Barring any unforeseen circumstances, like the people involved booking a part in a Michael Mann movie or something, I will be out in Los Angeles next week for the shoot of a short film, written by yours truly. It’s part of a larger script I’ve written, the one which (so far) has had a workshop in LA, a reading in Chicago, and two readings in New York, one small and one enormous. We’re filming one scene from it (ironically, the first scene I wrote, although it comes third in the scene line-up in the full script: this scene was originally meant to be a short film or a one-act – it was only when the first reading of it went so well that I decided to expand it into full-length). This all has happened very quickly, and I haven’t had time to process, maybe a good thing. <\/p>\n
I won’t mention specific names until it’s actually in the can, as it were. But we have an executive producer, a couple of regular producers, an ambitious talented director who is passionate about the script and about the project, a super-talented cinematographer, and two phenomenal actors. The actors are busy busy busy, they work all the time, but they responded to the script and want to do it. Actors, man. They like working. I am more pleased than I can say that these two people would read what I wrote and decide to do it. The first table-read of the script is tonight, out in Los Angeles, and I’m Skyping into it, even though I have no idea how to do that, yet. Next week is the second table-read, which I will be there for, and then the shoot. They’re location-scouting now. Getting two people into a room at the same time is difficult, let alone an entire small movie crew in an industry town where jobs that PAY beckon. So there’s still some uncertainty, but at this point: July and Half of August<\/i> is a GO. <\/p>\n
My script is precious to me, it has brought me so much good fortune and when I re-read it I can’t believe I wrote it. Not that it’s so awesome but that it’s so clear in its sense of despair, and it came out of a very specific 2009 mindset when I had less distance from Bad Things. I wrote it in the thick of the Bad. It was a blast, at times the only thing I looked forward to during the day, writing about those two wackos trying to work shit out. I probably wouldn’t write it now. But still, letting this thing go – letting other people work on it, letting other people share their input, their take – is what I want, what I hope for. It doesn’t come without its anxieties! It feels like I am watching my child get on the schoolbus for the first time. I feel protective. Like, what if the director wants to futz with it too much, and, for example, put cartoon thought-bubbles outside the character’s heads? You know, like totally over-produce it, and try to be clever and innovative or whatever. What if he thinks the tone should be that of a Judd Apatow film? These were all the cartoon thought-bubbles that raced outside my head before I actually spoke with the director. I did not know the director before this. This whole situation came out of my script being passed around by people who know it, people who love it. The stars aligned, in other words. “Hey, I’m looking for a project \u2026” “Whaddya know, here’s this great script in my back pocket \u2026” But now I feel like I know the director intimately because we’ve talked on the phone every day for the past month. He GETS my script, he relates to it, he’s passionate about it, we are TOTALLY on the same page with it. I haven’t had to explain myself. He gets it already. It’s an ideal situation. <\/p>\n
And so now I am just copied on emails. Everyone talking about permits and crew and lighting packages and locations \u2026 this very small crew of people moving into position. It’s so impressive to witness: there’s all the talk, and then eventually you have to act, and once everyone decides to act at the same time, stuff starts moving FAST. There’s sometimes a weird dissociative feeling because everyone is talking about these two characters as though they actually exist. But they’re just two people I made up. So to hear someone I don’t know say, “I’m thinking of so-and-so for Jack \u2026” Like, Jack is off the page now. He’s up and out there in the world. It’s weird and wonderful. And now, he is no longer mine. He will belong to the actor playing him. The same with Neve. Neve doesn’t belong to me now, she belongs to the actress playing her, the actress studying the script right now.<\/p>\n
It’s a grand adventure. I’m not young. It’s exciting to have brand-new experiences, shit you’ve never done before, shit you’ve never gone through before, when you are not young. I won’t say it’s not nerve-wracking, because it is, but it’s also awesome.<\/i> I am filled with a sense of gratitude towards every single person out there who loves my script, who has backed it, hustled it for me, passed it around, made shit happen for it. That includes every actor who has played the roles thus far: my cousin Mike and Missy Yager in the very first reading in Los Angeles, David Wagner and Jennifer McCabe at the first small reading in New York, Peter Giles and Rebecca Creskoff at the big workshop we did in Los Angeles, Jeff Christian and Amy Carle at the reading in Chicago, and Kerry O’Malley and Aaron Mathias at the huge New York reading at the Vineyard. Every single actor takes what I wrote and puts their own stuff into it. They LIVE it. They show me new things. They do what they need to do to make it come alive. It’s incredibly humbling to watch that all go down. Like, I can’t even describe it. <\/p>\n
There are still so many variables, still so much that needs to fall into place before we actually start filming. I’ll actually believe it’s happening when I arrive at the location on the first day.<\/p>\n
Here is what you wish for, as a writer: You write in isolation. You have an idea, or, for me, it was just an opening line, the opening line of the scene we’re going to film. I heard that opening line and then wanted to hear what the response was. I didn’t know who the two people were, or what their backstory was, but I wanted to discover what happened. That’s why I wrote it. The writing process is isolating, and it’s even more strange to write a script in isolation because a script requires VOICES, it requires people to make it happen. Once that first reading happened in Los Angeles, I knew I wanted to continue, and write the rest of it. The full script was completed in 2010. Then came the long hard push, to organize the workshop in LA, and then the reading in Chicago, and then the huge reading in New York. I have representation now, and my agent certainly helped with the momentum after all of that, getting me meetings, hustling my script. But for a while there (the last year or so) the sense of organic momentum was lost. I knew it would take some huge PUSH again. So I started pushing. And others started pushing. And here’s what I set out to say: it is when OTHERS start pushing, that things start REALLY happening. And momentum starts to gain on its own<\/i>. It’s a strange change in atmosphere, and you can almost feel it happening: events starting to build, and you have almost no part in it anymore. You are not the generator of momentum anymore. The REAL momentum required on my part was to finish the damn script. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t written the thing. And now \u2026 I’m copied on emails, as people pass around pictures about possible locations. The thing itself has momentum now. It is its own organism. I do try to take a moment or two to realize, Sheila, this is what you’ve been hoping for. Here it is. Look at how you don’t have to DO anything anymore except \u2026 show up. <\/p>\n
I’ve booked my ticket out, a leap of faith that yes, we will be filming next week, and the stars will align yet again to get this thing done. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, like the people involved booking a part in a Michael Mann movie or something, I will be out in Los Angeles next week for the shoot of a short film, written by yours truly. It’s part … Continue reading