Writing and Copywriting

I'm still in Warren, AR as of right now. Checking out different editors that have submitted to me but I'm just going to interview them when I get to Melbourne. Gotta make sure it's someone I can depend on and put up with for long hours. As of right now I'm just doing this and letting the movie "INSIDE JOKE' be known to the masses.

So we left off in our last adventure with me back where I came from with no script, and no money. So whatever did I do? As far as Ideas went I wasn't at a loss.

You're probably wondering why I decided to come back to Warren to make a movie? So many people in LA were interested in what it was like living in small town that I knew I needed to make a movie about it. One that was AUTHENTIC, with AUTHENTIC ACCENTS. Please don't believe the accents in Varsity Blues! Plus, how would I fund a movie in LA when I could barely fund myself. To grandmothers house I go!

In a record driving time of 2 days I got back just in time for the Annual Pink Tomato Festival. My best friend, Jacob, was in Warren for a few days before he had to head back to Florida. I agreed to drive JACOB down there and hang out for a few weeks, I deserved a vacation plus I'd be bringing MY BROTHER back who was already down there hanging out with HIS BROTHER. Complicated I know, same reaction the cop had who pulled me over in Alabama when I had to give him my reason for driving cross country. I literally had just driven coast to coast.

So after travelling to Melbourne, FL (bad ass place by the way) to drop off Jacob and pick my brother JOSH, then I go to TX for my sister FELICIA'S wedding, then I'm finally back in Warren to make things happen. The only place left to hook up my computer is a room that's so small and hot it feel's like a boiler room, but whatever.

So I decided to write the story, which is all based off awkward dating experiences and hanging out with my friends. So yeah, it's got a Clerks/Superbad-ish thing going for it. I just decided to take all these true life stories I've been telling for years making people laugh, combine them into 90 pages and make a movie of it.

Now for anyone that writes, you know what it's like to sit infront of keyboard to write. You think too much, and you're mind tries to get you off track and think of a hundred other things you need to do. Don't listen to it. Just type and type anything. It's a first draft, so it's gonna suck and you'll rewrite a hundred times anyway. In Finding Forrester, Forrester say's something akin to "Just type, don't think. You write the first draft with you heart. Then you can go back and use your mind."

That was my mentality, which is probably why the script ended up being around 250 pages. So yeah there were some problems, way too long, too many characters, lot's of people just hanging out talking about things that happened somewhere else, all in one location, and some loose ends.

You may have already learned this stuff from experience or reading a book but I beleive experience is the best teacher and I'd rather learn the hard way than listen to some guy's theory on something. This way you learn the reason for a rule or that you don't care for their rules at all.

But it acheived the following things 1) It was done 2) It was funny 3) Easy to produce 4) Great dialogue. So I registered the treatement with the WGA, and sent the script to the library of congress to get copywrited. And sent the script to a script doctor in LA, who basically told me what I already just named but repeatedly mentioned how much I tortured him with 250 pages in one location, haha.

So I fixed all that stuff over time with several re-writes. And after talking to people, I realized that since I was filming on DV I didn't have to write it as if I was shooting on 16mm. So I added more locations, combined characters for depth, etc.

So I had the legal stuff out of the way and I had a great script that's easy to produce and would get better after every re-write I did periodically from there on in. But how would I finance it and what kind of talent pool would I be working with in small town southern Arkansas. Find out next blog on the Adventures of Steve and Friends!

Self Education

So I'm still in post as of this blog, actually pre-post. In about a week I get to go down to Florida and edit the movie, but more on that later.

So I let's start with the decision to make my own movie. Great idea for a number of reasons 1) The crap I was auditioning for anyway was horrible 2) It was such a rat race 3) Always wanted to make my own movie anyway 4) One of my jobs was working at Blockbuster and I saw preview for Hannah Takes the Stairs (hannahtakesthestairs.com) and knew I could make my own movie.

There's those two types than inspire you to do something. One is so inspirational that you feel it's your calling to follow in their footsteps, the other is the kind that looks so bad or easy that you know you feel "I can do better than that". I'll let you guess which one I thought after seeing that trailer.

But one of my roommates had given up the dream of being an actor and decided to back home to Little Rock and be a loser that tries to pick up girls by telling them about how he used to live in Hollywood and the other roommate finally found out he was gay after having gay sex for the first time with his friend now turned boyfriend and decided to move into his apartment. So now I had no place to stay, and the seminar was in a month. So I decided to use the ol' puppy dog eyes on a girl I was seeing to get her to take me in for a month. Wow, those Armenians. She cooked for me and treated me like a king at first, soon as I moved in I was a Pariah. I've waited tables and taught high school students. I can up with a bitch that goes off on me because she can't stand the sound of me clipping my fingernails.

So after a month of her, and driving three times the distance to get to work for a month I've finally got to the seminar. I walk into some big stuido lot (Paramount Lot I think) and find my way to the auditorium. At the risk of sounding like somebody on his payroll, he is the guy to talk to if you want to make a movie. Anyone with common sense should know film school is a waste of money and time, all you get are contacts which you'll be doing anyway when you're doing the real thing. To paraphrase Tarantino (former student of Dov's), "Why spend money on filmschool when you could be using it on...your film?"

That was a bit of a tangent, but that's what I do. Anyway, I'm in there surrounded by a bunch of other people in an auditorium. Some of which were wearing expensive clothes indicating that they're TV actors or low level producers or some shit, there were also a lot of regular looking people, and people who knew way less than I did. Dov walked in before the seminar just checking over stuff and told us to mingle since we're all in the same boat. Who do I have around me? A kid from highschool who earned this trip in some Arts program...wow. I payed $400 and stayed in an apartment with this annoying girl for a month to learn how to make my dreams a reality, this guy doesn't know what the hell it's about and has no fucking idea how to handle all the info he's about to recieve. Guy on my right is some foreigner who kept taking his shoes off and proping them on the seat infront of him stinking up the adjacent seats...one of which would be mine.

So for two days I'm in this auditorium while Dov (webfilmschool.com) is blowing my mind with info for I think about eight hours a day. Trying to take notes while others are asking questions more advanced questions. One guy's a producer asking what the chances he'll get a return in investment on a movie he made starring Mickey Rooney. Dov say's he highly doubts it, I mean it's Mickey Rooney. Another woman is talking about a movie she's making in Hawaii. Dov say's he hates it here because it's like a small town where everyone and their cousin hears about something and they want in on it and hound the production. Just made a movie in Warren, AR so I know what that's about. Where the fuck are these people getting this money from in the first place, I'm wanting to hear about his low to no budget advice while I'm waiting for him to finish off the big budget stuff for all these money bags producers. Another guy asks what should he pay himself as a producer, Dov says "Pay yourself? Take money out of one pocket and put in the other. Ask a stupid question get a stupid answer." Not a person to suffer fools.

He did suffer me though, I asked him a lot questions during intermission about raising money and copyrighting. I got this 1) Whatever movie I'm making, save it for a later project. I'm too green, it's too big, and I'll fuck it up. 2) Judging from what he see's I'm not the kind of guy to raise lot's of money from Dentist's (he'll tell you all about that), just get $10,000 together and make it on DV. 3) He gave me and everyone else his phone # to call him with problems. Which I've used around six times.

So it's all said and done, I've packed, ditched the Armenian, made a two day trip home, and now I've got to come up with a plan to make money and write a whole new script. This might take longer than the three months I intially thought. But I better make it fast...or else I'm that guy that left to the big city and failed and has to come back and live with his grandparents.

People were treating me like a celebrity even though I hadn't really done anything but learn. And I was all cocky with my big ideas and stuff. But it was cool to get away from the city and come home...for about a week. Plus people didn't really know what to say when I said I'm gonna make a movie in Warren either.

So what did I do next? Where did a whole new script come from? How would I raise the money? Where would I find actors? Stay tuned for the next exciting blog and find out.

1st Post

This is my first time ever blogging, I probably would never have blogged if it weren't for the fact I thought I could help others. Aren't I just something special.

Either you want to learn from one who's been where you want to go, or you're just interested in the whole process of how it's done and that's it. Well, you're hearing it straight from someone who's living it so this is a pretty damn good oppurtunity for you.

There's better teachers who have more experience and make millions and do seminars, such as my mentor Dov Simens (webfilmschool.com), but here you're learning from someone who's making a movie IN THE NOW and you get all the little things that people don't tell you.

But we'll get to all that later, right now I'm just going to set up a little exposition. I'm from a crappy small town called Warren, AR. If you're town is actually smaller than mine than I'm impressed. We're also landlocked, it's a two hour drive to the nearest mall. People hang out at Wal-Mart for fun. Yeah.

Fast Forward and I've got a B.A. in Theatre from SAU, in Magnolia, AR which is not much better than Warren. So after I get done learning the Meisner technique among others from a university surrounded by cow pastures I leave to make things happen...with my Theatre degree. I choose Nashville, TN since my dad lives there. That way I could find a job to save money and move to New York, plus I could do some community theatre or something while I was there.

Well instead of getting some job at a Sam's Club I ended up getting a job...Teaching High School Spanish! I still don't understand how that happened, did my Theatre degree actually do something for me? Anyway, I was making so much money moving would be no problem, plus I could pay off bills, stock up on my wardrobe, etc. and I was acting in a play at the same time. I was making so much compared to my past part-time jobs that is was almost hard to give it up. But then again, it's teaching so I quit.

I ended up moving to LA since I was and am still young and that's where all the money is. I got an apartment,. two jobs, a manager and joined an improv group, not bad for someone from Warren, AR.

The bad, with two jobs I had no time to do anything else and I was still barely making a living. With the little extra I had I used it on acting classes, headshots, etc. I wasn't getting many auditions either with their being a WRITERS STRIKE. Really bad timing. In my little spare time I wrote my first movie. Never read a book on it, just did it. Why read a book that teaches you to write just like everone else?

Anyway, I missed my flight going snowboarding on Spring Break and tried to kill my nine hour wait by buying a magazine called SCRIPT, there was an add for a guy called Dov Simens who seemed to be the answer to everything. Well, he was. I took his $400 seminar, and knew what I had to do.

I moved back home to Warren, wrote a smaller budget movie, saved money, rewrote, read books, and repeat. One year later I finished it and now I'm getting it edited.

Now you want to know how. That's begins in my next blog, thought I'd just let you know how I got it started.