I forgot to do the Sunday update last week. Here's where we are:
-We've cast all three male leads, and one of the two female leads. We have a favorite for the second female lead, and pending a chemistry read next week, we may have all the leads cast. I am not sure when we will announce the cast, but I will say that everyone who has read the script and then seen the audition tapes is extremely pleased with our picks.
-Looks like we are going to start July 14th instead of the 7th, because that gives enough time after Oliver Stone's movie about George Bush, "W", stops shooting in Shreveport for us to poach most of the crew and locations. Again, this is tentative though.
-The location scout to Shreveport went well, and Nils, Bob and I will start laying the movie out in Frame Forge this week probably. I'll go into it more in a later post, but basically we are going to storyboard the movie, except using software instead of having an artist hand draw it out. It's cool, you'll see.
-There are a bunch of other announcements I could make, but I am going to save them for later this week, pending a big announcement we have coming, one that I think will surprise and excite a lot of people.
Since we started this process with the finished script in Hollywood, we've had some of the best writers, directors, actors and other creatives in Hollywood compliment us on it. I could tell you some of the names and what they've said, but not even I am that much of a narcissist.
The funny thing is, none of it really affects me. Having an Oscar-winning director or a huge producer or an Emmy-winning writer lavish praise on you, even if it is sincere, just doesn't move my meter. It's not that I don't respect them or don't like it at all, it's just that external praise from people I don't know has never mattered much to me.
My stories started as emails to my friends about the stupid, funny or ridiculous shit I did. My only real goal was to make them laugh. Everything I have built started there, and even now, best-selling author, tons of fans, blah blah blah...when I write I strip it all away and still write with that small, single-digit audience in mind. If they like it, it's good.
I sent the video of the readings for the three guys we've cast to play me, SlingBlade and [PWJ/GoldenBoy/ElBing], to the very guys they are playing: My Duke Law School friends. I wanted to know what they thought, and as a group, they loved the guys we cast.
But the most discerning, irascible, and talented motherfucker of the bunch is SlingBlade himself. He is the best friend an artist could ever have because he is the three things that artists need in an editor: 1. a genius, 2. completely unforgiving in his evaluation of anything, and 3. always fair. If it's bad, he'll call you out, and if it's good, he'll say it. His response to the actors:
"Those guys were really good. I'm impressed."
Now THAT is a compliment that means something to me.
Since we have all but settled on our Tucker, we had to tell the other guys who had done chemistry reads and callbacks for Tucker that they weren't getting it. Generally, this is done by the casting agent. Joseph will call the actor's agent, tell them the news, and that's basically that.
But in this case we'd had drinks and hung out with both of the guys who had done chemistry reads, and Nils and I really got along with and respected both of them. I didn't want to spend all that time with them, bond with them--even on a small level--and then have them find out through their agent that they weren't going to get the part. That just feels cheap to me. Either you like someone as a person or you don't, and if you do, then you like them all the time, regardless of the immediate economic benefit. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seemed like they'd want to hear the news from me. At least, if I was in their position, that's what I would want.
So I told them personally. I sent an email to one of them (I didn't have his phone number) and called the other one. Real basic conversation, I told them that another guy had come in and just blown us away, that I was impressed with them as actors and that I would have loved to work with them, and sincerely thanked them for coming in. Really, nothing special at all, what any other decent person would do and say in my shoes. It didn't even occur to me that I was doing anything unusual.
From the reaction I got, you'd think I had given a kidney to a dying child. Joseph called me and was gushing for five minutes about how nice and awesome I was to do that, and the other actor sent this email:
"Hey man,
Thanks for being so up front about all this. I really appreciate hearing about this from you. Obviously, I wanted to play you, but I know how it is and if someone came in and blew the doors off it, I can live with that. If you guys are happy and think you found your guy, I'm happy for you and I'm sure the movie will be better for it. Normally I'd be like, "Fuck that, I hope the movie bombs," but I really hope for your sake (and Nils) that it blows up. You guys have worked really hard and you deserve it...[irrelevant part excerpted]...Again, thanks a lot for treating me like a person instead of a commodity. I appreciate it more than you can understand."
My response to both of them was awkward and stammering. I didn't know what to say. I've never seen anyone so grateful for basic human decency. It's not like I liberated prisoners of war from a concentration camp--I just treated people the way I would want to be treated. Isn't this the Golden Rule? Doesn't everyone do this?
The sad thing is, once I stopped and thought about it, I realized I should have expected this. Everyone in Hollywood is so used to getting treated like shit that when someone comes along and is nice in a situation where they don't need to be or don't want something from the other person, they are so grateful.
One of the first things you notice when you come to work in Hollywood from the outside business world, is the lack of respect with which the system treats people. It's shocking really, when you realize that the standard behavior model is to treat people like complete shit.
You can read a ton of books about this (Why Does Sammy Run?, Adventures In The Screen Trade), or see all the movies about it (Swimming With Sharks, The Player), but I have seen it first-hand a ton of times already--we've been in pre-production for only three months, and I already have all kinds of examples. The agent for the casting director cursed at and then hung up on the production lawyer when they were discussing the deal. The production lawyer is about the nicest, sweetest woman you could ever imagine. Before she started working in Hollywood, she was a public defender in the juvenile crimes division for Baltimore. She said she gets treated worse in Hollywood. The first line producer we thought about attaching had a lawyer that refused to give us her precedent for a deal, asked us to come back with an offer, and then once we did, cursed at and insulted my lawyer about the offer we gave them. I told him to fuck off, and we attached a different line producer.
I could go on and on with examples like this, but the people who have worked here for years have much better ones, especially the actors and the below-the-line people. One actor told us a story about how on a movie, the director walked around with a bullhorn screaming in the faces of everyone on set. He was directing a COMEDY! When we asked one actor what he thought of the character's motivation in a specific scene, he kinda paused and said, "I don't think a director has ever asked me what I thought about anything before." Every below-the-line person has dozens of stories about how producers have thrown phones at them, berated them to the point of tears, fired them for no reason, etc, etc. When they talk about it, it's like you can see their crushed souls, you can see how the system's corrupt DNA has its boot on their neck. They all just resign themselves to this treatment as a part of being in the system.
It doesn't have to be this way. Jesus Christ--I AM FAMOUS FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE--and even I treat the people I work with well, if for no other reason than because it makes good business sense. Why do so many of the successful people in Hollywood not understand this? Why does no one get that if you treat people well, they will work twice as hard, be twice as productive (and probably work for less money). Everyone is better off if you are just nice to the people you work with.
In what world is Tucker Max giving someone a lecture about decency and respect?
Only in Hollywood.
Setting aside the ability to make quiche from scratch, I have been a man's Man my entire life. I don't use "product". I don't listen to bullshit hipster music. I don't take pain relievers. I've never gone tanning. I love sports. I love women. And I squeeze the toothpaste from the middle of the tube. Yet I've been in Hollywood less than two months and already half of that time has been spent using words like "sparkle", "twinkle", and "naughty joy" to describe and contrast the relative merits of a gaggle of impossibly attractive young men. SEE! There I go again!!! The worst part is that I don't feel the least bit dirty about it because finding the best possible actor to play Tucker is critical to the success of this film. He needs to "pop" on screen and have that "twinkle" in his eye that tells you he's filled with the type of "naughty joy" that makes you want to love him and forgive him at the same time.
On the list of things I thought I would never say in my lifetime, "naughty joy" is right up there with "World Champion Boston Red Sox" and "porn is gross." I mean, seriously, think about this: when would it ever be okay for a man's Man to insert the phrase "naughty joy" into conversation? Maybe...maybe...when he's recounting the previous night's sexual encounter with a kindergarten teacher into role-playing. NEVER when he's discussing the charisma and visual appeal of a fit, good-looking young actor auditioning to play the guy sitting next to you. Except it only gets better, because for us it doesn't stop at conversation. Sure we just watched these guys audition twenty minutes earlier, five feet away from us, but we're PRODUCERS. We can't just talk about their sparkle and naughty joy. We want...nay, we need...to see it again. So we go back to the video tape and stare intently at their eyes and smiles, making sure that the naughty joy we remembered is there on screen and, most importantly, the right amount of naughty. Not too much, not too little, but just right. Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears of Naughtiness.
That's been my Hollywood experience for the past month. Four weeks. Four dudes, one chick. Talking day after day about another man's sparkle. It's no wonder celebrity sexuality remains the primary source of grist for the Hollywood rumor mill. How could it not?
We finally found our Tucker.
I think.
I don't want to get too crazy yet, because we still have the chemistry reads to go...but damn, he was REALLY good. He had that look, that spark, that energy that is so key to inhabiting the character but that no one has really gotten exactly right yet. When he read, I got the same feeling I got when the guy who got the SlingBlade part read. I saw the character in him and for the first time I BELIEVED, on a visceral level, that the guy in front of me could be Tucker Max.
It's funny, after reading HUNDREDS of actors for Tucker, and having almost none get close, we had THREE guys come in today and do a great job. It was like not getting laid for six months and then having a week-long orgy.
As soon as I can, I will announce who this guy is, and who the rest of the cast is.
It's funny--the chemistry reads made me so excited last week because they went so well, but (potentially) finding Tucker has made me feel...relieved. It's like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Joseph was the same way. All that uncertainty falling away, all that angst gone...I almost want to cry, not because we found him, but because the stress of there not being a Tucker is now gone.
But I'm not going to cry. I'm going to go get Tucker Max drunk instead.
There is a rule in corporate ethics: "Don't do it if you wouldn't want it on the front page." It's a good rule of thumb, but in my experience, very few people in the business world pay attention to it. Just think about it--if the things your boss did were known to the world, wouldn't they be mortified?
The thing about Hollywood that is so unusual is that everyone DOES know what you do. There is no official front page that it's on, but believe me when I say this: Everyone knows everything right away.
This is not hyperbole. I can't think of any aspect of this production that other people haven't TOLD ME about. An agent for one of the actors called me the other day to discuss something, and he casually mentioned a piece of information I had no idea ANYONE in Hollywood knew. It wasn't anything that needed to be secret or was potentially embarrassing, it was just so...weird. How did the fuck did he know that?
I had meetings with several different PR guys in NYC. Every one of them had sheets with very detailed information about the movie, information they did not get from me--who we have cast, who we were considering for roles, status of various aspects of the production--it was like looking at a CIA briefing of my project.
Last night Nils and I had drinks with an actor, and he told me two different casting stories he'd heard...about me! And they were both pretty accurate. One was good, and one not so much. I wrote about it here (at the bottom, almost the last paragraph), when I basically laughed at an actor in the room. What I didn't know was that that dude left the room and told everyone what had happened, and to be honest, I don't blame him one bit. I was completely in the wrong, and I would have been pissed off too if I was in his position. [This actor was a treasure trove of information about gossip and about various other Hollywood things Nils and I had no idea about, but that's a different entry.]
Make no mistake about it, Hollywood is a very small town, and word travels fast and gossip is one of the most valuable commodities here. Everyone I have ever worked with in Hollywood has told me that "everyone knows everything right away," and damn if this isn't true. But even though I understood in an intellectual sense, seeing it in action is almost breathtaking. There really are NO secrets in this town. It's like you constantly have a thousand eyes on you, watching everything you do and reporting it back to everyone else.
At first, this was kinda disconcerting. Whenever you hear gossip about yourself that portrays you in a bad light, your automatic response is to be defensive about it. I started to try to defend myself to the actor about why I laughed in the room at that one guy, but I just stopped. The fact was, I did it, and I was wrong. I just need to learn my lesson and never do it again, not try to explain it away or give a reason for it, because the reason--no matter how valid--doesn't change what happened. Learn from the mistake and move on.
Then I started thinking about the nature of gossip and information flow in Hollywood, and I realized that even though it's disconcerting at first, I think I actually LIKE the fact that the Hollywood grapevine is so pervasive and all-knowing. The great thing about gossip and word of mouth is that it goes both ways. It doesn't have to be bad, but it is bad most of the time because most people do bad things.
Well, I want my business to be on the front page, because I have nothing to hide. The fact is, I am honest. I have integrity. I treat my employees and my friends with respect and fairness. I am nice to the people I like (mistakes aside). And I not only want to make great movies and art, I want to treat people well in the process and pay them what they deserve, not what I can force them to take.
Plainly put, I want to do the right thing the right way, and if I get up every day and actually live up to the standard I have set for myself, then, because of the Hollywood grapevine, everyone is going to know about it.
That kind of word of mouth is more valuable than any PR, any marketing, any advertising or other corporate bullshit I could ever do. Do the right thing, do it every time, and eventually everyone is going to know it and want to work with you.
Comment and discuss
This is the first actor rider we have received. Of course, it's not from a real actor, but from my two idiot friends, Jojo and Credit. I have no idea if anyone else will find this funny, but I laughed my ass off. For the meals, it has Credit eating spaghetti bolognese every day because in real life, Credit does eat spaghetti bolognese EVERY DAY. Of course, this is the same dude who, when told he had to give a CLE speech to his department, HE QUIT HIS JOB! He is that afraid of public speaking.
EBONY AND IVORY ACTING, INC.
Technical Rider
DRESSING ROOMS:
Producer Shall Provide Two (2) Private Dressing Rooms
1. One (1) Room for Jojo w/ Two (2) Full Length Mirrors on Opposite Walls, One (1) 5' X 8' Mirror Mounted on the Ceiling, Clean Bathroom, One (1) Futon, One (1) Wheatgrass Machine and Fresh Cut Lilacs to Make Him Feel Fresh and Pretty.
2. One (1) Room for Credit w/ Two (2) Full Length Mirrors on Adjacent Walls, Clean Bathroom with Adjustable Shower Head, One (1) Loveseat, One (1) Mini-Fridge, One (1) Gas Range, One (1) Pasta Sauce Pan, One (1) Large Pot and One (1) Cactus for its Mysterious Healing Powers.
Rooms Are To Have Locks On The Doors, Electronic Scanner Entry Set To Allow Access After Successful Retinal Scan Only For Credit, Jojo, Hate, PWJ and Others Specifically Identified by Credit and Jojo.1
FOODS & DRINKS:
Producer Shall Provide Two (2) Setups of Food And Refreshments
One (1) In Each Dressing Room.
DRESSING ROOM 1: (JOJO)
Consist Of:
1. Twenty-Four (24) Cans of Red Bull2
2. Four (4) Gallons of Fresh Mountain Water Imported Directly From the Appalachian Mountains,
Including Complete Video Tape Of Journey To Prove Journey And Route
3. Twelve (12) Bottles of Assorted Premium Malt Liquors
4. One (1) Tray of Delicious Dim Sum Appetizers
5. Four (4) Fresh Avocados
6. Eight (8) Large Towels
7. Three (3) Buckets of Fried Chicken
8. Three (3) Slabs of Barbeque Ribs
9. Two (2) Bottles of Hot Sauce
10. Two (2) Trays of Assorted Melons (Watermelon, Honeydew and Cantaloupe)
11. Ample Supply of Wet Naps For Eating and Wiping Asses.
DRESSING ROOM 1: (CREDIT)
Consist Of:
1. Twenty-Four (24) Bottles of Boone's Farm
2. Four (4) Dozen Fresh Bagels Made With New York City Tap Water
3. Three (3) Sam's Club Jars of Chunky Peanut Butter
4. Eight (8) Large Towels
5. Three (3) Containers of Original Philadelphia Cream Cheese
6. Six (6) Boxes of Uncooked Spaghetti
7. Three (3) Cloves of Garlic
8. Six (6) Cans of Tomato Sauce
9. Three (3) Containers of Italian Seasoning
10. Three (3) Pounds of Lean Ground Beef (95% Fat Free or Better)
NOTE: All Rooms Must Be Accommodated w/ Knives, Forks, Cups, Napkins, Ice, Etc.
MEALS;
SUNDAY:
Jojo: Six (6) Chicken Wing Dinner from Harold's Chicken Shack w/ Fries, no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
MONDAY:
Jojo: Slab of Ribs From Ribs & Bibs, no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
TUESDAY:
Jojo: Dipped Italian Beef Sandwich w/ Fries, no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
WEDNESDAY:
Jojo: Four (4) Crab Cakes Flown From Baltimore Maryland w/ Boardwalk French Fries, no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
THURSDAY:
Jojo: Two (2) Pulled Pork Sandwiches from Raleigh, North Carolina w/ Fries, no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
FRIDAY:
Jojo: Liquid Dinner (Bottle of Belvedere Vodka), no vegetables
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
SATURDAY:
Jojo: Light Salad
Credit: Spaghetti Bolognese, no vegetables
THESE ARE NOT SUGGESTED MENUES.
DON'T DEVIATE FROM THIS. IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL CREDIT LOSES HIS SHIT.
PHYSICIAN
Producer shall supply Credit and Jojo with the name and telephone number of a medical doctor capable of (i) pumping stomachs in case of alcohol poisoning; (ii) curing hangovers within one (1) hour of wake-up call; and (iii) rectal examinations.
BAIL BONDSMAN
Producer shall supply Credit and Jojo with the name and telephone number of a bail bondsmen. Any bail payments to be made by Producer.
This morning we had our first chemistry read. As the name implies, a chemistry read is when you take the actors from the various roles you've cast and put them in a room and have them read together, and see how they interact. It can be potentially disastrous if they don't have any chemistry--think of how bad Colin Farrell and Jaime Fox were in MIAMI VICE, you could tell they hated each other off screen--or it can be the greatest thing ever if they really spark--think of how Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau made an mediocre script great because of their chemistry.
I can hardly type this I am so excited, which should tell you how it went. The first chemistry read was between the actor we cast as SlingBlade and the girl who was our first pick for the principal stripper role. The SlingBlade role is basically locked, so we were reading to see if she fit with him. It went so fucking good we didn't even read it twice or give notes. The actress is really hot and a very good actress, but more importantly, she played off the actor perfectly. Their energies matched up and you totally believed that they would hit it off in real life. It looked right, it read right and it felt right. It's going to be awesome. Those two have some extended scenes together that are crucial the movie, and they are going to knock them out of the park. These are star-making roles, and these two are stars waiting to be made.
The SlingBlade actor stayed around and read with two of the potential Tuckers (the actor who is playing the [PWJ/GoldenBoy/El Bingeroso] role is out of town shooting a movie, so I read that role). This was the first time we'd heard this particular scene read out loud. I have to be frank: It's fucking awesome. Nils and I wrote a great script. The SlingBlade actor is really starting to inhabit the emotional depth of that character, and man, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but he is going to be something special. The dialogue is there, and he is making it pop on camera. I hate to say it, but that role, with that actor, may end up stealing this whole movie.
Both of the guys who read for Tucker had things right and things wrong about them, and both had moments where they nailed it. Those brief moments when they occupied the character with the other actor and me...they were magical.
We have a long way to go even with just the casting, and a lifetime to go before this film is finished, but I now know without any doubt in my mind that this is going to not just work, but be big. I have always been intuitive about my writing and my art. I don't know why or how things work, but I do know WHEN they work (or don't work), and I am telling you with all the authority and belief I can muster: This works. I knew it worked on the page when it was finished, but that is not the same thing as it working when it comes out of an actor's mouth. I have heard it, and it works. It explodes off the page. I hate to sound all sappy or whatever, but I haven't felt this alive and in sync about something in a long time. This fucking works man, and it is going to be awesome.
I had a meeting today with a finance company, and got there about 15 minutes early. One of the financiers came into the conference room and talked to me while we waited for everyone else to show up. We were talking about basketball, and he told me about how he played in college--at a D-1 school in a major conference--and then made a self-deprecating remark about how it was a football conference so it was no big deal. I'm paraphrasing myself:
"Dude, you played D1 ball. D1 is D1. Very few people are good enough to even do that. I wasn't. It's an awesome achievement. It's like my friend who got a 10-day contract in the NBA. Yeah, it was only ten days, but he played in The League. But I would kill for ten days in The League."
We went on and talked about other things, but driving away from the meeting, this snippet of conversation stuck with me.
One of the things I wanted more than anything was to be an NBA point guard, and of course I never came remotely close. But if I was given the chance play out a ten day contract, I would savor every moment. The shoot around, putting a real NBA uniform on, team meals, watching tape of your opponents, playing in front of tens of thousands of people against the best players in the world, even lacing up my free shoes--I would cherish and remember every moment for the rest of my life. The stuff that the veterans all take for granted would mean everything to me.
Contrast this to the superstar who, instead of taking a moment to savor the fact that he gets to play basketball for his job, worries about his sneaker contract or baby mama drama or whatever. And if you're a REAL bitch, you're Latrell Sprewell, you complain that 40 million dollars isn't enough to eat and you choke your coach.
It's a weird truism of psychology: the guy who has very little is often happier than the one who has a lot, but not everything. This holds true in the Olympics. Several studies have shown that the gold medalist is the happiest, but the bronze medalist is happier than the silver medalist. Why? Because the bronze medalist is just happy they medaled, while all the silver medalist can do is anguish about barely missing the gold.
I am making a movie about my life. Seriously--how many people would kill to switch places with me? I have worked so long and hard to get here, and now I'm living the dream...but I'm having the hardest time stopping to appreciate it while it's happening. All I do is stress about things and bust my ass to make sure it's as perfect as possible.
It's just so hard for me to stop and appreciate anything because I am so driven to succeed. For me, everything is conquering this mountain I have put in front of myself; I can't stop and look at how far I've come, because the only thing that matters to me is how far I have to go. Clearly, working very hard is a good thing, but there has to be a balance.
Every once in a while, I need to see myself as the guy with the ten day contract, living the dream, excited about what he's done and just trying to take it all in. Obviously I can't spend too much time sucking my own dick, because we still have to make the movie; I just need to re-center myself and learn how to balance both perspectives.
At some point, I am going to be at the top, and there will be no more mountains to climb. If, by that time, I am not used to appreciating what is below me, it might be too late to learn.
The question every producer gets constantly outside of Hollywood is the most basic one, "What does a producer do exactly?"
The best elevator summary I've ever heard to describe what a producer's job is this: "A producer finds all the elements of a movie separated and apart from one another, and brings them together to form the movie. They are responsible for every step of the process, thus they 'produce' the movie."
This will be a series of posts, making up many parts, that lays out in general what a producer does. This entire blog is about my experience making the movie, but I thought that this series of posts will help give a broader picture of what producers as a group do to the people who aren't familiar with Hollywood. Without a doubt, I will leave some things out or get some things wrong, and even though I am a movie producer, I do not hold myself out as the end-all expert in this area. I am just a guy who is currently producing his first movie, and who has figured out a few things. If you really want to know EVERYTHING about being a producer, I would recommend two things:
1. Do the job. Nothing teaches like experience.
2. Read about it in these three books, Independent Film Producer's Survival Guide, Independent Feature Film Production, and maybe this one, The Movie Business Book or this article gives a short and concise understanding (make sure to check out the articles at the bottom that go into more depth on indie producers).
What Does A Producer Do, Part 1: From Concept To Script
You will hear people argue this back and forth, but to me it is obvious: EVERYTHING in the movie business starts not with the movie stars, but with the script. But the thing is, scripts don't just materialize out of nowhere; at some point someone has to take a vague concept or idea and make it into a finished script. Sometimes a screenwriter does that on his or her own, and writes a spec script. But that doesn't happen as much as you'd think. Usually, that is the job of the producer: Find a new or exciting concept, and turn it into a usable script.
Most of the big names you know as movie producers--Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Graser, Scott Rudin--are not writers, or really even creatives in any reasonable definition of the word. They are deal makers, putting elements together to create a movie. And the first part of that process is finding the concept. What generally will happen is they will find some great idea for a movie, and then hire a screenwriter to turn it into a script. The idea can come from anywhere; the producer him or herself, a short story in the New Yorker, an idea outlined on a cocktail napkin, a book or a blog or even a video game or amusement park ride. Any concept or idea that could conceivably be told as a story in the visual medium in about two hours can become the underlying material for a movie.
A producer will then buy the rights to the story from the author--it's called optioning--and take the story and give it to an accomplished screenwriter to turn into a usable movie script, or sell it to a studio with themselves attached to produce, and the studio will then pay a screenwriter to create a script (there are very very few producer/screenwriters in Hollywood, though it is common in TV).
This can be a very expensive process. Books routinely sell the movie rights for seven figure sums, and the script fees for an A List screenwriter can be well over a million dollars. At this point, the producer (or studio, depending on the situation) can be out a lot of money, all before the script is done.
This isn't the only way to do it, of course. A producer can get a screenwriter to do a script on spec, for a percentage of the backend. Or the author of the concept can develop the material himself, and the become his own producer. This is basically what happened with me and Max Wong.
She found my site in 2002, emailed me, and we struck up a conversation. Over the next five years, she walked me through the development process, first in TV, then in film, helping Nils and I to first craft a TV show concept and show bible, then helped us not only learn how to write a screenplay, but walked us through all of the first eight or nine drafts. This ended up resulting in a finished script (with the help of a few others along the way that will be discussed later).
I went this way--as opposed to optioning my book to a producer or studio--for several reasons, the first being that I didn't trust anyone else to write a script about my material better than me. Hollywood has been dicking up great books for a century, and I don't trust them to get mine right.
But more importantly, I looked around and saw a major opportunity. Most writers are scared of their own shadows, desperate for a job and willing to take any abuse heaped on them. They are at the bottom of the social pyramid in Hollywood, because the prevailing logic is that stars drive movies, not material. The writers themselves buy into that bullshit as much or more than anyone. But it's just that--complete bullshit. Great scripts drive movies, so why should I not leverage my material and script into me producing my own movies? Why should I take my material--which I know is awesome and I know could be made into a huge franchise--and sell it to a studio or a producer for pennies, and then watch them make it into a turd sandwich? Or even worse, watch them make it well and take home all the money? I was reminded of this quote by Marianne Williamson, "Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself."
It was from this line of thought that I took my concept and developed it into a script with Nils writing with me, and Max Wong helping me. But instead of Max optioning my material and owning it, I kept all the rights and just let her attach in exchange for her script and concept notes and general Hollywood help. In effect, I became my own producer, I assumed all of the risk myself, and took the concept to script myself, and as a result, Nils and I own the script and we get to produce the movie.
Next entry in the series (the posts won't be all in a row) deals with connecting creatives--directors, actors, etc--with the script.
I have said here, and elsewhere, that we may never find the "perfect Tucker" because two Tucker Max's just might not exist. We are far more likely, I believe, to end up casting the "best Tucker" by finding the actor who a) comes the closest, b) possesses the most raw materials, and c) is capable of being coached/directed the rest of the way. At least through the audition process, it's c) that's proven to be the biggest hurdle. This is how it usually transpires:
An actor comes in the room and does a cold reading of the first side completely off-book (that means 'memorized with nothing in front of him' for all you cloying Hollywood neophytes). Something in his performance shows real potential but is not quite there, so one of us (usually Bob or Tucker) gives him a series of notes about the character's personality and approach and motivation. It's a pretty canned speech at this point since we've given it so many times, and we've each developed our own rhythm with respect to its delivery so we can pause along the way to make sure the actor is with us and understands the points we are trying to get across. Invariably, we are met with a quick "Yeah" at each of those pauses. The quicker and more frequent the "Yeahs", the more certain I am that he is just waiting for us to stop talking so he can have the floor back and show little or no improvement in his second reading. The actor will adjust his performance by smiling more. Or smiling less. By raising his voice. Or, in the case of one particular actor who could not shake out the nerves and uncertainty, by snapping his fucking fingers.
For me, it's gotten almost comical. When I hear the "Yeah...Yeah...Yeah", I just want to keep going with the notes and see how much shit we can get him to agree with before he catches on.
"For this character, it's not about whether he gets laid. If he gets laid, great, that's gravy. It's really about the interaction. About coming up with the funniest line possible."
"Yeah."
"And seeing how far he can go with it."
"Yeah."
"It comes from a place of consequence-free, almost childlike joy. You've hit on women before."
"Yeah."
"You know that sense of joy you get..."
"Yeah."
"...that comes when you realize that you could tie this woman's hands and feet together"
"Yeah."
"Cover her eyes and mouth with duct tape"
"Yeah."
"Toss her in the trunk and take her to your subterranean fertility dungeon"
"Yeah."
"Like so many over-bearing Austrian fathers who've come before you."
"Yeah."
"It's like that but without the incest."
"Yeah."
It should be no surprise that the actors who've done the best have taken the opposite tack. They are generally off-book, but they have the sides with them for reference. Despite what you might think, it's not an issue of insecurity or lack of confidence. They've probably just learned a few lessons in professional humility. No matter how much you prepare for an audition or how certain you are that you've got the character all figured out, you can never be sure that your take jives with the views of the director, the writers, and the producers. Knowing that, when these actors get notes after the first reading, they do this really interesting thing--I think it's called LISTENING--and they spend a minute absorbing the information, looking at the sides, figuring out how those notes create points of adjustment, then gathering themselves and delivering a second read that is almost always appreciably better than the first--which was already good to begin with. This has been the case for the casting of nearly every major role thus far, not just Tucker.
Of course, this is all easier said than done. I understand that the process is nerve-wracking and awkward. I cannot imagine the level of unease that accompanies standing in a small, warm room five feet away from a handful of people who have been judging you since you walked through the door and will not stop until well after you've left. But still, shouldn't the fact that you're being judged on everything make you want to slow down and concentrate so that what will be judged is the best you have to offer? It's not like you're auditioning for The Groundlings. Or Jeopardy! Speed is not necessarily an asset.
There are very few ways that Hollywood is analogous to the rest of the world, but auditioning is one of them. It's very much like your average corporate world job interview. The only major difference between the two, besides the attractiveness of the candidate pools, is the criteria by which they are judged. Other than that, the same principles that apply to the interviewing process should be applied to the auditioning process. When was the last time you were hired for a good, well-paying job after an interview in which you reflexively answered "yeah...yeah...yeah" to every question lobbed your way? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the day after never. From the pool of qualified candidates, the people who get the good jobs are the ones who take the time to listen to the interviewer, consider what s/he is asking, consider their own feelings on the matter, and then deliver a calm, reasoned, thoughtful response.
I'm sure the insecurity and uncertainty that comes with youth plays a part in this. After all, we're auditioning a bunch of 21-26 year olds who have probably never interviewed for a real job before. They naturally want to be everything to every person for whom they audition, and they want to have all the right answers. What they need to realize is that the right answer isn't always "Yeah." Fortunately, the good ones already know this. All we have to do now is find them.
-Officially attached our line producer, Darren Demetre. He's been working for us for about two weeks already, but now his contract is signed and he is full time. Should attach a DP this week.
-Officially attached a production designer as well, Eve Cauley.
-The new website design you see was done by Bunny. She's good at design.
-Location scout is later this week. The director, production designer and line producer (and maybe the DP if we get him attached in time) are going down to Shreveport to check it out and find locations. The 1st AD, Justin Jones, already lives in Louisiana and he will be helping them. I am very interested to see how that goes, once we get some locations settled we can make a lot of progress on pre-production.
-Casting continues this week with some of the smaller parts. Plus we are going to start doing chemistry reads with some of the roles, especially the two female leads with at least the two male leads that are already cast. Should be very interesting.
-Maddox and Tim Ferriss signed on this week to do small cameos.
-Start of principle has been pushed back until at July 7th. We figured it made no sense to start filming right before we have to pay the weekly crew for a day off on the July 4th holiday.
Just got finished with a long week in NYC. It wasn't as long as Joseph's week, that's for sure, but it was a lot of work. Met with so many people it's a blur--product placement, PR, film marketing, actor, etc, etc--and still, no Tucker. The good news is that I got to eat at Gordon Ramsay's new place and Union Square Cafe. So that was nice.
Had a long casting session today, and it was only mildly productive overall. Judging from the small sample I saw, NYC actors are, as a group, less polished, less attractive, and less confident than LA actors. It's like because they don't audition as much, they are more nervous about the movies that cast in NYC, but at the same time, they are a bit snooty about it because they all think they're "real" actors, and they overplay the roles. Most of them, I had to tell them to relax and have fun.
BTW--guess who did the very best reading today for the Tucker role? BILL DAWES!!
I already knew he was a solid actor, but I have to give the guy serious props--he came in confident and prepared and really did a good job. He was in the top 5 of everyone who has read, LA or NYC, in terms of the execution. I have seen enough actors now where I feel confident in being able to tell the difference between the ones who have "it" on some level and those who don't, and he does. Granted, he does know me in real life, so he had an edge, but still--I know a lot of people will dismiss this because he's my friend, but I think if anything, that makes me harder on him. He's a really good actor and--no bullshit--if he had the right role, he could be a legit star.
But I don't think he's going to get the role, and the shitty part is that it's not his fault at all--the camera just doesn't love him for the Tucker character. After his audition I looked at his reading on film, and it didn't come off the way it did just a minute before in the room. This has happened before..
Part of what we are looking for is a certain way that an actor pops on screen. They have to have not only likability, but also a sort of childlike joy about them, something that makes you love them no matter what they do. Being able to do that in real life is hard enough, but having that come off on camera is really fucking hard. It's just part of their DNA, and just like you can't coach height in basketball, I don't think it's something that an actor can learn.
We are going to go back to LA now, show Bill's tape to Bob to see if he sees something we don't, and take another look at the three or four guys who had that "pop" was are looking for in some way or another. It looks like we are just going to have to find the guy who is closest to the target and then figure out a way to get him the rest of the way.
Comment and discuss. Registration required.
Part of casting is hearing the lines you wrote spoken out loud by professional actors. Yeah it's neat and all, but I've gone over that aspect a lot. The thing that really struck me about hearing my words spoken by an actor was how different the written word is from the spoken word.
The cool part is when something works. You know when it pops. Coming into auditions, I thought the opening scene to this movie was very good, but I wasn't really sure about it on the page. It's not that I didn't like it, I just wasn't sure how it would read. Last week was the first audition for the key role in that opening, and as the actor read the part, I literally stood up in the middle of it I was so excited. The fucking scene didn't just pop, it exploded. It's going to be so awesome.
But it doesn't always happen that way. When I first started this process, I knew that we would be getting notes from the director and maybe one or two others about the script, but the whole reason I did the movie as an indie was to keep creative control. I didn't think there was any way that other people would, as a general rule, be able to improve on the dialogue as Nils and I had constructed it.
Yet, we aren't even into rehearsals, and I can already see that I was very wrong about this. Until the last day of shooting, a script is a living, breathing thing, changing and adapting to the director, the actors, the locations--everything that shows up on the screen can change the words we wrote on paper. An error is an error, and we have a lot in the script. Very few of them are structural or plot issues--they are more about sentence structure and pacing. People don't talk the way they read and write, and we weren't experienced enough to understand this and account for it in our writing.
For example, there is this one scene that Nils and I spent hours on, painstakingly working out each phrase and the pacing, that just isn't coming off in the room. Every actor stumbles over the same parts, and words that look so beautiful on the page don't work when they come out of the actors mouth. So we sat down and reworked it to make it more suitable to speaking.
Remember how I said that sitting through bad auditions is painful? A big part of the pain is hearing a line that I wrote that doesn't work. Good actors find a way to make even bad lines sound less bad, but even average actors just slaughter every line that isn't perfect. Bad dialogue displays poor acting fast, and we have a few lines in the sides that will be different in the shooting script. Even though it drives me nuts when actors do it, I will slightly ad lib my own lines in these situations, adding in clauses or twisting a turn of phrase to make it sound more fluid. As much as it aggravates me to see the script change like this, it's not only necessary, it will end up making the movie better.
It's like getting a dozen small, prickly lessons in humility every casting session.
Comment and discuss. Registration required.
Today on the plane from LA to NYC, for possibly the first time in my life I sat next to a legitimately hot woman on a plane (she was in Playboy two years ago...god bless Virgin America airlines). Anyway, she asked me what I was going to NYC for, and because she was hot I broke my "never talk to people on planes" rule and I told her about the movie. As I explained it to her, it dawned on me:
I am in charge of adults. Real, accomplished adults.
Five and a half years ago when I started this, I was alone. I was just some fucking guy in some apartment in Chicago writing emails to his friends about his nights out and putting them on his site. I could be a reckless jackass, because, so what? Nothing I did mattered or affected anyone outside of myself because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and if I failed, I was the only one who suffered.
But I had a vision of what I wanted. I worked and I worked and I worked, I built my brand story by story, post by post, day by day. Along the way I got a lot of very talented, very important people to help me, people like Nils Parker and The Bunny and everyone else who works with me at Rudius, but all those people were in a similar position to me when they started working with me: Young, unestablished, and with not much to lose.
Before that moment on the plane, I hadn't really stopped and thought about the what it means to be in charge of this movie. It means I am leading adults now. This is no longer just a rag tag group of talented malcontents who have nothing to lose. These are not the rogue early adopters who always believed in me. These are adults with mortgages to pay and established reputations to uphold.
Joseph Middleton is as big as it gets. Bob Gosse is a real director who ran one of the most successful indie film companies ever (The Shooting Gallery). Aaron Ray is a major player with a million other projects he could be working on. Max and Karen are real producers who have several other movies in development. Ben Reder and Susan Kaufmann (our production attorneys) are big lawyers who turn away tons of work from big filmmakers because they are in such demand. Darren Demetre (the line producer) is very experienced and quit another movie to come work on this.
All of these people are older than me and more accomplished than me, and they have chosen to invest the most valuable resources they have--their time and their reputations--on my art and the script that Nils and I wrote, and ultimately, on me as a person. They are adults, and they have something to lose, and they are willing to follow me. I didn't fully comprehend what this meant until I said it out loud to a hot girl I was hitting on.
One of the great things about sports is that big moments aren't hidden. You know when it's a big game. You know when a possession or an at bat is crucial. Life doesn't always work like that. Sometimes, you don't know the big moments until they have passed, but I think I may have caught one as it's going on.
I have passed a major threshold. I am not an amateur anymore. I am not just some angry upstart with a blog no one reads or a marginal crazy dreaming the impossible dream anymore. Adults are now relying on me. They have seen my track record, studied my actions, read my script, met me and looked into my eyes and decided to believe in me and my vision and invest themselves in this project, putting their name and their resources on the line and at my disposal.
Don't get me wrong, all these adults who are working on the movie are doing it because they think it benefits them (as they should, this is not a charity), but the point is that they all have countless other options. Yes, they need to work on A movie, but not necessarily MY movie.
This means I can't be the selfish, self-contained, me-against-the-world, fuck-you-if-you-can't-take-a-joke Tucker I have always been. That attitude was great and necessary when it literally was just me, when no one believed in me and no one thought I would succeed and I had to find the strength to keep going in the face of impossible odds. That attitude--plus hard work--is what helped me beat those odds and is what got me to where I am...but it won't take me from where I am to where I want to be.
If I want to get there, I have to work with adults, and to do that, I have to be a leader and put the people who are working with me before me. Make no mistake, NOTHING comes before the ultimate goal of getting the movie right. But to get the movie right, I have to be the leader and the person that these adults think I can be. Namely, this means I have to be an adult.
Perfect example: Last week during casting, there was a mix up and some kid came in unprepared and wrong for the role he was reading for, and he fucked up bad. It wasn't his fault at all, but nonetheless, it was a disaster. The adult thing to do is just handle it with grace, thank him, and move on. I didn't. I blew up a little and mocked him in the room. It was 100% the wrong thing to do. I have no excuse or justification. Had it just been me there, it would only have affected me. But it wasn't. My behavior affects everyone on the movie. By working with me, if I do something wrong, it's not just me who looks bad--Joseph looks bad because he has lent his credibility to me, and Max looks bad because she vouched for me to Joseph. I can't do that type of shit anymore. That's not what an adult does.
Seriously though--How fucking ironic is it that in order to get a movie about a drunken, selfish narcissist made correctly, the narcissist himself has to become emotionally mature?
Only in Hollywood.
NOTE: This might all be very obvious to everyone else, but remember, I am a narcissist, so with all the time I spend focused on myself, sometimes I miss the obvious things. Thinking about other people is not my strong suit, so shit like this is new to me.
ANOTHER NOTE: Sorry about my last few posts being very philosophical in nature and not grounded in the actual nuts and bolts production. I will get back to doing more pragmatic posts about making a movie I promise, but we've had a few days of down time so I had a moment to reflect on the larger issues. There is at least a year left on the life of this blog, by the time it's done, I will have covered a lot of ground, both practical and abstract.
Comment and discuss. Registration required.
