Ketchup
Topic: Trailer

Time to play a little catch up.

Now that the trailer for Shadow Falls is in the can and will be making the rounds to investors soon, we're moving forward with the trailer for The Twenty-Third Letter. There's not a lot of details available yet, so this list of bullet points should bring everyone up to speed:

- The final trailer script has been completed. I would say that it's about 50% me and 50% Rob.

- Michael Caruso, who played Paul in the Shadow Falls trailer, will be playing our villain Drake. Michael, who is one of the most charismatic people I've ever met, auditioned for the part and absolutely nailed the nuances necessary to bring Drake to life.

- Barbara Sanders, our producer, will be playing the role of Dr. Hagen. Her character will be somewhat similar to the role she played in Expired, so I knew she was perfect for the part from the get go.

- Sean Pritchett, who played Mobley in the Day: 11 short film, has been cast as the main character, Donovan. He also played Donovan in a short scene that Rob shot for The Twenty-Third Letter early last year.

- Alexandra Boylan, who played Jenn (Pauls' girlfriend, in fact) in the Shadow Falls trailer, will be playing Devi. She dies a bloody death in this trailer, too. Well, at least we won't cut her head off for this one.

- Auditions are being held on August 15th for the roles of Jesse, Seth, and Hadrian. I'm not sure where the information has been posted, but it should appear soon on the Starway Pictures website.

- As previously noted, the third act is going to be rewritten heavily. In fact, the entire script may go through a detailed overhaul because of locations that have become available to us.

For more information, you can go to Starway Pictures' website at...

http://www.starwaypictures.com

They also have their own blog now, which can be found at...

http://www.starwaypictures.blogspot.com

Now known as my second film
Topic: The Script
As we are now knee deep into making a horror film, The Twenty-Third Letter will now be our second film. So this blog will probably be silent for a while, at least for several months. But we'll be back.

Storyboard Hell
Topic: The Script
Forget Development Hell. We haven't even reached that yet. Right now, we're in Storyboard Hell.

I'll describe that under the new pre-production topic thread, but for now, script notes will be held off for at least a couple more weeks.

That damned third act
Topic: The Script
I'm still playing the waiting game. We had a meeting last weekend but didn't get much accomplished. The third act seems to our problem.

We think it's a fine third act, but there are a couple of elements that we aren't exactly happy with. There's this huge fight sequence, but we're trying to figure out the dynamics of how to get all the players and observors to the location without it seeming forced. Plus, it is felt that the hero comes back against impossible odds to win. Sure, that's what heroes do, but we want it to be realistic and right now, we have concerns.

The director and producer are discussing the problems and we're hoping for a meeting next weekend so that I can put this puppy to rest.

30 days and counting...
Topic: Financing
Actually, less now, about two weeks. That's when we're making a presentation to the Money Dude.

Seems about a week ago, Rob's brother and the Money Dude were hanging out. The brother mentioned our project, increased our budget to $1.5 million, and was told that we should move fast.

30 days.

So Rob is in full blown storyboard mode. He's getting a program for storyboard animatics to show the final fight scene. And I'm now the second rewrite (which will soon be documented in its own topic).

For better or worse, it won't be long now.

1st rewrite completed 2/4/05
Topic: The Script
It's been two days since I finished the second draft and paranoia has already set in. Did I miss anything? Do any of the characters speak in the exact same voice? Do all of them? Are the action scenes actiony enough? Will Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy be a good movie? Is the dialogue trite? Will Brad and Jen get back together in order to produce the perfect offspring? Did I include too much exposition?

Hitchiker's ... Brad and Jen ... how did they get in there? Oh well.

So what do I do now? Maybe veg a little, but the apartment needs cleaning. My wife's doing the taxes, so that's one less headache. Make a budget. Netflix some movies. Maybe finally get 100% on GTA: San Andreas. Damn long ass game.

If no rewrite is forthcoming soon, I'll probably start on a new script. But which one? There's my infamous George Clooney script, an alien invasion script (which will actually have to wait until after War of the Worlds), an action script about memory erasure, and a new concept that I've come up with called "My Last Days on Earth." Not sure of the specifics, but I believe the first line will be:

MALE VOICE (V.O.)
Work. Eat. Shit. Sleep. This is what I do. This is what I am.


Or maybe I'll just give all this up and become a monk.

I hate waiting.

Donovan
Topic: Casting
Donovan is our protagonist, a detective haunted by strange abilities who becomes involved in a murder that is somehow tied to a family that he doesn't know. He's good looking, but not arrogant. For the most part, his demeanor is subdued, although he's been known to lash out.

We've discussed a few possiblities for this role. Due to my love of Joss Whedon's Angel series, I'm voting for Alexis Denisof, but we've also thrown around Timothy Olyphant's name. Unfortunately, we agree that, thanks to the television show Deadwood, which stars Olyphant, his price is probably too high. Plus, Alexis is likely to bring in more fans due to his supernatural following.

We've seen a few other possibilities, but nothing definite.

Redefinition
Topic: Financing
I spoke to Rob yesterday, who spoke with his brother concerning Money Dude.

I was under the impression, as was Rob I believe, that the Money Dude would, if he was interested, put up the $1.2 million budget. But this is not true. This is how it works:

The Money Dude packages films. He works with a series of investors who like to invest in movies. These investors periodically come to him for projects, at which point he finds someone wanting to make a film (like Rob and I), sets up the deal, gathers the money, and gets a nice brokerage fee.

What does this mean to us?

Well, it means really good news. The Money Dude will be doing a lot of the footwork. Instead of Rob and I going directly to real estate people who have never invested in a film before, Money Dude has investors who have a track record of investing in film. And given the size of our project ... not too low to be a big risk ... and not too high to be a big risk ... we have a very good chance of getting him behind the project. It will be even better if we can get Herschel Weingrod (writer of Trading Placing, among several others), who is an acquiantance of Rob's to sign on as Executive Producer.

So far, every bit of news we hear about financing has been positive. If we're lucky, it will keep going this way. I guess time will tell.

Overview
Topic: Casting
We are wanting most of our actors to be unknowns or relative unknowns, for both personal preference and budgetary reasons. If we get our full budget, we will probably cast known talent in the roles of Donovan (protagonist) and Seth (elder antagonist).

For the others, such as Drake, Jesse, Dr. Hagen, and the two henchmen, we will most likely go with unknowns.

The casting process is far off, but this thread will break down some of the people we've considered throughout the entire process, and ultimately, who we finally cast.

1st rewrite
Topic: The Script
I began the first rewrite less than two weeks ago. I had actually started it a couple of months ago, but was told to stop when it was realized that the villain's motivation was not quite clear enough. It took a while to receive new notes, but when I did, they were very well thought out and cleared up some issues.

You see, when we started this project, we thought it would be a cool looking movie that would get our names out there and hopefully move us into something bigger and better. But once the script was written, it became clear to Rob that we could have something really special -- so instead of making a pretty good film, we had the opportunity to make a great film. So we decided to pull back a bit, take more time to tweak the script, and go from there.

I believe the story will be better for it. Certain issues are already being ironed out. A new character has been added to help smooth out the exposition, supporting characters have been given more depth and more to do, and main characters are rounding out nicely, becoming more defined and engaging.

Thanks to putting my son into daycare, I now have my writing days back -- Thursday and Friday -- so the rewrite will get done much quicker than I originally envisioned. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of January.

We'll see.