Greetings Heroes!
I’m a writer. Started out as a campfire story teller and it grew from there. I grow’d up in Kentucky. Still have the accent. Ain’t as thick but it’s still there. Currently and since ‘96 screenplays have paid the bills. My first movie was a Friday the 13th movie. Love me…or more likely hate me, I’m the guy who put Jason in space. Don’t ask. It’s a long story. Just know that the answers are rarely simple. It wasn’t my first screenplay. 23rd if memory serves. My first was a fantasy. This was back before fantasy was cool. It was an awesome script. 40 pages in and still no plot had revealed itself.
It was many scripts and many years later before I got the hang of it.
Talent, luck and who you know. I used to think those were equal. They’re not. Luck is 80 percent of it. But if you don’t have the raw talent, don’t bother. Not trying to be mean, just saving you some time. So where was I? First movie? Hockey Mask guy movie. Yeah. I wrote a pretty fun script. Oddly enough, that script didn’t get made. Welcome to Hollywood.
I’m what you call a working writer. I suppose there are different definitions. For me it means I write, I get paid, I pay my bills. But I’ve managed to pay the bills with writing money since ‘96. I know that’s rare. I complain but I’m not blind to my being slightly blessed. I’ve had at least one gig a year since my first film and I’m very thankful for that.
I wrote a Mini Series for the Scifi channel. Yeah. It didn’t get made. I’ve sold a spec with an A List writer attached to direct. Yeah. It didn’t get made either. I’ve written a couple of video games. Should I say it again or has the pattern revealed itself? I’ve written a couple of comics. Oddly enough, those got made.
As for screenplays the executive runs the show now. It’s always been that way but used to there was one or two at every studio with the power to “make” you change the script. Now the guy who answers the phones has more clout than the monkey with the keyboard. So far, I’ve never seen my vision make it to the screen. You could say that my writing wasn’t good enough. Maybe. Maybe not. Fact is, I’m more than happy to put my drafts up against any shooting draft out there and let the opinions speak for themselves. Well, except for one but I’ll come back to that.
This is a simplistic way of looking at it but you could say there are currently two trains of thought. Those who fight and those who smile and make the changes. I’ve always been a fighter. I would argue for what I thought was best. And in the end I would get replaced. So, one time, just for gits and shiggles, I tried the friendly approach. I would calmly state my opinion but if I couldn’t sway them (and I never did), I’d make the change. What resulted was the worst screenplay ever written. Not worst screenplay written by me. Worst screenplay ever written. I made changes that I knew were totally wrong. And I can’t tell you why. It’s a gut thing. It’s tone and pacing and structure and arc and character. I can’t tell you why it was wrong. I just know it was wrong. Horribly horribly wrong. As a result, not only did I hate the process, I really didn’t like the finished script. And, of course it was read and deemed problematic. Not by those who’d given me the notes. No. It was deemed problematic by those with the money. And would you believe it. Them what gave me all those wonderfying notes suddenly pointed the finger at the moron of a screenwriter. If I’d only listened to them none of this would have happened. I was promptly replaced. Welcome to Hollywood part II.
So, I’m back to fighting. Sorry but I’d rather fight for what I believe and be replaced than do what I’m certain won’t work and then later be replaced because…it don’t work. At least my way I always have a script I can show with pride.
2008 and 2009 were good years but lean years. The Money doesn’t like to part with it. I guess that’s always been the case but now the Money simply doesn’t pretend. 2008’s work was rewarded with the releases My Bloody Valentine 3D and Messengers II: The Scarecrow. One a big feature. One a direct to DVD. Loved working on both for different reasons. And there were dozens that never saw the light of day. 2009 saw the partnership of Lussier and Farmer. This lead to the spec sell of Drive Angry which led to Mike Deluca which led to Nic Cage. There were highs and lows as with every year. We wrote a a great Three Days of the Condor in High School but in the end Andy Rona told us he’d rather it be a ghost or a killer in a mask. We wrote Halloween 3D which was glorious but in the end gut-wrenching (you’ll have to visit the journal for that story).
A decade has ended and I find myself oddly happy. It won’t last.
My best friend, Dean Lorey, is the guy who both believed in and suggested I move out to LA. He’s gone from movies to TV to novels to TV to porn. Smart man if you ask me. Next came Sean Cunningham, with whom I still have a love/hate sexual relationship. He paid me to write for three years which led to my first credit and my foot in the door. My mentor, Dean Riesner, wrote Dirty Harry. He passed away at 83 and I miss the old sumbitch. Patrick Lussier is one of my two closest friends and fought for the script like I never knew was possible. We are now partners and shall ever be. Melanie Brown has been my girlfriend then my wife then my girlfriend then my wife then my girlfriend again but has stuck by my side since 1994 through the good and the bad, the money and the poverty and then went and birthed out a 12 pound daughter.
Without these men and lady I would not be here. Nor would I be the man I am today.
With all this going for me I should actually be way more successful than I am but…eh…what are you gonna do?
Finally, being a daddy has made me a little nicer than I used to be. Not much, mind you. But a little. She really is my greatest screenplay.
So that’s me for what it’s worth. I write and I put my story here so that one day I can look back and laugh. I’m more than willing to answer questions but I can really only tell you what I’ve done. As for teaching screenplay method, that’s not my thing. There are some great sites out there with screenwriters way smarter than I am. I’m really just here to vent and record for reasons of my own sanity.
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