So I met with the director yesterday.  I admit I was THIS CLOSE to giving notice, based on how he reacted.  I didn’t expect him to explode, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen.

Turns out – not much.  I was very diplomatic about what problems I having with the story, calmly explaining why it wasn’t working.  He seemed to get it, but I could tell he wanted to do it HIS way.  Which is fine.  It’s his film; not mine.

We spent the next hour-fifteen discussing how to fix things.  He is very set on what he wants, as he should be.  But a little flexibility could help him.  There were several instances where what he was describing was screaming out “HIGHBROW STUDENT FILM!” To which I say “bleah.”  I don’t give a rat’s ass about how a concept or psychoanalytic term is presented on film.  I want a story told in an interesting way.

One of the scenes he wants is set in a pool hall, the highlight of which is a game of pool played without sticks.  He didn’t explain how it was done, but my first thought was CG, but it sounds more like it would be camera tricks.  Then he added that he thought this would show something nobody had done before (possibly), and maybe somebody would think it was so cool they would hire him to direct something like a commercial or video.  Based on what I know about getting into this industry, I highly suspect the odds are not in his favor.   But as always, I wish him the best of luck.

We part ways with me saying I’ll do my best to write something closer to what he wants.  The rest of the day I’m thinking “what have I done?”  But I said I’d give it a try, so that’s what I did.

But I decided I would approach it not as one of my scripts, but more like an adaptation.  Start with his materials, see how to work with it and take it from there.

I plotted out how I wanted to it to go, what the conflict and resolution for each scene was, then tried to figure out if there was a way to say what he wanted to be said, but without actually saying it, as well as seeing if there was a way to put a twist on it so it still worked.

So far I’m up to just past the midpoint, which is more than I expected to get by now.  If I can figure out the end of the scenes, I’ll get this done by the end of the weekend.  And that would be nice.

I have to keep reminding myself that in the end I will have an actual film that was written by me.  Which in some ways is what it’s all about.

And another potential good thing that happened today.  A guy out of Boston writes a screenwriting blog I occasionally check out.  He tweeted to contact him if you had a family-friendly comedy or adventure.  Since I have both, I responded.  Turns out the request comes from an agent in Vegas(?!) looking for that sort of thing.

I’m still working on the query to send to her.  I think once I get the script done, I’ll drop her a line.

Movie of the moment: LONELY ARE THE BRAVE, a 1962 modern-era Western with Kirk Douglas as a cowboy.  It’s not bad, but reeks of the studio system.  Hey, that’s Bill Bixby as the helicopter pilot!  I don’t remember where I first heard about it, but it’s one of those “what sounded good about this to make me want to put this on my Netflix queue?”  It was written by Dalton Trumbo, so maybe that’s it.

Tired.

Will update tomorrow in midday studio. Again.

In case you were wondering: met with director. Nice chat. May have hit upon successful formula for 2nd draft. Rewrite underway.

Going to sleep now.

So the director read my draft.  He liked it, but felt it wasn’t what he was looking for.  Not that this kicks me off the project, you understand.

He is sticking to his original version of the story, which I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around.  The more I look at his notes, the more I wonder “Does this guy have a grasp of screenwriting basics?”

For example:  the hero is not only a film student (natch), but a really good one. “No matter what he writes, it will be awesome.”  But his crisis is that he’s not inspired to write his final script before graduating.  As a writer, I can relate to it, but it’s a boring crisis.  Where’s the conflict?  Why not have it be about the ramifications of NOT writing it?  In my version, he was worried that the script wouldn’t be good, and he kept having these dreams about overcoming self-doubt, inspiration and so on.

But it wasn’t what he wanted.

This guy wants what sounds like ‘representation of concepts’, like one character to represent inspiration as arousal of the mind, and another to stand for the hero’s gratification.  What does that even mean?  And one character is a link between his motivation and his inspiration.  This is where the cartoony question mark appears over my head with a ‘boing’ sound effect.

I’m very concerned with how this is all supposed to fit together.  Some of the scenes and characters don’t have any basis.  It’s like he thought “I’d like to have this happen,” but FOR NO REASON.  I hate when that happens.

He wants this to be an action/thriller/fantasy.  As I told him last week, where’s the action?  Right now, it’s a whole bunch of talking heads.  The hero is passive, not active.  The thriller aspect means suspense, intrigue and mystery.  What he’s suggesting has none of these.  The fantasy refers to him wanting it to be all set in the hero’s mind; it’s all a dream.  I can make an exception for the fantasy aspect, but SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN!

He sent me the character descriptions today.  They were much more extensive than I expected.  As I mentioned above, the hero is a film student and his work is awesome, etc., etc.  Making the Golden Boy your hero is boring, unless something happens that conflicts with him.  The Girlfriend character is listed as angry; why is she angry?  I was told because she thinks he cheated on her.  But it was in a dream.  And she’s angry in the dream.  But is she angry in real life?  There’s a bossy call girl, who is supposed to be doing ‘naughty things’.  And her pimp, who is an orphan but was raised by the call girl’s mother and promised to take care of her.  SO NOW HE’S PIMPING OUT A WOMAN HE PROBABLY CONSIDERS HIS SISTER?  AND THEY WANT TO OPEN AN ‘EXOTIC CLUB’ TOGETHER?  This is creepy on so many levels.

Then there’s the wise pool player, which I guess is supposed to be a kind of Obi-Wan character.  I think.  I don’t even know what he’s supposed to do.

Like I said, this is what the director wants.

I’m meeting with him tomorrow, armed with a whole bunch of questions.  If it doesn’t work out, no hard feelings.  I gave it a shot, but if he’s dealing in abstracts, then I’m not the right guy for the job.

He said he’s moving to LA/H’wood early next year.  No matter what happens, I wish him all the best.  He’s gonna need it.

I didn’t post yesterday because it was a busy day.  I spent parts of the weekend and most of yesterday working on the outline, and subsequently the first draft of the short.

But it’s done. 11 pages, or 10 1/2 if you want to get technical about it.  It will be very interesting to hear what the director thinks of it.  After all, it is HIS project.  I’m just the hired help.

But just to be sure, I took another look at his pages.  Whoa.

I also checked out some of his other shorts.  Not bad, but the writing in the 2-parter left me a little flat.

Another part of my assignment was to put together a synopsis.  I gave it my best shot, but I’m still not sure if it was decent enough.  I’ll have to look for some online to get a better idea.

He also wanted a character description.  I didn’t even attempt that.  There are five characters, three of which are in once scene each (if you don’t count them appearing in the final scene as normal people).  There’s a main character and a supporting character.  I’d like to think at least those two come across on the page.

This whole thing makes me curious what kind of creative process is taught at this school.  I’m sure there’s an emphasis on craft and all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but without a good or at least quality script, any movie is going to suck.

I’m trying to figure out if there will be any time tomorrow to work on BABY LIKES JAZZ.  I had extra time at work on Sunday, so I was able to get a few pages done.

The writing group is supposed to meet next Wednesday, but K will be out of town, so we’re investigating the possibility of hiring our usual sitter so I can go.  If that happens, and it all works out, I’d really like them to take a look at Act One.

My problem is there still seems to be something missing from it.  I also have to remind myself this is still a first draft, and I plan on getting feedback relatively soon.

In the meantime, the soldiering on will continue…

Started the first draft of the short. My deadline is Wednesday. Since I got about halfway through, I’d say I’m in good shape so far.

And I’m doing the traffic thing Sundy morning, so I’m hoping to get it done thereabouts.

I took a look at the director’s original screenplay. Wow. Nothing like I expected. That’s all I’ll say at this juncture.

It will be very interesting to see his reaction to what I give him. Very interesting indeed.

No movie tonight. V and I picked up K at the airport tonight. The family unit is once again complete…