Over the last three weeks I'm sitting on two projects, one is starting and one is going to either be bought or not. And now that I've said "not", it'll probably go away. But that's how it goes.
The first project is going to shoot in France with french actors and crew. It's just beginning, I'm sending back my name, etc. and will go with the French version of WGA or WGC. The project is about a man in a city who sees a young man grab a young girl and throws her in the back of a van. It's called "The Chaser"
My guy let's it go, but then wants to know if the girl is in danger. So he decides to follow the van. And soon the van guy begins to realize someone is following him.
The film was to be shot outside of L.A. in the magnificent Mojave desert. But the French want to film it in France, somewhere similar to the Mojave. So that's what's gonna be.
The director had my script for around 6 years and it fell through. Then silence for a few years. And then about two months, he and someone else are ready to do Chaser. So here we go. I will get a reasonable fee as it's not being filmed in France, somewhere similar to the Mojave. I think. So it's not Paris. And I get to fly to wherever this area will be.
And now, the other screenplay is way different. It's about a woman who returns to her beginning and wants to confront her father but finds out he's very sick and can't do anything anymore. There's a secret in the family that she wants to end but it's almost impossible.
So there you go... this one is called "Secrets of the Salmon", a title I liked as I had the basic story of the woman returning home where she remembers her small fishing town where salmon run to the west coast and return. In their way, the woman is returning also. Very different than the Mojave.
And I'm opening to my newest screenplay very slowly, sent to four possibles to tell me what they think. It's called "My 45th"
Here's a little piece of it for you to read:
"It seems so strange to relive the free days of our life. I try to understand what it was like and the different life we lived -- WAS a wonderful time. We are fortunate to have lived the life we did in that era".
There are a lot of 60 - 65 yrs old boomers to find them. Hey, Michelle Pfeiffer is 60!"
And it's based on a true story.
Last week was a mess, had to do with a friend's screenplay, going over her script (or screenplay) I never really know what the words are. I often go through this book above if I get stuck.
One thing about it is that it gives you some ideas when ideas aren't coming through. Yes, there's all the big books and instructors but this one is clear. This can help you out on certain days, weeks or even losing your mind.
Way long time I didn't even know there were books like this and I learned writing stories that weren't very long. Then I found a screenplay on The Deerhunter on line and when I got it I was holding a real screenplay (or script) and I read it over two times just to make sure I got it right.
It was the screenplay, but something was wrong. In the movie, Robert De Niro was the hero and Christopher Walken was the guy who blasted his head. So what?
Well, in my Deerhunter script it was the opposite. Robert De Niro shot himself and died.
So what?
Well, one thing was that screenplays can be done over before they actually shoot it. It was an interesting thing, I wondered why. Maybe De Niro didn't want to be the guy who dies.
So... you can change your story around if it looks better.
Then there's another book I like, Steal This Plot. It's an easy read and gives me a lot of ideas. And don't think it's stealing, it's basically gives you the story in simple things to fix when you get lost somewhere.
These people really makes it simple, and no, I don't know them, but I like what they do. Just honest and intelligent. They use the motivation, things like Vengeance, Love and Hate, The Chase (I used a lot in my screenplay called The Chase (not the same story) that is going to shoot in France this fall I hope.
I think I told you about Chase, it will be in French but I know a little bit of the language from high school.
There are 15 ideas to play with, and really it's not stealing either, just some ideas to help you when you get stuck. And you do get stuck. We all get stuck.
Anyway, I do not know the three writers of these two books and I just like to have their books around.
Or you can read Shakespeare. He stole from the Romans. They stole from the Greeks.
It's a hot Sunday up here. Not my fault.
I'm working over a friend's script and it's taking a lot of time. And rush, of course. Also have to do a short film for a friend.
Lots of friends who need help!!
So, I'll try to put in something by Saturday.
So why Doris Day?
She was the best singer and actress around (as they said). She had some great movies and made 'em with the biggest actors. I first saw a movie from her way back in 1960 and I fell for her forever.
She passed away last week at 97, but always in my movie world.
So, hope this can hold you as soon as I can...
Queen E.
Monday for Canada is called Victoria Day, and really means the real beginning of summer. She was born on 1805 and lived to 1901. Scotland also had the same holiday. Of course, this was mostly for and about English people of whom were the largest group of people and probably French, whom English took it away in a battle in what we now called Quebec.
My people were not welcomed much, in fact any other people from other countries were also not welcomed but they were all needed to open up the western part of Canada and feared that the U.S. would try to steal the western part of Canada.
So, for me and most of Canadians, our families began to come over to Canada from Ukraine. And, as I said, were not greeted well. It continued about the middle of 1960, as I was growing up and remembering how my uncle who came over in 1895 and was not very much cared for a Queen who was dead in 1901.
So much for that. My uncle who lived to be 104 and always loved to say things about those "Anglo Saxon bastards". So much for that.
I lived in the U.S. for awhile and that's where I mostly did the most work I've done. And I still do.
So, now Canada is quite mixed with mostly Asians and especially Chinese and Philipinos.
So, Queen V... you're still hanging on. Somewhere. You're still Empress of India. Maybe.
Eight assatinations too. Bummer.
So this is how I wrote a screenplay from a small town that nobody ever heard of. Well, at least some people do. They read it.
I've never really write much in terms of books, screenplays is my real job. But even though I thought about a book, a screenplay was more interesting. I started writing of about age of 15, short pieces here and there. I think I mentioned this earlier, finding a book in my local library. It was called "On The Road", and a story about a guy who travels across the country.
His name was Jack Kerouc and he and his buddies became what they called "the Beat Generation." They came after WW2 and drove across the country and he became and had a fantastic way of writing stories, short or long. Everything gave him and his buddies a new country after the war. They took drugs and jazz and promiscuity and long road trips in a new country.
So, I read the book as fast as I could although I wasn't particular joining the leader of the Beat Generation. After all I was 15 and my mom wouldn't let me. But it brought me to read more and more and create stories of my own.
So how does this mean to you or anyone?
My first real job was TV, writing and finally making a movie way back in 1980, which you can find in this blog. Ten years is a long time.
So this was wear I decided to write a book. I was already filming TV news and other areas and by the time wrote Ghostkeeper, I was reader to tell my story. There were elements in Emperor of Mars but mostly, it was the characters that caught my eye. They were all my friends and the wonderful teacher.
I wasn't sure to write a book or make a movie for my Emperor of Mars (there are a lot of names similar) but I still wanted to do it.
And that brings us to what's going on with Emperor of Mars. Well, it's become a screenplay but not sold. I've had about a dozen producers who want to make it but it is still hanging on.
And I still see friends from that small town and especially my teacher whom I still see.
The book is good, but a movie is better and hopefully I'll get what I want.
It took me a lot of years to finally decided to write a story about me and my grade school teacher and my friends and the adventures we had as kids in that small town somewhere in the wide open farms and fields.
Around 2011 a decided to finally write something about the Emperor of Mars and slowly I began to use a lot of things in my mind on those years way back around 1961. And now I could use the Martian around this year, even though it was five years ago.
So I started simply with the Martian voice from the radio when a kid much like me listened to the radio. He was Matthew for my purposes. And then I built around his home and mother. I also decided that his father died in the war. I wanted the boy to have only a father even though I had one.
Then I took apart the town piece by piece. I used characters that I knew around me, good, bad, unknown and especially the teacher. She was here at our school for her first job.
So you can see how I build things, stuff that connects to other people. Everyone in town would be either nice or not nice. There was a bully and not nice. And so far you can begin to see what I'm building.
Each of the characters were really built on most of them, so it wasn't so hard, I just had to build more of them. They had to be real. Meaning that you try to really make them from yourself from what you find and then imagine more things from the people you start to create.
It sounds hard but not really that much if you go deep into what your friends are like. And there's also a character I created, an older man who works in a grain elevator. This was something that would figure into the story.
So you can see how to develop stuff and how to create characters. One of the boy's characters is an overweight boy. Everyone had an overweight kid in school. Bullies are easy to create and to change sometimes.
Then - the Martian speaks on the radio. We never really see the Martian because nothing really happened. But this is what begins to happen in terms of the rest of the story. I had to take Matthew to adventure somehow create action.
I remembered another old town that people used to say disappeared on the mountain about five miles away and nobody knows what happened. This really happened for me, so I created a martian thing. Then I put in some more mystery. The town people disappeared and nobody ever saw them again.
Once again, I used something around me.
Then there were sparks flash around the big grain elevator. The boy saw that and knew the Martian was coming there. The older people laughed of course. And I needed a bully who would scare Matthew and his friend. And I still have the school teacher.
I gave her a background, she came from a town a hundred miles way. That made her maybe a little bit mysterious too. But I needed more mystery.
So the old man comes into the story when both Matthew and he both see sparks in the field and that connects them. A lot of these things are stolen from the movies I saw. But every writer steals.
Then there's the older people in town argue about a martian coming to the town. This causes a lot of anger between old and young.
Now I was coming to the end and I didn't have an end. I didn't have an idea for it at all. I had to work around some things so that there was something impressive.
A Martian lands?
Then, one of my writer friends said "a fire". I had grain elevators. Huge elevators.
What me meant, a fire happens. Still now sure though. But finally I had an idea. Yes. A fire in the grain elevators and that could seriously make a spectacular image. Remember the old guy and Matthew both saw.
I was trapped for a week and finally find something about the grain elevator that has a mystery to it.
Finally everyone has come to the grain elevators to see or to laugh at what Matthew and the old man made a circle where the alien will appear. But nothing appears. People laugh and joke and start to walk away...
Then, something did come down. Just not real.
The bully. Most of them didn't think anything of a balloon.
Yes, the bully in a big balloon
Then I added something else. The balloon exploded and the bully was trapped way up on the grain elevator but nobody can go up to save him. Except the old man runs into the elevator inside and Matthew both enter.
The townspeople are shouting and scared for both three people in the elevator. But inside the old man saves the bully and grabs Matthew also as he brings them down in an elevator but fire is around them.
Then, something really happens. The old man takes the two kids in his arms through the fire and save them. Matthew looks at the old man who smiles as he reaches safety on the ground about fifty feet.
Then the old man dissolves to the boys, impossible. But he's gone.
The story slowly dissolves until the elevator is mostly burned. Matthew appears to see where he and the bully saw the old man. Then his teacher appears, tells him that nobody knows where the old man was. He wasn't anywhere around. Teacher leaves him.
Lastly, Matthew looks around up where Mars twinkles. And Matthew says something like.
"Maybe I'll see you again".
Sorry I'm behind a little, I'm preping some of my books for one of those horrible things where you stand behind you books and when people tell you your last movie was awful. Well, at least I am closer to actually have a book. Actually 3 books.
Most of you have probably known I've got these three books, each different just to show you I can do other things.
What books? And why? Aren't you a screenwriter? Are you broke?
Well, it started with a screenplay I wrote called Emperor of Mars. It's based on my life in the middle of Manitoba, north of Minnesota for you Americans and others.
I lived in a small town (895) in a cool valley with short mountains around us. It was where I grew up to to the of 12. It was what you would think; farms, wheat, barley, everything. It even had a mountain about four miles from us, one that would be something really cool.
Nothing happened in my town, just a bullie or two and a Chinese cafe. You find them on every small town.
And there was love, well, at the age of 12.
She was everything a guy my age would see her as the hottest girl ever.
Well, not a girl. A teacher. My Teacher. And she entered my world when she arrived ready to start teaching. In her class. My class.
There were others of course, other 12 yr old girl. But my teacher was heaven. So much that when I left my town, I would continue to find her at the same school for over 40 years. And I would always find her whenever I crossed the country.
And we would have a drink of whiskey and talk about our lives, even when she lost her husband later on.
My buddies were also there, and I had a crush on a girl in my teacher's class but I always remembered her.
So Let's flash upwards, way, way up. To 2011.
And I finally decided I would write my movie. If I had an idea. Of course I was know far away from my little town and my teacher and my friends. I had been thinking about a story but I didn't have one.
A story about a couple of kids and a school teacher was cool. But what else.
Then, a Martian came to earth in 1960 and told earth he was going to tell us about earth and everything else.
Was that real?
Well, I was working in a TV station in Canada (one of those who read earlier) and came across a story that hit it.
It was The Emperor of Mars. And he was coming to earth.
It hit it. Perfectly. There were radios and old TV's were on from Canada to California.
The Martian was coming to earth.
I finally found a story. Spaceman came to earth. The story of someone broadcasting that he was real, was real but the Martian was never seen. after a few weeks most people forgot it. And it was all over the western U.S. and Canada. I still have real newspaper clips that I found more stories talking about "the alien".
All I had to do now, remembering the small town, is to write it.
But what about the the martian?
So...
A few days ago I got an email from a French producer about a screenplay I wrote way back around 2008 and pushed it around the studios but nobody seemed to like it. It was called The Chase.
The story is built on an ordinary man who was driving his car in L.A. until he saw a girl being grabbed by a rough-looking guy and threw her into his van. My guy noticed it so much that he wondered if he should follow the rough guy.
Our guy continued to follow the van, getting more interest as he begins to think that the rough guy is trying to elude him. And we begin to think also as the rough guy begins to attempt to elude our guy.
And so the chase begins between two strangers and a girl.
The script hung around, some people read it, some weren't sure and finally nobody wanted to make it, at least for now.
Then two people from France called me, I'm not sure how or when, it was somewhere around 2011, again, I think. And then they read The Chase enough to want to make it. We talked about it for awhile and finally made up a contract. We had a director, a friend and me.
There were a lot of ideas and hopes, but ultimately we couldn't find enough money to finance it. Something that always happens with people with no money. And then there was financing, and since I was in WGA and WGC both Writers Guild's.
We talked about the project but not much was happening. Then we decided to write the story either in Canada or the U.S. But there was still not enough money and finally the contract slowly slipped away.
In 2017 we felt it was falling apartI lost track of my producer and director and slowly it the idea was slipping away.
And then, last week, The Chase came back.
With a new French producer, I think, with a friendly way of his manner. It was quite nice but I was at my cousin's mother's home in Canada and I asked if he could call after a week.
He did this and we had a nice talk, mostly about money of course. I thought about the WGA/WGC rules, but these guys don't have that much money. And the director wanted credit for writing as I remember.
But the new guy knows his work and he spelled out a lot of things that Canada and US do that we can't. Simply because that's how it does in French.
So, we have spoken, I got an email explaining financing in France. And I don't know what the screenplay costs. In Canada it would be around 45,000, WGA higher. But financing movies in France is different.
Piece by piece.
I worked in Luxembourg in 1998 and my high school French made enough to carry on as well as I could use my French far enough.
So here we are, 2019, I might actually get Chase done. Maybe not with as much as I wanted, but a movie is a movie and I haven't had one for 4 years.
Oh, yeah, it'll all be in French. Good thing, I learned French in high school.
And I get a trip to hang out for a few days.
Some of my students questioned the practice I recommend reading shooting scripts and watching movies on DVD's and Netflex and all the others that are out there, even VHS in black and white. Some people think it's stealing ideas rather than use what they feel is fresh and original
First of all there is little originality left in the movie business in spite of what others may think. And watching movies that might be similar to what is considering writing is exactly the same as watching people and lifting their characteristics or speech patterns.
In other words, look around you and then try to find a fresh way of telling essentially the same story that has been told for centuries.
A great example was Shakespeare In Love, a totally fresh story about the writer that was mostly fictional. And the Coen Brothers remake of True Grit was their vision even though it was based on a book and was originally filmed with John Wayne in the 1960's.
Both movies had the same title and source material but each was distinctive. The John Wayne version was a sprawling was a sprawling western with the "Duke" filling the camera. Coen's version was based more on the young girl, who in the book, narrated the story.
Naturally their take was a lot deeper and with quirky characters where as the Duke's characters were big and over the top, which was more common in that era.
It was amazing to watch that movie version, sometimes going thru life without having your family I get the sense of not being beneficial because your family is not here, were I live. But when I watch that movie, without your family, there's so many other people that you have an impact in their life, and you change their life and make them feel better.
I am a total movie fan; I try to watch a movie every night thanks to Netflix and others. I'm not always looking for ideas from a movie; more often it's to se what's being made and what's good. And why it's good.
Since I've been watching movies since I was four, it's nothing new and am still looking at something new or old. Tell me a story is my search.
Reading us another thing writers should do and it's even odd to mention that as one would think writers read. But in an era where people tweet 140 characters in abbreviated words the "art" of reading an entire book or screenplay is beginning to fade.
Most of what I read are non-fiction as I find it hard to read fiction without starting to analyze it. I recommend reading any screenplay you can get your hands on. My favourite screenplay to read is Deerhunter, with Robert De Niro with Meryl Streep (her first big movie).
I found a screenplay of the movie and discovered something that was completely different. There are two actors, Duval and Chris Walken were main characters and in the screenplay I read, De Niro was the guy who dies.
In the movie, Walken dies.
This was an earlier version, interesting, and I wonder why they changed around. My idea is that maybe De Niro was becoming a star. And I wondered again what the actors were doing. I also typed the entire screenplay word by word. Still have it today.
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