I think the proper phrase is ‘creative differences’. And it was an amicable parting of ways, at least from my perspective.
Whatever happens next with this short, I will not be involved and I wish this guy all the best.
When somebody uses phrases like “the script is very subtextual” and “the characters don’t mean what they said; you have to see the acting,” and “the jokes are just funny; they have nothing to do with anything so far,” I take that as a sign to go.
From my perspective, it might have helped if he had been a little more detailed when he said “this is what I want”, rather than “see what you can do with this”. I suspect this probably happens a lot with professional writers. A producer says “I want this!”, then follows it up with, “That’s not what I meant.”
Oh well. Live and learn.
-One of my New Year’s resolutions is to check out more screenwriting blogs. I have my usual suspects over there to the right, but there’s an extensive list at Go Into The Story (particularly the Friends column), and I’m going to see if there are any others worth my time. Any suggestions?
I received the revised outline for the short on Christmas Day and have spent the past two days reviewing it.
My first response was “What the hell is he thinking?” But I decided to cool my proverbial jets and gave it some time. At least a day. I looked it over again yesterday morning. I still don’t know what he’s thinking, but rather than get upset and try and tear him down, I thought it would be better to focus on the story.
So I went through the outline, scene by scene, scribbling down questions that each scene raised. Why would the character do this? Why does this happen? Is this being set up to be paid off later? And so on and so on.
But as I read through, trying to figure things out, I also came to the conclusion that I may not be the writer this project needs. As much as I’d love to see this develop into an actual film, I don’t know if it benefits either side for me to keep trying.
I think my ideas work, but it’s his film. It’s frustrating to slave over a draft only to get “Not really what I had in mind” thirty minutes later. This has happened twice, and I don’t know if a third try is worth it.
I gave him the option of going with another writer, but have yet to hear back. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
I’ve never walked away from a project before, but sometimes you just have to.
This post was originally going to be called “Sad Face” because I’d been struggling to get the outline for the short done before tonight, and didn’t think I was going to make it.
My original idea wasn’t panning out. The one after that was becoming too complicated. The more I tried to figure things out, the deeper my self-dug metaphoric hole of frustration was becoming. It got to the point that I was having dreams about it, and that’s just scary.
Would I have to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to make it? Well, maybe. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. I just needed that one spark of creativity to get me going again.
And that spark came to me in the shower, of all places. I already had a lot of the story elements in place. What if I tried a different approach in tying them all together? But how? How about if the question of what happened is an absolute unknown? That’s it! Brilliant!
Oh, wait. That sounds like THE HANGOVER. Okay. Don’t want to seem like I’m completely ripping that off. Maybe a variation on that.
And I was off. Two and a half hours of writing, editing, researching and double-checking later (occasionally saving to prevent heartbreak if it accidentally got erased), I had the outline for what I think is a pretty good story. It has now been happily sent to the director. I hope he likes it.
-Movie of the Moment. THE LOVE GURU (2008) aka The Movie That Almost Destroyed Mike Myers’ Career. Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it. Non-stop, rapid-fire jokes that aren’t funny. Despite a running time of 1 hour, 27 minutes, we zipped through it in about 45, and it still seemed too long.
This seemed like another case of a megastar project where nobody wanted to say ‘no’. How else to explain a Morgan Freeman vocal cameo, or Sir Ben Kingsley making an ass of himself?
Only high points: Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan as hockey announcers. Sorry to say their scenes were the funniest parts.
If you value your time and sense of humor, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE! And if this wasn’t proof that Myers has gone to the ‘throw every joke at the wall and see if anything sticks’ well more than once too often, I’d forgotten that there’s another Austin Powers movie in development.
I’ll do my best to rectify this situation with my next scheduled Netflix delivery: SUPER 8.
Maximum Z 