Taking jobs away

Taking jobs away

One of the topics our little group discuss over Sunday breakfasts at the Figtree restaurant on the beach in Venice, is the subject of jobs. Not necessarily for us but for the country.

Having grown up across from Detroit and with lots of relatives in Detroit, I know all too well how hard hit Detroit is, their unemployment rate is around 15% while the reality is closer to 35% if you discount the suburbs.

I've always said that many jobs have simply disappeared, never to return no matter who's President.

Take my book, Emperor, it took 2 people to get it published. There was one formatting expert who will cost me around $150 and a graphic artist who has cost me $250. She did the front and back covers I posted a week ago.

And that's it.

My director friend Malcom has a background in publishing and graphics and he figured that I just took jobs away from around 20 people. Now this would be pre-computer era. All those people, typesetters, readers and more.

So 18 jobs have disappeared. Never to come back.

And how about this; I'm doing a favor for a friend in a week or two. She has written books on directors and wants to interview a handful of older actors who worked with the director in question.

Since my background is camerawork, mostly film but lots of still photography also, I said I could help her out. I would film the interviews and then edit them into whatever she needed.

Here's who was left out:

An assistant cameraperson
A soundperson
A lighting person
The processing lab
The counterperson at the lab
An editor
A colorist
An effects person (titles, fades, dissolves, etc.)

How's that. 8 jobs lost.

I can do all of those jobs now with digital cameras (I will rent one for about $150/day) as well as a wireless microphone ($35/day), a reflector and maybe a light ($50), tape/memory card ($50) and lunch.

When I finish, I will take the video to my iMac where I  have Final Cut Pro, used by many feature and TV editors who prefer it to Avid, the industry standard. I learned FCP when I had comp courses at UCLA when I taught screenwriting extension classes.

In short, I can do it all.

Of course, the argument is; is this a good thing? If you're an editor looking for work, it probably isn't. Or a cameraperson.

And of course, there's the often repeated saying; "the good news is that everyone can make a movie, the bad news is that everyone can make a movie".

If this is what's going on in the film business, if I can literally make a movie for free, what does it speak for every job in the country.

Fresh & Easy, a British food store has locations in L.A. and they don't have cashiers at all, it's all scanners. Ralph's has 6 scanners in Sherman Oaks. Robots are making cars and work more efficiently and better than humans.

Where are these jobs Republicans are claiming to have if they're elected? Trickle down does not work as we've seen, and they're mostly delusional. Or just lying.  A politician lying?

The American worker hit his/her peak in 1973, meaning that was the moment when the average worker made the most money, say when a dollar was worth a dollar. It went downhill from then.

And American industry peaked in 1979. That was when America had it's highest level of industry, everyone was working. And that went downhill steadily too. A lot of experts say that industry is no longer driving America, now it's consumers.

Neither of these ever came back, there were spikes now and then but as of 2010 it was 65 cents.

So how can consumers drive the economy if there's so much unemployment (average is just around 9% but doesn't include those who stopped looking, and that's more like 15%)?

I think that as population increased, there are simply more people who can buy things. Go by Fashion Square here in Sherman  Oaks, yesterday there was a half a block of traffic going into the Mall and Macy's in particular.

Go figure? Who are these people? While unemployment is high, I can only think that there are enough people (and sales) that they continue to drive the economy.

And of course, I told you often that of the alleged 10,000 writers in WGA that only 1500 or so are actually working.

So don't complain to me.

And there's always "The Singularity". You know, when computers take over completely. Just like Terminator.

My oldest student

I met Morrie Ludwig when he took a screenwriting class I taught at UCLA extension back around 2003-04. My classes were online rather than classroom and I found this method far better than giving a lecture and then having a student read some of their pages in a 2-hour frame.

While it meant more work, which ultimately was the reason I left after nearly 3 years as it began to interfere with my projects and at $180 week hardly covered the hours I spent.  One of the differences between classroom and online was that online I was always available to the students, 24/7 as they say. Classroom instructors interacted with their students 2 hours a week.

I spent a lot of time talking to students through email almost every day and had the habit of writing a lot of notes and comments, which I would post on my course page. Students would also post their work for me and for other students to comment on. I still feel this method is much better than classroom in spite of the workload.

Eventually the workload became too much, especially after one semester where I had 15 completed screenplays anywhere from 70 to 130 pages in length. As I tended to give initial notes of anywhere from 4 to 8 pages, it took me a full week to write those notes and taking entire days. It just wasn't worth it anymore.

But back to Morrie. 

He first emailed me that he was having trouble with the online application. It wouldn't accept his birthdate. I wasn't sure what he meant but was surprised to find out the reason.

Morrie was born in 1912 and the computerized application refused to acknowledge the date.

He was 91 years old.

We exchanged emails several times during the first week of the course and then I found out something else about Morrie. He was born in Manitoba within about a hundred and fifty miles from where I was born.

Both of us left Manitoba at the age of 12 as well. I moved with my family to Southern Ontario and Morrie left for San Francisco. Our emails began to talk about our lives, me in my early 50's and he at 91. I found out his wife had passed away and he had always wanted to write a screenplay so he took my course.

Morrie had already written a screenplay on his own, a golf story. And it was pretty good. My course was about writing a new screenplay and he was ready. As the months passed, Morrie moved to Los Angeles to be with some family as he was alone up north. That's when we decided to meet.

I chose the perfect restaurant, Musso and Frank's, which opened in 1919. Known for the movie stars, writers and other celebrities over the years, the restaurant still hangs on to it's traditions and going there is stepping back into history.

We hit it off perfectly, each told stories about our upbringing and started a friendship that would carry on for 3 years. He took one more class and then decided that was enough but by then he moved to a senior development where he bought a very nice 2-bedroom home overlooking an open green space.

I would drive to Palm Desert every two months or so and we would make dinner for his brother and his wife as well as his 75-year old niece who begged him not to reveal her age to her 70-year old former bandleader.

For me it was a time of listening to stories about big bands, adventures and old friends as I sat and listened. Morrie had maculer degeneration in his eyes but he could still fire off a handful of golfballs to within a few feet of the hole from 20 feet away. "It's the feel, not the eyes", he would tell me.

And he wasn't above flirting with a lovely barmaid in Palm Springs, or any woman for that matter. And as I was by far the youngest person around, I got a lot of attention from the ladies in their 80's and 90's. One even showed me her nude painting done when she was thirty.

On one of my trips to my home town in Manitoba, I took a side trip to where Murray grew up to the age of 12. It was an empty field and a stone monument stood near the gravel road.  No cars passed and only a few cows watched me for a moment or two.

This was Bender Hamlet where he was born. It was founded in 1906 and a small group of Jewish settlers attempted to work the land. Unfortunately the land was very poor and rocky and they struggled until many left for Winnipeg. There was no real indication that anyone had every lived there now, just the wind and the 
rushing sound of poplar tree leaves.

Morrie had funded the plaque back in the 1970's and it still stood there in perfect condition.  I had taken a Sears catalog I found and took a handful of popular leaves as well as some prairie flowers and pressed them in the thick catalog.

Months after I gave the leaves and flowers to Morrie and tears began to fall. He hugged me and said "thank-you". Poplar trees are in the aspen family and their leaves have a distinctive sound that anyone who grew up on the prairies immediately recognized.  It may sound kind of dorky, but it's real.


Later my brother visited Morrie with his family and Morrie again was the gracious host. He even had an "affair" with a lovely woman in her 70's, which he described to me in detail.

As things happen, I went home to Canada for Christmas and when I returned and called Morrie, his phone number was gone. He had passed away at the age of 93, peacefully in his sleep.

A few years later, I visited Bender Hamlet again and walked the empty fields while the popular leaves shimmered and sparkled and remembered my friend. A car drove off the road and onto the field, it was a young couple and not knowing I knew who put the plaque up, told me the story that people heard, about a man who paid for the plaque because he was born there. They thought he was famous, because he came from California and they liked that he was born around here.

Then they drove off and left me alone, only the cows watched.

 As we get older, things that didn't mean much when we were young seem to matter more now and the passing of friends and even the sound of leaves seem to be more important than they used to be. I miss Morrie but have a treasure of stories to remember.

You can see a very short video of Morrie by going to Materials and clicking on "Morrie".

The French Thing

So almost back to that part of Canada for awhile, snow and cold. I'm sorry to have doing some work on my script on another who wants to make it, but that's another movie.

Right now I'm pushing into a lot of information for the screenplay called Chase, I mentioned that now and then. The first is part of the screenplay is about a man driving in L.A. and spots a young girl being taken into a van. It seems to be easy but it's not, and not what he thinks it is nor what the girl was.

I mentioned it sometime that it's now called the French name though. It's called La Poursuite. Same thing. I also let the director/writer come in with me for it. I'm still in it and have first name on the credits.

I got a little bit of money to start and we're hoping to finish it next year -- that is 2020.

The movie is in reality a car chase but it turns out to be a lot of different things. My story led the man into the Mojave Desert in my beautiful desert hills but it is going to be different. A big different.

Like the French mountains.

Yes, my movie will be made in the French mountains but it's still the same story.

But for now I have to deal with things like money. The thing is, if I stay in France on the job I will lose a fair amount of money. And that's because Europe has the Euro. What does it mean?

Like this, they paid me as a basic big of money just in case the movie falls apart. And movies do fall apart. But my movie is so far going along within the principals, being me and the director and the money people looking for money.

So here's the problem. I got $2000 for a small basic. The big money comes in when the major people come into it and are ready to make the movie. And what happens is that basic will hold for awhile.
But there's another thing; that $2000 arrived at my bank and left with $3000.

Where did that come from?

From Europe. The European money takes a lot of money from writers or cameramen or anyone on the set and/or part of the movie.

Where does it come?

That $2000 basic gives me an extra piece of money in $3000. And that's if I stay in Canada. Europe has really horrible taxes and so that's if I stay in Canada I get more money than the people there working don't.

So don't you think it's not fair? Don't you want to be on the set?

A long time I learned that nobody on the sets don't really know or care me. One writer said once that you're just someone who is an annoyance and hangs around with the food people. I learned that once and kept it that way.

So it's not going to be bad for me, in fact I will get a lot more than the original.

Right now I'm signing more papers for me being not in Europe. I can go to Paris next year.

So I'm sorry to be so long to deal with this and some other ideas.

Teaching

I'm considering teaching screenwriting again on line. I've done it before as you can see above and have enjoyed it teaching UCLA in Los Angeles. Also, I have a book on screenwriting which you can learn page by page. You can also see the book.

The sheet above is hard to put on due to the real size, sorry to do it too small.

Here's a page or so of what I wrote.

1-Liner response

First of all, I have to say the some of the ideas presented this class are some of the most interesting and challenging ideas I’ve seen for a long time. I am anxiously looking forward to their development.

 What you strive for in this business, is to come up with something recognizable, yet fresh and different. There are only a handful of stories in this world, constantly retold. What makes a tired story fresh – that’s hard to say but easy to see afterwards. What made The Graduate different from all the college teen movies before it, what made the Godfather different from the Cagney/Edward G. Robinson movies, what made The Unforgiven different from True Grit.

 The studios want something they recognize, thus the genres… a suspense thriller will always get attention, it gets an audience. Basic Instinct was no different than tons of “noir” stories, but they pushed up the sex and cast it with Douglas and Stone and it worked. This is what you have to do and it isn’t necessarily a compromise either. This goes for art movies as well, Merchant & Ivory created a demand for British period pieces, but mostly because they cast and made them well, with great scripts that related to today.

 One of the problems I see so much today are writers who are reasonably good, but who write clichés. They lack originality. Some of these writers sell their work, but it’s because they have connections and/or are in the “club”. I can almost sell an action adventure story without even thinking about what I’m writing, I can send you a script I wrote for a director friend that literally has no idea, just a series of clichéd scenes, and the damn thing is going into production, albeit for a low budget of $500,000.

 But I wrote it in 2 weeks, start to finish, almost as a joke. But I have those connections and they know what they’ll get in a Makichuk script is something that they can cast and film and will have reasonably interesting characters.  And someone watching it can say, “I can write something as good as that”, and they can. But they won’t be able to sell it without connections and a reputation. 

But I “earned” that position by writing some really good scripts, most of which still haven’t been made and may never be made, so it’s really a two-edged sword, I can write things that can sell, but still have problems making my best scripts.

But I’m not alone in that, everyone in this town has trouble trying to make what they want, with the exception of a few at the top, and even they have problems with projects close to their heart. Robert Duval had to finance The Apostle with his own money. I had a meeting at Dustin Hoffman’s company last year where they talked about a project Hoffman wanted to make for very little money but no studio in town would do it.

I am making my comments available to all of you at the same time, and would like you to read all of the comments rather than just your own (naturally I’m assuming you’ll do it anyways).  As I mentioned, some of you have far more experience in screenwriting than others, but I can balance my comments to all of you at whatever level you’re at.

 And remember that the choice is yours, these are only my comments. I want you to take into consideration all that the others have mentioned in the forums and make your own decisions.  And remember, you can talk about the ideas with me, but you need to start working on the one-page outline this week.

So that's a little bit of on-line teaching.

Might send you a few more bits and piece

So that's when you can't lose your boss.

So again, you have to keep those payroll people and the bosses remembering that they have to pay you. Of course my screenplay was read a bunch of times around town but until it hit Hallmark where it was dumped into a pile for three years.

I think I mentioned it before, but just for the newbies. A woman who knew some people at Hallmark (notice "friend/friends) rooted into a bunch of scripts and somehow she liked the script and that she could make it.

And yes, she optioned it. Of course you never know that anything ever goes through the optioning. I waited for a month or so and gave up. I think June or so. 

Then, if you read the story this last week, I never knew that the screenplay was read and seen without anyone telling me anything. If my director friend didn't come into contact with the producer I really would have never known I had a fully packed with Writer's Guild of Canada.

Nobody believed me.

Then, as you read (it has a date of the screenplay) nobody knew I existed. 

So then, I called WGC of course and they were all ready to do what WGC does. And if you read, it took just over 2 weeks to settle. Actually not settle, it was mine. Read it again if you haven't in the last week.

I went through all types of people who pass everything to someone else. There was a problem because I lived in L.A. and was it WGA or WGC. 

Finally, it all came to the end. I got a phone call from a woman with a rusty voice like she had been at this company more than the company itself. I immediately thought that she was the one.

She was, working probably when the company opened. She knew everything right now and there. She knew her stuff. It was Friday and she and her hoarse voice said simply;

"You'll have it Monday."

And guess what;  She did.

And by the way, wanna know who bought the screenplay?

She liked the young girl in the Christmas movie because the young girl reminds her of her daughter.

All for Christmas

Well, sorry for being so long. Transferring from XP to much faster with other things that make me crazy  with computers. 

And Christmas also comes to that nice season where everything is pure and nice.

Well, almost nice.

Well, some of you might have read my pre- Christmas story of which I'll tell you how to write a Christmas story in June and how it was never paid. My Christmas Story was written early around 2010. I had a few people who liked it but haven't made any deals. The script went to Hallmark and they kept it as far as I knew. 

Then a lovely lady found the screenplay amongst the other Christmas stories and she loved it. Well, sort of, she loved the lovely girl in the lovely screenplay. So it was taken for consideration. 

The screenplay was possibly going to get made. I didn't really think it would have been made so I wasn't really hopeful. Several months passed by and nothing happened. 

Until ---

A friend of mine was in Toronto for the film festival and happened to meet a producer friend of his who had several Christmas movies from Hallmark. So my friend knew I had a script somewhere around Christmas and asked him if my story was one of his?

The producer said that it was made.

So, now, what did my friend mention to me in L.A. that my Christmas movie was not only filmed and it's being sold here.

And I did not know it was made.

Then I had to talk with the producer and other people and took two weeks to finally get paid. There it took several people who were struggling to figure out why I wasn't paid.

I actually have a good piece of work explaining how I got my money. I'm trying to find that piece of work and bring it out again.

Found it.

Go to:  Monday, April 17 2017
 (Where you can see how my screenplay payment took all of 2 wks.)

Blood Games

Sorry again, just a bunch of work to try to work with my original agent who wants to hang with him as he's been down for a while. At my time, there's few agents who want anyone who hasn't been seen or didn't want to see me and more or they are out of the agencies forever.

So my first real agency I found a smart woman was on Hollywood Boulevard and figured that this might take me somewhere where I could at least say "I've got an agent". She was working for a small company and was a lot smarter than her boss but still wasn't good enough to make me a hollywood jock.

But she did sell me a screenplay and it was made and you can actually see it on youtube.

So what did I write?

Before this moment, I had written this screenplay about a girl's baseball team who drives across America playing baseball with farmers and odd people and even now I still wonder why I wrote it. Maybe it was because my wife and I decided to go different ways.

So this movie was to be sort of a semi-hot girls baseball team who get into trouble with a bunch of hillbillies somewhere in places you don't want to go to.  And these girls and their driver/coach happen to find a bunch of rednecks.

So, I still wonder why I wrote it and even better someone bought it.

The girls were okay but someone got killed of course and the girls get out of town. But the bad guys are coming after them. But the girls weren't softies and so there's some real battles. But several girls are pretty tough. So it was a battle like that.

But some of the producers put me behind their own names. My name was way in the back.
But so I get a credit at the back. And I actually had a movie made.

I had a title before but someone decided to write it Blood Games. And yes, you can find it on youtube and most of the writing was actually was done by me, with less horror but more action.

Oh well.

My first movie.

Back again

Finally back from a lot of work on my laptop, eventually had to let it go and go to something a little big faster. Or they say so? So where was I?

Still having problems with my Ghostkeeper movie which I wrote and directed way back in 1983. Those of you who are wondering "I'm that old?" What about this, I had my first "laptop" that came from a video game called Atari which was one of the gaming companies for teenagers. And this was the big deal. Before this we (all screenwriters) slowly began to realize that this could be a great thing.

Here's how I worked.  I was typing on paper. Imagine that. And if you missed a word you would have to re-do your entire by the classic typewriters. If you spelled a word wrong you had to re-type it again. 

We thought this was the deal.

One of my friends was one of the first "laptop" which consisting of 2 screens. One for typing and one for giving you words. This was incredible. I would be able to type words electrically. I could change a bad word easily and the newer ones where even faster.

It was beating the typewriter by miles. I could write and make a mistake and correct it. In the old days I had to erase a word or even a sentence, or a whole page for one error. I had a newer one now and stash my Smith-Corona for ever. I had now was using the new screenwriter that I could read anything and if I made a mistake I simply pop the word out and re-do it in seconds.

So that's finishing finally. Now I can get back as long as my partially new laptop. 

Sorry - Ghostkeeper comes back - or not

Sorry but a lot of Gkpr stuff that will never get right, with a lot of people who have no heart. I know the business and how cruel it could be. Like I made a movie and they had nothing to it.

Funny about this, I never thought I'd get so much attention basically with all those horror people who "discovered" Gkpr made by a guy and the other day, who made a short film at the 1976 Academies. And the same winning in Canada the same year.

Well, there's a lot of problems now because someone took Gkpr for himself to sell and threaten anyone else for trying.

So I'm in one of those potential things for now.

Gotta work a little more for the next few days.

Never know what will become?

Hang on.


Meantime I'm ready for Terminator; Dark Fate

Vietnam

I left Vancouver (the Canadian city) and returned to my little city of Windsor at began going to Henry Ford Community College as this was Ford territory as well as GM and Chrysler.

This was the beginning for Vietnam and America and when you were over than 18 you were probably going to Vietnam. It didn't bother me because I was Canadian but I had a lot of American friends. This was also the beginning of battling with having to go and those who ran to Canada and stay there. Some went to jail.

Ironically I met a psych tech finishing her classes and was about three years older than me. We continued meeting in Detroit often and continued until.  And I still do. I have a street she might have lived on but that was gone.

But there was a war going on two fronts, Vietnam and also the anti-war movement which included both men and women and a few crazy groups. I decided to see what the battles were on both the U.S. and far away in another country which I wondered about. There was also that home front battle grounds. To me it was Detroit. I didn't know what I would do really, but wanted to be part of it.

Ironically I ended up in Indianapolis on a bus packed with hundreds of us going to work for Bobby Kennedy. I had never been to "Indiana" but was there in midnight in the bad part of town with a hundred or so of us looking for cheap hotels paid by Kennedy. I ended up the next days going to the black areas and I wondered how I would make it through. But I found the homes and families very happy to see me, they loved Bobby.

It was scary for sure, but being a Canadian boy in a dark city, it was a great time. But the best time was to be when Bobby came to town and I saw him in a car waving and smiling. I didn't know that a few months more he would be dead. I stayed more around Detroit now, closer to home and the bridge over two different cities. I would see my psych now and then as she was working in a hospital.

I found myself spending more time in the city and less in Canada. I had a dozen or so cousins as well who lived in Detroit, which made it much easier. But school became a problem, I wanted to do more of all the things going on in the big city and got into some radical group of which I realized I was not really hanging with these, they were far to dangerous for me. I also needed a job and had to go back to Windsor, the little city across the river.

But now in my 20's, I was thinking about a job, something that I could enjoy, even if my dad said that jobs aren't enjoyable. He worked as a garage mechanic, and a good one. But I was not sure about that. Windsor was a factory city, part of the massive Detroit city. Almost all of my friends worked in the big companies.

I went to a job office and looked at a few jobs until I noticed that there was an opening for the local TV station. As you know, I loved TV and always had dreams about it. Now was the chance. I went to the TV station that afternoon and had an interview. I had to promise to stay here forever of course, but I figured nobody would want someone who had a stammer. Nobody hires those people.

But magic did happen. They hired me. I was an office "boy" going from office to office and errands. For me, it was magic. I remember now how I entered the station and walk through the studios. It was empty and dark and the cameras seemed to hang their heads down like dinosaurs.

It was the movies! And I was in it. Sort off.

I lasted for 6 months until someone else left the station and left an opening. I was going to cut TV commercials. I was going to cut commercials to insert into the broadcasts. Remember this is very basic, 1966. I figured it out and kept cutting. I soon found that I would probably stay at that job until someone else dies.

Our radio station was also within the TV station and was actually a big-time radio station owned by Americans. And not too long, someone had left and there was an opening. Our radio station was the biggest around. "The Big 8" . And I applied.

But it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I was editing audios for the DJ's. (Disc Jockey). However it wasn't what I thought, it was fast, hard work and I really didn't belong. So I could go back to cutting commercials. Or I could be let go. We actually owned a major trio of radio stations that were huge.
And I wasn't particularly good at it.

So now what? Do I go back to cutting commercials?

Or do I just go?

Will I go back to writing articles against the war against Vietnam? I did some good writing for Vets For Peace.

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Someone asked me how many blogs I wrote a few years ago. I looked around and was quite impressed. I never thought I would last the year. But it's not a race, it's just that I gotta lot of stuff to show, even now.

And wonder how far they can stretch it.

But I do have a way to keep going.

I have the movie industry. And it goes back to the Greeks. In fact it was the Greeks. Before that a lot of writing on the rock. Lotta rocks still hanging around today too. And we managed to find a lot of
these writers. Maybe they always had a rock guy to tell stories, he'd hang around with the ladies maybe.

But it all comes to now. Stories. Everybody has stories, made up or heard and even stories.

I wrote my first story in Grade 6, something about a guy who fell in love with his schoolteacher who was eight years older. But never forgotten. I grew up in the black and white TV series era, just at the edge of color. A 21-inch TV was almost as good as a movie.

My mom said I would have to have glasses if you don't hurt yourself. I would go to any movie I could pay for, twenty-five cents! I also bought "comic" books. And I kept them until I was married and my mom threw away about 200 or so.

Then, I discovered a new book. Well, actually not new, but the book was new to my life. Some of you probably have seen the person. Jack Kerouac. If you haven't you should.

Kerouac was one of a large group who, after the 2nd World War would hang out with university students and drive across the U.S. just for the hell of it. They weren't in the war but began to be what would become the "Beat Generation", which would lead towards writers who led to "Beatniks". Jazz and blues flowed through college campuses.

So you can imagine what this 15 year old kid was reading. I took it from the library whenever it was there. It was "On The Road". (And I still have one of the books). I began reading Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, two others who hung with Kerouac.

But there was another part to my story. My father would always take us to visit family across the country often and finding motels and statues of Pal Bunyan in the mid-west. And food we never knew of, like something called pizza.

You can begin to see things?

I went through a good Catholic school where we drove Sister Anna Catherine crazy. By now I was reading more of Kerouac and his companions who really brought in the hippies and Vietnam. And you know what that led to.

When I graduated from high school I had no idea what I was going to do. I lived in a small automobile factory across the river from Detroit but my heart was in that city. 5 million people. I went to a college there and wasn't really exciting about anything except that Vietnam had begun
across the ocean. And friends of mine could go there to fight. Since I was Canadian I didn't have to worry.

But those days were great for me, I had American cousins and so spent lots of time in a tough city that was ready to explode besides Vietnam. I remembered very well when Detroit exploded with black and white. When I crossed the tunnel border we were stopped by National Guard soldiers who said that they would not accompany us -- and we were on our own.

Of course, we weren't in real danger, but possibilities. But downtown Detroit was dangerous, smoke and fire. And a lot of people died.

But now I had two years and wondering what I would be doing. My friends tried working in the factories of both cities but weren't sure either. Three of them decided the easy way - school teacher.

Someone told me about getting cars from Detroit to car dealers in the west coast and it didn't sink in until I remembered Kerouac and "OnThe Road". He was born in 1922 and died while I was still alive and living. And I was "on the road" myself driving across America in some salesman's vehicle that would be put up for sale somewhere near Seattle, a city I never knew much about.

After that I would fly to Vancouver to see my cousin and my aunt and uncle. But right now I was travelling alone and I was as close to Kerouac as I could ever know. And the beginning of a life with highways and movies.

Want to learn screenwriting?

I haven't for gotten the Ghostkeeper issue and am working more to find out who has my movie and how they have it and why they have it and also where they live. Or house.

But let's go to a different story.

I don't know if any of you have known that I taught screenwriting for 6 years or something like that. I spent a lot of time writing features and tv for about 10 years and always liked to talk to people about the business. And by 10 years I really decided to try it out. I knew a friend who knew a friend who had connections to the UCLA screenwriting courses. So I decided to teach screenwriting to UCLA students and people who could also join in.

It didn't talk long and I was on staff. I was going to teach courses to both types of students and had courses that were basically real UCLA teaching. Some were going for credits and some were just there to see if they could write a script and make lots of money.

Well, that's not that easy but again I had UCLA behind me and that gave me one hell of a shot right there. So how did I do this? I had about 14 years behind me, including my first one, Ghostkeeper. But also by now I had a pretty sense of writing movies and tv and with real credits behind me. I had about 40 different movies and TV series by them.

And I talk a lot and have a sense of humor.

I managed to do this for as long as I could, sometimes working on a screenplay while teaching on line. Online is basically taught by a teacher and students who email and even some personal students who I met, even one man who was in his early 90's and always wanted to write. In fact he already had written one. And not bad.

I quite enjoyed teaching, learning how to handle students and how to do my best to talk to. I had a student in Switzerland, another in South Korea, mostly though it was students from the U.S. You can see some of my work way back in 2004 or so. I haven't kept much of my teaching but still have the teaching courses.

Teaching on line turned out to be a lot of fun and had a lot of students who came back for courses. There were also some who taught I wasn't that good but I found that those who were not happy were more like expecting to know my courses were magical and find that they weren't. That's always tough as having to satisfy around 12 to 13 students, you get the good ones and the ones who think I'm not as good as they thought. Can't win them all, but I always had good classes.

The truth is, you can only be as good as you can. Like my senior screenwriter who, as I said, had a good story. He was the early 90's and hoped to see his screenplay work, but he passed earlier, a gentleman and a lot of fun.

I did hang out with some of the students who, of course, were in L.A. And I always wanted to meet the Swiss student who had to take that train so she could send her emails.

Where Am I?

So I'm here nor knowing where my distributor Bill is but I do know his brother and someone who is selling Ghostkeeper on his own. I discovered where the someone is. And the distrib's brother who does not want to do anything with the Bill. I don't know how or why his brother and the mystery man do not want to know anything about Bill.

So where is Bill. He said hello to me that he said he was in the hospital.

But what hospital? How many hospitals can you count in L.A., or in Seattle where I knew where he was for the 14 yrs before it expired. And what makes his brother and mystery man who both say they will not speak  to him again. What did he do? Or not do.

I suppose that it's got something to do with videos as either he stole videos or take what belongs to him. But once again, it seems to not be only Ghostkeeper only. A few weeks ago I got emails from both Bill's brother and mystery man.

Both of them will not have anything to do with Bill.

Once again, they will not have anything to do with Bill.

So what does that have to do with me? Bill's brother emailed me to say he's found a DVD of Ghostkeeper, and that's all he knows about his brother. Or at least used to know.

But why does Bill's brother "find" a real 35mm feature film of Ghostkeeper for me?. I'm not sure what that's about. I wouldn't mind the 6 or so reels but hardly find useful. First I don't have a projector to run it and secondly I don't know how good it could be. I don't carry 6 or 7 reels of 35mm film.

I still didn't really understand him giving me the reels.

So, at this point this is where I am.

First, Bill's distribution memorandum Ghostkeeper. It's for Code Red DVD. There's a few more points mounting 3 pages of all that stuff nobody wants to read. But I have read it clearly and does not go on till 2019.  Signed by both of us. Ending around 2011.

So we're now in 2019 and someone I don't know is selling my 1980 yr old movie being sold blu-ray movies under blu-ray.

We don't talk to him

Okay...


So this is my distributor in the hospital. I listened to him and thought that it's all good and that since he's in the hospital and seeming healthy he must be reasonably okay. I said we'll talk about Blu-ray videos. Which I thought this would put the pieces together. Also I never got a Blu-ray video neither during the big disappearance.

So I picked up some names and horror fans and collectors as well. But I did get one thing. My distrib had part of the distribution, who looks very close to my guy. Short, fat guys. Nice guys too. I think I met Bro 2. You rarely get good distributors because they get your money first.

My first distrib, from Israel was a lesson and left us with no money at all. This was my first lesson.
After that all I had left was the distributor of my leading actress. He managed to get video for Canada. This was 90's and the movie was pretty much dead.

But then, someone spotted my old video and liked it. And he was a feature film company person and worked for New World Video. This took Ghostkeeper to video. It lasted for awhile and enough that it began to sell the video all over the world. Surprise.

At this time, early 2000's Ghostkeeper begin playing in South America and other countries. They had some great covers, way crazier than our hotel-in-snow. One never suggested that it was snow, why not make the cover completely crazy, a monster and south american creature.

A long way from the Canadian Rockies.

And then I began hearing reviews on Ghostkeeper, mostly half and half. And they were coming from Germany and other European horror fans always looking for new movies. And many times finding old ones like mine. My movie was a hit of sorts so I began getting "fan mail".

But the big thing began to come from England where there were well-written articles on horror films and of course, Ghostkeeper. And really good articles. One writer wrote a very good article on Ghostkeeper, not always given it good comments but smart. By now I began getting fans myself.

And now I discovered the distribution person who seemed pretty good, he told me what he was doing. He threw in better dvd and finally and Blu-ray.

Now what?

* Had a break in my laptop for 3 days...

Life and Death

So... right after...

What am a I doing here, besides returning to see my friends and a few who don't. Right from Crave, I walk walk a block down towards the short end of Ventura and Van Nuys. I really like the idea of private stores and only a few company stores and even a Joe's.

But what I'm going to talk about is very different and actually about legality. Here's what it means to me. First this; by now most of you know about Ghostkeeper, my first feacher which I made in 1980 for about $1,800,000. Not a lot but enough to make an okay movie way back then. 

I had a distributor (known as not very honest) who basically spent all monies for himself. Unfortunately after several years he died. Then somehow someone connected us to a distributor called Bill Olsen who also had a brother in the business. But that's just beginning.

Bill did pretty good to me, I did get money, not great but then Ghostkeeper wasn't a great movie. Bill put us into dvd's finally rather than the old videos. It went good. But then Bill started Blu-ray and he disappeared. 

But before he gave me $4000.

And then he really disappeared. And this is a really interesting story.

I began to track down Bill, but it was almost impossible, in fact it was impossible.

At this time I was seeing a company you'll see ahead, but you can see that he was selling Ghostkeeper.

I was looking around for Ghostkeeper videos and accidentally I found out who was selling my movie. He was a video house and had a lot of Blu-ray videos... and Ghostkeeper.

Then one night I was looking around for video horror fans talking to each other. I wasn't sure but I thought it might be interesting. There's a lot of then but somehow, that night it turned out very good.

I listened and then Ghostkeeper was spoken.

By Bill.  

"Hi, Jim"
"Hey Bill, where are you."

"I'm in the hospital."


 

S.O.B.

Sorry, I'm still putting together the remains of my Sherman Oaks trip and will have a reasonable batch of notes that might be of interest. These two are some of my friends since 1990, Joe is an actor and has worked on various shows since he came to the west. His friend, and mine, is retired and walks his dog. They sitting in the coffee joint. It can begin and crowd up to 5 or 6 men and two women who mysteriously seemed to enter our group and fit well.

The lead of the group is a musician, around 80 who tells great stories about "the road" where is the big man. He rules it. One republican attempts to join but rarely manages to tell us bad stories about Biden and Warren. We had a fight once.

I realized I didn't shoot a lot of photos, I guess I felt that it was just a "simple day", and now I wish I would have shot more. I don't shoot people, ironically, when I was a tv cameraman I had enough shots with people in accidents and other nasty things. So mostly I do trees and stuff. Although I was in a shooting about 50 feet away. In Detroit a long time ago.


So here's more of the trip, eh? I'll have more Monday.

Surprise and more

Once again using the old Georgia font, I have finally hit Sherman Oaks where I lived and worked. And nobody forgot.

No, they didn't kick me out. My first place was the second day's morning, straight  to Crave, the corner cafe which always felt like Morocco. It's fulled with every kind of person you can think of.

And so, that day I passed the papers and magazine, although it still sold newspaper. I bought a Los Angeles Times which I always read and of course read it for the good and the bad and the whatevers.

But the first is the Crave Cafe on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Van Nuys, the streets you would be always filled with everything and everyone. And right now I entered the Crave and it's empty. Eight o'clock and I was the second person. But I saw the girl at the cashier and immediately smiles. "You're back". The older cook walked from beyond and hugged me.

Home again.

From now on, I have friends. 

I had a great breakfast and moved west towards the next long block. There were some new cafes and stores but not franchise stuff. They're local stuff with a few Mexican cafes. I walked faster as I waited cars going "up the hill" in spite of locals. I wait till the light turns and even then make sure I won't get driven into the cracked pavement.

When it's a little bit safer I walked past crossing the street and aim for the big show. I know exactly where they are and who they are. But it's been a little more time. I knew someone had passed away.

Ahead of me, there lays the "group" taking most of the Starbucks crowd. The group are mixed, there was the big guy, the oldest, around early 80's and followed a variety of characters of every kind, they come and go often but it's always busy. I walked in and they all looked, even the one republican. And so we sat as people pass by us and said hello's and even the man with a tall long Great Dane who does not like another do who doesn't like him either. I talked with two good friends and learned about who got a deal in a short film and another who's got some TV work. 

It's a movie town. Everyone works movies, even though a Starbucks worker emails his or her agent calls their job. And the ages, as I said, everyone is really "going to make it" The older ones smile.

Sorry to wait so long.

In L.A.

I'm on my way to LA and look forward about everything you've read in the past. I can't do any work as I can't find a way to do my blog for the next two weeks.

Okay, So I found out that I can continue.

So I will write all the way to Sherman Oaks, the best place to be in and now I'll have no excuse to eat one I'n -Out burger every day because it's just a block away.

So I will began today. When I arrive.

Traveling

I'm going to travel a little bit to my old home sweet home, as in Sherman Oaks. I'll have some time with friends and also trying to find my Ghostkeeper distributor(s). As of now I just know that there is someone who sells Ghostkeeper and I don't get any money.


And as said before, that I am going to drive to that place I mentioned a few blogs past. I'll bring my director friend as well.

I'm not sure if I'll do any blogs so if you don't see any. But you have 10 years to go back and see a hell of a lot of stories.

But I'll be sure to find some.



 
 

A good review

Ghostkeeper

Director: Jim Makichuk
Writers: Jim Makichuk, Douglas MacLeod
Producer: Harold J Cole
Cast: Riva Spier, Murray Ord, Sherri McFadden
Country: Canada
Year of release: 1980
Reviewed from: UK VHS (Apex)

Good old Apex Video. They could always be relied on to pick some completely cool but utterly arbitrary piece of artwork and slap it on their sleeves. They were the company who released Al Adamson’s Dracula vs Frankenstein behind a painting of banner-waving armies attacking a futuristic superfortress. For Ghostkeeper (or Ghost Keeper as the sleeve has it) they gave us a hideous monster, composed in roughly equal parts of an eagle, a skeleton and a devil, lunging out of a blood-red sky above Aztec pyramids in a South American jungle.

Not bad for a film about a North American ghost monster which is set high in the Rockies.

Marty (Murray Ord), his girlfriend Jenny (Riva Spier: Rabid) and their friend Chrissy (Sherri McFadden) are exploring on a couple of Skidoos on New Year’s Eve, while the rest of their party, back at some rented lodge that we never see, is preparing for, well, a party. Jenny is serious, intense and brunette, dressed in a blue snowsuit with high waist and flared trousers; Chrissy is blonde, a bit more relaxed sexually and dressed in red. Frankly, they look like 50 per cent of an Abba tribute act. Marty, for his part, is a bit of an arse. Their characters are all established in an opening scene when they look round a remote general store, run by an old guy (played by Les Kimber, who is normally found behind the camera as production manager on pictures up to and including Superman).

Marty and Jenny’s relationship is a little tense, not helped by the way that Chrissy is flirting with him and the fact that he doesn’t seem to mind it. Just to add extra spice, Jenny is haunted by the fear that she has inherited her mother’s insanity.

Despite the storekeeper’s suggestion to turn back, they explore past a sign reading ‘Private property - keep out’ and find a huge, utterly remote hotel, the Deer Lodge. It seems to be deserted and the visitors book shows that no-one has stayed there for five years - so why is the heating working?

Bad weather and accidental damage to Chrissy’s Skidoo force them to stay the night and they discover they are not alone when Marty is attacked by an old woman (Georgie Collins) whose character is credited only as ‘Ghostkeeper’. She turns out to be living - and possibly working - in the hotel and strangely circumvents questions as to whether anyone else is around, making a mysterious reference to “my boy.”

She shows them to rooms that they can use, but while Chrissy is having a bath she is attacked by a guy with a beard and a woolly hat who is (we can safely presume) the old woman’s son. He drags her, naked, to a distant part of the hotel where she is thrown into a room with a wild-looking individual who may or may not be entirely human - after having her throat cut. The guy in the woolly hat is credited as ‘Danny’ and played by Billy Grove, the wild-looking guy is played by John MacMillan and credited as ‘Windigo’. Neither is ever referred to as such, although an opening caption has told us: “In the Indian Legends of North America, there exists a creature called Windigo... a ghost who lives on human flesh.”

In the morning, Marty finds Chrissy missing, her Skidoo vanished and his own vehicle deliberately tampered with. While he is busy looking for equipment to repair the machine, Jenny is given a drugged cup of tea by the old woman. She comes to in a different room where, instead of wondering where she is, she browses through a book about Native American legends and finds an old newspaper with the headline ‘Mutilated bodies found’. She then escapes chainsaw-wielding Danny, running up to the top of the hotel from where he falls to his death, impaled on railings below.

Jenny begs Marty to leave (through the waist-deep snow) but he seems to have gone bonkers, painting his face with grease and ranting about crazy stuff while holding her tighter than she would like. He then wanders off into the snow.

Returning to the main hotel, Jenny faces a showdown with the old lady who reveals something which explains why Jenny has been hearing faint voices calling her name since she got there, but which otherwise makes no sense. The ending is very weird, very bleak and yet strangely satisfying.

When I say ‘makes no sense’, in fact there is some sense to it. By the time that the 90-minute picture finishes it is fairly clear that Jenny has in fact gone completely loopy. However, much like the main character in Neil Marshall’s superb The Descent, made 25 years later, we are left wondering precisely when in the story what we were seeing stopped being real and started being the product of Jenny’s deranged mind. The implication is that she will take over from the old woman as the Windigo’s ‘ghostkeeper’ but since no-one ever talks about a Windigo we’re left wondering whether the locked-up hairy guy really is the creature of legend or just some mad bloke. Or does he exist at all?

For such an obscure film, Ghostkeeper is strangely satisfying, even on this barely watchable, full-screen video which is a dark transfer of an already dark film. There is nothing silly here, there are some bits of genuine horror (such as the throat slitting), there are no pat explanations or lame attempts at humour, the three main characters are believable, and the last 15-20 minutes is tense and horrific, treading the middle ground between psychological and supernatural horror. It kept me gripped, although I think the sleeve’s claim of ‘SUSPENSE, HORROR and DRAMA in the true Hitchcockian tradition’ may be pushing it a bit.

Given that this was filmed in Alberta I can only assume that the Inaccurate Movie Database has got its facts right for once and that the actor playing Marty is the same Murray Ord who went on to be President of the Alberta Film Commission, location manager for everything from Airwolf to Shoebox Zoo, and producer of Brokeback Mountain!

Writer/director Jim Makichuk is a former news cameraman whose short films earned him a Genie and an Oscar nomination. His subsequent career has mostly been on the writing side, where his credits include the 1999 sci-fi movie Roswell: The Aliens Attack, episodes of Highlander: The Series and the 2002 Gentle Ben telemovie! Co-writer Douglas MacLeod, who is also associate producer, went on to produce a bunch of stuff for Canadian TV. Someone called David Makichuk (brother? father? son?) gets a ‘story consultant’ credit here.

Cinematographer John Holbrook allegedly directed an ultra-obscure 1970s porn/horror picture with the unpronouncable title Sexcula. Mel Merrells gets the possibly unique credit ‘special effects/generator operator’; the ‘special effects’ amounts to one small Skidoo explosion so he would not have needed to leave the generator unattended for very long. Composer Paul Zaza has by far the longest filmography of anyone here, his credits including Murder By Decree, Porky’s, My Bloody Valentine, The Pink Chiquitas and all four Prom Nights.

Ghostkeeper is a decent little film, dating from the last days of independent 35mm theatrical releases (it was distributed in the States by New World) before the video explosion. It’s probably the lack of star names (and the fact that it’s Canadian) which has kept the film so obscure because there’s nothing really wrong with it. If it has a failing, it’s that the whole Windigo thing is so tangential as to be barely there. It makes one wonder whether that was tacked on after the fact because, apart from the opening caption and the closing credits, there is nothing to suggest any connection with ‘Indian Legends’ whatsoever. This is a Windigo movie which is almost entirely lacking in Windigos.

MJS rating: B

review originally posted 8th January 2006

Bad day sort of

Okay, so I got some money from France, that's nice. But I'm not sure when they will shoot the movie, I've heard maybe next February. Well, wait.

And around the beginning of September where I have one of those horrible things called age.

I'm going to Sherman Oaks in L.A. where I was there before. I have a few jobs, mostly friends and two agents and also try to find my Ghostkeeper movie.

I had a distributor for Ghostkeeper these last 15 years but now has disappeared.  I got $4000 three years ago and since then he has disappeared. I lost track of him and have heard of him nor anyone who knows him.

But I started to try to find him by phone. His phone answers but nobody else does.  So I started to see where Ghostkeeper can be sold or whatever. And I did find it. It is a horror film sales and sure enough Ghostkeeper is being sold.

But there's no way to speak to anyone there, there is no phone. Movies there are sold from somewhere else. I continued to try to find my original blu-ray but I can't get to it. My distributor paid me $4000 four years ago and that's it.

And then I found more information.

It was a horror distributor that had Ghostkeeper. 
But it not easy.

It's called 2019, Ronin Flix.
And it has an address.

155 Granada Street, Suite D I Camarillo 93010

So I found more; 

I looked at my phone and saw that I was looking down on:

Camarillo Mobile Home Park.

A mobile park? Or is it a distribution company?

The image is night, but I can see a mobile park.

So I am going there. And see who it is. And how much money he/she have?

Camarillo is not far from the valley. 

Now, here's another thing; if you want, try and find it. Of course you have to be in the valley.