A belated update

Wow, ok, so it's been two months, probably the longest gap since I've posted an update. Things have been nice and crazy which is the way I like it.

To start with, the LA Shorts Fest became a small debacle with deadlines for a digibeta master looming and no time to ship a copy to them. Needless to say, we got the master to them in time for the festival and reports back from LA claim that the screening was a success!

A week ago we found out that 'The Calming' had been accepted into the 2008 Cackalacky Film Festival in Charlotte, NC. I am very excited about this festival as I have heard great things about its first year last year and I will definately be attending this one as it's only 4 hours away! So roll on Charlotte in 08'

On other projects, I have just wrapped directing three episode's of the television show 'Whittaker Bay' for H20 Studios. The first eight episode's of the shows first season have been completed and it is slated to start broadcasting on the WGN SUPERSTATION in January 08'! Testing at times but overall an awesome experience with a great crew, I could not have asked for a better shoot. And yet again, I got to work with my favorite DP, Shawn Lewallen.

So now I must crawl back into my hole and open up the feature files to have a finished draft of TSYL ready by Christmas....

LA Shorts Fest Schedule Announced

'The Calming' will be premiering on the West Coast as part of the 2007 LA Shorts Fest on Wednesday the 12th of September at 7:45pm at the AMC Theatre in Burbank, CA.

Full Schedule details are available at:

The Calming at the LA Shorts Fest

The Calming to screen at the 2007 LA Shorts Fest

We have just found out today that 'The Calming' will screen at this years 2007 Los Angeles International Short Film Festival in September! This is the Largest Short Film Festival in the world!

Details will be available @ www.lashortsfest.com

Needless to say, I am very happy to be excepted into the festival as this will be our West Coast Premiere! Very cool...

Notice of Acceptance:

----------------------

Dear Benedict R. Fancy,

Congratulations! Your film "The Calming" has been selected to be part of the 11th annual LA Shorts Fest September 5 - 16, 2007. Reviewing the many films submitted we found your short represents the caliber of work we want to participate in our Festival. We here at LA Shorts Fest pride ourselves on being the largest short film festival in the world. In past years, 25 participating films have earned Academy Award nominations, with 8 filmmakers actually taking home the Oscar. We are honored to be including your film in our Festival this year, we wish you good luck and look forward to meeting you.

You will be contacted via email very soon regarding your films screening time and date.

Sincerely,
Osman Ali
LA Shorts Fest
www.lashortsfest.com

and breathe...

The first draft has had it's subtle revisions completed and has been emailed to the producer. Now I can breathe a little easier knowing that the first draft is complete and in her hands.

Next, I shall have to prepare myself for the hardest part of all....the rewriting. This is the part I find the most challenging. But in a good way. Allowing the story to veer off into new directions while trying to stay true to the original idea.

What now? We REVISE!

The past few weeks have been spent working on the first draft, getting it completed ready to send to the producer. I have also been working on a big movie in town for the last month so trying to find the time to sit down and revise while working 16 hour days on set gets to be a challenge.

But we wrapped last week, so now there is no excuse....

Currently on Page 70 of 126. Looking at expanding a subplot to create more action to build to the climax of the script. Hopefully will provide me with a useful tool to reveal character through it's presence.

I would like to have the revision done by the end of the week.

6 days and counting. (I must always have a countdown!)

1st words-on-paper draft Complete!

Number of words: 22,229
Number of paragraphs: 3,009
Number of pages: 128
Number of scenes: 131
Number of characters: 36
Number of days writing: 2 months

After 6 pages today, I have finally finished the first draft! It feels good. No, it feels GREAT! I will print it this afternoon and put it in my drawer to leave for a week.

Then I'll read through it once, without notation, reread, make notes, before beginning the first rewrite.

I feel like I've been running a marathon these past two months...today is a good day!

so close...

This is the end, my only friend, the end.....

Not so much Jim Morrison but it is around the corner! I hit the 120 page mark this morning after completing three more pages. This is the average length of a feature screenplay but I know that I will be at least ten if not twenty pages past that. But that is ok. If Quentin Tarrantino can write a 300 page script for 'Glorious Bastards' then I can work with 140 pages for my first-words-on-paper draft.

So close.....I can smell it. I'm roughly 6 scenes away from being done with the 1st words-on-paper draft.

Syd Field and the up-coming rewrite

Syd Field, the highly revered screenwriting teacher, whose books titled "Screenplay" and "The Screenwriter's Workbook" have occupied my shelves from day one (five years ago) is quoted as saying that the hardest part of screenwriting is finishing the third act of the first-words-on-paper draft. Writer's delay themselves in finishing this draft because they don't want to deal with what comes afterwards....the REWRITE!

I am suffering from this problem. Although I am delighted that the words are flowing very well to the enviable end, I find myself doing everything and anything other than writing to finish the first draft. I have been living and breathing this story for a long time now and it's almost sad to be finishing the first draft. It's almost done. The easy part is almost complete. What lies ahead is the drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic. That inevitable struggle of improving on what you've already written. THE REWRITE.

While I slowly progress to the end of this draft, I am reminded that it is recommended to print off the first words-on-paper draft, hide it in a drawer and take a week off. I am so overwhelmed and involved in the story that a writer needs separation from the work in order to gain a better perspective of what they have written.

But I am battling a full-time job which I primarily work until 9pm/10pm most nights and this is when I should be writing. So not only do I find it hard to write during the day but now at night also. But all is not lost. I am so very close to finishing that I am reeling in the soon-to-be accomplishment that is finishing my first draft.

In a week or so, I will be celebrating.......and then rewriting!

Fox's On The Lot

I don't know where to start with even beginning to describe how disappointed I am in myself and this show. I HATE REALITY TV! Seriously. I HATE IT! I can't believe I've been sucked in to continuing to watch this show. Maybe I secretly like watching car wrecks or something?

And now I hate Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett for producing what in writing sounded like a potentially great show but in 'reality' is quite possibly the worst show on American TV right now. http://thelot.com

This show seemed like such a good idea. Give 50 filmmakers the chance to show their ability to direct films with the chance to compete for a one million dollar development deal with DreamWorks Pictures. COOL!

But what we have been given is a complete mess of a competition with an inconsistent order of episodes being broadcast, a terrible format taken directly from American Idol which doesn't work for this type of subject matter and a total lack of regard for what is actually interesting.....filmmaking! Last weeks awards episode was like watching a trainwreck of an Oscars ceremony. And the three filmmakers that were voted off, their directing was not the worse in my opinion.

I hate to say it but I think this show is heading downhill fast and at this point, I'm not sure if anything can save it! Especially when the ratings were released yesterday and they are very poor. I'm all for creating opportunities for filmmakers to have a chance at a studio deal but this is not the way to do it. Someone should have met with Simon Cowell on this one...

Out of Control!!!!

10 pages....10 PAGES! It came like a flood today! I wish everyday was like today.

I crossed the 100 page mark...

Total Page count: 101

Keep it coming!

Plot Point Two

My wife will be the first to tell you that I am as anally retentive as they come! I try not to be, I can't help it but I take great pleasure in blaming my mother back in England for that trait! If the fire mantle wasn't displayed symmetrically, or picture frames weren't all level and evenly spaced apart it would be upsetting to her! :) (Love you Mum, mean it!)

So, with that being said, I am over the moon today to discover that, with all the prep I have done in regards to setting up to begin writing this script, my second plot point which is supposed to turn my protags life around again and set them up for the final part of their journey to the end of the film has hit exactly on the right page that it is supposed too. Page 90! I am most pleased. And with that, I am at a total of 93 pages as of this morning. Act One and Act Two are complete! YES!

Now the fun part. Act Three. The final Act. The last 30 pages or so where I must steer my protag to his final destination, tie up all loose ends that have been revealed during the previous 90 pages and finish with the denouement. That ever faithful closing to the story. The discovery that Bruce Willis is actually dead in The Sixth Sense, or that the majority of Mulholland Drive was the disturbing dream and imagination of Diane, or the winning of a Dodgeball tournament by a bunch of down and out loosers who had difficulty stringing a coherent sentence together at the beginning of the film!

I love ACT THREE!

'The San Ysidro Leap' - Synopsis and Logline

A huge 8 pages today! I am nearing the end of Act Two. Currently writing that huge sequence of scenes that sends our protag into a spin that climaxes in Act Three! This is the bit I enjoy the most because writing Act Three is where I've been heading ever since I conceived the story. I have known that my characters have been building up their story through the last 80 pages and now their lives are about to be turned upside down by me! They must now plow through to the resolution! I'm sorry to do it to you guys, but your life is about to become hell for the next 10 pages! But it's ok, you're going to pull through and be better off because of it! Trust me!

I'm posting the logline and Synopsis so readers can get an idea as to the kind of story/script I'm creating here. These have yet to be signed off by the producer so I'm posting them for your perusal.

Welcome to 'THE SAN YSIDRO LEAP'...

LOGLINE

Abandoned in the dustbowl of a Tijuana slum, two teenage brothers, Miguel and Javier risk their lives crossing the US/Mexico border to reunite with their mother. Forced to separate and make the treacherous journey alone, they discover that life in the US is nothing like their expectations.


SYNOPSIS

Tijuana, Mexico, the stifling summer. Two brothers, Miguel and Javier, risk their lives on top of the city’s Municipal Garbage dump, sifting through trash to find objects to sell back to American tourists. This is their life as street kids. Abandoned by their mother five years ago when she crossed the border into the US, hoping to start a new life for them, Miguel is now inadvertently charged with being the father figure to his younger brother. But this isn’t the life he wants or the life he should have. He should be experiencing the moments that shape a teenage boy. Best friends, adolescence, and a girl’s first kiss. He resents his mother for leaving and for breaking the promise of sending for her sons, so Miguel tries to start a new life for them both by attempting to cross the border. But his attempts are thwarted each time it looks as though they will succeed. Not until a phone call from their mother while living at the Shelter for Repatriated Minors, does it seem that there’s light at the end of the border tunnel. But at the gates to San Diego, their mother’s smugglers separate the two boys. Assisted by an immigrant smuggler, Carlos, they make the leap into the US and begin their individual journeys amongst the mass expanse of America and its cities, hoping to soon be reunited with their mother.

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Consistency is the key

I over-achieved yesterday in compensation for a full weekend of working at the day/night job.

5 pages completed yesterday...puts me at a total of 75 thus far.

This is the part of the writing process I enjoy the most. Armed with a scene-by-scene breakdown of the script, a 4-page treatment and a detailed synopsis, I can now just sit in front of the computer, in my pink painted office (not my color choice, the house came like it and we're too busy to paint it another color just yet!) and let the story and characters do their thing.

I have such a hard time detailing character arcs throughout the duration of a 120 page feature script. I'm used to writing 15 page shorts, where I don't have much choice but to cram everything in within 15 minutes. Here I am spoiled with a whole two hours of screen time, where the audience can have the character traits, action and emotions spill out onto them over the course of an evening while they experience their story in real time. I never want my characters to be just standing around waiting for something to happen to them, I'm constantly concerned that they're not experiencing enough trauma, or drama, or life threatening events that we're not moving the story forward to the expected climax! But anyway....

I'm over halfway through the first draft. My characters have been communicating with me just fine these past two weeks and I don't want to stop the rolling ball just yet. We have 44 pages / 44 minutes of this story to experience together before it's locked onto paper.

Zero productivity is expected this weekend. Must-pick-up-pages starting Monday am.

Comments Enabled

My wife would like me to point out that the ability to post comments is now 'enabled' on this blog! She's been busting me about it for a year!

Now I can accept abuse online as well!

The Heaviest Bike

Ok, 6 pages completed yesterday. A pivotal scene. Close to my goal set. I find it so hard to start but once I do, I can't stop. Then I make myself late for work. Every time!

All readers of this blog should check out Eric Vithalani's blog - The Heaviest Bike . Find it here:

http://theheaviestbike.blogspot.com/

Eric leaves the USA in t-minus 4 days to ride around the world. THE WORLD! ON A BIKE!

Awesome! Most jealous....bookmark his blog...it's gonna be incredible!

Current page count: 70
Todays goal: 4 pages

The 2007 Cannes Film Festival

I have four minutes to write this blog....I start my daily writing schedule at 10am.

The Cannes Film Festival began yesterday and I have just signed the letter of intent from Princess Pictures to option my feature script 'The San Ysidro Leap'. The producer, Sasha King, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1676125/ is leaving for Cannes tomorrow to have meetings with studio execs and financiers. I wish her all the best of luck for the coming week......

Current Page Count: 64
Goal for today: 8 pages

Looming deadline

So yesterday I had a stellar day and wrote almost 10 pages! Today, not so much. I try and start my writing day by watching a few trailers on Apple.com and then reading a few pages from a select number of my favorite scripts....just to get motivated. Then it's all or nothing. If it's on....it's on. I can write until I am forced by the clock in front of me to go work my regular job. If it isn't on......it's off! And there's nothing I can do to remedy it. No scripts, no trailers, no background music, nothing. And that infuriates me. Especially when I'm wasting time on IMDB or, well, the blog, when I should be writing!

So here goes...

Yesterdays count: 10

Total Page count so far: 47

(Pic from a trip to LA in 2005 - this morning, May 9th, 2007, the Hollywood Hills burns due to a man throwing away a cigarette on a golf course. Dumbass!

(http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/09/la.fire/index.html)

The past year...

So, it was a year ago to this very day that we shot 'The Calming' here in Wilmington, NC. I can't quite believe that it was a year ago! Seems like we shot it last week and that Kenneth and I were editing this past weekend!

We've been accepted to three film festivals so far and are waiting on word from seven more that will take us to the end of 2007. If we get into two more of the remaining seven I will be very happy. And I look forward to hopefully having the opportunity to screen the film on the West Coast sometime this year!

With one more year of writing under my belt, I felt it was time to change the shape of the blog which was lacking in updates over the last few months as we wait on news from film festivals. I have two exciting projects that are coming to fruition in 2007. One is another short film which I have completed the first draft titled 'Cold Comfort'. The other is really exciting, a feature script titled 'The San Ysidro Leap' which is in negotiations to be optioned by producer Sasha King of Princess Pictures in Ireland. She produced my first short script 'The Hotel Trade' and from that a great working relationship has grown and has led us to this project. I am very excited to be working with Sasha on a feature and this blog and project will consume more of my time than I think I know! :) But I would rather be writing in a blog than surfing the web aimlessly....at least my thoughts and fears will be recorded and who knows, maybe it'll be my therapy when the infamous 'block' comes!

So here's to writing.....screenwriting.......and the pursuit of getting an idea that came to me in 2002 onto the big silver screen!

All American Film Festival Pics

We have returned from Durham, NC for the 2007 All American Film Festival this past weekend.

Our screening was a great success with an almost sold-out house. We were part of a block of fantastic short films and it was great to be part of a local film festival that promoted North Carolina film so well.

THANK YOU to Todd Tinkham (pictured above) who really knows how to put on a great festival! He bent over backwards to accomodate all of us visiting filmmakers and a good time was had by all!

Movie Poster Finished

Here is the final proof copy of the poster.

Justin Mitchener at Batabix did a fantastic job with this. I think it looks great.

We're sending copies out to the All American Film Festival and to festivals we've already submitted to.