Today Too!

One down, one to go.  

We pitched to the folks at Telefilm last Thursday.  And we're heading to SODEC to do the same thing this afternoon.  I haven't taken my Dolly shirt off all weekend. 

Hope it's a large boardroom. With lots of windows.

In all seriousness, I am slightly superstitious.  And since I am (so far) incapable of growing a play-off beard, I will be wearing the same outfit to defend the project at SODEC as I wore to Telefilm.  

Not that I know for sure if Dolly's image on my chest brought us any luck at last Thursday's pitch or not. We'll only find that out when Telefilm announces its decision sometime in June. But the vintage Dolly t-shirt at least made a hit with the analysts - all women - on the Telefilm jury. They all said they'd buy one for themselves - and the teenage girls they know. So, if ever this filmmaking thing doesn't pan out, I guess I could always take up t-shirt merchandizing...

But wait - what am I saying?  Knock on wood, throw salt, spit to the North three times - and hear this, Universe - until you tell me otherwise - IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, I am sticking with the filmmaker thing!

We good?

Oh, and P.S.: As of late last week, we have two Very Interesting People very interested in being in the film!!  Can't name any names just yet, but stay tuned...!

Today...

... is IT.  

Pitching to Telefilm at 2:30 pm EDT.  

Wearing my vintage Dolly t-shirt from my good friend Kim and praying for eloquence.

Amen.

Pitching, Spaghetti and Seeing What Sticks

Well, I'm back from directing adorable four year-olds in a pasta commercial. And I return just a little wiser and considerably more humbled than when I left. The power of a four year-old can never be underestimated. Especially when you - and the good folks who've hired you - want something very specific from that lovable little tyrant. 

Toddler's mood swings and ADD notwithstanding, I can't tell you how great it is to be back on a set. Period. I have been writing and "developing" for so long, I almost forgot how much I love shooting.  Commercials, documentaries, shorts, whatever.  The more variety the merrier, as far as I'm concerned.  I am a big believer in all forms of cinematic cross-training. 

Any shoot is a pretty visceral reminder that I am a director - first and foremost - and this particular one couldn't have come along at a more opportune time.... three and a half days before our Telefilm pitch to be specific.  Because it's recently come to my attention that I have spent a great amount of time writing (i.e. creating "impressions" on paper) this film, but now it's high time to shift gears and start thinking in terms of how to go about actually "realizing" those carefully crafted impressions into concrete pictures and actions.  

In the course of the Telefilm pitch this Thursday, I will no doubt have to defend certain story elements in the script, but I will also have to effectively communicate my director's vision of the film i.e. how all those little black and white letters I've laboured over all these years are actually going to translate on the silver screen.  

Indeed.  

Barring any late-breaking news on the casting front (God, that would be great!), the bulk of our pitch will likely have to rest on the arguably elusive and highly subjective shoulders of what's rattling around in my head. So in the next few days, I have to find some way to muzzle or ditch my writer self altogether and let the director finally take over.  

Anyone up for taking the writer in me on a four-day bender?

doing my duty...

...to the taxman!  

I'm sending in this dispatch from my momentary detour into the commercial world. Every year or so, I get a few gigs.  And I feel lucky to have those occasional opportunities to earn a little rent money while getting to practice my craft.  

But even while I'm sitting in a tiny casting room with 100-odd 4-year olds and just as many plates of spaghetti and at least that many Extra Strength Tylenols on hand, I'm mentally preparing for the Telefilm pitch coming up next week, and a meeting with our distributors looming on the horizon.  (Okay, I'm actually just trying to cope with the chaos by escaping into my favourite fantasy - making this film!)

Casting is still the number one, two and three item on the To Do list, of course. Wish I could give you all an exciting news flash on that front, but I'm afraid the best I can do for this week is pick four of the cutest mugs smeared with spaghetti sauce I can find. And trust that this too will go some way to make me a better director for The Really Big Show - yet to come!

Brush with Greatness

Now I'm just trying everything. 

Even the most unlikely strategies - like the obvious ones. 

Last week, I tried getting my project to an actor by calling ... his agent. In Hollywood. At one of those agencies so moving and shaking, it just goes by initials.

And at first I was buoyed by the seeming ease, respect and efficiency with which my inquiry was treated. I left my information with the agent's assistant and was given an email address to which I could send my project. Easy as pie. We were so IN!

It just kept getting better, because the same day - that very same day! - the agent himself called me back.  My own mother rarely returns my calls that fast. But any fantasies I had started spinning about adult adoption quickly evaporated once the agent and I got into a conversation - or, more to the point - once we got into a scene straight out of "Jerry Maguire".

And since right now I have no money to show, our version of the scene was a relatively brief one. And fairly unsatisfying all round.

But on the upside, I got the completely opposite response from a different actor's manager - just as quick, but far more receptive.  So, maybe this is a business of individuals after all...

Even higher on the upside (and here's where the brush with greatness comes in), I had the privilege of sharing a few pints of Guinness at a favourite neighbourhood bar with author, Miriam Toews this afternoon. Miriam wrote the Governor General award-winning novel, "A Complicated Kindness" - as beautiful and brash a coming of age novel as "Catcher in the Rye" in my opinion. With as beautiful and brash and broken a protagonist as Holden Caulfield - but in a girl's body. Gorgeous, affecting stuff.

But it was actually Miriam's appearance in Carlos Reygados' film, "Silent Light" that led to her walking into my particular gin joint on this particular afternoon....  I had already fallen in love with her books when I saw her purely by accident in the Mexican film that won the Jury prize at Cannes a couple years ago. And I got the bright idea that she might be interested in being in my film too. So I tracked down someone who knew how to contact her and we began an email and phone conversation that led to her reading my script (Miriam Toews read something I wrote! Wow) and ultimately meeting me while she was passing through Montreal. 

What a gift.

The Date

We have a date. It's the 7th of May. 

On that date, Barbara, Charles (of Métropole distribution) and I will go in front of the jury of Telefilm analysts to defend our project. Director friends who've been through it have told me it's not as nerve-wracking as it sounds. 

We'll see.  

Barbara's briefed me to expect pretty much anything. There could be plenty of questions/concerns around the creative stuff - like story, character, dialogue, dramatic arc, etc. - or around the more mercantile stuff like audience, marketability or feasibility of the entire venture.

In short, we have to expect pretty much anything. 

But one thing's for sure, we need to show up on that day with more casting than we have right now - meaning, some.

And although contacts are being made and scripts are being sent out, the wheels of progress turn agonizingly slowly in this particular domain. Still, I fully believe that the Persistence part of the formula I spoke about last week will be the key ingredient to our ultimate success.  And if I'm able to keep that faith it's because when things seem to be at their bleakest, I often get a message from beyond - the Smoky Mountains, that is. Seriously, I cannot count the number of times that Dolly's music or image or name just suddenly pops up in the most incongruous of contexts, at the most eerily appropriate times - as if to say, "I'm still here. And I still believe." 

And really, who am I to question the great Dolly Parton...?

Casting. About.

One sprint over and another one just begun.

In the aftermath of meeting our deadlines and submitting our project, we know this much: 

1. Our pitch to Telefilm will happen in early May. 

2. For that pitch, we need to bring something more to the table, something real.  

3. The one real thing we're still missing is: humans.  

That's right - we need flesh and blood mortals who will give our characters life.  And, who will give our financiers a reason to come on board.  As I'm sure I've mentioned in previous installments - putting together the perfect cast for any film is a process quite comparable to alchemy. Even if you come at it with years of experience and you're working under optimal conditions with easy access to every element under the sun - you can still end up with lead.

The conditions surrounding the casting of our kind of film (i.e. a director's first feature with a period film budget, in English, produced in Quebec) impose quite limited access to the elements believed to be essential in the creation of gold - box office gold, that is. 

I am of course speaking about STARS. 

As any "alchemist" knows, capturing and harnessing even one of those heavenly bodies is almost impossible without the bait of full financing, foreign distribution and all-important "connections". From our foreseeable position, only the financing aspect is reasonably attainable. But then again, financing can often be heavily dependent on casting. 

Around and round we go...

But still, I believe that anything is possible. Especially in movies. And especially now, after I've managed to track down - and capture - the blazing star of Ms. Dolly Parton and firmly attach it to this project. Granted, she was a fairly obvious casting choice for this film, but everything that worked in that first experiment will be applied to the process of casting the remaining key roles - Elizabeth, Marion and Phil. Below, for the first time in print, is an exclusive look at the formula we'll be following:

INSTINCT + CREATIVITY + FAITH + PERSISTENCE + TIME + KEVIN BACON =

CASTING GOLD (respecting all the Can-con and Quebec residency quotas, of course).

Kids, go ahead and try this at home!