As Promised, here are a couple of shots from my public reading of  A Shadow in the Dark!

Getting Ready…

Reading…

The Q&A… FUN!

I’ll be back…

Last night was the only public reading of my script A Shadow in the Dark!

The actors were great and the audience feedback/Q&A is going to be instrumental in tightening down the script even further.  On that note, I’d like to thank my actors:

• Kelie McIver
• Kirk Bovill
• Joni Bovill
• John Keating
• Tyler Wolfe
• Jennifer Nitzband
• Jon Hughes
• Kent Bernhard

It went better than I could have hoped for.  I would also like to thank Charles Miller and MECON for selecting the project and for their generous support.

As a writer, not only is it vital to obtain honest feedback from people, but to also actually HEAR it.  Only then can you tell if the dialogue works, if the jokes fall and if the whole thing generally makes sense.  It’s also gratifying to actually take a real step forward and put yourself on the slab for everyone to tear your work to pieces.

Strange, I know, but how else are you going to make your work as excellent as possible and build your professional tolerance of artistic criticism?  Living in a bubble is comfortable, but it won’t make you better.

This was more or less the 3rd reading of the script and by far the best.  After the first private reading, I was able to remove over 5 pages of unnecessary dialogue, screen direction and beef up two characters that went neglected using some insightful feedback.

Now, and only through this reading, I’ll be able to tie it all up far more neatly and bring to a close this complicated tale of redemption and violence.

Photos will be coming soon.

Back to work…

There aren’t many filmmakers I hold in higher esteem than Akira Kurosawa.  To bask in his awesome powers of filmmaking, I decided to take a gander at one of his most famous films, Yojimbo.  I hadn’t seen it before, but then again I had seen it before.  We’ve all seen it before. It’s about a lone gunman, er… Samurai, who comes to a lonely, gang infested town by happenstance, only to become the town’s nameless hero.  The Samurai proceeds to play the two rival gangs against each other with his charm and wit.  When that doesn’t work, he cuts down men with his trusty six shooter, er… sword, like you might shave your inner thigh… with bravado and precision.

Remade by the Italians into A Fist Full of Dollars with Clint Eastwood and by the Americans into Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis, neither fully captures the wicked pacing or bizzare score of Yojimbo.  Mr. Kurosawa’s ability to create powerful reveals or deep staging never ceases to amaze me.  Toshiro Mifune, the star, is amazing as always.

It’s hard for me to imagine pitching this idea to someone… oh, no it’s not.  It probably went something like this.

Akira: It’s a western, the wild west, meets the legendary samurai of the east… the wild east!

Dude: A western, but in the east.

Akira:  Exactly.

Dude: What’s a western?

Akira:  You know, desert, cowboy hats, six shooters, horses… America!

Dude:  You want to the samurai to carry guns?

Akira:  Well, only one.

Dude:  But Samurai carry swords–

Akira:  I know, I know… they still have swords.

Dude:  So you want them in cowboy hats?

Akira:  No, no… no.  Just imagine it for a second.  A lonely Samurai–

Dude: In a hat?

Akira: NO!  Enters a small town–

Dude: In the desert.

Akira: YES!  Now you got it!  And pits two rival gangs–

Dude: Who have hats.

Akira: Ugh, they could yes… I suppose.  Wait, no!  Look, it’s the desert, a nameless samurai–

Dude:  NO NAME!?!?!  What kind of movie is this?

Akira:  A Samurai film!

Dude: Sounds weird.  A movie with no hats, no names, samurais that carry guns and it’s in the West… but in the East?

Akira: Ugh…

Dude: Will it make money?

Akira: I have Toshiro Mifune.  He’s attached to–

Dude: Well why didn’t you say so in the first place!?  I don’t care if it’s about a giant lizzard who eats Tokyo, I know, crazy right?  Look, if you’ve got Toshiro just call me at the premier.  The money is already in your account.  Good day.

Akira: But–

Dude:  I said good day!

Thank God he even got it made.

Yojimbo-ing…

As I continue my directing stint on Hell’s Kitchen 8, I’ve also recently finished a new screenplay, my science fiction war epic The Darkest Run, along with a new outline for my new political drama S. Body, for both the silver screen and its little brother.  Later this week, I’ll be posting some notes on my new process for writing… a method I call “the window.”

Also, a star you’ve all seen on a certain, wildly popular CBS show is taking a look at starring in my noir, A Shadow in the Dark, this very moment, but will unfortunately have to remain nameless for now.  If all goes well, I’ll be posting an update when and if a deal is in place.

In other news, my partnership with 1080 inc, with whom I’ve developed several reality shows, is also spearheading development for a film concept I wrote some time ago, involving the future, a nerdy engineer, a devlish computer and… well… I can’t say more than this… it’s wild and kick ass.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed everyone.  The momentum is on my side.

Let’s push the universe to take me to that wonderful, and brutal, place of production.

Pushing on…

Trudging through the internet in my efforts to understand our economic situation, I discovered a rap video for and by nerds.

It’s a classic, if not well known, tale between two schools of economic and philosophical thought, the Austrian School and the Keynesian School of economics.  So far, John Maynard Keynes theories have been the mainstay of modern economics, but it’s this very theory that has been THE major contributing factor in not only our economic turmoil, but Japan’s for over 20 years.

This really fun music video gets to the gist of the two schools of thought and why Keynes’ theories have led to our current financial problems.

It’s fun, it’s silly… they’re serious.