Meanwhile Shirley wins awards and travels the world with her latest Short Film 'Roxy'.

Those of who who started with this blog detailing the funding of Travel Day have often read about Shirley Petchprapa, the filmmaker and director who partnered with me on the project. We met when she was looking for screenplays and read one of mine, a drama called Secrets of the Salmon.

We almost instantly got along, the young, smart New Yorker and the Canadian writer and director. It wasn't long before we decided to make a feature film together with me producing one of my screenplays that she would direct.

One of the things that impressed me, besides her talent (and I rarely use that word) was that I don't know many filmmakers who can actually grind a lens, you know special glass and "sand" to make an optical lens. Shirley did that and she has designed and created several other camera accessories.

Shirley comes from Graphic Design and Art Directing eventually editing a documentary and producing, shooting and editing several documentary pieces as well as a narrative television short that was pitched to the SyFy channel in 2006.  It was around then that she decided to pursue filmmaking exclusively.

Earlier this year she received the Best Soundscape award for her short film 'Tuesday' (http://www.issara.net/tuesday) from the Dresden Filmfest in Germany. She is currently traveling around the globe with her newest short, 'Roxy' (http://www.issara.net/roxy), which had it's World Premiere at the prestigious Festival del film Locarno in Switzerland. 'Roxy' is headed to the Mill Valley Film Festival in October as well as in competition at the Lucca Film Festival in Italy and the Marbella Film Festival in Spain. 

Iain Stott of 'The One-Line Review' says "There are echoes of J.D. Salinger’s A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1948) in Shirley Petchprapa’s intensely sensual and ethereally beautiful self-financed short film…" (Full review: http://1linereview.blogspot.com/2010/09/roxy-2010.html). You can also read some insights about her experience making 'Roxy'.

You can read some other recent press at the following:

http://www.aarising.com/content.php?49-Filmmaker-Shirley-Petchprapa-A-Profiled&s=37eda3faa58aed75f88f8f469adfe111

http://www.jimhalterman.com/interviews/reel-time-short-film-roxy-and-shirley-petchprapa-will-wow-you/

Our first project was Travel Day and after a few disagreements, one of which I blogged about that nearly ended the project. Since TD went down (at least for now), we continued to talk about other projects.

We both come from different worlds and yet can agree on particular films and themes even though I'm a lot more commercial in the sense that I have done primarily TV movies and several of my screenplays are pretty offbeat and shall I say, artsy?

It wasn't long before we both agreed that The Last Station (previous title was slightly wrong) would be a good choice as I had done a workshop with it years ago and it got a glowing review at Sundance with the reader calling it a combination of Robert Altman, George Lucas and Horton Foote.

You don't get better than that.

We both agreed that the singular location would be greatly helpful in funding the project which will be dependent on cast; better actors cost more, although SAG has low budget programs that will definitely help us.

For now, I'm working on  both projects, Casualties of Love and Last Station to film in late fall or early winter.

So, for now, have a look at her short films and demo real (http://www.issara.net) and read the reviews on Roxy, all under Materials.


(Thurs: The Christmas Movie has wrapped)

"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.

Blog 13: Financing the movie, where do you start?

You're looking at the cover of our proposal for Travel Day. It's also called a business plan as well as an investment circular, or a private offering. Some of these names require legal work, some don't but they're all the same thing...

A plea for money. 

Now that Shirley and I survived through the script notes and changes we now have to figure out how someone will give us nearly a million dollars to make Travel Day.  But first, a recommendation to anyone who tries this. 

Find someone to help you. 

It can be a lawyer or a friend, anyone who will be committed to the cause,  someone you trust and have faith in because they're gonna need it. In my case it was Shirley. Between us we had a writer, a producer,  a director, a graphic artist,  web techie, savvy movie software techie and many more incarnations.

And that's just between the two of us. Multiple talents come in handy when you have little money and big ambitions.

From the very beginning, Shirley and I decided we would be partners on this project. Whatever we do, it has to be approved by both of us, at least to the extent that we are still working alone. Once financing partners come in, it'll be a little harder, but we will remain partners on every decision we have to make.  It will be tested in the days and months to come, we both know that.

I have tried several times to get a film going with producers, but most of them fell out for one reason or another. Some producers make 5 or 6 calls and get rejected and drop the project, other producers make 20 calls and get nowhere.  And then there's the producer who doesn't quit until they get a positive call, or even a possibly positive call. 

That's the one you need to be, or need to find. If a producer has a day job, forget it, he or she doesn't need to find money, they get a paycheck every week.  And stay away from the big talkers with their 5-picture deals and promises to have the money in a month. Usually they've had a revolving table of scripts over a period of 20 years.

You need someone who's hungry, either for money or because they  want to make a movie they think will change the world. This isn't for  part-timers or slackers.

As you can imagine, it's a lonely job, as lonely as writing the screenplay.  As my friend, director Paul Lynch says, "what you want is a guy with a pocket full of quarters and a rolodex". Translation for the digital agers: Someone who has  names and phone numbers. I have been around long enough to know some of those guys with quarters in their pockets and who lament the loss of payphones. They were characters, some still exist, some of them still try to raise money for my other scripts.  But I'm not holding my breath. 

And that's why Shirley and I are partners, because from the beginning we both believed we could do what we said we could. Well, on the best days - don't approach me on a bad day. Seriously, if you want to get money for a movie from strangers, you have to dedicate yourself to the job, take the rejections, take the hang-ups and unreturned emails and just keep at it. We help each other and we push each other. Shirley can ask 5 questions in a minute and it keeps me on my feet, an answer to her is an answer to an investor. 

You need someone to believe in you because if you don't, it isn't going to be fun. And it has to be honest, you don't partner with someone who does what you do, you partner with someone who does things you can't or won't do. Besides screenwriting, directing, producing and camera work, I can do budgets and schedules on standard movie industry software like MM Budgeting and MM Scheduling. And I can come pretty damn close to a final budget. Even up to the muffins.

Hey, Mick Jagger counts the jelly beans backstage! 

Through the years I managed to learn how to write a proposal as good as anyone.  This includes business plans, proposals and even private offering prospectuses that passed the Securities Commission.  

Shirley brings an strong artistic quality to our work as well as computer expertise beyond mine.  She brought this blog into being instantly and then added elements I suggested.  We both laid out the pages of the proposal, incorporating the images with my text and her images in two versions, one hard copy for handout and one pdf  for email. And they were updated 7 times to date.  And she also has created, directed, filmed and edited short films that are festival quality. 

That's why I stress having someone who complements you (not compliments), someone who fills in for the things you can't do as well as you can fill in for them for the things they can't do. 

Belief in yourself is one thing, but others believing in you makes a commitment practically signed in blood.

And we haven't even started the proposal. Stay with us.


(next: Proposal Part 2: What's in the proposal?)

Blog 12: The Writer/producer, the Director & the Big Breakup

It was not going well. I was getting frustrated, Shirley was getting frustrated and upset. 

I admit I am not the easiest person to work with when it comes to my screenplays. It comes from years working with more of the bad people than the smart ones. Like Amy the anti-Christ I described in blog 10. Unfortunately it led to some serious arguments  And if they wanted one word changed, there would be blood first. And not mine.

Enter Shirley. 

We had finally begun the next draft of the screenplay, with notes from her and my own notes.  We decided to sit down across from each other, each with our laptops. Shirley had brought muffins and coffee and it had become a routine for us before we started reworking the script. But after a few days it was becoming clear that there was some friction.  I was resisting some of her changes,  increasingly so. To her credit, she stayed there as I resorted to my "yeah, well, I've done 16 movies..." attitude.

And regardless of what I thought, my "16 movies" defense wasn't helping things. 

Nor was my producer hat which suggested two against one. The first few days were okay but each of us had different takes. Shirley's big on methaphors, she would want to show changes  with a character without words whereas I would want dialog.  It was clear our personal preferences were coming to the front. 

At one point Shirley suggested I put a strike-thru on some sentences, to which I replied sharply, "I don't use strike-thru", she said it just makes it easier to see what should be cut,  and I said I don't have that feature. This dragged into a huge argument as she tried to tell me where the command key was on my menu. I insisted it wasn't there. Shirley was frustrated as hell. Then I suddenly saw the strike-thru command and acted like I knew it was there all the time. I think she wanted to throw a phone book at me this time.  This became known as the "strike-thru gap".

After a few days, tension was gaining in both our meetings and our emailed notes. Email is a particular subject to me as I have learned over the years that misunderstandings can often occur within what someone intended and what the other person interpreted. I'm sure wars were accidently started by a few misunderstood emails. 

To her credit, Shirely maintained a professional demeanor, while I continued to use the "experience card" as my defense and reasoning. Finally it ended in an email (which I seem to have conveniently lost) from me saying that it was too difficult for me to continue as I felt her notes just didn't translate to me.  

This was what we called the Big Breakup. We continued trading emails,  but it was clear something had to change or Travel Day was over.  Shirley replied that  she still loved the project but that finally, she would not direct it. 

It was over. 

I was angry, and I think she was also. And for the next three days I was not a nice person to be around. But I do have one facet of my character that has some reasoning behind it. It is probably due to a few years of majoring in Psychology, an education I eventually quit for television. I can step outside of myself when I want to, and be brutally honest. I wondered how I could be so angry at Shirley, when all she was doing is offering her notes and suggestions.  It was her movie as much as it was mine. And I had to at least consider her ideas.

It didn't take long. I was wrong. 

I was angry not at her, but at me for pulling out the excuses, the experience, all of that.  And I knew I had done it often in the past on other projects.  But I also remembered that it was usually used against people who really didn't know what they were talking about, who would have two hour discussions about whether a character would say three words or four.  So I could let Travel Day fall by the wayside or I could try to change her mind. But it was one of the hardest things to do for me.

I finally composed an email that said just that,  I was wrong and I did want her to make Travel Day and that I think we could work this out. 

Shirley's response was quiet and apprehensive, she was willing to try again. The next time she showed up, I knew we were going to work better together - she had muffins and coffee. And it did work out, we hammered out a new draft where there were compromises on both sides and again,  respect for each other. And yes, we still have a laugh about "the Big Breakup" and the "Strike-thru Gap". 

People generally don't understand why creative types have such intense confrontations, sometimes resulting in people leaving the movie or the music album, or any other artistic endeavor. With writing, it begins when a writer finishes there story or screenplay. You've sat at that damn computer, facing a blank page and searching for ideas so that you can finish it. It's only you there, nobody else, at least for a spec script. It's your child, you brought those 100 pages to life where none existed before. Then, someone comes in and tells you that you did it wrong? 

See where I'm going? 

And that other party, be it a development exec or a producer or an actor... or Shirley, comes into what was a solitary artistic endeavor and begins to change it. And it's damn hard to want to change, or admit that it could be better. 

Are today's sitcoms better with 12 or 15 writers than I Love Lucy with 2 writers, a husband and wife?  You know the answer already. Our little breakup did some good things; it made me realize that Shirley had definite ideas that could be considered,  that we both would compromise when it mattered and again, that both of us could only make Travel Day better. We finished the rewrite and it was better. But now we reached a new stage of this partnership.

How to find the money to make our movie.



(Next: How do we find anyone who will give us $900,000)

Blog 11: The Director

Earlier I had mentioned that I chose not to direct Travel Day, which was my original intention a few years ago. Now I'll tell you why.  I picked Travel Day from my stack of 24 spec scripts for one reason.  It had "elements" attached. Elements are part of a package when trying to finance a movie. Actors, director, writer, all of those are elements. Since i was only one element, Travel Day had two Academy nominated actresses, which makes it more realistic, it's not just me and a screenplay. Nobody cares about that.

All I needed now was a director to add another element. And there was only one person who came to mind.

I met Shirley Petchprapa in the summer of 2008 after she had read a script I had sent responding to her posting on Mandy, the website for film jobs which includes people looking for screenplays.  We got along from the beginning, shared politics and a good sense of humor. And I marveled at how she had made an adapter to mount 35mm lenses on her digital camera. You need to understand I was a cameraman before I became a writer and I could never even begin to build that adapter.  I was totally in awe of her tech skills from that moment, twisting the old Tom Cruise line, "you had me at the camera adapter".

Shirley is smart, street-wise,  a tough New York city filmmaker focused and hard working. We talked for well over two hours and have never really stopped talking since then.  We came from different generations of movie history, I was raised on westerns and steadfastly know The Searchers as one of the best films ever made and am generally more "analog" in my filmic knowledge and methods,  Shirley is more  digital and "non-linear" in her ideas and structure, using methaphors and favoring arthouse movies.

For the record, I did see Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage... all 4 hours!

It didn't take me long to figure out the combination of an aging boomer from remote northern Canada with solid L.A. writing credits and a focused young urban filmmaker with endless energy would make an interesting film at the very least, a really great one at the best.  Our original meeting was, ironically, her idea, she was looking for a writer and had read a screenplay of mine and wanted to work with me on a new screenplay.  We tried out a couple of ideas but none seemed to work for either her or me.  During that time, we also discussed two of my screenplays that Shirley liked, and the possibility of making them. But the idea of finding money for a film was not particularly attractive.

Then I had to go to Canada as my mother was in bad health. She recovered amazingly and I returned to L.A. with a newfound prospective on life and living. It was then that I decided to make a movie, I wanted to take control of my life rather than wait for a job to materialize, two Academy actresses were interested in the lead role and I wanted Shirley to direct it. 

She is one of the few truly talented people I have known and respected. If you read my blog on talent, you will know I use that term rarely. Okay, the camera adapter helped, and the hand-held stabilizer glide/cam she built from scratch was amazing. But it was more than that, Shirley had a "director's eye" as they call it,  she has the ability to compose the frame with delicate care and sense what a scene could convey to the viewer in a way I rarely saw from the many directors I worked with. 

Shirley also genuinely understood the story,  in fact her director's vision, which is basically  a few pages outlining how the director plans to visualize the movie, revealed that she knew the characters in a way I never envisioned. Nobody has the same insight into a character a writer has created but when a director's or actor's sensitivity and perception suggest taking your characters and story to a higher level, any writer is not only pleased with that but also inspired.  

Out of the 20 or so director's I've worked with, I rarely experienced that, most of them do what we call "coverage"which means they shoot every angle and hope the editor can cut a convincing story out of all that footage.  it's the easy way.

I saw this as an opportunity for both of us that doesn't always come along and hoped Shirley did also. We have had our disagreements but none lasted long as we still laugh about them. I think we liked and respected each other enough that we managed to overcome the usual creative differences that occur in projects that are intensely personal like Travel Day.  While it was my baby at first,  it was now being handed over to Shirley. 

And so our little movie package begin to grow, we had four elements, writer, director, producer and actresses. (Academy nominees, remember, not just your average actors)

Now all we had to do was raise $900,000.  

(See Shirley's work at her website, just click on the Materials link for her reel)