As I mentioned, this blog began in August 2009 and is now in 2017, eight years later. Amazing and with over one thousand readers. And I'm wondering how much longer.
I've told you about the distributor who's going to make Ghostkeeper into Blu-ray in the next month or two, not a big deal really. There is the idea of streaming, but we lose even more money.
And if you look back to 2009 and follow it upwards, I get something going and then it dies and then again and again.
You must wonder how I survive, sometimes I also do. There's an old joke about dying in the movie business. A normal guy with a job retiring asks his screenwriter friend when he'll retire. Friend says "When my head falls on my laptop". He waits a beat then says "And I want my laptop with me in my grave". Friend asks why? "Writer says "Maybe I'll get a good idea."
I still have ideas, every day, most die by the end of the day or next morning, but ideas always come. I had an idea last week based on an article I read in LA Times (you can get great ideas from newspapers).
How's this for a title:
Unclaimed Dead.
Actually it's about all those people who die with no name or no family nor friends. Homeless ones are the obvious, but there are a lot of people who die with no family or anyone close to them.
There's a cemetery near downtown L.A. where the lost people end up in. It's not just for them and it goes back to the 1800's. That alone should get some of you getting ideas. When there's enough John Doe's and Jane Doe's, say a hundred or so, they are cremated and all put in nice packets and go into a big grave.
So I had the page for about 4 years and last week I had a brainstorm. A good idea for that story. It felt just perfect. I told my friends, they all said it was a great idea. So I started clipping articles about the cemetery.
The idea was that two or three people decide to try to find the families or friends of some of the lost people.
Sounds great.
I even wrote a few script pages. It felt good.
My theme was that these three people, similar to any of the CW shows, would find families whose member was lost. And there would be a happy ending, or not a happy ending. Some families don't want their long lost member.
And that's what killed it. The idea.
I got stopped. It wasn't good.
Who wants to find packets of dust and take them back to their families. Not a good idea at all.
So it's gone to the "dead file" :)
You want it? It's yours.
I'm not finished. My mistake is that I couldn't figure out how to do it as a series. For now, I don't know. Maybe one of you might?
Or it could be a movie. I actually have a movie script about a dead killer comes back to get even with the people who put him away.
So, instead I'm pushing around some of my best unsold screenplays until I get a new idea that I think can make it work.
Who knows?
Maybe I'll do that lost dog story instead. Everyone loves dog stories.
Okay, so I thought I'd show you my weekly stuff, most of which won't really get too much attention. It's more of a monthly piece but I redo it every week anyway. So we're on Tuesday, January 3 and I didn't really do anything yesterday either.
So why the colors?
I like it and I can also easily find the subject in a few seconds or so. I don't really know who else does this, but I don't really mind. You are now looking at my secrets, or rather what I'm trying to do. I'll show you how it works --
Top box is most important I ordered 12 copies of "How to Not Get Beat Up etc" because I'm going to send copies to outdoor magazines, hoping that I can get some attention. Better than an email.
Uber is another piece. Not really very much.
Ford Explorer -- my trusty 1996 Ford which is just beautiful and needs a rear end (don't we all). She was with me most of the years and now has 268,000 miles. Yep. And I'm keeping her.
You can read the rest; the 4th box is what I'm trying to work on now, these are for 2017 and hopefully at least one will make it. I'm not really afraid of anyone stealing any ideas, in fact I welcome it, nobody writes the same way.
I've been doing this method for at least 3o years, I like it to be orderly and to have something to look at on the wall besides photos. The lowest box is probably not all that busy, in fact
I accidentally put Station Dog story. That was a big deal a year ago, a dog tied up at a train station, left by someone who wrote a note to anyone who could take the dog because she couldn't afford to have him.
That story really hit me, and I know one day I'll write it. It's one of the many ideas I get from newspapers and I've done a few from those stories. I have a new one already up above, it's the script I'm just beginning.
The lowest box, as I said, aren't all that important.
So this is what I plan. It won't necessarily happen for any one script, these are all scripts both feature and TV, including streaming networks if they buy it. Maybe I'll get one going, my new one is pretty good, I think, goes back a while.
In my screenplay book, I talk a lot about story and how stories are made up, usually from reality for me, I never make up a story that's not true.
Like my Christmas story, it was actually three separate events in my life; the first one was a broken-down car with my partner and her 3 kids. The "second act" was about how the family settled down for a week-end in a down and out town and finally a Christmas evening for everyone, which came from a grade-school Christmas I remembered from 1960's.
So, we're all here again, hope to count all of you hanging around, I'm trying to combine this blog and a web site where writers can talk to each other and read scripts and even take some writing lessons from my book.
So let's see where we go.
As some of you long term readers of this blog, there are a bunch of other people that amaze me some time. And just to remember, this blog began in August 2009.
We've been on this 7 years. And a lot of words. For those who just started, you really should go back to the beginning, especially the TV series blogs that lasted for almost a month or so. It was quite a difficult show and a lot of fighting in the writer's room. And also get a chance to see a real movie star of the 60's era and how she saved my life one night in a bar.
The bar scene is also in my book "How Not To Get Beat Up In A Small Town Bar".
Yes, that's the title. The book is about my traveling across U.S. and Canada and even Paris. Stories about the people I met. Check it out on Amazon.
But what's even better is this --
There are a lot of readers on this blog. A lot. Look --
Amazing.
And I'll buy anyone a coffee when you're in town, or already in town. Any time. Sherman Oaks.
But there's more...
The Ghostkeeper deal is done, we're going to do a Blu-ray version of the film with Code Red distributors. It should be out in the new year.
And another deal is getting more attention. One of my scripts. Wouldn't that be nice for 2017.
Meanwhile, go have Christmas, enjoy with family or friends.
Finally decided on my next spec script. Haven't really written one since S.O.B., the pilot that's running around looking for a home.
In case you forgot, it's about two women who had married the same man, not at the same time. One was in her 50's, the other was 22. And they have inherited their ex husband's a falling apart Private Investigation company. Actually a store-front on Ventura Boulevard.
And the S.O.B. isn't what you think. Rather it is a real estate term referring to homes being on the south side of Ventura Boulevard have more esteem than the south side.
Thus S.O.B. South of the Boulevard.
It's already been registered so I'm not worried.
So my new one is a TV movie, of which I spoke of in the last few blogs. While the old TV movies ended around 2008, I am going for the new "TV movies" which can still connect with some networks like Hallmark (yes, the Hallmark company makes lots of them) and also Lifetime and SyFy networks.
True, there isn't the amount of TV movies around. But there are series all over the place and new networks I haven't even seen yet have short series. TV is certainly taken over theatrical movies and I don't really think that the Oscar lot isn't all that great. In fact the last few oscar players weren't all that good either.
So my new movie, also registered, is a flashback movie, a young girl getting married falls down just about when she is to get married and is suddenly back in the 1960's searching for a lost family heirloom that her grandmother lost when she was to marry. And to make it even a little more I'm throwing in the moon landing.
The moon landing?
Well, it was the 60's, after all. Why not? 1969!!
I'm just starting to play with the story, using my favorite software, Power Structure. No sales here, I just like it.
And finally, I'm going to show you a script that has been hanging along since 1985.
Before Strange Things.
Before Walking Dead.
Two words: Burger Zombies.
Beware.
As I mentioned in the last blog, TV movies were my money-makers. Back in 1990 and up to 2008, I wrote a half dozen movies and rewrote other writers screenplays. It was the glory days. Roswell was one of my TV movies.
Until...
Survivor.
Survivor killed the TV movies. And if you're not sure what I mean, it was this. Survivor came along and changed TV forever. What is Survivor? Most of you probably have seen it on CBS, you know, the bunch of people put on an island and had to survive to win a million dollars.
Why did it kill the TV movies?
Because it was a lot cheaper than having to hire actors and screenwriters. Just needed some guys with video cameras and a few writers to help the survivors come up with good ideas.
My TV movies cost usually around $3 million up to $9 million. Of course I just got scale but scale was pretty good too.
Suddenly TV movies were gone. We actually had that party in the last days of TV movies. I remember big parties at Hallmark, where they'd show their movies to great parties.
Then after Survivor came all the other survivor-type shows, you know, Kardashians and every other type of humans, and at low costs.
Until netflix.
Just around a few years ago, Netflex began making their own movies. And suddenly it all changed. TV movies of a sort started up again. Hallmark made two kinds of movies; the expensive ones and the cheap ones.
My Christmas story, The Town That Christmas Forgot, cost just under $1 million. And actually it came out quite good. Even the WGA rates were higher also.
There is a sort of market/film festival thing that happens every fall, AFM, American Film Market. I put my Ghostkeeper movie into the market around 1981. It was mostly a market from other film markets in order to sell to American markets.
Mostly though, these Europeans and Asians had films that few people ever wanted. This year companies trying to sell to US markets were having a hard time.
But Netflix led the way, not only to movies but also episodic series.
I haven't really discussed the market for films that would play for artistic films, the ones that often get oscar awards as well as the Independent Film Festival, which takes the art movies just before the oscars.
I'll add more towards the week... in the meantime, this TV movie I wrote was made in 2002. It's a kid's movie but it gives me a lot of residuals every year. Good old Ben (he's the bear).
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