{advertisement}

Nicholl: First Phone Call, 17th Contact

I was sitting here in a pleasant reverie, remembering my trip two springs ago to visit New York and the Daily Show, just before I graduated film school.  I was trying to figure out where I should live and work and my family friend Gail Lieb has a talented son who works at the Daily Show and as a writer.  Anyway, I’ve always loved New York, and going that spring was really beautiful, and it was really difficult to commit to moving to LA after such a lovely spring week in NYC.

Anyway, I’d just sent Josh an e-mail telling him how much I’d loved his book, especially the formatting.  (What?  I like the formatting.  Shut up.)  And I got a phone call from one of those previously mentioned big guys.  Actually, it was a different person at the same big guy agency.  But he called me, so that was exciting.  And he expressed interest in the Mockumentary genre and was very pleasant on the phone.  He’s based in New York, and for some reason, that struck me as really awesome, since that’s where I was in my mind.

17: it is one of my lucky numbers, because it’s prime and 3*17 is 51, and I always thought that was cool because 51 looks prime, but it isn’t.  (Why are you always harshing my nerd high?)

Me, Gail, and Spring in New York
Me, Gail, and Spring in New York
Nicholl: First Phone Call, 17th Contact

Good and Bad; They want to read my script, hopefully I won’t vomit!

Good:
1. Email from very legitimate and known lit management company:

Congrats on placing in the Semi’s of the Nicholl Fellowship! I’ve actually judged plenty of screenplay contest before so just placing in the semis is a wonderful accomplishment, so again, congrats!!!

I’m a literary manager at *** we rep some of the hottest up and coming screenwriters and directors and I’d love to read your screenplay!

If you could email me a PDF, I’d love a chance to read your material!

2. E-mail from Legitimate Production Company

Thank you for submitting your script. We would like to read your screenplay. You can e-mail us a PDF or Final Draft file if you’d like.

My name is ***. I work with Producer *** who has a first-look deal at Warner Bros. And I also co-founded a company called *** Productions. ***’ has done various web-series and commercials. *** recently got private funding to make our first feature film. Thus, we are on the search for an undiscovered script that is affordable and marketable.

We understand the time and hard work that goes into writing a screenplay and only hold the up-most respect for writers. Thank you for being open to share your story with us.

3. Email from production company I’ve actually heard of and didn’t have to google:

Congrats on your success in the Nicholl Fellowship!  I am travelling , but I work at *** Entertainment, a management and production company in Beverly Hills.  I’d love to take a look at your script and will try and respond as quickly as possible .  Please include a logline.

Bad:
1. Nausea. Even though I finished the course of Antibiotics days ago, I’m nauseous all the time. I got caught in Dodgers traffic last night and the stop and go… Yeah, when traffic makes you vomit, you gotta reconsider the wisdom of life in LA.

2.a. The Internet is Filled with Assholes. I am implementing a new policy on my site which is that if you say something off-topic and/or stupidly mean and confrontational, I’m just going to delete the comment. Trolls are mildly entertaining, but not worth the effort. And if you really want to post something I imagine you can make sure it’s within the bounds of civilized discourse. (Exceptions obviously made for things I think are really funny.)  But this means no more people saying that gays are gross and no more people leaving vaguely threatening comments on unrelated posts.

2.b. The Internet is Filled with Assholes. Once my 30 days on this script are up, I don’t know that I’m going to use Zoetrope again. The community has a lot of good things, and I’ve certainly gotten some useful thoughts, but it’s probably best for people who don’t mind others being really confrontational and juvenile. (“You’re really immature, nener nener nener.” “Insert video of a clapping seal.” No really.)  Every thread on their discussion board devolves into name calling and even the private messages involve people being just as hateful as they are helpful.  “Sorry, I read a few pages and I was bored so I stopped.  Good luck.”  Yeah, I’d pretty much rather get advice from people who don’t have the internet to anonymize their asshattery.

Good and Bad; They want to read my script, hopefully I won’t vomit!

First Act: Complete

First acts are probably the easiest. And I write short anyway. This one clocks in at exactly 22 pages, written in just over a week. 9 days coming out to over 2 pages a day, though that’s certainly not how it was written. 12 last weekend, 10 this weekend. Nothing like my 15 page a day peek last summer, but then, I have a full time job and several part time gigs.

I am going to polish it up and send it to the manager guy sometime this week. Although it’s a first draft kind of, it’s not really.

I first wrote out the idea as a short film, which I shot 2 summers ago. Then, last summer, I wrote out a 4 page treatment and character profiles. And then, last fall, I did 40 index card outline. And then I hand wrote it the last month. So the typed version is not really a first draft, but it still feels fresh, new and exciting.

Hopefully I can get some feedback before I send it off to more judgmental eyes.

Tomorrow, the editor starts on the show I’m working on. I’m hoping to get to know him at least somewhat.

Sometime this week I need to meet with the actress whose reel I’m working on. She has some notes on it. Unfortunately, for what she’s paying me, I can’t afford to spend much more time on it, so hopefully when we meet this week we’ll be able to put it to bed.

I also need to finish this assembly/rough of the short I got last weekend. I’m about halfway through, but I wanted to be done tonight.

I also wanted to have the pilot for this web series written. I just need to sit down and bang something out, even if it’s crap, to get it off my plate. I’m just having a hard time drumming up enthusiasm for a 3 page script. It’s so little to work with.

The web series that I worked on and was going to post supervise and edit isn’t going to be happening. The deal they were getting was just unmanageable, which is a shame.

I have no idea what I’ll be doing as a job come Nov. 2. I spent the day e-mailing back and forth with my G.G.Aunt Margaret. I’m learning a lot about my family history and it’s all very cool and strange at the same time.

Tonight was the last night of my antibiotics for my weird strep, which the doctor thinks may be the cause of my severe fatigue and dizziness. Thank God, because I’m having to really focus on keeping it down. Nothing like knowing you can’t throw up because you’ll lose your medication.

Obviously I’m still a bit bummed on the Nicholl Snafu but I’m excited that there are possibly going to be phone calls this week. I really should have busted my ass to get a new draft of Bible Con done, but who knows, I may have gotten rid of whatever made it SF material.

And their cock up (sorry, too much Gordon Ramsay) was good in the sense that I broke 200 visitors in a day by posting it. And I discovered a few new screenwriting resources because message boards linked to me and sent traffic my way. DoneDeal and Zoetrope, if anyone is curious. I’ve never been much a part of the online screenwriting community because I know so many writers in the flesh, but it could be a cool avenue.

And if I haven’t said it before, Greg Beal is a class act — he’s everywhere online apologizing, explaining, and taking people’s thoughts into consideration. I’m really impressed with him. Now, if he could get some different people working the phones…

First Act: Complete

Busy Weekend; Bad day for a Migraine

Friday was crazy. I got asked to write a pilot by a web producer, to write a polished first act of a feature for a manager, to edit a short, to add something to a reel, and that it’s possible that I will be promoted to Assistant Editor in January and that I will be responsible for the deliverables for the show I’m working on starting Monday. These are all good things, but suddenly my off days are very full.

I feel terrible today. I have the worst headache I’ve had in years. I missed my morning call about the trial drug I’m taking, I’m really hoping this doesn’t cost me being able to be in the trial. But seriously, my headache was so bad my eyes were watering. I took some Advil. And then I irrigated my nose. And then I took a decongestant. And then I found a bottle of Vicodin I had from a previous injury.

This stuff is magic. I still have a little bit of a headache, but I am functioning again. Albeit at a reduced capacity for coordination and thought, but still. I should say that I’m already prone to being totally dizzy and having zero coordination. Which is to say, on Vicodin, I am kind of hilarious. I’m like a tight-rope walker trying to balance who is also very talkative.

Yesterday, I met with the director of the short and got the footage. It’s a romantic comedy, the lighting looks good and there are some good performance moments in what I’ve seen. It’s 4 hours of footage to subclip and log and it took me 12 hours just to get the back up done. But, I’m hoping F will be able to take a little bit of the subclipping work off my plate. Like a subcontractor ha. I also met with the actress, showed her my rough idea for her reel and got another project from her. She seems happy, so that’s good.

I also got 12 pages of the first act for Dyke for a Day written, so I’m excited about that as well. I’m trying to finish it this week. Luckily I write fast when under pressure, so hopefully banging this and the short web pilot out won’t be too difficult. I’m just so Zombified from the headache and the vicodin that I’m not sure I’m useful.

I’ve been watching a lot of Hell’s Kitchen and Flipping Out. I must just love angry people because Jeff Lewis and Gordon Ramsey seem so adorable to me. I want little teddy bear versions of them to have walking around and yelling all the time.

I’m very concerned, having not heard from the producer, that Gold is not going to be happening this fall. I was really looking forward to being the Post Supervisor for that, but maybe there’s enough on my plate already. I’ll probably hear about the Nicholl this week.

It’s so damn hot in my apartment. I’m tempted to use my new cubicle space as my writing home. Maybe there’d be less distractions there.

Tomorrow: Doctor’s Appt at 8 AM, Starting story assistant job at 9 AM (probably will be late), and all that other stuff on my plate.

Busy Weekend; Bad day for a Migraine

Naughty Kitchen Premiere: Tonight!

10/9c on Oxygen.

I promise to review it just as fast as possible.  You might be curious as to why I’m so obsessed.  Well, for starters, I <3 Curtis, the door whore who got openly mocked on The Soup last week.  And for seconds, Blythe Beck is essentially a drag queen.  And she’s a pale, young redhead who struggles with her weight.  I mean, I’m nowhere near as fat as she is, but I think anyone who’s ever been even a little bit fat tends to join her hatred of skinny people who ruin food.

Because skinny people ruin food with their low calorie, low taste, low life bullshit.

Hulu has some clips.  The Dallas Morning News, who gave Central 214 a terrible review (featured in Episode 1) back in the beginning of the summer, had a great review/introduction to the series.  Another decent overview here.

And for the technical minded, here is a link to a great article about the technical setup at Authentic Entertainment, the company that makes Naughty Kitchen, starring their Post Production Supervisor Will Pisnieski.

Naughty Kitchen Premiere: Tonight!

For those of you curious about this Naughty Kitchen thing

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/279474

Naughty Kitchen premieres Tuesday 10/9c on Oxygen.

“Blythe is someone who was just born to be on television,” explains The Naughty Kitchen With Chef Blythe Beck Executive Producer Lauren Lexton. “We (Authentic Entertainment) really enjoyed making the food-themed shows we did before (Ace of Cake, Best Thing I Ever Ate). And, we also love doing what we call docu-soaps, which are shows about real people living their real lives. This show is just a perfect combination of both of those.”

For those of you curious about this Naughty Kitchen thing

Project Runway 605; Tim Gunn gets catty

I’m a big Project Runway fan, and last night they did one of my favorite things they’ve ever done, newspaper as the material.  I think that what I love best on PR is when they do unconventional things.  It seems the designers really make something creative and beautiful when they have to work with something different than cloth.

For the only time in recorded history, I actually liked almost everything that went down the Runway.  I mean, I even liked the origami birds that Johnny had going on until he went nuts and sent down that travesty.

I do feel like both Carol Hannah and Gordana got mistreated.  Gordana’s dress was gorgeous and I would totally wear it.  There’s something just icky to me about the judges hatred of all things “wearable”.  But, it also just didn’t look like paper.  The color, the pattern, it was all stunning.  Carol Hannah had just a really interesting concept with cascading block shapes.  It was really cool.  Logan’s dress was also gorgeous and got no attention.

I thought Christoper’s design looked kind of awful.  The “feather” effect was just… silly.  And the bodice was, well, it looked like some attempt at armor from a Monty Python film or something.  I liked the hair.  I also did not like Irina’s coat, though, I suppose, putting aside my dislike of her, it’s OK.  Certainly not a winner.

Oh and how about Eva Longoria Parker’s gay man snap about Tommy steaming his own clothes.  Bazing!

Oh oh, and then!  At the end, I saw the most amazing thing ever: A Catty Bitch named Tim Gunn.  That’s right, Tim Gunn, Mr. I wish he was my grandpa so I could hang out with him and hear wonderful advice and support himself, did not look Johnny in eye while giving him a stiff “Clear out your workspace” while picking meaningfully at his sleeve.  I’ve never heard Tim Gunn talk smack, but the moment Johnny left he cackled, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, you lying, drug-addled, lazy jerk!  I’m sorry I ever helped you through the first episode.”

Project Runway 605; Tim Gunn gets catty