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Jeremy LaLonde's Blog Entry - February 28th/2007
Jeremy and The Grant I put myself through college on project grants. And when I say that I have to give credit to one of my best friends, Zach Melnick, who put his heart and soul into writing the grants for the documentary series we worked on together for many years, the Ontario Visual Heritage Project. All of the finished projects are online at www.visualheritage.ca if you’re so inclined. Zach has continued with the series while I’ve settled down in Toronto focusing on my narrative filmmaking, while editing professionally. But suffice to say that for many years in a row I got very used to having grant money to make projects with… and then I applied for an arts grant. Big difference. After re-reading my submission documents from last year, and talking with the person who reviewed my application, I can see exactly where I went wrong. I talked a lot about the project, but not a lot about me and my motivations. It is a grant for artists after all, they want to know about the people they’re funding. So I’ve spent the last few weeks doing a lot of thinking about all that and we’ve put together a package, that I think, really speaks volumes about the kind of filmmaker I am, but more importantly exactly how I intend to make this film. It’s exciting and scary at the same time. But I’m ready, and that’s the hardest part I think. A script that speaks Last weekend we held another reading for “Paul Shepard” with a slew of wonderful actors, some that I just met for the first time. Mr. Pifko, Ms. Mary Krohnert, as well as the saucy, yet sexy, Marilla Wex were among those in attendance. This is the fourth reading I’ve done of this script with professional actors and it was by far the best. It really did feel like it was ready by the end of it. There’s one scene that I’m still tweaking a bit, but other than that, I’ve very proud of it.
About two weeks about I got an e-mail from some I know casually expressing interest in optioning “Paul Shepard”. Anyone that knows me and knows about this project knows that it’s my baby. Everything I’ve done creatively in the last two years has been to further myself into a better position to make this film. So in response I mentioned my flattery but made a list of things that would have to happen before I even considered an option, the main, of course, being that I direct the film. The response came back negative on that end, with the potential producers attempting to court someone “more known”. That’s fine with me, but I had to pass. They threw adequate numbers of potential money at me, but I just couldn’t do it. I’ve written several other screenplays that I’m more than happy to hand over to someone else. In the case of this film the only person that’s ever going to be sitting in the director’s chair is me. Will that be it’s undoing? I don’t think so. It just means it’s a tougher battle, but for me it’s the one worth fighting for.
Hoff & Mrs. Moosewood So with the exception of the sound mix, “Hoff’s New Direction” is pretty much finished. We have to finalize the music selections, but that’s mostly paper work, and perhaps a little more time spent in the edit bay if we don’t get what we want. I feel really good about the film and I’m very proud of it. We played it for some like-minded friends who knew nothing about it and they seemed to get a kick out of it. The real test, of course, will be in front of an audience. I’m looking forward to that. We also finally finished our other short, “Mrs. & Mrs. Moosewood” which I took forever to get to the sound mix stage. I guess it’s going to be a battle between them as to which film goes to which festivals. Two brothers fighting for their parent’s affections. I love them both in very different ways. It’ll be interesting to see how they’re received. Next… So now I’ve got to adjust everything we’ve written for our Ontario Arts Council submission in April. Of course it’ll come much sooner than we think. That and now I have to re-focus working on the commissioned feature treatment to submit for Harold Greenburg funding at the end of April. I didn’t get around to listing all the films that I watched in the last week (which has become two weeks). Maybe in my next blog. Perhaps I’ll do a monthly thing. That might work better. Now I’m just thinking out loud. Until we meet again…
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