Writing A New Script

Actress / Filmmaker Sandy Kellerman hiding from the camera
which loves her more than she knows.

     So, I'm writing a new script.  No big deal, I write every day.  Most people who know me know that I have more scripts, teleplays, plays and treatments laying around than I know what to do with.  Recently a friend asked me why I didn't submit my work to the studios or through agents and agencies.  My answer was pretty simple;  I plan to make all of my movies.
     I'm serious.  I've never written a piece that I didn't plan on producing at some point in my career.  With that said, I have done work for hire on shows like Reality Racing, Feelin' Good, The National Sports Schedule, The AOF Channel, a children's script, a couple of scripts for small production companies and a little clean up work on other people's projects.
     The point is, what I write, I plan to produce.  My stories, my movies, my way.  Anyway, the new script is about a bouncer too old to do the job anymore but finds himself forced to do something even harder and a lot more dangerous to maintain his own integrity.  I can not wait to make this film.  I can not wait to tell this story, I can not wait to see it on screen.
     I was having lunch with AOF Filmmaker Sandy Kellerman and she asked the question, "We've heard all the stories, but did we get all the points of view?"  That statement really made me think about my own writing, originality, passion, ability and purpose.  When we write, are we following someone else's process and telling someone else's story or are we telling stories with our own unique, insightful and introspective point of view?  The only point of view -in my opinion- that really matters.

Sidney Lumet

Weston Reading About Director Lumet

     Last Saturday, Sidney Lumet died in New Your City.  The man who made quite possibly the best drama ever filmed, The Verdict, is gone.  Everyone thinks, at least everyone I've spoken to, that The Verdict was Paul Newman's film, but it wasn't, it belonged to Lumet.  Every frame, every angle, every cut and every lingering wide shot that stayed on the actor's faces -which were dwarfed by the expanse of every element included in each frame- belonged to Lumet.
      Where some directors feel the need to make constant cuts and establish multiple locations and hundreds of angles, Lumet could make the dialogue, the acting and the craft pop with a single well composed shot.  In short, he could tell a story anywhere.  From the courtroom where the church's and the legal system's crimes were going to go unpunished to a jaded and washed up attorney's final meltdown in a hotel bathroom, it didn't take much more than Lumet's keen eye and his ability to tell a story to bring every second of the film to life; and to make that life real and unforgettable.  Lumet is dead.
He will be missed.

The Importance of Story

The Author at the Showbiz Expo Listening to a Filmmaker's Story

     In the last few years, the AOF, one of my partners and I have begun placing money with filmmakers and writers so that they can bring their visions to life.  Some of the donations have been small, others much more.  In reviewing the projects, I began to wonder what each of the films we helped out had in common and I was not surprised to discover that of course, it was the story.   Not the story the artist was trying to tell, but the story of the artist him or herself.
     I don't think in any case where we assisted that there was a pitch. It was a simple, 'So, what's going on?' From there, the artist either told us what was happening and we said, 'yes or no' accordingly.  Some times there is a phone call or an e-mail but the process is pretty much the same.
     Which ones get funding?  Well, that depends on the story, but I can tell you which one's don't; it's the ones that don't focus on story, that are either obviously unoriginal, template formatted, or copied from someone else.  For some reason we seem to get those as well.  They are summarily denied.  If 'your' story isn't original, how can the artistic story that you are trying to tell be?
      I'm not saying that you have to have the personality of record executive from the 80's to move ahead but I will tell you that it doesn't hurt to have the ability to sell the interesting things about yourself to your audience, no matter who that audience might be.
     Thanks for reading and to those of you who enjoy film please get to a theater to see the story as it should be seen and for those of you who make film, please, start with the story.