made $62 million in less than 3 weeks and it cost $15,000.00. Slumdog Millionaire had no stars, nor did Napoleon Dynamite. And the big action movies, Transformers, Wolverine, don't really have big stars.

Back to the quote, that came from Charlie Bluhdorn who was the head of Paramount. And he said it at the beginning of the 1970's.

History repeats itself, doesn't it.

Here's another quote by LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein about the new movies being made in the early 1970's. 

"The best movies, with rare exceptions, weren't the most expensive ones. They certainly weren't the ones that tested well with research audiences. They weren't remakes, they were diamonds in the rough,  made fast and cheap by talent with something to prove." 

What movies did he mean?

Chinatown, The Godfather, The Graduate,  Midnight Cowboy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Mash, Easy Rider, Paper Moon, Nashville, Serpico, The Conversation.  I could name 50 more like that. Okay, Godfather was a studio picture but it wouldn't have been made if it weren't for a new hip, cool studio head named Robert Evans who was smart enough to hire Francis Coppola who had made a studio flop previously.

Now think of the hits in the last few years, Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, The Hangover. And as much as I hate it, Borat. Given the budgets of those movies, it could be argued that they were more profitable than Transformers and Wolverine.

So here we are, after 40 years, and the studios are in the same predicament. All they need is that injection of fresh new talent.

My question is... where is that new talent?

One of the reasons that many of those movies I mentioned from the 70's, were stories from a different time, less cynical and sarcastic as the movies are now. As much as everyone says young people want edgy and cynical movies and horror films where people are tortured, they also will fall for good dramas and comedies, like the recent ones I mention.

The writers are different now also, all of the writers in the 60's and 70's were young, but also didn't have the advantage or disadvantage of being exposed to millions of videos on YouTube. They looked for good stories in novels, true life stories and their own stories of growing up after the second World War.

I had the chance to speak to some of these writers, and their lives sounded more like movies than mine. In fact mine was pretty boring as compared to these guys who rode rails, worked in mines, hitched across America and Canada, lived hard and drank even harder. No wonder they came up with great stories. It's harder to write a good story if you grew up in the suburbs and your biggest thrill was buying your first pair of flip-flops.

Or thinking that The Brady Bunch was good TV.

I remember seeing the first video-cassette recorder for home use.  It was a Sony top deck where you shoved a Beta tape into the top and pushed down. That was it. No date or ability to record from a TV.  And it cost $2000.  Right, two thousand dollars and all you got was playback. And there were very few movies to buy. I thought right there and then, this was going to change the industry. People at home could now become involved in show business. 

It was easy to anticipate the next big thing -- video cameras for the home. And something else happened. Many of the new filmmakers, but not all, were film school graduates. The Movie Brats, as one book was titled. The old filmmakers went back to the silent days, where you learned how to make a movie by screwing up and learning how to make it good.

John Ford, arguably the best American director (with 6 Oscars) made hundreds of 1- reelers and a few dozen features before he made the classic western Stagecoach in 1939 and won 2 Oscars, also 2  nominations for Drums Along the Mohawk and  1 nomination for Young Mr. Lincoln. All in the same year!

But the film school bug exploded. When once there were only three real film schools, NYC, USC and UCLA, now every campus begin to have courses. I went to 2 film schools, actually 4 month courses, and I failed in the first one at Banff, along with my friend Phil Borsos I'm the bearded smiling one, Phil's to my right, bushy hair), and dropped out of the second one after Phil and I made a film with school gear. Interestingly enough none of the other students at Banff ever attempted a career in film.

But film school alone isn't the key, you have to have good stories. There are a few filmmakers now who seem to be fresh but consistency isn't their best suit. More than not, they are "1-hit wonders". The generation of filmmakers just before me had runs of 5 or more great movies, Robert Altman continued directing until he died in his mid 80's. Right now I don't really see that many consistent young filmmakers. Of course the competition is incredibly fierce now and a director's total career can consist of one movie. 

The late 60's and early 70's almost destroyed the studios and the industry was struggling to stay afloat. Fox sold part of it's backlot for shopping malls and office towers after Elizabeth Taylor was paid $1 milliion for Cleopatrra, a flop. Crews were laid of, directors like John Frankenheimer (Manchurian Candidate) had to go to Europe for work.

Sounds the same now.

But I have faith. Why? Because big studios are making fewer and fewer movies at larger and larger budgets.

Why is that good for me?

Because they will need more movies from outside to feed the machine. And that will most likely come from people like me, who do character-driven movies for a smaller audience on realistic budgets.  All we need is one thing...

"A great script and a devoted director".

It's about the work.

I was asked how I got my first big break in Los Angeles, and  how I managed to survive long after my career should have been over. I've mentioned this before, that the "career" of a writer or director or actor is realistically about 3 years. This is the average and while the exceptions are obvious, there are people who last forever, William Goldman is still writing, Robert Altman directed until his mid-80's (and even then he only stopped because he died) and Ernest Borgnine is still acting into his 90's.

Those are the anomolies. Consider that there are around 8000 writers in the WGA and of those, only about 1500 work regularly and there must be at least 120,000 actors in SAG but you can name the stars who lasted on two hands.

Yes, the odds are against you in this business.

What I mean by 3 years, is presuming you have received some attention. And to get that you have maybe 2 years to establish yourself, after that, if you haven't, you might as well go back home. But 2 years is a long time.

My first break I guess was getting a job in a small city TV station at 22.  From that day on, I always looked for the next job in this business, moving from TV station to TV station. My next break was going independent and making a suspense movie called Ghostkeeper, in which my partner believed totally in me and we found $650,000 oil money to make it with.

After that I didn't have a real job for almost 8 years. The tax shelters died and the business was in a slump in Canada. I did two forgettable movies in which I was paid about $5000 each. Nobody wanted to hire me, Canadian film is a small industry and I was nothing in Toronto or Vancouver.  I got a job for a month with McGyver, the series but was let go.

Then I got a green card.

Then I met Paul Lynch at a party in Toronto. Paul is one of the legendary directors in Canada, his first big feature was Prom Night, which had several sequels. He had heard about me from a friend on McGyver and asked to read a script. I mailed him one and he said he liked it enough to get me his agent, BarryPerelman in Hollywood. I had a Hollywood agent.

Good? No.

Barry got me maybe 3 or 4 meetings with 2nd and 3rd level producers, most of whom had less money in their bank accounts than I did. I stayed with Barry for 2 years then left and found an agent who really swept me into the majors.  I was over 40 at this point, and by all rules, should have been ridden out of town.

His name was Charles Lenhoff.

Charles was the first agent I had who really liked me. It was about the work. He actually thought I was a good writer. And I had written a screenplay called Emperor of Mars that he was absolutely crazy about. Barry had thought very little of it, and most producers in Canada didn't think much of it. But that little script was a ticket to this business that was just beginning because, as I said before, it's about the work.

Then I met Chris Haddock.

A friend of mine was working locations on a series in Vancouver, run by writer/producer Chris Haddock, a smart and talented guy. My friend told him about me, and Chris asked me for a script. I sent Emperor of Mars. A few weeks later he hired me to work as a writer and story editor on his series. At the same time Charles had been circulating Emperor around Hollywood and in the next year I met virtually every A-level producer and production company from Dustin Hoffman's company to Dreamworks and everyone in between. 

Again, it's about the work.

But nobody wanted to make it. They all "loved" it, but all they wanted is "so what else do you have".  Over the course of 2 years, I got lots of meetings but no work.

Then I met Frank Balkin.

Frank was a junior agent with Charles, but we got along great. When he left for a larger agency I went with him and stayed with him for well over 10 years. He was and still is a friend of mine and I'm actually having lunch with him Tuesday.

Then Frank set up a meeting with Steve White.

He had read Emperor and wanted me to write a movie for Paramount as he had a deal for 6 movies. It turned into two movies and also a job doing rewrites on the other four.  At the same time I was hired to rewrite 3 movies for another producer at Paramount.  These jobs led to others and I had a good run from around 1992 to 2004, well into my 50's.  So how did I last that long?

Three words.  Emperor of Mars. 

I doubt I would have got any work at all, Emperor was my calling card.  They didn't want to make it, but they hired me because of it. They say that if you don't get work in LA, it's due to two reasons; either you're not very good or you're hard to work with. I have to add a 3rd... have a script that everyone likes. That was a combination of me writing a story that I knew well, my life in a small town, and luck.

Also shamelessly showing my scripts to anyone who would read them, getting a green card, meeting people constantly, finding two agents who liked my work and leaving 4 other agents in the process and a lot of luck. 

It began to slow down around 2004 as Survivor became a hit series on TV.  Things began to change as reality shows started to take over the networks schedules, they cost less than movies and series and got great ratings.  We had a writer's strike which further crippled the industry and there was a glut of movies which further reduced the opportunities.But at least I had a taste of the old TV industry and a good run for much longer than the majority of my peers. Not as good as the big guys like Bochco and David Kelly and a handful of others, but good enough to last as long as I did.

And I'm still at it.  First Travel Day.  Then, after 5 failed attempts,  which included an Oscar-winning director, I am going to finally make Emperor of Mars, and with luck and determination, I might actually film it where I grew up.

How cool is that?

Blog 8: Screenwriting -- The development process

One of the most dreaded processes in a writer's life, at least for me, is the development "phase". It can be inspiring and a delight, or it can be pure hell. I once worked with a "D-Girl" (a term for a Development executive, most often a woman) called Amy, whose nickname was "the anti-Christ". And she lived up to her reputation as she would go out of her way to demean and attack you. 

On the other hand I once worked with a woman who had drinking issues among other flaws, including foul language that still amazes me, but she gave me a set of the best notes I have ever had, I still keep them. Development is generally dreaded because it means the producer or production company or studio has read the screenplay and now wants to add their input. Some might say they paid for it so they can rip it apart. I think it's the fact that they can't write and just want to punish me for being able to write.  Regardless, it's the next stage of development of a movie and it can be hell. 

John Levoff who was head of drama at Paramount/UPN always used to start the meeting with me by saying "Page 1", meaning that notes were on every page of a 110 page screenplay. It's like you have been sentenced to life. But John was a smart exec and this was just his way of joking and making me comfortable. He'd have suggestions for maybe a dozen pages and not hard to do at all. I enjoyed working with him and Steve White, the producer, both had ideas and both gave me freedom to disagree. 

What makes this stage hard sometimes, besides the particular exec or producer, is that I arrogantly think that no word need be changed.  And that's where it gets hard. A good note will surprisingly inspire you, they do come up with good ideas. A bad note can turn your stomach as you try to figure out how to change a script set in a barren landscape to a lush, green countryside with brilliant yellow canola crops. This actually happened on Riddler's Moon. And I did find a way. But ultimately you find a way of compromising, although sometimes through grueling arguments and even fights.  

Remember that producer I threw the phone book at? 

Back in 1990, I wrote a screenplay called Cardinal Sins, based on a story I had about teen abuse at a Catholic adoption home (my Catholic guilt story) in just over two weeks with my producer Dick Lowry. We sat in a hotel until it was finished and then the first draft was handed to the Assistant Director who broke it down to shooting days and they began filming 3 days later. 

Not a word was changed, except for the occasional actor's changing a line to suit them better, which normally happens. 

No development phase. No D-people. It can be done. Not that I would recommend it, we had no choice as we had to shoot the film before the end of December and it was now December 1st. But I saw it a few months ago and you know what... it still works. But that's an anomoly, and Travel Day is no exception.  Since I'm the producer, the notes and changes will come mostly from the director.

And you'll meet her soon.