What Cooperage gave us

As you can imagine, we were pretty hot in Vancouver; the two guys who failed at a well-known arts school in the Rocky Mountains. We really didn't fail as this course was not for competition. We just had shorts that nobody liked. But I like to say I failed, along with Phil. Above were me on left and Phil with his bag in Seattle where we played Cooperage for the Northwest film seminar, of which we attended often even when I had left Vancouver.

We were hot for awhile but short films have short memories. I was still working as an editor in Vancouver and Phil and I started to work on projects that we wanted to do. Phil did two more short films and won two more. 

Since I didn't have any stories to sell I kept hanging around with Phil and a lot of friends that I still keep with. 

There's a lesson there with us, we wouldn't have done well without each other even if we were doing different things. I was still editing and tired of it until I saw a notice for a TV station in Regina, Saskatchewan, a small city mostly for the provincial government. I knew a little of the city, certainly not Vancouver.

But, the real thing was -- the job was a writer/producer. A lot different than editing old movies. But one more thing - Regina is in the middle of nowhere, on the prairies. The closest town was called Moose Jaw with population around 40,ooo people. Far from the beautiful climate in Vancouver, on the ocean.

Writer/Producer hammered at me. It's a job, I knew that part of Canada, I was raised a hundred miles away. My home town was 895 people in Manitoba. Even though I lived in Windsor/Detroit, my heart was and still is my home which now is around 50 people. In fact it was where I fell in love with a young teacher and kept in touch with her until even today. I was 12 years old. 

I'll tell you more later.

As I was flying to Regina it was winter and coming over the flat prairies was a memory as I grew up like this. It was also white, snow white, winter. I landed and met the boss and two other producers at the TV station a mile outside of the city. The boss already knew of Cooperage and the festival wins.

The meeting was quite short and I had the job. But as I looked outside in snow around, I realized that Vancouver was a long way away.

I came back to Vancouver as a real writer/producer. I would miss a lot of friends and Vancouver was now booming with filmmaking from Hollywood. A lot closer than Regina.

Goodbye and welcome.

 

Beginning to move

A few years before...

Everything was going great. This was early 70's and if you were close to Detroit you were in rock and roll heaven. And when the second wave of English rock blasted into our neighborhood, it was unbelievable. 

There was Motown of course, but there also were local rockers, Bob Seger and Alice Cooper and a dozen or more other local music. And I got chances to shoot them in local bars. Everything was rolling. 

But I was now working at my TV station as a soundman for TV news. We had two 3-man crews; I held the sound and the cameraman shot in 16 mm film and a news reporter. But by now I was getting the feeling that I've been here too long. And it looked as though I would be a soundman. My wife was from Toronto, the big time but she didn't want to go back there.

Until I got a call from a network in Toronto and someone wanted me as a film cameraman. It was my break. Except for my wife, she wanted to stay in Windsor, across the river. I would be working there.

I took the job, stayed at my wife's place and started shooting film. One of the biggest difference between Toronto and Detroit was that it was totally different than in one way.
No homicides and big city action. Toronto at that time was quiet for a few million people.

And I missed it. But you can't go back sometimes. I did notice local Toronto filmmakers all around making shorts and a few features. But it didn't work. I got fired.

my wife wanted Detroit and I knew that I couldn't get back my original start. I hung around T.O. as they called it but it wasn't enough. Do I go back - or -

My Banff mountain school friend Phil wrote me. "Why don't you come here".. meaning Vancouver. I talked to my wife and we thought about it. Finally I drove out to Vancouver and really liked the feeling. Phil and I found a small office in downtown Vancouver and started Rocky Mountain Films. We had a movie seat and a desk.

Both of us got jobs, I went back to editing again, getting a job at the local TV station. Just what I was doing before.  Phil got a job at the local film lab and between us, we were able to do a small short film taking 16mm and I was finally shooting film. We managed to get film from a few reels from cameramen who had leftovers. Then we made another short, similar but longer.

But my wife didn't want to go. This lasted three years until we divorced quietly and without any anger but still hoping someday to see each other again. We did actually meet each other again when her niece found me on Facebook ironically. And better still, we are still close to each other again.

Phil and I kept Rocky Mountain Films for a few years but then both of us began to go different ways, but always together and we were always close.

The both of us --  in the film course where we failed. Phil with the bushy hair behind the older woman and me to the right with the beard. I always like telling students that I failed in filmmaking. 

Can you write?

I really enjoyed the first year where I went from mailboy to film editor. Every day would have something new to learn. I would hang around with the radio DJ's and watch how songs were presented to the woman who would listen and decide. She had one of the best feelings to songs I ever heard. Whatever you've heard from the 70's rock and roll would have some of her stamp on it. Once when I was in radio news, one of the news "jocks" asked me if I could interview some rock guy from Detroit, across the river. He didn't understand the singer.

Being younger I knew who exactly was -- Alice Cooper. I "interviewed" him. There was a lot of Detroit white music, more harder than Motown, although I love both.

So, it was a miracle place for me. I loved it so much I would stay around after and watch the single news film camera (we weren't a big news outlet) rather we hung around with the American camera films, they even shot in color! We still had black and white.

Then, one day the newsman (only one) came to me and asked if I could write.

I couldn't believe it. I can write?

I said I could. What he wanted was someone to write news for our nightly news program on local and Detroit news whenever we needed. The reason was that his news writer was going to the hospital for a surgery and nobody else was around.

So I entered the small news office, two chairs and a desk. And an outside news outlet wherein I could read news all over the world.

But I wondered if I would really be able to do TV news. So I started after finishing the film work. I was actually doing two jobs. But I loved them. It would only be a month. I went upstairs to the TV newsroom and looked around. Nobody was there. I pulled out past news scripts, read them and figured I could do it.

So I was working two jobs, of which both were in my sights, 9-6 for camera crew and watched the cameraman edited the news and that was it. I was a full news person in a news world. It wasn't really hard as our news was mostly local.

I took to writing news as fast again as all of the other jobs I had. The studio camera guys enjoyed having me around, I would stay as long as a could, just to watch how they worked. Cameras, audio, special effects (very poor) and anything they taught me. Some of them laughed and showed me more.

I had left the radio news now, staying with writing and news. Well, writing until the real news guy came back. Four weeks came by fast. But I was still working news film work, processing film and using audio sound for the newsman. And even had a shooting under my belt.

Then something else I discovered. One of the women in the music side of the building and I began to become friends. It changed my life, and we got married.

And both of us took some time from TV news and spent two months in Banff National Park in Alberta. Besides the magnificent scenery, the town had a world famous arts school and this year, a film school.

That's why I was there. And my wife took a photo class. It was incredible, and even now my ex and I still think it was the best time ever.  At least it seemed.

I actually knew a lot more than any of the other "students", with ages from 20's all the way to a man in his 60's. And I kept it between my wife and me. We had an instructor from an eastern European country who was very proper and giving us some good information. I connected with a who saw the world much like me.

However we all made short films and a Chinese girl won our "awards", and who made a good film. But for my friend and I, and my then-wife, it was all a great summer. And he and I were the only students who failed.

We didn't care that much but my new friend Phil connected, in fact a few years past, I moved to Vancouver and lead to more. But there was one great moment. It was when we won a short film called Cooperage. My friend Phil had always seen the cooperage (whiskey barrels primarily) and wanted to make a film on it. So we started our company called it Rocky Mountain Films. Our film wasn't good enough for the National Film Board of Canada but it found it's home with winning the Canadian Film award for short films and ended up as a finalist at the 1976 Academy Award.

Besides the Canadian award it also had awards in Athens, Sydney, Yorkton, Chicago and the American Film Festival.

And everything changed again. 

Mixed up in a shooting

It wasn't long before I got pushed up into editing. This image above was exactly how I worked it. This was where I edited commercials and install them. between the movies. Remember this was before video. I actually had to edit the commercials with glue. Yeah, glue. I think I edited commercials and movies where I learned how to edit.

I moved pretty fast through the TV station and suddenly got a job upstairs, where radio news and TV news were. This was the real thing. I was an editor for radio. As I said before, radio and TV. I had to learn fast in radio, it was probably the hardest job I ever did. Our station was music and breaked twice for news. I had crazy dreams during that job. Our station was sent towards the U.S. and we had mostly American DJ's and or signal for radio went to at least 5 or 6 states. They called us "The Big 8", meaning our radio number had the 8 on the radio.

But eventually I had to let it go, I never slept right at that job and I figured I'd be fired. But the day the radio part let me go, I just stepped into our TV news unit, consisting of one reporter, one newswriter and one sound recorder. Much smaller than the "Big 8". And I was glad they kept me and I was now closer to movies. 

Well, not quite movies yet.

And I was only the soundman on the 3-man unit.

It was where I learned about cameras. I had a cheap old camera my dad had but that was all I knew about real cameras. I remember when the cameraman handed me a small photo camera and asked me what I thought about it. It was a camera for me, ordinary. It took me a few months to figure out that it was a Leica camera, the best photo camera around. German.

So now I was close to a camera, any camera and I learned to process film for both still photos and 16mm film, which was the standard for TV film everywhere, both still camera and movie film. I was not holding the cameras yet, but I knew all the pieces and was just waiting.

Remember that I was on the Canadian side and Detroit was on the other side. That meant we would drive over to the city of 5 million while our town was a hundred thousand. Big difference.

I immediately fell in love with Detroit, even had a handful of relatives also American. Now that I was over to Detroit for news I was the happiest guy I knew. We went across during the riots and toughened up, learning more about America.

And then something did happen. 

We were filming news about the automobile strike from Ford. Ford was one of 3 major companies, Ford, GM and Chrysler would have on company strike and whatever the changes were made, only one company had the strike. And once it was over the "Big 3" would all have the new changes in money to employees.

So we were interviewing a Ford employee who was a spokesman for his unit. He was a nice man, talking with us and we filmed him. He left to go outside and we picked up our gear until suddenly came running in, shouting there was a fight.

Naturally we picked up our gear and looked to see what was going on. Outside, we could see our friendly union man angry and someone else was angry. 

And then we saw them, and I instantly released that the man we spoke to was handed a handgun and aimed it and fired at the other man. Panic everywhere, some people pulled our 
camera away and in what seemed like seconds, everyone was gone.

We wondered if we got the film but had to go back to our station to get the film out fast. And when I pulled the film out, it was perfectly clear. 

The film went around everywhere and the New York Times actually printed a frame from the 16mm film. It was quite poor because of it's 16mm grain, but it showed.

I was married now, my wife worked at the station also, and I told her how it all went down and how fast everything went. I never forgot it.

And I liked what I was doing even more. 

And I was getting closer to film cameras.

   

What kind of a kid were you?

If you haven't read my reasons to easily figure out one thing -- movies. I was around 4 when a rattlesnake screamed onto the movie theatre where I lived. Living in a small town of around 895 or so people, you can picture small town life. By the time we moved to a city, I was 12 and discovered 4 tv channels and I was in heaven.

I was always looking for movies and TV series, westerns, detectives, anything. My aunt said I would probably hurt my eyes on our TV. But she lost, as I still have perfect eyes because of on eye being short-sighted and the other one is far-sighted. Believe it or not.

I wrote short stories in early grades, mostly bad, but still wrote. And see movies. Not to mention that Detroit was across the river. A whole new country and also relatives too. Living with two cities, one was Canadian and the other was American. I still watched movies and TV.

When I graduated school I went to Detroit to get interested more on their side. And it was just beginning of the Beatles. And I became even more side-by-side and was falling for a psych student. U.S. of course.

Then - one summer I was looking for a job. I'd had the usual office boy for the summer but noticed something. The local TV station had an opening for office boy, full time. This was almost a miracle. Maybe. I decided I'd take the job and at the end of summer go back to the Detroit college. 

Did I want the job? Not really but it could be fun with lots of different jobs, editing, mail-boy and possibly something else. So I showed up and met the boss who said the job is permanent.

Permanent? What about the psych student? I went home and pondered.

Then on the next Monday I entered the TV station. Someone guided me through the building and I would do various smalltime jobs. I was taken to the mail room and began sorting. Then I walked into the studio and stood there in shock.

I was looking at what made movies.

I couldn't believe it. It was a connection of the heart as they say. Me and those cameras. And all the other stuff. I was in the movies.

Well, sort of. I was in the movie business as a mail boy. I wondered how long this would take. I was beginning to like everything there.

How to sell if you have no agent

So, okay, how do you get a script read?

The best way is having an agent and an agent who can actually get your script to a company.

I can tell you that it took a long time for me. But before that I worked at a TV station across the river from Detroit. I was going to college in Detroit and needed a summer job. I saw a job opening at the TV station. I always liked movies so I thought I could make a few bucks on that. I asked for the job and they said okay. So I would have a summer job.

But when I went to work the first day, I was taken. I saw video cameras in the studio and people enjoying their work. I stayed longer and learn how to edit video. After a year, I was promoted to working on a TV news crew. I knew this was it.

After the local station I bumped along to other TV studies, shooting video, editing and also producing. These were small TV stations but I learned. It carried me to get a friend and we managed to make a ghost movie for about $500,000 with a producer who got the money.

So I was a writer director.

But being in a small market, I was far away from making another movie and my life seemed to be finished. Then I made a few really low-budget films around $100,000 which were really bad. But I was always writing new scripts, at least two or three a year. They were getting better. Then I got a job on a series in Vancouver but it didn't last.

Then, a break came along. I was at a festival in Toronto and met a director who had heard of me from a successful writer. The writer was on that show that they passed on me and said I was pretty good.

Then, the director asked me if I had an agent. Naturally I didn't. So he said he'd get one for you when you come to L.A.

Sounds easy but, I was broke and barely able to drive to L.A. But I did, and I met the agent the director had. I had an agent. But he wasn't a very good agent. I didn't get any work but one of my scripts got a producer but he wasn't able to get the money. 

Being there for almost two years, I learned a lot about agents. If you get a good one, it's great, if not you might as well not have an agent. And I learned that I could work my way up quite easily.  I found another one who was better, but still b-level. 

I went through 4 agents until I got a real agent who took me on. He was a reader for the previous agent and liked my work. He also found a new agency. This began to work in that I could take meetings. This was something I didn't really know what happens. My new agent had a good agency that helped.

This was a mid-agency, not small and not giant. But that's coming. I began to get writing jobs as well as selling a few scripts. Small money but work and attention. Then my current agent quit the agency and went to what I couldn't believe.

He was now with a major agency, the big guys. One of a handful of real agents. From then I felt like I had a real agency. And I was.

But, this is just the beginning in terms of you. Yeah, I gave you my how/I/got/there in more development. Things that give you deeper ways of how you can write or learn to write.

Remember that I did teach on-line for UCLA for 5 years.

So stick around, you might have questions. Personal or everyone.


 

Over the top

So it seems to look that my blog is now 11 years old. And I can't understand how much a lot of words that either make sense or not or just confused. Or all three. And there's still more writing, although I may go backwards now and then. I'm trying to stay in and but I still get people to read it. There may be a few there that are renewed but mostly trying to keep with the news and of course, my take on the movie world.

Monday I'll work on a subject I feel has to be discussed, involving those blogs of sorts like Virtue Pitch Fest and the others. And mostly the nobody ever seems to win.  If I told you would you believe me?

I'll begin on Monday, a new day and a new year. 

You've just sold a screenplay - now wait

One of the great misconceptions about selling screenplays is that everyone asks you when it'll be filmed... a week, a month?

The truth is it can be years. 

What happens first is an option; a fee paid to the writer from the producer or production company of approximately 10% of the total price. Taking Writer's Guild minimums that would be 10% of $42,000 for a movie that will cost under $3 million, and $72,000 for bigger budgets.

A lot of new writers hear about hundreds of thousands of dollars for screenplays, even millions of dollars. That does happen, but just to a handful of writers. For the rest of us, it's basic scale, as mentioned above.

So how soon does your movie film so you can get the 90% owed to you. Well, my Christmas screenplay that Hallmark had read and liked took nearly 6 years. And this was a script that they liked! It sat around their offices for about 3 years and before that I was sending it around to companies who liked it but weren't sure if it could get made.

Hallmark held it for the last three years, not paying me anything, because they were still "looking at it". And then at the end of 6 years from the date I wrote it as a spec, I got a call from a woman who worked for a Canadian production company. They wanted to make it for Hallmark. And more importantly Hallmark wanted them to make the film.

In only 6 years.

But wait.

Emperor of Mars was my first really good screenplay and I wrote it in 1989. Since then it's been optioned at least 7 times and actually almost made around 4 or 5 times. I never remember how many times exactly.

That's 24 years.

But wait longer;

I've heard of screenplays that have been hanging around even longer.

Last September, 2012, I optioned a screenplay called Chaser to a French film company in Paris. As of now, they might be making it next spring.  But I'm not holding my breath.

And unfortunately, this is more common than not. So what's the reason? What's always the reason. No money. That was certainly the case in the 5 times Emperor was almost made. The deals fell through.

And there's another reason; the producers might want to work on it somemore. Or maybe they can't find the right director, or the network or studio wants someone else to rewrite it. And then the director doesn't like it and leaves. Or the lead actor has a better offer on another movie.

So selling a screenplay isn't exactly like selling your car; it's only the beginning of something that might not even sell. I've had a dozen options on a dozen screenplays that eventually just went away.

So why do I continue to stay in this crazy business.

Because it can and has happened to me at least 10 times.

And also because nobody told me that I should do something else with my life.

 
 

Almost back from the holidays

 

 

 Sorry to be so slow, changing some things and gathering other items that I will work on over this next year. By the way my blog is now entering 11 years. I don't know how it happened but am sure still working about my industry which I love so much.

So hang on for a day or two and I'll be back on board.