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THE ITCHTHE ITCH - Wanting to shoot a film
Before I forget, my short film “Hoff’s New Direction” is screening at the National Film Board as part of Wildsound’s Festival, it’s the film I wrote about it my blog last spring, so if you’re interested to see how it turned out come on down! Things I bought Things I watched I’m under strict rules to not buy anything until after Christmas/birthday, but I’m allowed to cheat if I can convince my wife that it’s rare and/or cheap. “Knocked Up” slid right in before the rule took effect. I have however used the money I would have spent on films for Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero for my Wii, but it’s not so much the point of the money as it is the point of there being stuff for me to get for the sacred holiday, so there that is. Looking over my viewing list for the month always makes me chuckle a bit, its such an eclectic mix, I think. It makes it look like I’ll watch pretty much anything, and I guess I will. Some films, like the Fantastic Four one I only saw because I was one a plane, other films just have to do with random factoring. If I had to recommend things from my film to watch I’d list most of them. I’d go into detail about them all, but then I might as well just post my journal, which I don’t think I’m comfortable doing. The two television series I listed are among the best things on television, in my opinion, right now. Showtime is giving HBO a run for it’s money. The play’s the thing… “No Girls Allowed”, a play I wrote a lifetime ago is being presented Nov 15th-18th. The details are at the following URL should you be interested in attending: http://www.geocities.com/kanaidjun/Productions.html I used to write for the theatre a lot. I spent many years writing and directing plays and that’s where I started my career as a storyteller. I don’t go to a lot of theatre these days. I’d like to, but I just don’t. That being said my wife and I saw the closing performance of “King Lear” today in Stratford. The cast was fantastic, as per usual for Stratford. I studied King Lear in high school. I wrote an essay based on the theory that Cordelia and The Fool are the same person. I don’t think I did well on that essay, essay’s weren’t my thing. I’d like to think I’d write essays much better now, I believe my power of argument is a little more refined, and perhaps I don’t have as short of an attention span as those days… OK… enough of that tangent. I had a point… what was it… oh, right. I’m iffy on Shakespeare. I think the plots are great, whether they’re stolen, adapted, whatever, I don’t care, the stories are good. My only real problem comes in that the man is far too in love with his words. Most of them are beautiful, granted, but a lot of the ideas in your run of the mill, standard Shakespearian plays are, in my opinion, just beaten over the head and extremely repetitive.. I’m a fan of tight crisp writing, and Shakespeare ain’t it. The reason I bring this up is because all of the writing I’ve been doing the last few years is for the screen mostly, no theatre whatsoever. The main difference, as I’m sure some of you know, is that theatre is written for the ear, and screenplays for the eye. I’m more of an eye guy now. So naturally I’m worried about my own play’s verboseness. I flirted with the idea of taking a stab at re-writing the play before it went into rehearsals, but I decided against it. Besides being busy, I just didn’t want to mess with it, even if I do have reservations. I’m expecting this to be a humbling experience for me, I’m hoping that the writing stands up as well as I recall. The play got a fantastic reception when first performed years ago. I realize that what I’ve been talking about here probably doesn’t sell the idea of going to the show as much as I should be doing, but do go – and feel free to send me any honest feedback. Good, bad, or ugly. If nothing else I know that watching the play will take me back to a different time in my life, before I lived in Toronto, before I knew the woman who would become my wife… yes…. It will be interesting. the itch… I haven’t directed anything in awhile and I’m starting to get the itch. I’ve been discussing a lot of projects with different people and several are on the cusp, so I guess I just have to bide my time and plan for when they do come about. My wife and I are writing a short about her experiences being a kindergarten teacher which I hope to do as a Bravo!FACT. Another short I’m getting excited about is written by a friend of mine and we’ve been chatting about it a lot, I’ve been on the fence about where to try and get money from. I’m a big fan of Bravo’s system, despite the fact that it’s retroactive. The biggest challenge with this short in particular is I’m just not convinced you can tell the story in under six minutes. It needs to breathe a bit. Or I just need to be more creative and find a way to do it. Otherwise we’re exploring other options. I’ve also had the writing itch. The feature I have in development has been at a bit of a stand-still while we all regroup on the potentials of ideas floating around. When I was on my trip to Trinidad at the beginning of the month I brought along a few books that I haven’t gotten around to reading. One shorter one, which I won’t mention at this time, absolutely blew my mind. I read it twice right away and then again about a week later. I looked up the author online to tell her how much I loved the book and to inquire about the film rights, which to my surprise were still available. So to make a long story short it’s become my new passion project working out the story and making it work in the film medium. As of writing this I don’t have the rights yet, which tends to happen when you don’t have any money to offer the author, but this is a story that touched me in a big way and continues to do so as I repeatedly go through the book. Once I know further if I can get the rights, or if I’m just screwed and can’t get them, I’ll let you know the title of the book. Right now I’m going to be selfish and keep it to myself hoping that no one else comes across this gem of a tale while I figure out a way to option it. the feature’s the thing… Mr. Grani and I have been talking more about our feature, now that we’re not so busy, or at least not as busy as we’ve been. I think the problem with the feature right now is the same problem that I have when I go to a restaurant with a big menu; Too many options, not sure what to do and so it takes me forever to order and everyone gets annoyed with me. We could shoot this film with our friends on the weekend and it would be good. Between the two of us we have all the equipment and a great selection of cast of crew made up of talented people that we know. We’ve got a few different budgets for this film. One is the ‘shoot it on the weekend’ budget, another is, although modest in comparison to most films, a more proper budget where we should be able to get a few more recognizable actors, providing they like the project. I think that what I really just need to do is make a serious deadline for myself for the ‘proper budget’. If it doesn’t happen by then than weekends it is. I read the script on my trip again, planning on doing a little brush-up, and maybe I’m too close to it, but my anal-retentive nature couldn’t find much for me to brush. I’m ready to make this film. We met with someone from acquisitions at one of the Toronto based distribution companies and they gave us a lot of information about what to expect once the film gets made. I recommend anyone going through this similar process to do the same. I’ve read a lot of books on filmmaking, listened to commentaries, etc… but there’s amazing value in getting in to talk to the people yourself, let them see your face, become more than just a name on a project. I’m hoping that I have more to report on this project in the upcoming months. That’s about all I’ve got for now. At the beginning of the month I was sent to Trinidad to shoot a commercial for Scotiabank. The commercial was a quick turnaround and so they decided to have an editor on set. I’ll leave you with a list of things I learned about Trinidad while on my trip: Until next time… Gas is cheaper than water. Because of this everyone owns at least one car and because of that the cities are in a constant state of traffic jam. The water is very heavy to swim in. I don’t know why it is, but it’s a bit gelatinous, or as a member of our crew stated, “It feels like swimming in lube.” Despite it being heavy it’s very relaxing and refreshing. The most refreshing thing in the world is a cold coconut from the street. The man shucks it with a machete and then you take the jelly from the top and mix it in with the water inside. If you stop for more than 3 seconds on the street you will be hounded by everyone in all directions. If you seem even remotely interested in buying anything the vender will instantly drop the price in half the instant you look like you’ve changed your mind. There is far more rum in their raspberry daiquiris than is really necessary, and you won’t notice until you’re on your third one and already past the point of no return. Should you decide to swim after dark you run the very real danger of being hit by a flying bat. People in the service industry are paid quite well and therefore don’t give a shit how pleased you are with their service. When you order fresh orange juice they make it from oranges that are practically bright green and the juice is ridiculously sour. Don’t order fresh orange juice. If you are Caucasian, blonde, and female you will literally stop traffic with people wanting to say hello to you. Hanging out is known as ‘liming’. So if you’re going out at night, you would say, “We be limin’ tonight” Crickets sound like car alarms and they go all night long. Floors in hotels go upside down. I stayed on the 9th floor, and therefore the 8th floor was above me and the 10th below me. Car batteries are used to power portable stereo carts that surround the downtown.They sell Corona here, however they really just put their local beer inside of Corona bottles and charge extra. ‘Stag’ is known as the man’s beer. So far this year (October) there have been 528 killings by machete. This has been considered a fairly non-violent year. A carton of cigarettes here costs about the same as one pack in Canada. If you’re willing to pay $90 for your meal you can have a personal belly dancer at your table in the more upscale places. People from Trinidad and Tobago are known as “Trinbagoins” You can get a shark-burger. How cool is that? They are currently in the middle of an election. The majority of people vote for the candidate who has the most respectably corrupt contacts. The most common snack in children’s lunches are peanuts.
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