Wednesday, November 30, 2005

"I'll make sure you're taken care of..."

Why does this remind me of that famous phrase... "I'll pull out, I promise."?

Perhaps it because both are uttered as promises prior to getting screwed? Hmmm. Well, I'm not about to do that. The title of this post is what the director keeps mumbling when it's time to talk abut paying me. At this point, I have pitched the story to him, leaving him with nothing but a vague memory of the story. (I took the advice of Craig Mazin, et al, and did NOT leave him with anything written.) Now, however, he is asking for a written treatment... which he will then use to "sell" the story to the investors that he has lined up. Good deal for him. Not so good for me, as he's asking for "free" work.

He knows that I have never dealt with this kind of thing before, I've been honest with him about it. What he doesn't know is that one of my former remodeling clients is an entertainment attorney, based here in Atlanta. He also doesn't know that I am calling my former client tomorrow and asking him to either recommend an attorney to me in regards to this or represent me. I want an option for the treatment, along with a guarantee that I will write the screenplay if the treatment sells, specific dollar numbers for the treatment, (part of it can be paid upon securing financing, I'm not unreasonable) and a specific percentage of the budget for the script and the dollar amounts for ONE re-write. I have printed out the guideline for "indie" films from the WGA's site and will ask my attorney (whomever they may be) to see that my agreement with this producer/director is in line with those guidelines.

I may be inexperienced when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I'm NOT stupid. Nor am I willing to work for free. If any of you know of an attorney who can handle this for me, feel free to drop me a line. I'm not married to my former client as my attorney, I don't even know if he reps writers... but I'm damn sure gonna ask! Thanks!

Monday, November 28, 2005

The wheels go round and round...

Yep, the car is FIXED! The best part? Cost less than 150 bucks!

Thank God!

Praise Allah!

Thanks be to Yeowah!

My props to Buddha!

Sunday, November 27, 2005

I had a worse day than the turkey!

It's true... ok, it may JUST feel like it's true, but still...

1. On Wednesday, my car decided it no longer needed to start.

2. It's still not working. Monday is the earliest it'll be ready.

3. I'm in the MIDDLE of a job! I need wheels to finish that damn J.O.B!


The BEST part of Turkey day??? Talking to the crazy Asian woman who adopted me... (btw... I'm on EST and she's on PST, I wouldn't want you people to think I'd call her at midnight, if I had my druthers I wouldn't call at all, but that's another story.)

INT- WRITERGURL'S CONDO - THANKSGIVING NIGHT

It's late, almost midnight, and she can't put it off any longer...

WG steels herself for the obligatory phone call...

She sighs and pushes buttons.

INT - MOTHER AND DAD'S HOUSE - NIGHT

The ringing of the phone pierces the dark, cold house where puffs of breath create mists of gray as MOTHER heads towards the couch and phone.

She drops to the couch and hears her adoptive daughter's voice on the answering machine she uses to screen calls.

INTERCUT:

WG: Mother, pick up the phone, it's your daughter... hello... Mother!

MOTHER: Why you not call me, when your Aunt sick?

WG: Because, Mother, Cuz had already called you.

MOTHER: You should have called, anyways.

WG: Cuz had already called you by the time I got the message.

MOTHER: She did not! She call 3 days after!

WG: Mother, that is not true, she called you the day it happened.

MOTHER: No! 3 day! You no call. Your Father think Cuz his daughter!

WG: Well, since you never let me speak to him--

MOTHER: You no call! She call!

WG: The phone works two ways Mother. Besides, Cuz's a drunk.

MOTHER: No, she stop.

WG: In what universe? She's still drinking, Mother.

MOTHER: She tell me she stop! I tell her I give her ten thousand dollars, she stop.

WG: I hope you didn't send the check.

MOTHER: Your Father no like you. He think she his daughter!

WG: Funny, that's not what he told me the last time I saw him. He said he loves me.

MOTHER: You bad daughter. I always wanted a daughter.

WG: Yeah, well, I always wanted a Mother. Too bad neither of us got what we wanted.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Double D's









Gotcha... I'm not gonna talk about THOSE.


Nope. I'm talking about the only 2 movies I've seen in the past couple of months. Domino and Dreamer. Hated Domino, loved Dreamer. Unlike most everyone who's also hated "Domino", I'm not even going to go there with the stupid green tint on EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN" FRAME! (GAHHH) Or the gratuituous sex scene in the desert. WTF? That scene added nothing to an already horrid movie. (Mind you, I'm never opposed to seeing Kierly Knightley rocking someone's sox but seriously, did they feel they had made Domino so butch that they NEEDED a sex scene [with a man] to "prove" she wasn't a dyke?) But. I digress.. KK can do that to some of us, ya know. (Seriously, whew!)

Back on topic...

Nope, I'm talking theme. That's right, theme. Wait... how can this be? After all, one of them is a rock'em sock'em action movie and the other? Well, geez, it's a kid movie! Not so my friends.... let me 'splain.

The stories perhaps unknowingly deal with the same theme. (Spine, if you will.) The only obvious similarity between the two? They're both based upon "true" stories. However, there's another similarity, one that most people don't even see; the theme, the spine, the throughline, whatever you want to call it. In my view, they're both movies about female empowerment. Richard Kelly uses the crutch of violence and sex in a crude attempt to show how "empowered" Domino Harvey was; solely because she was a female bounty hunter. Many people bought into this tired (and trite) line of reasoning, after all, if she's shooting it up with the fellas, she's got balls just like them don't she? What they fail to note is, by movies end, she's just another pawn in a game she doesn't control. How, pray tell, does this equal empowerment? It doesn't.

Dreamer, on the other hand while telling a much more conventional tale also told a tale about a female (a young one but still a female) who was willing to stand up for herself and work towards making her dreams a reality... no matter if she had to use her wiles (in the scene when they ask her if she has the entry fee and she claims "It's in the mail") or if she has to get help from a Prince. At the end, she got her dreams (her horse to win and her family rifts to being healing) to become reality. Very empowering, I'd say.

Wouldn't you?

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

For the 2 of you who've come back time and again to find absolutely nothing new posted, I apologize. I can only tell you that's it's not an attempt to drive you away but to keep from driving myself crazier with all the typing, typing, typing. Of course, I'm not sure I've accomplished that particular objective but a girl has to try... right? (I once told my Dad I was "trying", he gave me a woeful smile, a gentle shake of the head and said "Yes, I know.".. What do you supposed he was getting at?)

Ok, I know I promised to give y'all the 411 (are white, ok.... half white, girls allowed to say that?) upon my return from La-La land, so without further ado, let me bore you some more.

The expo
I enjoyed it, saw a couple of the guest speakers, was enthralled by William Goldman and tanked on the CS Open. I did OK until they announced that half the time had been used up, (it's 90 minutes for a few pages based upon their own scenarios) at which point my fevered little brain just stopped. I swear it sounded like those "jake brakes" tractor trailers use for slowing themselves on steep hills. Not good when it's coming from your brain. So, I handed it in, went back later and waited forever to get the comments back and discovered that out of a possible 100 points, I got 80. Damn. If only my brain hadn't seized up, it might have been my frozen wall-eyed grimace that staring out at you from the press releases! Oh well. My congrats to the winner... whoever you are.

Stop! I don't mean it like that! I meant that I don't know who you are because I was sitting, laptop on it's aptly named perch, on the floor outside the grand hall furiously polishing my Writer's Arc entry while they were doing the "Closing Ceremonies" so I have no idea who won. Alls I know... wasn't me.

The meetup
Great little bar.. nice to meet all of you and great to finally put real faces to those who's words I enjoy. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stick around because my dinner with the director was pushed from Monday night to Sunday night. He had a film (which he had produced) in the Santa Clarita Film Festival (it's called Harmony run) and they had asked him to make himself available for the awards banquet which was on Monday night. So, gracious writer that I am, I agreed to move our pitch meeting/dinner to Sunday night. Thereby cutting off the potential for drunken musings on writing with my fellow bloggers. Sigh. I hated to leave, I didn't have nearly as much interaction with people as I would have liked and I definitely didn't have enough beer! (Thanks Chris!) I did have an opportunity to talk a couple of the other Writer's Arc Round One survivors and was fascinated by the different directions everyone went in, given the limited story prompts provided by the Fellowship people. We're a creative bunch!

The pitch meeting
I suppose I should now feel like a "real" screenwriter since I had free fish (thank you Josh Friedman) with a director/prducer that I pitched a story too. He liked it, and we're supposed to talk more about it in the next day or two. Sorry to be so vague but I can't really get into the specifics, I'm not sure exactly where we go from here but I'll let you know what I can, when I can... which may end up being nothing for a long period of time... just a warning...

Writer's Arc
I FINALLY got it in the mail on the 18th. Just under the wire. I'm talking serious squeaking it close. Praise the lawd for the 24 hour post office is all I gotta say! I have 4 solid story ideas to pitch, (should I advance...keep your fingers crossed!) but I need to come up with another one. Hopefully, I will. I have one high concept one that I think they will like and a rom/com that might work. I also am going to use the Islam story and I have a story that would be a perfect fit for a Lifetime channel MOW (not that I think they are looking for that but I gotta pitch something!)

Ok, I think that's should bring folks up to date...

in other news
My ex showed up the other night asking to "talk" and then when I agreed, lost her nerve and never got around to what she was trying to say so we just basically chatted for a while about next to nothing. When I told my friend Lisa what she had done, Lisa said "What does she want?" to which I replied "Me." Duh. In case you're wondering, 'twas not I who screwed the pooch on this one, OK? The ex has some serious 'splaining to do and I ain't helping her do it. No prompting, no prying and no feeding of line/subject/material/whatever. SHE needs to do all the heavy lifting. If that sounds pretty heartless, it's just because you don't know the whole truth of the matter. Suffice it to say I did everything I could to make the relationship work. She took it all for granted, was horrid to me and now it's come back to bite her on the ass. I'm not prying those teeth apart, she has to do it herself. Do I love the woman? God help me, I do. Enough to put up with more bullshit? No. And God would need to help HER if I had to.

Ok, peeps, thanks for reading this looonnnggg post and patiently checking in on me. Best of luck to my fellow scribes on their Writer's Arc entries, I hope we all meet again in their offices come January 17th!

Friday, November 11, 2005

Westward, ho!

No, not THAT kinda "Ho"! Get your mind out of the gutter!

I'm heading to LA for the Screenwriting Expo, cocktails with some of my fellow bloggers, at least one night in WeHo and...(drumroll please)...a pitch meeting with the director and producer of that Muslim project.

Enjoy your weekend, I'll let you know the 411 when I'm back.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Back in hot water...

I have survived Round One of the Writer's Arc contest. Yippee!

NOW, that means I've got boat loads of elbow grease to apply to my script polishing that puppy before sending it off.

GULP.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Oh, my aching head....


So, I haven't been blogging. Wanna know why? Do ya care? You do? Ok, then, I'll tell ya. Cause I've been reading, reading, reading everything I can get my hands on about Islam. I've been at it for hours, everyday! I doubt there's anything more that I can force into my oversaturated brain, tiny as it is.

WHEW! Who knew there was soooooo much info?

Did you guys know there are 72 (YEP, SEVENTY TWO!) different Islamic sects? I mean I know Christianity has its own sects but 72? Holy Mecca! And (showing my ignorance here) I thought Muslims prayed once a day. You too? Well, we're both wrong. They pray 5 times per day! Spaced fairly evenly throughout the day. It so they are constantly reminded of God and can ask for guidance and forgiveness... they pray just before dawn, (I haven't seen dawn in years... unless I was awake from the night before!) noon, midafternoon, dusk (sunset) and finally at night just before going to sleep. And... they wash before every prayer, it's a ritualized thing. I won't go into it here but it's a heavy duty scrubbing.... surgeons ain't got nothing on these peeps!

So, please accept my apolgies for the lack of posting. I would promise to do better but I'm not sure I can. I still have the treatment to write! That reminds me, gotta go! See ya!