My So Called Film Life
Just got the latest edit of The Watermelon, I think the last until an original score is inserted. The producers are testing out a handful of composres, who will score a section of the film, before choosing someone. It will be weird to see the movie with a new soundtrack as I am so used to the drop in music that is now on it -- half of which I loathe deeply, it is way too slow nd there is too mkuch fucking country western music...the other half I love, and hope we can keep/get the rights for, like Patsy Kline singing "Crazy" and Kid Rock's "Trucker Anthem,."
The new edit is so much improved, the dialogue cuts quicker, and the getting stoned scene has been whttled down to 20% of what it once was, which is just fine, that scene was always an iffy one for me, I wasn't sure why I wrote it, and the actors just didn't quite get it right, mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted. The scene was basically supposed to introduce the friendship between the two male charcters, which is done just fine as edited.
The movie is still coming in at 90 min.
I have sent copies of various cuts to people from my past, people whose opinions I value or people (like ex-girlfriends and lovers) I want to rub it in their noses -- after all, it is our ex's who least expect us to achieve something. While all my ex's are well aware of my books and theater, making a movie is something else, something very few writers can achieve.
I have not expected to hear from Liv Kellgren about it. I will send her a new cut,. I can't imagine how she could resist not to watch it, but there is also the thorn factor, the pain -- I did, after all, write this screenplay for her to act in, it is inspired by something in her life, it was meant to be a vehicle for her to get her foot into the door of the independent film world.
I sent a copy to Dominique Navarro, c/o of her mother's address in Malibu, becase I have no idea if she is still in Santa Monica. She is another who probably cannot wrap her little cashew-sized brain about the notion I made a movie. I wrote the screenplay around the time we were still causally sleeping together (mostly oral sex and handjobs) (yes, while I was with Liv, I am such as ass, but we were never really "toegther" and there was never a committment); and I recall taking the script up to L.A., after having just finished it -- there was a lot of drama going on at the time with her and Brandon, and the feeling I got was she thought my doing a screenplay was silly. She did not read it. In fact, she kind of brushed aside my screenpay writing, acting elitist -- she works in film and TV, has been around it all her life, around many failed writers (she was having an affair with a couple of them)...in LA, everyone is writing a screenplay but (1) they arent writers so the work is shit and (2) they never get their work made. I had used her address for a while as an L.A. address and she laughed at some rejectons that came in, because she proved to be a shallow-minded snob.
But I also started thinking of wirting movies when she introduced me to WimWenders. We had gone up to the Palm Srings Film Festival Jan 05 to see the Wenders movie Land of Plenty, that she had worked on as a PA and prop girl (it was aso the first time we had sex). Now, I am a Wenders fanatic (I have edited a collecton of interviews with him) and I loved this movie (I got a bootleg DVD before it was officlaly released) and it was a thrill to personally meet someon who has been my hero in film since 1990. When I found out Wenders made this film with only half a million dollars and digital cameras, I thiought, "It can be done," and when Liv and I decided we wanted to crack indie film together, I knew it had to be done. So, in this case, Dominique was a catalyst in my career switch, but never a supporter or helper.
But I sent her a copy of the last cut. I have no idea if she has watched it, but knowing her, and knowing her well (too well), I know she will never be able to believe I did, in two years, what most people she knows in L.A. cannot accomplish in a lifetime, let alone herself, as she will never make a movie, only work on other people's art.
I sent it to Tara Raines, whom I lived with here at this apartment for two and a half years, 2002-2004 (some of 2001-2002 in another apt). She is a film buff and I know she couldnt fathom I got into film as well. She could never fathom I did anything -- I mean, I published the bulk of my books when I was with her, contracts were coming in left and right, I was paying half the rent with my writing, and yet she still couldn't believe I was once a war correspondent. She knew me at a quiet, uneventaful time in my writing career -- all I did was sit at home, watch TV, nap, drink, do drugs,and write books, so she could not see me dodging bullets and RPGs in Bosnia. Orr Rwanda -- despite seeing my published articles at the time! And meeting people who knew me in those days! This is the case with the people we live with, who know us intimately -- they can never wrap their brains around you ever having a different life, either in the past or the future.
So it goes.
I have not sent it to Karin Williams yet. I ran a theater with her, we directed each other's plays, co-produced a dozens of shows together, co-wrote a couple scripts, and always dreamed about making movies, never knowing how. We had friends who made movies (she married a faled filmmaker, possibly the most untalented dweeb who has ever tried to get behind a camera) but we never knew how to crack the biz, mainly because we never tried, we just dreamed and talked about it like 99.9% of people do, that "someday" factor. She has made a couple of short films, lives in NY, and has a multi-media company with her husband, but all they do are industrial and coporate vidoes -- crap for $$. It is of particular interest to me for her to see The Watermelon (she knows about it), for her and her huisband to know I did what they cannot do -- his one horrible film (that he wrote, starred in, and directed), he spilled years and tons of money into, but it was never picked up by distributor and was a dismal failure. This may happen with The Watermelon as well, but I doubt it.
Otherwise, other people have all had good things to say -- constructive crit, but overall good, and, "Wow, you did it."
And with two other movies optioned and in pre-production, I will keep doing it.
The new edit is so much improved, the dialogue cuts quicker, and the getting stoned scene has been whttled down to 20% of what it once was, which is just fine, that scene was always an iffy one for me, I wasn't sure why I wrote it, and the actors just didn't quite get it right, mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted. The scene was basically supposed to introduce the friendship between the two male charcters, which is done just fine as edited.
The movie is still coming in at 90 min.
I have sent copies of various cuts to people from my past, people whose opinions I value or people (like ex-girlfriends and lovers) I want to rub it in their noses -- after all, it is our ex's who least expect us to achieve something. While all my ex's are well aware of my books and theater, making a movie is something else, something very few writers can achieve.
I have not expected to hear from Liv Kellgren about it. I will send her a new cut,. I can't imagine how she could resist not to watch it, but there is also the thorn factor, the pain -- I did, after all, write this screenplay for her to act in, it is inspired by something in her life, it was meant to be a vehicle for her to get her foot into the door of the independent film world.
I sent a copy to Dominique Navarro, c/o of her mother's address in Malibu, becase I have no idea if she is still in Santa Monica. She is another who probably cannot wrap her little cashew-sized brain about the notion I made a movie. I wrote the screenplay around the time we were still causally sleeping together (mostly oral sex and handjobs) (yes, while I was with Liv, I am such as ass, but we were never really "toegther" and there was never a committment); and I recall taking the script up to L.A., after having just finished it -- there was a lot of drama going on at the time with her and Brandon, and the feeling I got was she thought my doing a screenplay was silly. She did not read it. In fact, she kind of brushed aside my screenpay writing, acting elitist -- she works in film and TV, has been around it all her life, around many failed writers (she was having an affair with a couple of them)...in LA, everyone is writing a screenplay but (1) they arent writers so the work is shit and (2) they never get their work made. I had used her address for a while as an L.A. address and she laughed at some rejectons that came in, because she proved to be a shallow-minded snob.
But I also started thinking of wirting movies when she introduced me to WimWenders. We had gone up to the Palm Srings Film Festival Jan 05 to see the Wenders movie Land of Plenty, that she had worked on as a PA and prop girl (it was aso the first time we had sex). Now, I am a Wenders fanatic (I have edited a collecton of interviews with him) and I loved this movie (I got a bootleg DVD before it was officlaly released) and it was a thrill to personally meet someon who has been my hero in film since 1990. When I found out Wenders made this film with only half a million dollars and digital cameras, I thiought, "It can be done," and when Liv and I decided we wanted to crack indie film together, I knew it had to be done. So, in this case, Dominique was a catalyst in my career switch, but never a supporter or helper.
But I sent her a copy of the last cut. I have no idea if she has watched it, but knowing her, and knowing her well (too well), I know she will never be able to believe I did, in two years, what most people she knows in L.A. cannot accomplish in a lifetime, let alone herself, as she will never make a movie, only work on other people's art.
I sent it to Tara Raines, whom I lived with here at this apartment for two and a half years, 2002-2004 (some of 2001-2002 in another apt). She is a film buff and I know she couldnt fathom I got into film as well. She could never fathom I did anything -- I mean, I published the bulk of my books when I was with her, contracts were coming in left and right, I was paying half the rent with my writing, and yet she still couldn't believe I was once a war correspondent. She knew me at a quiet, uneventaful time in my writing career -- all I did was sit at home, watch TV, nap, drink, do drugs,and write books, so she could not see me dodging bullets and RPGs in Bosnia. Orr Rwanda -- despite seeing my published articles at the time! And meeting people who knew me in those days! This is the case with the people we live with, who know us intimately -- they can never wrap their brains around you ever having a different life, either in the past or the future.
So it goes.
I have not sent it to Karin Williams yet. I ran a theater with her, we directed each other's plays, co-produced a dozens of shows together, co-wrote a couple scripts, and always dreamed about making movies, never knowing how. We had friends who made movies (she married a faled filmmaker, possibly the most untalented dweeb who has ever tried to get behind a camera) but we never knew how to crack the biz, mainly because we never tried, we just dreamed and talked about it like 99.9% of people do, that "someday" factor. She has made a couple of short films, lives in NY, and has a multi-media company with her husband, but all they do are industrial and coporate vidoes -- crap for $$. It is of particular interest to me for her to see The Watermelon (she knows about it), for her and her huisband to know I did what they cannot do -- his one horrible film (that he wrote, starred in, and directed), he spilled years and tons of money into, but it was never picked up by distributor and was a dismal failure. This may happen with The Watermelon as well, but I doubt it.
Otherwise, other people have all had good things to say -- constructive crit, but overall good, and, "Wow, you did it."
And with two other movies optioned and in pre-production, I will keep doing it.