A Long Day. But A Good Day.

Today, in a conference room in Toronto's West End, the principal cast of ACROSS THE RIVER TO MOTOR CITY sat down and read all six scripts aloud for the first time.

And lo and behold. The mystery tracks. The jokes are interesting. It works. It sounds good.

It's sad to Blow, Gabriel, Blow, -- especially when you're talking about your own stuff. But I've been low, Gabriel, low, a lot this summer. What a tremendous amount of work it's been. And continues to be. Even little changes ripple across when you're the guy who's responsible for getting them all in there.

We all have things to learn about how we clearly communicate our intent and themes. Actors can teach writers. Directors, too. With all our self-loathing, comes a lot of self-regard. And sometimes a step back and a bit of humility helps you to understand, truly, just how the collaborative process makes something stronger. It also makes it easier when you have to defend your story and say, "no. it's like THIS."

We have a tremendous cast. We start shooting Sunday. It's going to be great.

Sometime soon I'm going to sleep for a year.

In the meantime, for those of you who followed Rock Star: Supernova, Callaghan -- newly minted CFC Writing Resident and my helpful story coordinator the last couple of weeks, has this monster anecdote over on his blog.

Have a great weekend.

At The Three-Quarter Turn

Well.

I mentioned to a friend last night that I felt like I was now at the point where even when I get my eight hours sleep (which is by no means assured -- one of the casualties of doing a lot of production writing for me is that it's hard to turn off the analytical sense, so you find yourself waking up a lot) I feel like I'm starting each day at about 40%.

It's my own fault. I don't do much to make things better on myself. I'm terribly out of shape and I'm not exercising right now. I hope to get back to swimming once I'm done. I like swimming. Helps me focus.

Anyway, it's hard to explain to people who do real backbreaking, physical work that writing for eight hours is tough and exhausting. But it is. Riding a chair, strangely, can actually wear you out. All you professional writers with kids -- or even committed strivers who have to write around family duties -- my hat is very much doffed for all of you.

See, I'm not complaining -- merely making the point because it's still one of the things you have to deal with. There are decisions being made all the time, things you get asked about, and if you're not clear-headed, something could go bad. And when there are forty people rushing to get to the finish line -- which is the starting line, really... you just gotta breathe and push through it. You have to be able to keep working even when you're not at your best. So the whole excuse, "I didn't feel like writing today?" Add that to the pile of "things real writers can't ever afford to say."

Sometime next week I'm going to write about some of the stuff that's been new to me that I've found particularly fascinating: like the clearance process for names.

But for now, I'll just drink more coffee and look forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow, I get to hear the wonderful cast read my scripts aloud. After more than a year of work, and I don't know how many rewrites, that's going to be a singular treat.

If I can stay awake for it.

Three days to camera.

Those of us out on the hustings...

...may not have had a chance to read this yet...The L.A. Times has launched a new weekly feature on screenwriters and their new projects called Scriptland. First up is a peek at the new Charlie Kaufman. (Registration may be required)

Here's the juicy part:

And what a project. Ambitious doesn't even begin to describe the sublime and scary head-trip that is "Synecdoche, New York." For one thing, the marketers are going to have to borrow from the P.T. Anderson "Magnolia" poster campaign, in which the title was broken out syllabically, just to get people to pronounce the film properly. (It's sin-neck-duh-key, emphasis on the neck.)

For all those who aren't AP English professors, a "synecdoche," other than a clever play on Schenectady, where some of the film takes place, is a figure of speech in which a part is used to describe the whole or the whole is used to describe a part (think "threads" for clothes, or "the law" for a police officer). It's representative shorthand.

Yes, I had to look it up. Several times. And this is far from the only reference or play on words in Kaufman's story that rewards a closer look.

"Synecdoche" nominally concerns a theater director who thinks he's dying, and how that shapes his interactions with the world, his art and the women in his life. But it is really a wrenching, searching, metaphysical epic that somehow manages to be universal in an extremely personal way. It's about death and sex and the vomit-, poop-, urine- and blood-smeared mess that life becomes physiologically, emotionally and spiritually (Page 1 features a 4-year-old girl having her butt wiped). It reliably contains Kaufman's wondrous visual inventions, complicated characters, idiosyncratic conversations and delightful plot designs, but its collective impact will kick the wind out of you.

Spike Jonze, who directed Kaufman's scripts for "Malkovich" and "Adaptation," was once destined to helm this new project, but eventually opted for the Dave Eggers co-scripted "Where the Wild Things Are," now shooting in Melbourne, Australia. This left Kaufman, who's always been deeply involved with the making of his screenplays, to direct it himself. He's currently finalizing casting deals with an eye toward filming next spring.

If this film gets made in any way that resembles what's on the page — and with the writer himself directing, it will likely gain even more color and potency in the translation — it will be some kind of miracle. "Synecdoche" will make "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine" look like instructional industrial films. No one has ever written a screenplay like this. It's questionable whether cinema is even capable of handling the thematic, tonal and narrative weight of a story this ambitious.

Mmm. Delish.

Open Thread: You Blog for a While

Sigh. Production rewrites.

So the season creeps forward slowly. My thoughts, briefly summarized:

• HOUSE bounced back with one weird case. An IVF twin? Brrr.
• STANDOFF has a great opening. 2nd episode was very strong. Still don't see how they get to 22, but she's still cute, and the TRACON story was inventive enough that it's on conditional pass for me. Being after HOUSE helps, though.
• BSG webisodes is probably the first use of webisodes that makes sense to me. As we all know, them scifi fans? They's crazy. This whole "can't watch them from Canada" thing (pioneered by SHOWTIME is B.S., tho.)
• Should I try watching BONES again?
• I'm done with JUSTICE.
• What, besides STUDIO 60, are the biggies next week?

There. discuss any or all of those amongst yourselves down in the comments.

I have to go kill my darlings, now.

Outsourcing Patriotic Propaganda

So in brain dead mode, I managed to catch the last half of The Path to 9/11 last night.

Now whereever you come down on the politics of the miniseries, the ironic thing that I want to point out to y'all is this:

All those actors you didn't recognize besides, like, Penny Johnson Herald, Stephen Root, and Keitel?

Canadian.

I mean, I knew it was shot here, but, Kee-rist! I think I saw every Canadian actor I've ever met in my life in one hour and a half. Every one. My agent's wife. The guy I was on the Gemini jury with. The guy who was in my play. That girl I went on a date with once. That comic I just saw at the Rivoll. The guy who was drunk at the Spoke Club last Thursday. The babe who goes to the same coffee shop as me. That woman who lives in my building. The guy from the beer ad. The girl from the beer ad. The other guy from the beer ad. The guy who served me my salmon last week. The girl who was crying in the corner at the CHUM party on Friday night. The guy who stole the cab I was waiting for last night. The lead in Across The River.

And, of course, Wendy Crewson.

No word of a lie. They look just like you. They move among you. They can pass...and...they've...infiltrated...your...most...dire...right...wing...propaganda.

Take that, Rush! Take that, Ann! Take that, Bill!

How can you sleep at night?

Putting Ideas Out To Tender

Five years ago, right now, as I type this, people were still worried about Shark Attacks and Chandra Levy. And it was sunny. Just like it is right now.

Today is not going to be one of those "lotsatimetoblog" days, so I figured I'd hip you to a few other things.

First, drool mortals, over the splendor of the Sorkin.

Secondly, can anyone who's 25 or under please explain the whole lonelygirl15 thing to me? Start slow. Use small words. Try not to blow my mind.

Is that the future of TV? Or some other media form entirely?

Norman Jewison is So Cute

I'm sorry.

I know he's an Academy Award Nominated Director. I know he's done a whole host of wonderful films. I know he's tirelessly promoted and supported Canadian talent through his establishment and association with the Canadian Film Centre.

But every year, when I see him give that speech at the Festival barbecue I just want to hug him and squeeze him and love him and keep him for my very own. And I will call him George.

(It's not a gay thing. It's a Looney Tunes thing.)

Anyway, barring any---well, any free Gala tickets coming my way, The 2006 Toronto International Film Festival is probably done for me. I have scripts to write. And rewrite. Many of them.

In recent years, the Festival Barbecue up at Windfields had become a rather clusterfucky affair. Too many people, too many lines, too many, too much. This year they really clamped down on the guest list and made it way smaller. (though the food lines were still way too long.) Initially it was disconcerting, because there seemed to be far fewer people than I knew. But I guess I found people after a while. Talked to a bunch of writers, touched base, met a few new people -- got a few messages passed along -- shout out back to you, W.C. Dixon.

It's always nice to talk to your fellow in-the-trenchers. It was schmooze-free for me today. I think at one point when someone asked me what I was up to I looked at my feet sheepishly and said, "oh well, you know...still writing the porn."

But in the end, really, it's all about the Jewison. He's adorable.

Now, back to work.

Oh Snap, Motherfuckers. On Trusting the Bull.

Will at Uninflected Images Juxtaposed has just a monster guest post today.

There's really not a single thing I can say against it. It's dead on the money. I can tell you the similar anecdotes, like the analyst from Telefilm who told my class when I was in University, "Canadians won't go see Canadian films," who, when challenged on this point, equated, "films people might want to see" with "Porky's." I could tell you the number of times I've sat or stood around at cocktail parties hearing about what the creator wanted to say, rather than what the audience wanted to see.

I could talk of meeting after meeting where I was told, "don't focus on the plot so much...we really want to explore the character/issue here."

There's a hundred things I could say. But it all comes down to this:

I am of the generation, or the ilk, or the temperament of creative types that wants to find the way to trust the bull. And we don't want to go to L.A. to do it. Deal with us. Because they're not going to sell you the rights to stream or download CSI, m'kay?

Those who stand in opposition to this in this country will point to this model and say that you can't "pander." But those of us who actually are more interested in telling stories than "saying something and expressing our vision" know that the ache of Will's post rings true.

But all that is said better over in the post at Will's. I don't want to talk about any of that.

Mainly, I want to give a shout out to Jocelyn. Jocelyn is a writer that helped us on Across The River these last few months. When Jocelyn came on, she was there to help my co-creator and I break the last three stories of six episodes. Jocelyn helped us ably in this regard -- taking us places we hadn't anticipated. But she also cast us back a bit, and returned us to the start, and got us honest and right with God by always approaching it from this perspective:

"What is the audience feeling right now? What do they know? What don't they know? Why are they going to keep watching?"

These are, of course, the key questions. And I know that they seem obvious. But the reality is that these are questions that have rarely been asked on series that I've worked on. I've just never heard them framed in that way. And though I understood when Jocelyn brought them up just how right she was, it was nevertheless crucial to hear that viewpoint articulated...because in the rush of notes, and feedback, and oversight in the Canadian system -- because it's not market driven, it is often the thing that gets considered third. To our everlasting shame, it is often subservient to the demands of quasi-governmental agencies, and political considerations of networks, production companies, etc, etc, etc.

That evil word: Stakeholders.

If Across the River is decent, and audience responsive -- and I have every hope in the world it will be -- judging by early response to the scripts, it's not just because I've worked hard and my co-creator and the exec producer, Bob Wertheimer, has worked hard on concept and stories -- and because we've got a great team who's poised to make it...it will also because of Jocelyn saying at a crucial time, when we needed to hear it, the thing that Canadian creators hear too seldomly:

What is the audience getting out of this -- right now, right at this moment.

An industry where that question is paramount will be far healthier than the moribund domestic industry that exists now in Canada. Hey CTF -- you're looking for comments from stakeholders? The post over at Will's should be Exhibit Fucking A.

Now. I'm to bed. V For Vendetta was OK, I guess.

I need to be fresh and pretty for tomorrow's Canadian Film Centre barbecue. I hear every time you rub Uncle Norman Jewison's beard, an angel gets its wings.