This One Goes Out to Agnes...

...and all the other fine folks at the Shaw Rocket Fund who read our script, considered our project and as of last Friday committed to come on board this crazy train!

This amazing financing news could not have come at a better time. With our scheduled shooting date looming ever closer and us still missing almost half a million dollars from our target (albeit bare-bones) budget, we were facing the very real possibility of me having to rewrite the script yet again - but this time in order to cut characters and whole chunks of story that we would simply not have been able to afford to shoot. 

So, I am not overselling our genuine joy and relief when the good news came... And it came, as these things seem wont to do in our project, at an especially banal and yet incredibly serendipitous moment...

Barbara and I had long-ago scheduled a meeting for that afternoon with a gentleman whose house we would very much like to shoot in (as the Gray family's home) here in Montreal. While we waited for Gentleman Tom to arrive at the little café, Barbara told me she'd asked Theresapedia NOT to text or call during lunch if BAD news came in from Shaw. Barbara said she left express instructions that Theresapedia was only to CALL Barbara's cell if GOOD news came in.  

I tried my best to put this out of my mind altogether. I hate waiting for the phone to ring.

So, Gentleman Tom arrived and we three started having a convivial meeting with Barbara doing much of the talking - G.T. having professed to being curious as to what an independent film producer actually does. 

So, we ordered and ate and turned around several of the many aspects that make up a producer's job description... and as Barbara was detailing the process of raising production money, she mentioned where we were at in our film's budget: "As a matter of fact..." (okay and here I confess I was already hearing bells - but I told myself to chill, that was NOT Barbara's cell phone ringing) "... as a matter of fact", she continued, "we're still trying to raise money to complete ..." (seriously, that ringing sound's coming from inside her bag right beside my feet) "...our target budget, and actually, we're waiting today for an answer from the Shaw Rocket Fu - Is that - ?" (oh God) "- that's my phone!" 

Barbara interrupts herself to dive into her bag to get to the phone before it stops ringing and I'm left, frozen-smiling across the table at Gentleman Tom, telling the butterflies in my stomach not to get their hopes up. Just because Barbara's phone's ringing RIGHT at the moment she's talking about getting an answer from the Shaw people in no way means that it IS - 

But Barbara's frantically waving her hand up and down, yelling into the phone for Theresapedia to stop screaming, she can't understand her... nonetheless the message soon became loud and clear to the entire café... WE GOT IT!!! They said yes! The Fund's president, Ms. Agnes Augustin herself called the office to say they love the project and to give us the good news. The Godsend. 

Amidst some tears and a lot of goosebumps, we eventually learned that we have been granted the amount we asked for, the maximum allocated by the Fund.  So in that glorious Friday afternoon, the amount we have been missing to make this film was suddenly cut in half! There are, of course, reader's notes to look at and address in the next rewrite, but the bottom line is that with the generous investment from the Shaw Rocket Fund, we no longer have to cut people or story from our little film - and we are one whole giant step closer to our final destination! 

Looking for Elizabeth...

I've just emerged from my great Grey Cup goings-on to make this equally exciting announcement.... Please forgive the rather formal tone to follow; I gave all my best lines to the television yesterday to get those Alouettes out of the gutter! (hats off to Saskatchewan - you Roughies were sublime! A most worthy adversary!)

So now back to the announcement: 

As promised in previous blogs, today we are officially opening up the "cyber floor" to all possible Elizabeths far and wide...!

The search for the actor who will play our 11-year old heroine is heating up. As some of you may know, we are presently in the midst of spending quality time with our seven short-listed candidates across the country, but still want to throw open the process to anyone who would like to be part of our on-line search for Elizabeth.

Anyone who is female, Canadian and between the ages of 9 and 15 (but LOOKS 11) is eligible!  Whether you've already auditioned for us through the formal casting process or not, we will be thrilled to see you this time around.

To find out exactly what we're looking for and how to submit your self-tape for consideration :  simply click here to link to our Facebook Fan Page.

Once you've made your self-taped audition, you'll be able to post it to the Fan Page and readers will be able to vote for their favourite "Elizabeth".  Submissions will be accepted until 5 pm EST on Monday, December 21, 2009.  

We're looking forward to seeing you all! Good luck!

Playing "Ketchup"...

...as in: Bringing you up-to-date, condiment-style.  

In other words, the news will be more sauce than substance as I'm sprinting towards my latest Final Draft finish line...and have a chronic brain cramp to match the one in my typing fingers (which, since I was classically trained, means all 10 - not a single digit spared).

Tomorrow at 1 pm EST is the delivery deadline, so will do a little wrap-up for you before getting back to the all-demanding, unyielding cursor on the script-y page...

Item 1 - Although we thought we might have some vital $ news from the all-important  Shaw Rocket Fund by this time, we got a general communiqué last week saying that they were needing more time to render the decisions. We were told that the news would come now on December 4. What did my true love give to me on the fourth day of Christmas...? Does the fourth day of Christmas even actually refer to the 4th of December - probably not but now that I've rambled on is it too late to go back or have I already exposed my sorry lack in knowledge of Christmas adventia? Gagaga.... Sorry - writer's fever...

Item 2 - The much-awaited 2nd phone call with the actor we're hoping will play Marion has NOT yet come to pass - we've been told there was a death in the family and that notwithstanding her serious interest in the project, we'll (understandably) be placed on stand-by while she attends to more important personal matters. 

Item 3 - Theresapedia is waiting on me to supply her with a few key pieces to complete the parameters for our open casting of Elizabeth to be posted here and on our Facebook Fan Page by this time next week.

I'm getting there... Feeding Scriptress Valérie my latest version tomorrow at 1:00.  

At 1:01, start doing everything else!

Priority Post

I thought this was just too important to keep restricted to the "comments" section. This is definitely worth a post of its own...!

For some time now, Barbara and I have been toying with the idea; a while ago our unofficial blog deputy, Sue from Vancouver, was talking to us about it; and now "Melissa" is openly wondering... Is the casting for Elizabeth over? Will we open up the search for Elizabeth to the world (wide web, that is)?

Well, the answers are no, and yes, respectively!

While we have already seen a large quantity of self-tapes through our casting director, Andrea Kenyon, and while we were greatly impressed by the quality of the young performers submitted from across Canada, we necessarily narrowed our choice down to several girls in each city to see in person. And then we narrowed it down further to a handful of girls we feel strongly about and are just now starting to explore more in-depth.

But despite the fact that we may very well find that we already have the perfect Elizabeth in our midst, this important a search cannot just end with maybes...

So while we continue our more in-depth exploration with selected girls, there is still room, time and possibility to see anyone out there who is convinced she could be our Elizabeth! This includes GIRLS WHO HAVE NEVER DONE A DROP OF ACTING IN THEIR LIVES, as much as it includes GIRLS WHO MAY ALREADY HAVE SUBMITTED SELF-TAPES BUT WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER SHOT.

In other words: everyone who is female, Canadian and looks 11 years old.

And in this round, we want to let our fans and our readers have a say as to who will be added to our Elizabeth short list.

We still have some technical tinkering to do (thank god for Theresapedia) on the Facebook Fan Page before we can put out the official call and details, but I absolutely wanted to address the queries on this subject as soon as I knew for sure that we were going for it!

So, please stay tuned. We'll make the official announcement both here and on the Fan Page within the next two weeks! 

Can't wait to see you all! Must get back to the script now - Scriptress Valérie's waiting for the next draft a week tomorrow and I'm behind schedule...!

All Fall Down

Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Just listening to some of the personal accounts of people who were there, who were directly affected - the people of East Germany in particular - and it strikes me how there are some interesting parallels to be drawn between the fall of this wall in the Eastern bloc and the rise of women's rights in the West.

Oddly enough, the fall of the Iron Curtain, this physical symbol of socio-political oppression, didn't necessarily have the immediate and unanimously euphoric effect on the repressed population locked behind it that we might imagine... 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that not everyone readily embraced the resulting shift away  from a highly ordered world where social roles were strictly prescribed and personal ambitions admittedly curtailed but where the writing was very much on "the wall" and everyone was at least reading the same thing. If nothing else, it was a place where everyone knew what was expected of them and what to expect from each other. 

Once the wall fell though, East Germans suddenly found themselves with comparatively boundless possibilities, endless choices, infinite freedoms. Without the navigational tools some of us take for granted, many of them floundered in the vast sea of possibility, while still others remained paralyzed in the sudden absence of social dictates that served as moorings, benchmarks. Many others embraced their newfound rights and liberties of course, but even today Germans from the East will tell you there is still a submerged stigma attached to their origins - that the perception of them as second class citizens by their West German counterparts is still something to be overcome... 

So, the physical, visible barrier separating East and West has long since come down, but the psychological barrier will doubtless take generations to dismantle. 

Sound familiar? I know this phenomenon can, of course, apply to any number of historically oppressed groups who finally achieve "equality" in their given society. I just find it very interesting - especially in light of my film's being set during the rise of feminism and my characters' struggles within that context - that politically endowed "freedom" can feel as limiting to some as "subjugation" to others. And that even when social equality has been politically declared and publicly embraced, it will probably take a long time before it truly resonates in the hearts and minds of the dominant culture.

Notes from the Underground

Just finished my slam session with Valérie, the screenplay "doctor". We got very deep and very direct on the first act.  It's almost there. Lots of detail, lots of discussion about dialogue and character throughout. The "second act cul-de-sac" as it's typically known in screenwriting parlance is exactly that in my case. The bulk of the work needs to be done there.  The ending, well the ending is still in play much as it has been written - all events and characters just need to lead to it, that's all. 

Despite the really deep tissue massage that still must be done, what we have is a film in the making that is more and more focussed on the mother-daughter dynamic - that cinematic black hole in the coming-of-age genre. 

My next deadline for a new version is three weeks tomorrow. 

Much will be happening between now and then though - we should be hearing back sometime this month from the Shaw Rocket Fund, I will be meeting with the first of our 6 short-listed "Elizabeth's" to begin a deeper exploration of the candidates, and lastly, I should be having a second conversation with the tremendously exciting actor I spoke with on Friday. We had a very long, very in-depth chat. She had much positive stuff to say about the script, many intelligent questions about how I see the film, the character, how I work... Anyway, it was great! Just having my script compared to that of "Lars and the Real Girl" was worth the price of missing the first in a James Bond double-header. Anyway, nothing's decided, we left it that she will read the script a second time with particular attention to what kind of commitment will be required from her for the role and look at my creative documents for my visual approach and we're set to talk again after that.

Stay tuned...

D-day

D for Deadline. 

D for Did I make it? 

D for Drink - which is another way of saying yes. And no.

 

I don't mind telling you, I have been writing my ass off and I hope you don't mind hearing it. Because that is about all I've been doing. Getting to my office at the crack of 5 or 6 in the morning and dragging myself home at 8 or 9 at night. Somewhere in there I did manage to finish that short film we shot a couple weeks ago, attend a Habs game and brush my teeth. But that's about it.

So, when I hit "send" at ten minutes to one o'clock this afternoon - Valérie is a bit of a stickler on schedule - and let myself step off of the text treadmill (for a day or so), what do you think I did to take a break? 

Started reading a book and writing the blog, of course. 

Oh, and also started freeeeaking out about the unadulterated nakedness of the once "brilliant", now totally oblique mash-up of ideas and caffeine-fuelled inspiration that I'd just sent off to a smart, sticky stranger and Barbara to read before I even had time to. 

Even though I did my level best to put all the usual caveats in my accompanying email... you know the drill: this is ROUGH - only a snapshot of a work in progress - a humble and hopeful offering of where I'm heading, not necessarily where I'm staying... even though I feel like I did some of my best writing in that damn email, I still feel like I just walked into my high school math class without any pants on. And all I can do now, is stand there and wait for everyone to look up.

Thus, the drink. 

Also, this Friday, I'm scheduled  to have a first phone conversation with an actor I greatly respect.  She's read the script and is interested in the role of Marion, but we're a long way still from sealing any deals. I will definitely keep you posted if and when things develop on that front. 

Anyway, I'm basically back. I made it - more or less - to that latest finish line. So, tell me, how're you doing? What have you been up to? Who's got more to say - pro or con - about Ginger Snaps? Or other films to suggest for our virtual Favourite Canadian Film Festival?

Meantime, here's my next pick: "Margaret's Museum", Mort Ransen. (I call Canadian director, distributor and story qualifies for the FCFF)....