Apprentice Auditions

Apprentice auditions in front of the Trump building on 5th Ave.
Grabbed the camera, began interviewing a number of people who have been standing in line the entire night and into the morning and who is it that suddenly appears behind me?
The Don.
Erm… I mean, Donald Trump.
Got a couple of great shots of him glad-handing audition hopefuls.
Great b-roll of an outstandingly horrid head of hair.

Dig Deeper

Perry thinks we should dig deeper with this idea.
Thinks we’re going to spend a lot of time on it irregardless of the angle we take, so we might as well make it the best we can make it (which, of course, I’m all for).
Thinks we pitch investors, apply for grants, so we can pay ourselves to work on this properly.
My problem is if we’re out pitching investors, filling out grant applications, we’re not making a movie, we’re spinning wheels.
We’ll meet in the middle on this discussion, as we normally do.

Potential Interviews...

In New York...
Daniel Laikind, Producer for Stickfigure Production, who pitched and produced Amish in the City and Family Bonds.
They are also finishing up a documentary on the PIXIES.
James Fuentes, Writer/Producer some art gallery reality show that I’ve never heard of.
Rob Sharenow, (use to write) now a development executive for A&E.
Sue Freid, Casting director for MTV, SPIKE (probably others, too.)
Courtney Dinar, Writer, has her own production company.
Lukas Longachre, Writer, Fade to Black Films.
He sold a film script while he was still in college.
Lukas is a valuable interview, as he also works as a sound tech.
Ben Gruber, Writer, Crank Yankers, Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
Liz Winstead, Writer/Producer Co-creator The Daily Show.
Tom Fontana, Oz, Homicide (would like to get him, but he never calls back either… must be an HBO thing…).
For LA…
Yalin Chang, writer for
ER.
Hannah Buchdahl, writer, working for America’s Next Top Model.
Chris Gore, writer, editor of Film Threat, show host for IFC’s Film Fanatic.
Kevin Etten, writer for Desperate Housewives.
Josh Otten, writer/producer Perryscope Pictures.
Jill Boniski writer/producer… for America's Next Top Model.

Reality

Almost every writer we’ve spoken to has mentioned REALITY TV.
It is solely what they’re pitching.
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked but, whoa, I am.
The reality genre has changed the whole pitching game.
This gives me pause.
It’s not really what I want to film, at least not those kind of pitches.
Hmm...
Or more directly: Shit.
Vastly interesting phone conversations so far as to why TV has headed in this decidedly peculiar direction – headlong into reality.
It’s an oddity, some say.
A juggernaut.
This is an industry that is now burying the writer (and the actor, for that matter).
People work in reality for the money, because that’s all that’s available and I need to make a living.
I know only too, too well what they’re talking about;
Me? I’ll do everything in my power not, not, not to do it again.
I’d rather stick a pencil in my ear than work on another reality show.
Thinking out loud, here – what jobs are not for the money?
Very few, I’d say.
The sole writer who, while on the phone, didn’t speak about reality TV without being prompted is a guy named Bill Marsilli, and with good reason, too.
He’s screenwriter who just sold a multi-million dollar script to Jerry Bruckheimer…
Bill doesn’t care a smidgen about reality TV.
And why should he?
He doesn’t have to.
And, yeah, I am envious.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Perry’s been trying to contact the Sex in the City writing team,
Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky.
Apparently he’s met them, cursorily knows them;
Friends of his sister-in-law.
Apparently they don’t care, as they haven’t called him back after numerous calls.
I’ve talked with a number of camera ops and other techies that I’ve worked with over the years;
All of them have this amazingly great quality of not hogging the spotlight, of wanting to stay semi-behind-the-scenes, of largess:
they’ve offered to spin out their spider-web of contacts in the biz for us to call, from various people working in production to assorted production companies.
Back to the phone conversations…
Reality TV.
Reality TV has pulled the carpet out from this industry.
One soundman I just spoke with couldn’t even tell me what the name of the reality show he was currently working on, which I found utterly hilarious.
Not a tinge of embarrassment from him about it ether; Just the way it is, he said.
“It’s money, a job,” he said. “I stopped caring about whether the show was any good a long, long time ago. All I care about is, is the sound is good. That’s it.”
And then there are the writers.
And how they pitch now.
My friend, Henry Tenny, mentioned this: he’s not really into reality but says he wouldn’t mind selling one of his reality ideas, capitalize on the whole craze…

In the Works

So far, the writers have been relatively easy for us to book.
We already have six friends and a couple friends-of-friends and one brother-of-a-friend-of-a-friend that have said yes to allowing us following them into a meeting.
Or two.
Or more (I hope).
It has crossed my mind that they have agreed because (and this is me negotiating my way through their thought process) we’ll never get a development executive or a producer or an agent to agree to our filming the pitch.
But that’s just not possible.
Won’t let it happen.
Producers and development executives will be a hard sell though.
Especially the higher up the TV chain gang we attempt to go.
PR departments.
Legal departments.
Bleah.
That will be the bulk of producing, I fear.
A lot of phone calls, emails and outright convincing for them to agree to being on camera.
But this…
This project…
Finally something I’m going to enjoy doing.
A film about television.
Its been too long since ACME has had something in the works.
I told Perry production should last no more than three months, as three month is all the time I really have until I’ll have to punt and begin pulling in actual cash again.
Perry says, Three months?
And called me insane.
Perry says, No way; it’ll take far longer.
Perry says very little after I punch him in the sternum.
One camera.
Three crew.
(Plus our revolving door of interns).
LA is an eventuality.
That eventuality makes me nauseous.

Where to Begin...

Begin with our contacts in the industry…
Begin with production people, dp’s, etc…
And writers, of course.
Writers.
This is where I feel the movie should start, actually, with the writer.
And where we should start shooting, too.
Perry will have something to say about that I am sure.
If there is one aspect that I’ve always wanted to see treated with better care, which is the intense process of a writer pitching an idea.
Universities and colleges don’t have 'How To' courses on pitching film and TV shows.
It is, quite simply, a craft that isn’t taught.
Okay, wait.
Red flag.
Is it a craft?
Uh, maybe, because there is an element of acting to it.
At least for some writers.
A skill, perhaps, is more accurate.
Ahem.
Anyway.
The industrial aspect to this project is that it could be a useful tool for students.
Our ambition, though, is to capture interesting personal stories of these-behind-the scenes people.
Now that I think about it, write about it, vet it in my brain a bit, the project does no strike me as an uncommonly tall order. Makes me wish I had a hand held camera during other shoots I’ve been on.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda…
Back to pitching…
Here’s the thing that has bothered me about the way pitching is depicted in other art forms.
“Art forms” as in film and TV shows.
Never, in my estimation, are they rendered as it really is: often sweaty, at times offensive, and sometimes, though not very often, a life changing experience.
For dramatic purposes, on the big and the small screen alike, the cheese factor is potent (and it’s usually a soft cheese) and it never, ever rings true.
And why is there always this colossal attempt to make pitch meetings funny?
Even a film like Altman’s The Player.
Having just watched it, it’s ferociously actorly.
Not expecting to capture the actual horror stories that all writers have when pitching (executives answering e-mails, producers turning up the volume on a TV set, agents making phone calls as one speaks), yeah, sure that would be great, but that’s not really what I’m after.
PROJECT: Project, I am hoping, will capture the good, bad and ugly of: “How to pitch” and, by turns, “How not to pitch".

"Someone Should be Filming Us"

Into the vortex of film production.
Independent film production, no less, so the vortex will be murky, to be sure.
Murky or not, thankful to be back in it – it’s been a while.
This particular idea – one that had originated a couple of years ago, in fact – was always something we talked about doing, something that would be a small side project.
Small, large – we simply never had the impetus (or money) to actually do it. We still don’t have the money, per se, but now, having race-walked away from MTV’s Boiling Points, this project seems to possess the perfect ambition to get us back onto the creative horse.
I’ll call that horse Gary.
The ache to actually do something creative is as flagrant as Gene Shalet’s moustache.
You just can’t avoid it. We’ve tentatively – and ridiculously, I should add – titled the movie, PROJECT: Project.
Clearly a working title.
Clearly our grip slipped when we came up with that one.
Anyway...
My thought is that the film is more of a documentary-industrial, so there’s not much of pitch to it. Regardless…
Giddy-up Gary!
Here’s the pitch as it gallops now…
Often, if not on every TV or film shoot I’ve ever done, a version of the phrase, “Someone should be filming us” (meaning someone should be shooting the crew, the behind-the-scenes of a production) was opined with far less cynicism than one would image.
Former soundman for Survivor and Boiling Points, Tom Warden, used to say this all the time to me.
So did a number of the DP’s and tech guys.
This project will, in fact, be just that.
A documentary about television production.
An optimism exists, in me anyway, that the fiery histrionics that blister a production can readily be captured on tape.
Often it’s dramatic.
Likewise it’s hilarious.
This film hardly has to be narrative.
As always, my modus operandi is this: content will dictate form.
So production itself will uncoil the actual fashion of the film.
And it’s not necessarily the production of a particular show.
Perhaps what it is is the beginning, middle and end of several shows; capturing stages of production on multiple sets.
Really, I don’t want it to be about an individual show, but about production and those people working within production itself.
So…
A documentary on television production;
A behind-the-scenes look of how it’s actually done;
Not in some constructed Project Greenlight nonsense, where the drama is utterly manufactured.
Why do that?
Drama can unfold organically;
Which is something that I require in a documentary.