Day 22 of 30 - A website

I love short films, and the Everynone website features some really brilliant ones.

They are short, powerful montages that really show off the power of great cinematography and editing.

I found this site through the NPR show Radiolab, which occasionally features their films.

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

Day 14 of 30 - A non-fictional book

I spend more time reading non-fiction than fiction books. Since I married a wonderful person, I have been reading more business books than I ever thought possible. Two books that are the cornerstone of my professional life are The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used. I recommend these two books to anyone who is unsatisfied with his/her career.

But that is not what I want to talk about. My current favorite non-fiction book is How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer. This book is filled with practical advice for the filmmaker. It is a great companion book to a certain 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers. It is insightful and funny, and you get a good sense of the author as a creative person instead of a faceless automoton barking orders on how to be creative.



Roberto Munroe has made a few short films and has programmed a few film festivals. She knows what she is talking about and doesn't mince words. This is the type of book I love love love.

Office Meeting

So I went and made one of the Xtranormal films myself.

Successful Filmmakers Cause Pain

I am volunteering at the Dallas AFI Film Festival, because I do things like that. I like film festivals in general and Short Film Showcases in particular. The short film showcases tend to be more crowded than other programs, and they also have the most enthusiastic crowds.

Here’s why – only newbies make short films. Do you ever hear about Stephen Spielberg’s great idea for a 6 minute short? Do you think that Tom Cruise looks up from his spiral notebook of Deep Scientology Thoughts and proclaims to his handlers and yes men, “Hey! This weekend would be a great time to film a dramatic scene where I can hone my acting ability! Let’s just do because we care about art, not money!”

Of course not. Short films, especially ones by first time directors, are made out of love and care. It takes a village to make a short film. Or an extended family.

And that is who shows up – friends and family. And they’re going to love whatever is on the screen no matter how crappy it is because THEY HELPED MAKE THIS HAPPEN. This is their moment to sit back and admire their own handiwork. And if this great happening happens to be a tasteless waste of time, no one will admit it, lest they look foolish. And clapping at every name in every credit does not make you look foolish because everyone in the three rows around you is doing the same thing, except some of them are hootin' and hollerin', too.

The only problem is when the short film programming pits first-time filmmakers against each other. Like the one I was assigned to.

One film on the program was for kids. Wellllll, it was not necessarily made for kids (it was an adult thinking back to childhood), but it was chock full of kids. Almost all of the scenes had children frolicking all through the background. And all of the little child extras came en masse to see their collective screen debuts.

Unfortunately, the film with the kids in it came after the other two short films. And the first of these was a “comedy” about a guy who creates a magic formula that makes women want to have sex with him (HA!) until he gets mobbed by women so much he just has to kill them all (HAHAHA!!!). During the scene where he is having a threesome in the back of a taxi (OH! MY SIDES! STOP THE HILARITY, PLEASE!), the parents of all the under-eight-year-old crowd decide it is time to pack up and go home.

The director of the filled-with-kids film got upset about this and complained to the staff. Because I was the peon-on-duty, all I saw of the conflict was the moment of first escalation. “I’m sorry, I am just a volunteer. Let me take you to the program director’s table, and you can make a formal complaint to them.” Apparently, the director calmed down enough to make it through the rest of the screening (minus the prepubescent entourage, of course), but wrote a nasty note to the marketing department when all was said and done. Yes, a few feathers were ruffled, but a crisis was averted.

I wondered if anyone else saw this happen, and how they felt about it. I got my answer when the screening ended and all of the friends and family clustered around each other, so happy that they had all made it to the big time. I walked over to the “comedy” troupe, put on my listening ears, and heard the director of the drug-rape-kill “comedy” bragging to the little “comedy”-loving entourage about it.

“Did you see those people walk out? That guy took, what, like five fuckin' kids out of my movie? You didn’t see it? Aw, man , it was FUCKIN’ AWESOME! I FUCKIN’ RULE!”

And then, the inevitable high five.

This is where I differ from most up-and-coming filmmakers. I would like my film to be seen, to have people enjoy it, and then want to pay me lots of money for unique pleasure of owning the DVD. No where in my agenda does making people walk out of my film fit – especially when they’re in a friends and family crowd.

Maybe someday I’ll learn.

Making Lemonade IV - Not Suitable for Children

Most of my scripts stay in the safe comfortable PG to PG-13 area.

Not this one. You have been warned.

This screenplay has a long, rich history that I do now want to mull over right now. But here is the summary - I wrote this screenplay originally to submit to the Sundance Film Festival.

I am definitely not a fan of most of the product that comes out of Sundance. Sundance films tend to be dull and formuliac, but are stuffed full of unnecessary pedophilia, incest, or necrophilia in a desperate attempt to be "edgy."

So, I thought, as an artistic experiment, I would write a Sundance screenplay. It would be true to my particular voice, and deal with issues I care about, but somehow I could manage to cram all of that of Sundance nonsense into it.

So here you go.

Intimate Objects Screenplay

Making lemonade...

So there is this Screenwriting Expo going on in October. And they're giving away free passes to winners of this Screenwriting Expo writing contest.

Since I like free things, I entered four short film screenplays.

Sadly for me, none of them even placed. They didn't even make it into the top 25%.

Happily, they can now go onto the blog when I'm too busy to make a real entry.

So here you go, the screenplay for the short film Rough Draft.