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Breathing again…

Not sure I’ve ever been as busy as I was the last two weeks and shall continue to be for the following two weeks. Friday, a week and a half ago, I turned in Night One of Last Vamp to the producers and jumped right in on Night Two. Michael and Whitley took a week to read and consider and got their notes to me Monday of this week. I back tracked Tuesday and implemented their notes and by Tuesday afternoon I had 200 pages complete. Nights One and Two rough draft. It’s nice to get the heavy lifting out of the way. I spent this morning on a polish and shot the script out to both of them as well as Andrew, Whitley’s son. This is Wednesday of week eight and I told SciFi ten weeks so time is catching up.
During the Last Vamp process I’ve had to jump onto Demonik numerous times. And the Friday after next I have a deadline to turn in the writing for Level 1. I’m still waiting on documents from Terminal Reality before I can start.
Next week I meet with Brad Foxhoven and David Wohl at Tiger Hill concerning another game they want to talk to me about writing. Should be fun.
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Dean Lorey and I, pictured above, went out with Thunder two weeks ago. We went primarily to producers. Of course, the producers rarely read the script first. Their “people” will read it and if the response is good then it moves up the ladder until if finally reaches the “yes person”. Initially we heard that the first round of “people” liked it and that it was moving on to the next level. As the process continues passes trickle in. We have received four passes that I’m aware of.
Michael Bay’s company liked the script but passed because they are looking for scripts that are more reality based.
Brad Fischer of the Mike Medavoy company passed because they had a similar supernatural themed project. They did, however, like the writing and want to meet with us.
Josh McLaughlin at Mark Gordon’s company passed. He thought it was ok –
not great. On a side note, Patrick, who loved the script, is meeting with Josh today. Patrick said he’d get the inside scoop. And on the other side note, I was surprised Josh passed so quickly. He’s loved everything I’ve done to date. He loved Past Tense, loved Scarecrow and loved my and Patrick’s Narcosis pitch. So I’m looking forward to the results of Patrick’s detective work .
Finally, Senator passed (Sam Raimi’s company). They thought the script was too convoluted. Where I come from we call that a negative pass.
But we’re still out there. We’ve made it through several rounds of “people” reading it and at this point are waiting to hear from the bigger dogs. Wes Craven, Clive Barker, Todd Garner at Revolution, John Sacchi at Lions Gate and assorted others.
The responses have been a little slow but that’s due to the August vacation blitz. Half of Hollywood vacations in late August. These results are not uncommon. They’re expected. It’s all a part of the numbers game one plays when going out with a spec. In every situation it boils down to getting the work in front of the right person at the right time. The more who see it the better your odds.
Friday night Mel and I met the Loreys for an evening in Malibu. First time we’ve been out in awhile. When I enter the cave I rarely want to come out until I’m finished. We dined on the edge of the ocean but I forget the name of the little shack where we ate. It was a stunning view with the nearly full moon reflecting off the dark water. It provoked Mel’s suggestion that someone should have a screening of “Jaws” at night on the beach. No argument here.
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Saturday night while 30 pages shy of finishing the Last Vamp I figured I needed a break from the little project. , I picked up Dr. Lorey from his trailer and we tooled over to Noel’s for some beef and Spades. John Jarrell made the journey North and after a 73 hour drive, joined us. That’s Jarrell top left, Noel bottom left and Dean peeking through from behind. The teams were made up of smokers verses non-smokers. Noel and I were destroyed by Jarrell and Dean. I blame our heavy losses on the evils of nicotine and alcohol.
Paul Hungerford had his bachelor party a week and a half ago. I was, of course, knee deep in writing so I did not join the fun. But I did take an hour last week to join him online for some City of Heroes. But outside of that we have really gotten behind on our gaming. So far behind that I forgot to log into Dark Age of Camelot last Friday to pay rent. As a result two of our houses were repossessed. Not gonna lose sleep over it but it was a shame. We’d put alot of work into our little online community. But we’re doing the Heroes thing for the most part and by the end of the year we’ll be losing ourselves in Warcraft.
Jimmy and Maggie had their opening of “Hell House” this past weekend. I was completely ignorant of this Southern Bible Belt Event. Evidently in the South there are “Religious” haunted houses. Where every room has a sort of one-act play with a moral message. And supposedly each room is extremely bloody and horrific. For instance, Young girl disobeys parents to go to a party and gets gang raped. Young girl goes to get abortion and dies with blood everywhere. After subjecting your senses to these horrors you come to the final room where you are offered Jesus as your Savior.
The guy who invented, if you will, this event sells the rights to his script and these “Hell House” evenings take place all over the South. Jimmy and Maggie acquired the rights and are running the “Hell House” in Los Angeles for three months. However, although they are using the actual script, their cast is made up of Hollywood types. Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller, Bill Maher, Andy Richter and so on. Celebs who will make guest appearances as their time allows. Needless to say this is a goof. The show is making a statement about these close minded, girls-are-to-blamed-for-everything scenarios.
Anyway, Paul’s also in the show. Not sure which part he’s playing or how often but I assume we’ll go while he’s performing to support him as well as Jimmy and Maggie.
I got an email this week from F.J. concerning Magnus. He and his “People” read my outline for the first act and loved it. They’re looking forward to my take on the rest of the story. Of course, it’s going to be a couple of weeks before I can even consider going back to it. As I explained to F.J. in my reply. It’s a development project which means there’s no money until we shop my creations to a buyer and I’ve always had horrible results with development projects. I mean basically you do all the work without any promise of money down the road. But F.J.’s been very cool and very supportive so I will go back to it as soon as time allows. Not to mention there’s a chance the company he works for could shift putting them in a position to pay for my services without the need of a studio. That idea I actually find very attractive.
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I’ve been passing out Gmail accounts left and right. My last invite went to the lovely Arinne. The female Farmer girl who spent her youth putting up with the crap that only three arrogant, all-knowing brothers can offer. I offered to all three but Rikki and Aarek can’t read. It’s a Kentucky thing.
Upon visiting my Gmail this morning I discovered that they have refilled the Guf with invites. what I love about Gmail is that there is a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox. Every time I log online my browser automatically checks my Gmail. A tiny icon at the bottom of the screen reveals the number of unread mail.
I so love Firefox. No popups, no security issues and hundreds of possible plugins. Spell checker, calendar, calculator, not to mention the handy little Gmail checker. If you are still using Internet Explorer you are a dummy.
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Clearly I’m preaching to the choir.
Today I’m going to take the day off. I am going to shower, give my fuzzy head a fresh shave and ask my wife out on a date. I’ve no clue what we’ll do. I assume a late lunch and a movie and back home for some good old fashioned throw down, followed by an episode or two of the X-Files, which we’ve gotten behind on lately. I think we’re mid-way through Season Seven. We handed off seasons One thru Five as well as the movie to the Loreys that they might start the Moulder and Scully adventure.
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Last week Dad sold a bunch of his old comics and baseball cards and ran across this little jewel from the Todd McFarlane collection. So he entrusted the US Postal service with the task of bringing it to me which they accomplished smashingly. Perhaps September is a bit premature, but oh well.
Happy Christmas!