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…

I got the writing gig.  The guy wants a synopsis, character background and first draft by Wednesday.  Looks like Act Two of BABY LIKES JAZZ will have to wait.

It’s a bit overwhelming right now, but I’ll dive into it tomorrow.  I’m still  hoping to squeeze in a run sometime in there.

K comes home tomorrow night.  It’s been a long, exhausting week.  I had a bit of a meltdown tonight regarding V and her reading ability.  I know she’s trying, but I worry it’s not enough.  But with school starting the week after next, I still worry about how she’s going to do.  Some nights I’m patient, some I’m not.  I also realize the more she practices, the better she’ll get.

Movie of the moment:  COME AND SEE, a brutal WWII movie from Russia about the Nazis in what is now Belarus.  Definitely not your typical war movie.  This is realistic, ugly and stays with you long after it’s over.  Not for the squeamish.

First of all, I only did just over 1 page today.  But I’ve got a good excuse.  I was crazy busy.

I had to get ready for the meeting with the guy looking for a screenwriter for his short from Craiglist.  As soon as V and I got home from work, I printed out some pages from WOK & ROLL and DREAMSHIP, as well as the first half of the outline from MONSTER HUNTER (which needs a new title, so as not to confuse it with the video game of the same name.  Too bad.)

I also sent an email to a client I’m doing some editing/proofreading for to see if the project was done yet.

The ‘no TV’ rule was instigated, so V played while I printed and got organized (which included a very necessary 15-minute nap for me).  We played a bit, had lunch and zipped off to today’s installment of camp.

Following a brief chat with K, I raced my ass downtown to try and be on time.  I think I made it with about 2 minutes to spare.

So this guy is finishing up his MFA in Film at the local art college.  I gave him the thumbnail version of my experience.  Then he asked how I would approach this kind of film.  I rattled off a few ideas.

Then he started to explain the concept behind his story, but it started to sound very ‘this is from an art school; can’t you just feel the esotericness of it all?’  There was all this explaining of what was going on.  I thought he said this was an action-thriller.  I’d yet to encounter any action or thrills.

While some of his ideas were clever and original, overall, I wondered how much of a grasp he really had on the writing process.  Being as diplomatic as I could, I explained that nobody wants to see a bunch of talking heads discussing where inspiration comes from.

I took his ideas, and gave them a necessary twisting around.  How about changing this?  Don’t be married to what you have now; things WILL change.  Don’t fight it.  I think I scared him because these seemed to be things he never thought about.

Before we finished, he mentioned that I was the first writer he was meeting with about this.  He got something like 20 responses!  Including a pair of writers who have actual credits.  I couldn’t help but wonder why somebody with produced material would respond to a Craigslist listing like this?  Smells fishy to me.

He expects to make a decision by Friday.  If I get it, great.  If not, that’s okay too.  He added that he basically can’t pay anything, which I expected.  The writer gets an onscreen credit and a sample to actually show around.  Me likey.

The rest of the day involved finishing up the editing/proofreading project, followed by picking V up at camp and making a pecan pie to take to work tomorrow.

While I thought it would be nice to write 3 pages today, I was happy with the 1+ I did do because it signals the END OF ACT ONE!

Tomorrow: short run, 3-5 pages and whatever else comes up.

No movie tonight.  Too exhausted, and I wanted to focus on this.  I also made a point of making sure I did this because I don’t want to slack off.

But I’m done now.

Zzzz….