Another Life in Film

My Birthday Gift to You

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Another Life has been to 12 film festivals around the nation... and now it comes home to you.

Today is my birthday, and as my birthday gift to you, I am proud to finally present to you the full short film of Another Life. Enjoy!

ANOTHER LIFE -- Short Thriller

A female veteran has three days to kill a fellow soldier or they both die.

Written and directed by Nathan Ruegger. Produced by Elizabeth Manashil, Mitsuyo Miyazki, and Min Zhang.

Starring Tracy Coogan, Robert W. Evans, K. Harrison Sweeney, Brad Hills, and Bobbie Prewitt.

Cinematography by Jay Visit. Edited by Beth Moody. Sound Design by Chris Whetstone, Cesar Arvizo, Kari Barber, and Rebecca Chan. Original Score by John Jennings Boyd.

Shot on Super16mm.

www.anotherlifefilm.com

www.nathanruegger.com

contact: nate.ruegger (at) gmail (dot) com

Repped at Last

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

That's right, folks. Yesterday, I signed with a literary manager at a major company.

At our brief but wonderful meeting, my manager and I worked out a basic plan: I'll send her my scripts this week, we'll pick the best of my ideas to write next, and she'll get to work finding a buyer for my scripts while I get to work writing her a new script.

It's a little scary how simple this all is -- From now on, I just keep writing and working with my manager. That's my job. I'm sure I'll find a way to get used to it :)

And it's all thanks to you. I am announcing right here and now that I landed official representation as a screenwriter in Hollywood because of this blog.

Since 2009, I have shared with you my latest endeavors as an emerging writer-director via Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. Through this blog, I was able to share exciting news, socialize with friends old and new, and make the necessary connections that lead to meeting my manager.

More details coming as I am allowed to divulge them, but most importantly, thank you all so much for your shares, comments, and support. This wouldn't be possible without you.

Now, I need to get back to a new draft for my manager... but damn, that felt good to write.

How to Query

2012-01-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

Last week, 7 Managers requested my action screenplay. Here's how I did it:

In the past, I extolled the virtues of Networking and Applying to Screenwriting Competitions -- and I still do -- they're the #1 and #2 ways to get your script read by the best of Hollywood -- but after my string of non-luck in 2011, I'm ready for #3 again.

Cold Query E-mails. In three steps. Oh yeah.

1) Draft the Email

And by draft the email, I mean write a killer logline. I've written about this before, even with a first draft formula, but never forget: raise the stakes, make it original, and practice pitching. I didn't feel ready to query until I rewrote my logline dozens of time with help from my friends.

Remember, agents and managers deal with pitches all the time, day after day, year after year -- and if they are going to give you the time of day, your logline needs to stand out.

Which is also why you gotta make your email short. Here's what worked for me:

Dear [First Name],

I thought you might be interested in my new script:

[TITLE] -- [Genre]
[Logline].[MOVIE #1 meets MOVIE #2].

Thank you for your time.

Best,
[Your Name]
[Personal Website]

2) Make a List

And by list I mean an Excel Spreadsheet of all the agencies, management companies, and production companies in town. This is where your research comes into play -- Deadline.com, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, IMDbPro, The Wrap, TrackingB, The Black List, etc. -- to find the names of ALL the companies. Not just the big ones. ALL THE HOLLYWOOD. More on that later.

Then you need to make a list of individual agents, managers, and development execs at those companies -- and you find their email addresses. No, not "info@BigStudio.com" off of their corporate website. You need their individual company email addresses. But how?

I've been able to find email addresses through IMDbPro and google searches -- but mostly through networking. Working as a Hollywood assistant, you collect email addresses from major Hollywood players, or just e-mail structures like firstname.lastname@company.net. Also, fellow writer friends have shared their query lists with me too. So don't stop networking!

Then once you have compiled hundreds -- seriously, HUNDREDS -- of email addresses, then you're ready for the final step:

3) Email Everyone

That's right. Everyone. All at once. Not just the people who represent/hire writers in your genre, style, niche, etc. All of Hollywood. Paper the town. Here's why:

The tide can turn so quickly. The agent who represents comedy writers today could represent horror writers tomorrow. For example, after The Devil Inside made a surprising box office smash this past weekend, I imagine everyone in Hollywood might want their hands on the next found footage horror script. So you never know if you're querying the right or wrong person.

But do use some discretion. For example, I would suggest querying one rep per company unless the company is huge. If you email 1-2 reps at a time, wait a month for a response, then email another 1-2 reps at that company, you might get a better response then carpet-bombing everyone at the company with emails and expecting a personal, passionate response.

And here's the pep talk.

This is a lot of work. Not something you do in an afternoon. This takes hours and hours. Days and days. It took me weeks of working on the logline, compiling the list, drafting hundreds of emails, and then sending them all off... with only a 1% response.

After 400 something emails, I got 7 responses... and already one manager passed. But this is the number one rule of screenwriting: DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED.

So 3 months later, change the wording of the logline, and do it again. Or even better -- send out a new logline for the new script you finished in those 3 months. Because the first thing anyone will ask after a positive read is "What else do you have?" and it better be in the same brand as your last script and you better send it immediately. So keep writing and keep fighting.

Remember, no one fails in Hollywood -- you only fail if you give up.

Don't give up.

This Will Be Our Year

2012-01-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

To be honest, 2011 sucked for me.

Car broke down. Lost my job. My wife got cancer. My wife lost her job. A full year of almost-successes with film fests, producers, distributors, agents, managers... with little to no concrete achievements that I can point to.

But with the proper prospective, this is how "Breaking In" really works. Step by step. Script by script. Meeting by meeting. Year by year. It takes time, hard work, and patience.

Neil Gaiman put it best:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

Based on last year's "mistakes,", this year I will...

send off my script to a friend's manager
meet a rainmaker who can help jumpstart my career
submit 2-3 new scripts to Nicholl's and Sundance on May 1st
write 2-3 more scripts after that
query away

What mistakes will you make this year?

3 Specs in 5 Months

2011-11-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

I'm back from vacation and taking a hard look at my life: I went to film school, won recognition at film fests and screenwriting comps, and met agents, managers, and producers -- and now --

Crickets. Tumbleweeds. I'm still an unrepresented writer/director looking for work.

Might you be in a similar situation? Well, don't lose faith! I'll let you in on my not-so-secret plan. From my network of established screenwriters, I came back with 3 Great Pieces of Advice:

A) Throw Smart Punches!

Take a look at Hollywood news sites -- Tracking Board, It's On The Grid, The Black List Blog -- and see what brand/genre/style of scripts Hollywood is buying right now. For example, contained thrillers, found footage movies, and re-imagined fairy tale scripts sold recently -- so go through your ideas, re-tool a premise into one of these saleable genres, and get writing!

B) Get Out There!

I've written about this a few times before -- no one knows you're writing good scripts unless you actually make them read your good scripts. Go where young Hollywood types hang out, meet new people, and make friends. Because good friends recommend their friends for jobs. So with all the upcoming Holiday Mixers, put down your laptop and network!

C) Just Write the Damn Thing!

Stop dilly-dallying over which script to write. Stop wasting your time schmoozing at mixers and "networking" on facebook. You're a writer, right? So park your keister in that chair and WRITE.

So which bit of advice will I be taking?

D) All of the Above

Two of the very best screenwriting competitions -- Nicholl and Sundance -- have their submissions deadline for May 1, 2012.

That's 5 months away. And I have 3 fully outlined spec feature scripts ready to write.

So I put together a schedule. Writing about 3 Pages/1 Scene every day, I will:

finish Draft #1 of my Texas Murder Mystery by Christmas
finish Draft #1 of Another Life the Feature by late January
finish Draft #1 of my super-saleable Contained Thriller by early March

Then I'll give myself about 3 weeks with each script to rewrite the the hell out of them, polish them off, and send them all out to Nicholl and Sundance by May 1st, 2012.

And with only 3 pages a day, I have plenty of time to network and make new connections.

What's your plan?

Brightest Heaven of Invention

2011-11-09T09:00:00.001-08:00

A writer is often asked: Where do you get your ideas?

J.K. Rowling famously said that her multi-billion-dollar idea for Harry Potter simply fell into her head while riding a train. I was riding a bus when I first listened to Rob Dougan's song Clubbed to Death -- and the idea for an action heroine simply fell into my head:

A hardened, lean, mean woman clad in a leather duster, army boots, and red lipstick. A beautiful girl next door with the war-weary eyes of a soldier. Punching a boxing bag in the dark. Training with deadly weapons. Taking on a small army of henchmen all on her own. Relentless. Unstoppable. On a bloody warpath for revenge.

This potent combination of music and the seeds of a character inspired my girl-power action thriller FURIOUS ANGELS which won Finalist at the Page Screenwriting Awards.

Since then, music has always inspired me in my writing.

I built a soundtrack for FURIOUS ANGELS: To get jakked up and ready to write hyperkinetic action sequences I listened to Linkin Park, Evanescence, Trapt, Nonpoint, etc., and to get in the mood for brooding character moments I listened to my favorite composer Bear McCreary.

Now for my horror script RED SNOW, I turned to eerie, creepy atmospheres from soundtracks for the TV show Dexter, the video game series Silent Hill, and the movie Last House on the Left (John Murphy is a brilliant composer!).

I even made this unsettling painting of Red Riding Hood in black and white woods my wallpaper, listened to John Murphy's track The Boathouse, and I was off and writing more RED SNOW.

Today, I'm writing a murder mystery called HARVEST CHILD set in a small Texas border town. I picked out this dark image of a man watching the sun set over wheat fields as my wallpaper, I'm listening to this playlist mix of westerns and film noirs... and dammit if I don't get inspired.

Where do you get your ideas?

They Already Know You

2011-11-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, I mentioned that I've got my scripts into the hands of producers, managers, a director, and a distributor. Some of you have asked How? Well let me tell you:

First, stop waiting to be discovered. Stop it. If I haven't done it for you already, allow me to Break the Myth of "Breaking In" right here. No rich producer in a power suit is going to find you typing away at your local Starbucks and ask to make your script into a blockbuster.

There's really only 3 ways emerging writers gain recognition from established filmmakers:

Cold Email Queries
Screenwriting Competitions
They Already Know You

I bet you're probably thinking I don't know Jerry Bruckheimer, winning the Nicholl's sounds like a longshot... so I guess cold calling is my only chance, right?

Couldn't be more wrong. Let me break down my experience for you:

1. Cold Email Queries

I did my research on the Hollywood’s top management companies via IMDbPro, The Wrap, The Black List blog, and Deadline.com (generally, agents want a script they can sell TODAY, producers want a script they can greenlight TODAY, and managers are more willing to develop material first).

Within the top management companies, I looked up who represented thriller, action, and horror writers with a good selling record. Through IMDbPro and connections from friends and work, I compiled quite a few of these top/rising managers’ email addresses.

And here’s the basic query email I sent out:

Dear [Manager’s First Name],

My name is Nathan Ruegger, I’m an award-winning thriller writer seeking representation, and I have a screenplay that could be a great fit for you:

[Logline]

If interested, I would be happy to submit. I look forward to your response.

I sent out 30 cold email queries.

2 asked for a read. 1 passed, the other is known for never actually reading it.

I might try cold query emails with a new script, or try querying agents and producers, but you see why I’m not such a big fan…

2. Screenwriting Competitions

I sent out my two scripts to all the best screenwriting competitions and then some – Nicholl’s, Tracking B, Sundance, Austin, Page Awards, Slamdance, Scriptapalooza, Big Bear, Script Pipeline – and I got quite a few snubs, to be honest.

But I placed quite well at Page and Austin this year!

From Page, a manager emailed me with interest in my action script – asked to read my horror script – and passed on it – but he left the door open to submit my next script :)

From Austin, I had the good fortune to visit the screenwriting conference – I was visiting my wife’s family in Arlington, TX several hours away. Since I made Second Round, the conference invited me to roundtable discussions with big-time writers and producers.

I really enjoyed talking with two producers – who I approached afterwards, thanked them for their time, chatted briefly about their films, and asked if they’d be interested in my horror script that brought me to Austin -- and they both said yes!

So, in my experience, screenwriting competitions helped me stand out from the pack and gain recognition among producers as an up-and-coming writer.

In fact, I’ll be applying to more competitions this year with new scripts!

3. They Already Know You

Before sending off my scripts to that manager, I asked some of my USC Film School friends to read my scripts and give me notes – all friends who are also out here in L.A. working in Hollywood as emerging writers, directors, etc. -- and all their notes were very helpful.

Weeks later, I got a call back from one such friend (paraphrasing):

“Hey Nate, are you planning on directing Furious Angels?”
“I’d love to, but it’s such a big budget movie, I’d rather sell it, like that would ever –

“Because I know this director XXXXXXXXXX, he’s got a few studio credits under his belt, and he’s looking to direct thrillers. Do you mind if I send him your scripts?”

I paused, pretending that I needed a moment to consider this, then tried to say in a level tone that Yes, it would be perfectly all right if he sent over my scripts to this big director.

MORAL OF THE STORY

Pleasantly and persistently ask everyone you trust and whose taste you admire to read your scripts and beg for their notes – again, and again, and again.

Make up reasons to get new people to read your scripts:

I'm applying to Nicholl's -- can you read my script?
A manager rejected my script -- can you take a look and help me out?
It's November already. What's up with that? Read my script pretty please.

The only way people in Hollywood will know that you’re a great writer is because you are actively getting your best material in front of people in Hollywood, who now know you as a great writer and -- fingers crossed -- will recommend you too.

Remember, no one fails in Hollywood -- you only fail if you give up.

Don’t give up.

Life after "Another Life"

2011-10-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

After 3 awards, 12 official selections, and 18 months on the film festival circuit, the time has come to put Another Life on the shelf and move on.

Another Life holds a very special place in my heart. A talented cast. A brilliant crew. And fantastic audiences. Making this film and taking it to festivals has been one of the most magical experiences of my life... but this chapter has come to an end.

Now I must write the next chapter, starting with:

2 Managers requested my scripts after I made Finalist at the Page Awards
1 Director requested my scripts through a friend
1 Distributor from a film festival requested my scripts
2 Producers from the Austin Screenwriting Conference requested my scripts

From now on, this blog is dedicated to my uphill battle as an emerging screenwriter in L.A.

With all this professional interest in my screenplays -- a girl-power action-thriller Furious Angels and a low-budget horror Red Snow -- I'm putting down my mantle as a director (for now!) to pursue a career as a working screenwriter of thrillers and family dramas.

All I have are 2 scripts, a bunch of hard-working filmmakers for friends, and a head full of ideas.

But I hereby vow to find representation, sell those scripts, and write for Hollywood for a living --and you'll be the first to hear about it, every step of the way.

Here I go, turn the page.

Another Life Wins Jury Selection Award!

2011-10-18T06:38:00.001-07:00

What a smashing finish!

At our final film festival, Another Life won the Jury Selection Award at the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival this past weekend!

For the list of all award-winning films, go here.

This festival was a blast! A must-submit stop for any other filmmakers out there going around the festival circuit! Another Life had a wonderful, intimate last screening with lots of love from cast (Actress -- Bobbie Prewitt), crew (Casting Director -- Cheryl Faye), friends, and family in attendance. Thank you to everyone who showed up!

Also, I had the privilege to hang out with some very cool, gifted filmmakers at the festival, and I only hope that I get to collaborate with them in the future.

So keep an eye out for the following names in bright lights:

ALSO -- after making Finalist at the Page Awards, I've heard from TWO Managers who have read my work and want to read more! Stay tuned next week!

Our Final Film Festival

2011-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is it, folks. Another Life makes its final screening right here in Los Angeles!

We play this Saturday, October 15th @2:30pm at the WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills (135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210) for the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival!

Only 4 days left until our very last screening!

And why else should you go? Here are a few good reasons:

The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival shines a light on great movies and great women with a weekend of movies, parties, eats, suites, and treats -- jam-packed with talented filmmakers and talent-seeking industry veterans all in glamorous Beverly Hills.

Another Life will also play alongside these other beloved short films from around the world:

So get your cheap tickets here and see Another Life for the last time on the silver screen!

Playing in Beverly Hills on Oct. 15th!

2011-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

That's right, folks -- Another Life is finally playing in the L.A. area!

We screen at the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival on Saturday, October 15th at 2:30pm at the WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills (135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210).

That's less than 2 weeks away -- so mark your calendars!

The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival celebrates the cinematic achievements of women with a weekend of wonderful movies, music, panels, and parties -- all with talented filmmakers and talent-seeking industry veterans in glamorous Beverly Hills.

So now's your chance to see Another Life on the silver screen in the L.A. area!

Get your cheap tickets here and see you on the afternoon of Saturday, October 15th!

Agents: How to Take Notes

2011-09-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Weeks ago, I had the great fortune to meet an agent who agreed to read my script and I filled you in on how best to follow up with an agent.

As promised, I'm now giving you the skinny on How to Take Notes from an Agent:

1) The Phone Call -- After a few pleasantly persistent emails checking in on the script, the agent responded: He read the script and he would call me later this week.

When an agent is going to call you, have your phone on, fully-charged, and stick to areas with good signal. You can't afford to miss a call from an agent. And when he/she does call, there's...

2) A Brief Exchange of Pleasantries. How are you? Congrats on that thing in the trades. Why thank you, etc. You need to show you care. If you want this guy to be your agent, care enough to start building a professional relationship with that person.

3) The Trick Question. After the chit-chat, the agent will inevitably start by saying a few nice things about your script and then ask very carefully:

"Now, if you don't mind, I have a few notes on your script, but only if you want to hear them, because if you think your script is in a good place and you're not looking for any notes, then I totally understand and support your decision..."

This is a test! The agent here is trying to gauge how well you take notes as a professional screenwriter. Hollywood is a collaborative industry where you will be writing for not just an audience but agents, managers, development executives, studio executives, producers, actors, etc., and if you want a long career as a writer, you will have to write and rewrite scripts that will excite all of those people to sign on to your script and make it into a movie.

In short, the answer is: "Yes, I'd love to hear your notes. Hold on, let me get a pen and paper."

4) Write Everything Down -- For me, the agent had a lot of page-by-page notes. For example, "On page 34, Tiffany beats up the bad guys with karate-like punches and kicks... since she's a runaway, wouldn't she fight in a more street brawler style?"

This guy talked fast, so I wrote down as much as I could, jotting down the appropriate page numbers by each note so I could go over them later. Also, it's good to have a copy of the script open so you can follow along and know exactly what scene the agent's talking about.

5) Respond With Courtesy -- This agent has put his/her personal time into reading your script, coming up with notes, writing them down, and preparing for this call. Do the right thing and show your appreciation for each and every note with professional courtesy.

If the agent gives you a good note, say that, and thank the agent. I lucked into only getting good notes and said so with every note.

If it's a bad note, DO NOT disagree with the agent. Prepare an appropriately neutral response, such as "Interesting. I hadn't thought of that before. Let me take another look at that."

5) Have Questions Ready -- If you don't understand a note, then ask! "So you didn't think this was a credible character decision?" "Is that because you think that subplot was unclear?" Asking these questions also shows you hear and appreciate the agent's feedback.

Also, look for the notes that the agent didn't give you. For example, the agent only gave me page-by-page notes, so I asked if he had any general notes -- and he gave me some good pointers on the overall character arcs for the script.

6) The Next Draft -- Wrap up the call with thanking the agent for all the notes and when would the agent like to see another pass on the script reflecting his/her notes.

The agent told me, "Whenever you can get it to me. Whenever you feel like it. Take your time."

This is also a trick! Another test! The agent here is gauging your professionalism to see how long it takes you to do a solid, typos-free, industry-ready rewrite. So how long should that take?

Two weeks. No more. Suck it up, lose sleep, and put all your time and effort into rewriting your script and emailing it back to the agent in two weeks or less. If you want to impress this agent, prove you're worthy to sign as a client, then you better show that you are ready to work.

But the most important lesson from this call is...

7) Take the Damn Notes -- As you rewrite your script in those two weeks, you must take every single note the agent gave you and incorporate it into your next draft. Even if you don't fully understand the note. Even if you disagree. Just do it.

Put these notes into perspective: this agent has read hundreds of scripts, scripts that have made millions at the box office and scripts that never got made... not all agents can articulate their notes clearly, but every good agent has a gut instinct for what makes a saleable script work.

Again, this is a collaborative industry, and if you want to prove to this agent that you are a professional, then it's your job to prove that you can take notes and improve your script.

In short, your job as a writer is to look at every note and ask, "What if it's brilliant?" and work at it until you find the note underneath the note that will genuinely improve your screenplay.

That's all for now, folks! And speaking of rewrites, time to crawl back into my writer-cave.

Official Selection at Lady Filmmakers! Finalist at Page!

2011-09-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic week!

I just got back from the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival only to find out that Another Life made Official Selection at our 12th Film Festival, the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival -- and that my screenplay Furious Angels made Finalist at the Page International Screenwriting Awards!

The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival celebrates the cinematic achievements of women in glamorous Beverly Hills! Not just for ladies, the festival will host an exciting weekend packed with movies, music, panels, and parties, all with talented filmmakers and talent-seeking industry veterans in attendance.

At long last, all of our L.A.-based fans can see Another Life on the silver screen!

We play at the prestigious WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills (135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210) some time from Friday, Oct. 14 through Sunday, Oct. 16, our showtime TBD.

I'd like to take a moment to thank our lady filmmakers: lead actress Tracy Coogan; producers Liz Manashil, Mitsuyo Miyazaki, Min Zhang; editor Beth Moody; production designer Jill Blackledge; casting director Cheryl Faye; make-up artist Mara Rouse; sound designers Rebecca Chan and Kari Barber; and costume designer Sarah Springer -- without your amazing talent and hard work, Another Life simply would not be the amazing film it is today.

I will certainly be in attendance at the festival in Beverly Hills -- and hope to see you all there! I'll slip you more details on the fest's exciting developments as they come...

And, oh yes, more on The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards!

A quick refresher: the PAGE Awards was established by an alliance of Hollywood producers, agents, and development execs to discover the most exciting new scripts by up-and-coming writers from across the country and around the world -- with loads of Success Stories.

And making Finalist means that a panel of Hollywood literary agents, managers, and development execs rated my work as one of the Top 10 action screenplays submitted!

Win or lose, it looks like talent-seeking Hollywood folks enjoy my work!

Just when I thought things were slowing back down, I am so awed and grateful for all the love and support from friends, family, and fans that keeps Another Life and my writing marching onward to bigger and better things. Thank you all!

Oh, yes, and as for the Agent story -- my script has been passed along from the Agent to a colleague who's considering working with me -- so keep your fingers crossed!

Playing this Friday!

2011-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Just a few days away -- Another Life plays at the Big Bear Lake Film Festival this Friday, Sept. 16th at 12 noon at Village Theaters North (602 Pine Knot Avenue, Big Bear Lake, CA)!

I'm really looking forward to this festival -- and you should too! Here's why:

1) Named one of MovieMaker Magazine's Top 25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival will host an exciting weekend jam-packed with gala parties, panels, showcases, and more -- just 2 hours out of Los Angeles!

You also might get a chance to meet veteran "that-guy" actor Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day, Memento), Oscar-winning Composer Michael Giacchino (Up, Ratatouille), and award-winning cinematographer John Bailey (Ground Hog Day, Mishima) at the Opening Night Gala!

Why believe me? Check out this cool Film Festival Trailer:

2) Another Life also screens with Twelve, a romantic drama about a successful real estate agent who, against all logic and advice, travels to Italy to find the one girl he could never let go... his first love. Check out the website here and trailer below:

3) Another Life also screens with The Right Turn, a coming of age comedy about the trials of dating. An insecure high school boy takes a girl out on a date and couldn't seal the deal with a kiss. Frustrated, he powers on the GPS which mysteriously does more than guide him home. Check out the website here and trailer below:

4) Another Life also screens with Hero, a touching drama about a 12-year-old girl raised by an alcoholic mother in a poor neighborhood who loses everything, asking a question: "Will there be a hero when you need one?" Check out the website and trailer here.

5) Another Life also screens with The Death of Toys, a comedy about ten year-old Seth who wants to give up his toys, but his work-numbed mother Lily needs the spark of their playtime more than he does. Her insistence that he keep the toys leads to some unexpected places. Check out the website here.

Five reasons to go. Three days away. Just one ticket to buy...

Top 10 Reasons To Go

2011-09-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

Another Life screens at the Big Bear Lake Film Festival in 11 days on Friday, September 16th at 12 noon at the Village Theaters North in Big Bear Lake, CA.

This is a fun but decisive moment in our festival circuit -- it might very well be our last festival! -- so please come out and support!

Wait... Why should you go?

Let me tell you The Top 10 Reasons:

1) Named one of MovieMaker Magazine's Top 25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival will host an exciting weekend jam-packed with gala parties, panels, showcases, and more -- just 2 hours out of Los Angeles!

2) The Media Tells You To: the Inland Empire has this to say about Another Life.

3) Another Life was called "one of the best independent short films" by Hollywire.

4) Another Life won the Gold for Best Dramatic Original Short at the Houston International Film Festival and the Award of Merit at the Accolade Competition.

5) Another Life must be well-written since I recently made the Second-Round at the Austin Screenwriting Competition, Quarter-Finalist at the Big Bear Lake Screenwriting Competition, Semi-Finalist at the Page International Screenwriting Awards (ongoing).

6) Another Life also screens with Twelve, a romantic drama about a successful real estate agent who, against all logic and advice, travels to Italy to find the one girl he could never let go... his first love. Check out the website here and trailer below:

7) Another Life also screens with The Right Turn, a coming of age comedy about the trials of dating. An insecure high school boy takes a girl out on a date and couldn't seal the deal with a kiss. Frustrated, he powers on the GPS which mysteriously does more than guide him home. Check out the website here and trailer below:

8) Another Life also screens with Hero, a touching drama about a 12-year-old girl raised by an alcoholic mother in a poor neighborhood who loses everything, asking a question: "Will there be a hero when you need one?" Check out the website and trailer here.

9) Another Life also screens with The Death of Toys, a comedy about ten year-old Seth who wants to give up his toys, but his work-numbed mother Lily needs the spark of their playtime more than he does. Her insistence that he keep the toys leads to some unexpected places. Check out the website here.

10) Last but not least, if you stick around after the screening for Another Life, you might get a chance to meet veteran "that-guy" actor Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day, Memento), Oscar-winning Composer Michael Giacchino (Up, Ratatouille), and award-winning cinematographer John Bailey (Ground Hog Day, Mishima) at the Opening Night Gala!

Seriously, how can you miss out on all this good stuff in just one day?

Your tickets are waiting for you...

We Screen Sept. 16th at Big Bear!

2011-08-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars!

Another Life opens the Big Bear International Film Festival in a few weeks! So catch the exclusive screening on Friday, September 16th @12 noon at the Village Theaters North in Big Bear Lake, California. Just a morning's drive out of L.A.!

Not only will you get to see the film, but you'll get to hang out with the director (me!), enjoy a Q&A session, and get access to loads of fun events like parties, panels, showcases, and more!

So check out the festival's website, get some cheap tickets, and see you there!

Official Selection at Big Bear! Semi-Finalist at Page!

2011-08-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

What a great week!

Another Life made Official Selection at our 11th Film Festival, the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival and my feature screenplay Furious Angels made Semi-Finalist at the PAGE International Screenwriting Competition!

Named one of MovieMaker Magazine's Top 25 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival celebrates 12 years of showcasing emerging filmmakers and screenwriters in the idyllic setting of Big Bear Lake. Just 2 hours out of L.A., the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival will host an exciting weekend jam-packed with gala screenings, workshops, panels, and parties, all with talented filmmakers and talent-seeking agents, managers, and producers in attendance.

But why take my word for it when you can watch a cool video about it?

Another Life will screen at the Big Bear Lake International Festival on Friday, September 16 or Saturday, September 17 TBD... so keep your calendars open!

I will certainly be in attendance at the festival in Big Bear, seeing films from fellow USC filmmakers such as Fawaz Al-Matrouk with his film To Rest in Peace and Cat Youell with her film The Mischievous Case of Cordelia Botkin.

Just as well, Another Life will also be screening at the Traverse City Shorts Festival the same weekend on Sunday, September 18th @5:00PM at the Park Place Hotel (300 East State Street, Traverse City, Michigan, 49684).

Also -- don't forget that Another Life will be screening at the Rome International Film Festival in just a few weeks on Friday, September 8th @11:00PM at the Historic DeSoto Theatre (530 Broad Street, Rome, Georgia, 30161). Get tickets and passes here!

But let's certainly not forget The PAGE International Screenwriting Awards!

Celebrating its 8th year, the PAGE Awards was established by an alliance of Hollywood producers, agents, and development execs to discover the most exciting new scripts by up-and-coming writers from across the country and around the world. And with all the Success Stories from the winning writers, the PAGE Awards have become one of the most important sources for new screenwriting talent within the Hollywood community and worldwide.

In short, this is kind of a big deal!

With Another Life gearing up for three festivals on top of making Semi-Finalist at PAGE , I am in awe of all the love and support from my fellow filmmakers, friends, family, and fans. This would not be near possible without all of you. Period.

Oh, yes, and I have more good news on the Agent front... stay tuned!

The Big C

2011-08-16T08:00:00.001-07:00

Last few weeks, I made Semi-Finalist at the Page Int'l Screenwriting Competition, met with an agent, made Official Selection at our Tenth Film Festival, my wife got cancer --

* Life SCREECHES to a Halt *

Yes, my wife Alexis has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Mucinous Colloid Carcinoma, to be exact. As cancers go, this one is very slow-growing, treatable, and rare... so rare, in fact, that Alexis refers to it sometimes as Hipster Breast Cancer since you've probably never heard of it.

The surgery is scheduled for September 6th. For more details, visit Alexis' blog.

Every day, I continue to be amazed by Alexis. She goes to work just like everyone else, only she refuses to mope about her situation and always looks on the funny side of life.

For example, she sometimes sees cancer as a sort of superpower or ultimate trump card:

Alexis: "Nate, can you wash the dishes?"

Me: "Can it wait? I'm kind of in the middle of --"

Alexis: "Oh, oo, my cancer's acting up... I'd feel a lot better if someone else did the dishes... oh, it hurts... "

Me: * sigh * "Yes, I'll do the dishes."

When faced with cancer, I have no choice but to put a hold on my emerging-filmmaker-frenzy, sit back, and reflect on what really matters in life.

The answer: Family. Friends. Loved ones.

After all, why make movies if you have no one to share them with?

Agents: How To Keep In Touch

2011-08-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last month, an agent agreed to read my screenplay. A major milestone for any emerging screenwriter -- but then what do you do next?

Well, dear readers, let me fill you in on the few Follow-Up rules I know:

1) Patience -- If an agent agrees to read your script, email that script over immediately... and then wait three weekends before saying anything.

Agents are tremendously busy, wrangling phone calls and emails from dawn till well after dusk, reading piles of scripts, juggling dozens of projects... and in the midst of this jam-packed schedule finding paid work for dozens of clients, this agent is taking the time out of his/her personal life to do you a favor and read your script.

The industry standard is that it takes three weekends to have a new script even enter the queue of Material To Read. So after those three weekends, the next thing to do is...

2) Write a brief, warm check-in email -- After three full weekends, send a very short, to-the-point, but friendly email that shows you care about this agent and his/her agency with a gentle, if not hesitant reminder about your script.

Let me share with you the rough structure of the email I sent:

Dear [Agent's First Name],

How are you? How goes everything at [Insert Agency Name]? I came across this article in the trades about your [big script sale/signing a new client/box office smash/other Hollywood success story]: [insert link here] Congrats on all your success!

I bet you're pretty busy but I wanted to check in on [Name of Your Script] and if you've had the chance to give it a look. Anyway, I hope all is well with you and once again thanks for meeting with me.

Best,
[Your Name]
[Your Phone Number]

One little note: Your email's subject line should be clear and simple like "Follow up on [Name of Your Script]"

3) Pleasant Persistence -- If the agent doesn't respond, do NOT take it personally. They don't hate your script, they're just swamped and haven't read it yet. So make a note to yourself to write the agent another email every three weeks, and in the same warm, professional, and brief format from before. Oh, and keep all these emails in the same conversation/email chain so the agent has all your correspondence info in one place.

Sometimes the agent doesn't get back to you... and sometimes they do.

As for me, lightning struck:

The agent emailed me back on the same day. He did read my script. He wanted to talk about it. Then the following day, he called me back.

Which leads to the next week's edition, How To Take a Notes from an Agent. Stay tuned!

We Got into the Traverse City Shorts Festival!

2011-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

After weeks drifting through the Hollywood doldrums, yesterday was TERRIFIC:

I applied for a job in the morning and got an interview that afternoon.
I turned my phone back on after the interview and got a call scheduled with an agent!
I came home, opened up my email, and found out that Another Life was just selected for its ninth film festival: the 2011 Traverse City Shorts Festival!

And once again, the best part is how we got in. Read closely, friends and fans:

As you may remember, Another Life was invited to the Big Easy Int'l Film Festival, we had a wonderful screening in December... and then I moved on to other festivals...

Five months later, I suddenly get this email:

We are launching a new shorts festival in Traverse City, Michigan, and are looking for some great short film submissions.

www.TraverseCityShortsFestival.com

For you to submit the film that you screened in the 2010 Big Easy International Film Festival, all you need to do is go to the website (listed above) and fill out the online submission form in the "Submit" section. We are waiving the fee for you.

Since I already have your films on DVD, there is no need for you to send your film in... just fill out the online form.

I look forward to passing your films on to our programmers.

Free Film Festival Submission? Nothing to mail? Seriously? I mean, hell, why not submit? So I applied online... and months passed by... and I gave up hope. Then I get this email:

Nathan,

We wanted to let you know that we accepted "Another Life" into this year's Traverse City Shorts Festival.

I will be sending a series of emails this week to inform you about all of the details, what we need from you, etc.

Glad to have you on board for what we hope will be a fun event.

Moral of the story: Follow up, folks. Follow. Up.

For more on this fabulous new film festival check out TraverseCityShortsFestival.com . So Michigan fans, mark your calendars for Friday through Sunday, September 16th to 18th for the new Slamdance of Traverse City, screening shorts at the cozy Park Place Hotel.

I continue to be amazed by our Little Short Film That Could. My lifelong gratitude goes to the best cast and crew on the planet and of course my ever-supportive family, friends, and fans! My hat goes off to you. No, seriously, have my hat.

So stay tuned for more details on Traverse City, the job interview, and the agent call!

Brainstorming Movie Ideas

2011-07-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

After nabbing that lucky agent meeting, I've been doing a lot of waiting... but instead of refreshing my inbox all day, the healthy thing to do is to keep busy.

So what's a young writer to do?

For the longest time, my mantra has been: Watch Movies. Read Scripts. Write Pages. And it has served me well. What could be better than churning out pages while learning from the best scripts and movies out there?

But in one of my meetings, a Manager pointed out to me: Let's say we apply that mantra to a musician. This musician studies concert performances, reads tons of sheet music, and just jams out to new music... but something's missing...

Practice. We all have to practice. Especially emerging writers.

If we only focus on the result -- a polished spec script -- we're not preparing ourselves for a career of rewriting and polishing scripts for Hollywood, where we'll be expected to be handy with every tool in the writer's toolbox, from dialogue and structure to pitching and idea generation.

The paid writer in Hollywood is like a story mechanic -- a producer could tow in a sputtering action script and say, "Well, we modified it with an exciting chase sequence in Act Two, but now the characters are flat and have no chemistry... it was working yesterday, can you fix it?" And whatever is wrong with the script, you have to figure it out and fix it.

How do we get that good at writing? Practice makes employable.

For example, let's say you luck into that meeting with an agent -- and hey, that agent reads your script, likes it, and wants to meet with you again. But then, lo and behold, this happens:

AGENT: Hey, I loved your script!

WRITER: Why thank y--

AGENT: So what else have you got?

WRITER: Well, I've been writing this zombie comedy --

AGENT: Agh, I've been trying to sell a zombie comedy written by one of my clients, brilliant script, but no one's buying it. You have anything else?

WRITER: Umm...

You don't want to be this writer. You want to be the writer that has another idea ready. In fact, you want to have 100+ movie ideas lying around so you'll always be writing... but how?

Here are two great practice exercises that help me generate new ideas for movies:

Come up with a character. Any character. In fact, go to a cafe, sit down, and the next person who walks in the door -- that's your main character. Deal with it.
Give that character an expected goal. A universal goal. A primal goal. But most importantly, make it an ordinary goal. A cop who wants to get back together with his estranged wife -- not become an alien-fighting space captain.
Give that character expected opposition. Considering the character and goal you chose, what would be their usual or obvious opposition? If we're going with this cop, then expected opposition could be his wife has moved out, his wife's lawyer has sent him divorce papers, one of his wife's co-workers is trying to date his wife already, etc., all of which are getting in the way of his goal and are all very much expected in this situation.
Only his bigger problem is... This is where you put in all your creative imagination. So let's say we take this cop who wants to get back together with his estranged wife, who is trying to divorce him -- when terrorists attack! And then, voila, you get DIE HARD.

Some call this the "100 Bad Ideas" exercise. Once you tell yourself that you're just churning out bad ideas, the pressure's off, and you might actually generate 10-25 kick-ass movie ideas!

I wholeheartedly recommend this method, but if it doesn't click with you after a while, try a more traditional, more intuitive brainstorming session a la Jane Espenson:

Make a list of your favorite stories. Movies, TV episodes, books, graphic novels -- if it has a beginning, middle, end and something that intrigues you, write it down.
Write next to those stories what you love about them. Perhaps you love Sherlock Holmes for the characters but could care less for Victorian England. This isn't a list of good stories -- it's a list about you and what you already want to write about.
Play. Take your favorite story elements, mix, match, and change them around until they transform into original concoctions you'd love to write. Let's say you love the character Sherlock Holmes but you also love police procedurals and doctor dramas... and then, voila, you get the Emmy-winning hit HOUSE.

Whatever brainstorming method works for you, go after it... just keep practicing :)

Agents: How to Get Your Script Read

2011-07-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I met with an agent. He talked about thrillers and I said I wrote one. He asked about it... and 30 seconds later he asked to read it.

How'd I do it? A good logline.

This is the magic and madness of the Logline -- you have a very brief window of time, a sentence or two, to sum up your big, fat script. This is your elevator pitch between floors 1 and 2.

But it's not all magic. Let me share with you the bare bones that have worked for me after lots of trial and royally screwing up:

[TITLE] is a [genre] about an [adjective] [hero - job/social status/family status, etc.] who wants [universally identifiable goal] when [something exciting happens] -- only our hero's bigger problem is [the twist].

Let me break that down for you:

1) TITLE: Your script's title evokes your tone, genre, style, etc., which is why it's good to either open or close your logline with your title since it can sum up the feel of your story.

2) GENRE: Let them know the Genre right up front so they know to be smiling, scared, teary-eyed, etc., by your screenplay's premise. Last thing you want is to hear an agent say "That sounds hilarious!" when you just told them about your tearjerker romance.

3) HERO: Describe your protagonist. You get one adjective and one noun. That's it. Think of this as your teaser trailer for the script... you're only giving them a taste of the movie, the bare essentials, just enough to get them to want to read the script.

But here's a hint for the adjective: What's your protagonist's greatest flaw? The one character trait that's going to get them into the most trouble? In BACK TO THE FUTURE, our hero Marty McFly hates being called chicken... so you might call him an insecure or impulsive teenager. That's all you need because...

4) GOAL: Tell us what our character wants and make sure it's something we all want. Hunger. Sex. Survival. Protection of loved ones. Something primal. In TAKEN, Liam Neeson's character wants to save his daughter from vicious criminals. Audiences the world over identify with that goal -- because it's a primal, instinctual desire we all have.

5) SOMETHING EXCITING: Some screenwriting gurus call it the "Inciting Incident," "The Call to Adventure," or "The Catalyst" -- whatever you call it, it's something exciting that happens around the end of the first thirty-or-so pages that propels your protagonist out of his or her ordinary world into the exciting, adventurous part of the story. In PRETTY WOMAN, it's the moment Richard Gere's character agrees to hire Julia Roberts' character to be his escort.

6) THE TWIST: This is where the magic comes in. And to show the cards up my sleeves -- the magic is conflict. Your logline needs to overflow with conflict. Your protagonist is in conflict with him- or herself, your protagonist is so far away from his or her goal, your protagonist is the least likely person to be able to deal with this something exciting happening -- when The Twist takes that conflict to the edge and pushes it over.

To give you a better ideas, here are some loglines to some amazing screenplays:

PRETTY WOMAN is a romantic comedy about a hardhearted businessman who needs an escort for an important business function when he's left with no choice but to hire a free-spirited prostitute -- only to fall in love with her.

DIE HARD is an action thriller about a lone cop who comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and save their failing marriage -- when terrorists attack!

BACK TO THE FUTURE is an action-comedy about an impulsive teenager who teams up with a wacky scientist to go back in time and save his parents' marriage when he disrupts history -- and now he has to make his parents fall in love or he'll cease to exist!

But notice how none of these fall perfectly into that cookie cutter model above... and none of them perfectly capture the movie, right? That's where your hard work comes in. Trying different adjectives for your hero, different phrasings for the goal, the twist, etc. Write, rewrite, tweak, polish, hone, again and again.

Most importantly, practice. Pitch your logline to people. Not just friends and family, because they'll love it since they love you. Ask the guy behind you in line at the coffee shop. And really gauge their reaction. Keep pitching and keep reworking it until it feels like the most natural, organic, and most exciting way to sum up your story.

That way, when you get that lucky break to have an agent or manager or producer ask about your script, your logline can roll off your tongue like the weather forecast, and hopefully you'll hear those lovely words:

"Sounds great! Send it over."

Speaking of great, I have more good news!

Jessica Marie Sutherland, good friend and now paid writer (hooray!), shares all in how to go one step further from getting read to getting paid to write: Holy F^@k, Or How I Got My First Writing Gig.

Also, my screenplay FURIOUS ANGELS -- the one I sent to the agent -- made Quarter-Finalist at the Page Int'l Screenwriting Awards! More on the Page Awards here.

My meeting with the manager went well with promises of another meeting down the line. Lastly, I'm in talks with a producer to write a few graphic novels. Exciting! Stay tuned!

Agents: Make a Good First Impression

2011-07-12T09:20:00.001-07:00

Last week, I met with an agent. 20 minutes later, he asked to read my script. Here's how I did it:

I sat in the agency's nice little lobby for a while as the agent wrangled a conference and then another call that all went overlong before meeting with me. If you've dealt with any agent before, this is to be expected. I read in the trades that while I was celebrating the 4th of July, this agency won a bidding war on optioning a bestselling book. These are busy people.

After a while, the agent's assistant offered me water and escorted me to the agent's office -- which was a nerd's candy store. Graphic novels. Collectible action figurines. Posters of your favorite Sci-Fi movies signed by the writers. I gravitated right towards a Star Wars book when the agent came in and we got to geek out about Comic Con a bit before he asked:

"So tell me -- What's your story? What's your journey?"

Every up-and-coming writer needs to be ready for this question.

Remember, this is not lunch with your friends, nor is it a business interview. You can't blather on about your cat for 5 minutes and neither can you recite the bullet points of your resume. You have to strike a balance between a fun, casual conversation and telling your own superhero origin story with gusto. What radioactive bug bit you and made you a writer?

The trick is to prepare an answer for this question -- a blurb that sums up your "brand." Are you the next Tim Burton or the next Charlie Kaufman? Do you write gothic fairy tales or mind-bending character dramas? What's your genre or niche? Put your starving artist ideals down for a moment and remember that you're talking to an agent -- and that agent is hoping, praying you can answer his real question: "Can I sell this kid?"

So have an answer ready and timed out to 30-120 seconds. Focus your origin story to answer questions about who you are, where you come from, and what draws you to your brand. If you love writing crime thrillers, why? And what has happened in your life that would give you any kind of authority to write in that genre/niche? Also, don't forget to point to your successes -- awards, festivals, film school, etc. all help an agent think you're a horse worth betting on.

I say without shame that I wrote out this 120-second blurb, rewrote it, tweaked it, polished it, and rehearsed it until it was second nature -- and then let the meeting follow its natural course. The agent interrupted my blurb (a good thing!) to ask about being a Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Finalist, and I told him about producing a short film in a blizzard -- so have that amusing anecdote ready for all potential questions for your career's highlights.

Then I wrapped up my little blurb with the desire to make it as a script doctor.

And then the agent did a wonderful thing: he offered me sound advice for an emerging writer.

He broke the bad news lightly that the script doctor jobs for emerging writers no longer exist. After the Writer's Strike coupled with the recession, all the A-list writers have lowered their quotes to B-list prices, and the B-list writers have lowered their quotes to C-list prices, etc.

In other words, making a good chunk of change as the new writer on the block, hungry for work, no longer attracts studio and development executives anymore... since they can get a rewrite on their baby project by an already-established writer for the same bargain basement price.

So what to do?

Here's the honest truth: Most represented emerging writers have day jobs. They work with their manager/agent to take the best of the writer's script ideas and combine them with the agent's spec market know-how to come up with a great script that will sell 12 weeks from now.

Then the writer goes home and writes and writes and writes and finally sells that spec script. What next? The writer goes home and writes and writes and finally sells another spec script.

Then this writer has the experience, connections, and capacity to make their first feature.

In short, here's an agent's advice to up-and-coming writer/directors:

Get a steady day job.
Write spec scripts in your off hours.
Make whatever connections will lead you to a manager/agent's office.
Write and network until you sell TWO scripts to established buyers.
Then Hollywood will start asking you to direct their movies...

Then the agent gave more advice if you want to make an indie first feature instead:

The low-budget feature is the new short film.
Indie films are cheaper to make nowadays (and studio films are too expensive to risk an untested director), Hollywood scouts for talent at festivals
Before you sink thousands into your first feature, make your story UNIVERSAL

Think of Taken. Your daughter has been kidnapped by sex traffickers and you will kick ass and take names until you get her back. Audiences in Shanghai, Sao Paulo, and Sri Lanka will want to see that movie. Will audiences around the world really want to see your mumblecore quarter-life crisis auto-biopic? Tell your story but with a universal premise.

That's all a lot easier said than done, right? But I resolve to take up his advice and I will keep you all updated as to whatever I learn along this journey to work all day, write all night, and meet more agents and managers until my first feature comes along.

So right after the agent gave me his advice, he tried to cheer me up by saying that spec market is very hungry for all kinds of thrillers these days -- political thrillers, gritty Taken-esque spy thrillers, Luc Besson girls kicking ass thrillers --

I chimed in, "I have one of those" and hit him with the logline to my girl-power action thriller.

He said that my script sounds great, asked me to email it to him, and after he allowed me to ask a few questions (have those smart questions ready!) the meeting ended soon after that.

So there you have it! The anatomy of meeting an agent. Hope that helps you readers when you nab your first agent meeting!

(For those of you curious about crafting agent-ready loglines, I'll cover that next week).

Looking for more tales of emerging artists in Hollywood? Look no further:

The Last Blog I'll Ever Start is written by good friend Jessica Marie Sutherland who's now a paid, working screenwriter only a year or so out of USC film school.
The Scene Partner is written by another friend and classmate Nina Harada who is moving on up in the world as an emerging actress.
For those of you looking to make that first feature, but wondering how in the hell to do it, check out the new MovieMaker blog Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!

Now to get myself a day job...

We Got Into the Rome Int'l Film Festival!

2011-07-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

It just keeps on going! Another Life was just selected for its eighth film festival: the 2011 Rome International Film Festival!

The Rome International Film Festival prides itself on screening the finest in independent film from around the world. Considered by MovieMaker Magazine as One of the Top 25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, RIFF has screened hundreds of spectacular film offerings originating from Georgia to Katmandu! In fact, a number of their featured films have since been picked up by Miramax, STARZ, public television, and HBO!

Another Life will screen in a few months! So mark your calendars for Friday, September 8th @11:00PM at the Historic DeSoto Theatre (530 Broad Street, Rome, Georgia, 30161).

I'm simply amazed at how our short film keeps going and going! I am so endlessly grateful to my wonderfully talented and hard-working cast and crew -- and not to forget my ever-supportive family, friends, and fans! My heart goes out to you! Thanks!!!

Also -- more big developments!

My two feature screenplays have advanced to the second round at the Big Bear Lake International Screenwriting Competition! Considered one of the top emerging screenwriting contests, this one is closely watched by some Hollywood insiders...

Also, I've got a meeting with an agent this week! Wish me luck!

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

2011-06-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

I was out on a day trip with friends and family when we stopped suddenly at a National Park.

"Do you hear that?" someone said.

I looked around. Countless fir trees towered over us, swaying in the wind. Silence.

"No, what is it?" I asked.

"Nothing... and isn't it wonderful?"

This past week wasn't very "writerly" at first glance. I had a blast at my 5-Year College Reunion. As if no time passed at all, my friends and I fell into our usual shenanigans, and although we're all grown-ups now, it was a refreshing dose of reality to find no posturing about our careers. Just about everyone I talked to was in the midst of a Quarter-Life Crisis, between grad school and work, between jobs, or between careers, asking "Who Am I?"

And that's okay.

For the next few weeks, I'll be away from the Hollywood Hub-bub on important family trips -- 3,000 miles away from making connections at the production company day job, going for coffee with writer buddies, scheduling meetings with managers, writing pages all night...

And that's okay.

Instead of seeing these next few weeks as exile in Siberia, the best thing this writer can do is stop worrying about the scripts, the spec market, the mixers, the bills -- just stop and listen.

I'm writing to you now in the quiet, serene hill country of Orford, New Hampshire. The loudest sound I hear all day is a lonely car cruising down the town's only road.

Here I can put aside all the anxieties of working in Hollywood for a moment and reconnect with the important questions that got me writing in the first place:

Who am I? What stories have I seen? What stories do I want to tell? Why? No, really -- Why?

All the stories have been told before, but they have never been told by you with your unique perspective, your unique experiences, and your unique voice as a writer.

If you really stop and listen, immersing yourself in your writing by listening with every ounce of your imagination to everything you see, hear, and read -- every image, every sound, every interaction -- then you will tap a wellspring of creativity for new ideas that is just as crucial for building a writer's career as churning out pages for that next big script.

My college reunion reminded me of my old alma mater's motto: Vox Clamantis in Deserto or The Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness.

Whether that wilderness is your grandma's house or your couch, find your place of solitude, listen closely, find your stories -- and then cry out for the whole world to hear.

Breaking the Myth of "Breaking In"

2011-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going to my 5 Year College Reunion this weekend and can't help but wax nostalgic about what I've been up to since my days as a Dartmouth boy... until I read Conan O'Brien's Commencement Speech to the Class of 2011 (check it out!).

One of the best Commencement Speeches I've read -- funny, entertaining, inspiring -- and Conan O'Brien even opened up a few old wounds to suggest we shift our perspective:

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality... And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay.

After reading this, I went to a party with fellow USC writer/director Fawaz Al-Matrouk (do check out his awesome short film To Rest In Peace!) with a lot of other great film school friends, and also met a great rising comedienne Erikka Innes for lunch... and we seemed to share a similar experience...

In short: No one "breaks in" to Hollywood. Not ever.

Here's a quick refresher on the "Breaking In" Myth:

A starry-eyed, talented young filmmaker gets off the bus in L.A. with big dreams and empty pockets, all alone in the big city. So our filmmaker slaves away at a crappy job, working hard on his or her writing long into the night, meeting other up-and-coming filmmakers at parties, making beautiful short films on weekends, slowly but surely building a network of established film industry types until finally -- FINALLY -- our filmmaker meets some Big Hollywood Hotshot who takes a look at our filmmaker's work -- and says "This is great, kid! I'm gonna make you star!"

Growing up here in Los Angeles, I bought into that myth... Hell, who doesn't want the instant satisfaction of a media mogul bringing you into the fold of working filmmakers?

But taking an honest look at my life in L.A., I've never seen anyone "break in." I have seen a few make a meteoric rise to success -- getting signed by an agent who loved their script or short film, etc. -- but I haven't heard any big headlines from them since. Why?

Here's what usually happens:

The Hollywood Hotshot finishes going over the young filmmaker's work and says, "This is pretty good. So what are you doing next?"

Now if you buy into the myth, this looks like failure... a golden opportunity lost... if only I'd made my film better... if only I'd rewritten my script more... then I would've really knocked that guy's socks off and he'd be dying to find me big writing/directing jobs!

The hard truth is a real filmmaker's career has no defining moment... only baby step after baby step until you look back and see you've been running a marathon for years.

Now there are still milestones to strive for -- your first solid script, your first polished film, your first meeting with a manager, etc. -- but even when that fateful day comes and a Hollywood Hotshot says "So what's next for you?", there are still many baby steps to the next milestone and much, much more work to do.

5 years ago, my dream was to burst out of USC Film School with a solid script and a breathtaking short film that were so glorious I'd immediately get paid to write and direct...

Now the dream is changing. I'm focusing my career as an emerging writer. I'm polishing my scripts, generating new ideas, pitching new concepts, preparing for meetings, honing my writer's toolkit -- gradually growing into the role of a "working writer" until it's second nature.

Then, after all that work, after selling a few scripts... then I will have the relationships and the resources to get paid to direct... then I can make Another Life the feature.

Hollywood legend Samuel Goldwyn once said, "Give me a couple of years and I'll make that actress into an overnight success!" Still true today.

After all, no one fails in Hollywood -- you only fail if you give up.

Don't give up.

We got into the San Antonio Film Festival!

2011-06-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Looks like it's going to be a hot summer... Another Life was just selected for its seventh film festival: the 2011 San Antonio Film Festiva l!

Celebrating 17 years in the Alamo City, the annual San Antonio Film Festival showcases well over a hundred films from around the globe every year, down in the heart of San Antonio with sold-out screenings, packed and sponsored after parties, and strong support from the local community and media!

Another Life will screen this month! So mark your calendars for Saturday, June 25th @2:00PM at the Mexican Cultural Institute (600 Hemisfair Park, San Antonio, Texas 78205).

I feel so blessed to see this Little-Film-That-Could go to festival after festival! My undying gratitude goes to my wonderfully talented and hard-working cast and crew -- and not to forget my ever-supportive family, friends, and fans! You're the ones who keep me going!

Oh! We also received a tasty little morsel of press on LAsthePlace.com! If you have a few minutes to kill on the internet (who doesn't?), check out this lovely Q&A with Kali Cook...

Lastly, some very cool, very talented Movie Moguls are reading two of my feature scripts and have requested to meet with me soon... and if all goes well, they might help me find some paid writing gigs... Good things are in store for this summer!

Film Fest Success!

2011-05-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

What a delightful screening! What a great festival experience!

Another Life screened last week at the Newport Beach Film Festival and I felt downright pampered by the programmers and volunteers there!

A two-story Hospitality Suite. Parties every night with free drinks and gourmet food. Free movies all week long. Smiling faces and thank yous and handshakes everywhere I went.

Does life get any better? It did at our screening.

I spent many months working hard with the cast and crew on Another Life, all bent on delivering a satisfying 17-minute theater-going experience... and it was all worth it to sit in a packed house and hear complete strangers jump in their seats and shout "Oh my GAWD!" and then give me a hug after the Q&A.

I left the fest with a stack of business cards from some very talented writers, directors, producers, and other filmmakers... and even from some reporters who will be publishing articles on Another Life in the near future!

The icing on the cake? My amazing producer set me up with a short film distributor who is in the process of inking up deal to mass distribute Another Life on DVD!

Stay tuned for more good news to come soon!

Top 7 Reasons to Go

2011-04-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Another Life screens at the Newport Beach Film Festival next week! At this crucial milestone in our festival run, we need all the support we can get, so please come out and support!

Trailer, tickets, links, etc. can all be found here.

Wait... why should you go? Let me give you the Top 7 Reasons:

1) Another Life won the Gold for Best Dramatic Original Short at the Houston International Film Festival.

2) Another Life was called "one of the best independent short films" by Hollywire.

3) Another Life also won as the Award of Merit at the Accolade Competition.

4) Another Life also screens with The Legend of Beaver Dam, a Sundance favorite and horror musical about a campfire ghost story that awakens an evil monster, and now it’s up to nerdy Danny Zigwitz to save his fellow campers from a bloody massacre. Heads will rock’n'roll! Check out their trailer:

5) Another Life also screens with Tinglewood, another Sundance official selection that's a Fargo-esque journey delivering a darkly hilarious, strangely touching, and shockingly poetic look at life, death, and love on the prairie. Check out their trailer here:

Tinglewood Trailer from Antony Webb on Vimeo.

6) Another Life also screens with The Absence which has been sweeping the festival circuit, a slow-burn thriller about a corporate bureaucrat sent to a mysterious town where he must confront the devastating consequences of his work. Here's their trailer:

The Absence TRAILER from Alex DeMille on Vimeo.

7) Another Life also screens with Abandon about a mysterious woman who travels a desolate highway, on the run from her violent past. When a benevolent stranger offers her a ride, the woman finds a companion to join her in her lonely journey. But each mile that brings them closer together, also brings them closer to the dark secret waiting at their next exit... Check out their trailer here:

Abandon Teaser from Third Hill Productions on Vimeo.

Seriously, how can you miss out on all this good stuff in one night?

Your tickets are waiting for you...

Two Weeks Till Showtime!

2011-04-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

You heard it folks! In just two short weeks, Another Life will be screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival!

After a whirlwind of success at a few other film fests, Newport Beach Film Festival is perhaps the biggest festival we've been to yet -- with some of the coolest films and biggest parties this side of Sundance! And it's only 1 hour away from L.A.!

So we're going to need all the support we can get. But what can little old you do to help?

Please share this one, tiny link: http://newportbeach.slated.com/2011/films/anotherlife_nathanruegger_newportbeach2011

That link contains everything you need to know about Another Life -- the film's synopsis, trailers, picture, screening time, ticket info, etc. -- in one easy accessible and fun web page.

You can also read more about other spine-tingling shorts that will be screening along with Another Life on Tuesday, May 3rd @8:30PM!

Pass the word along,
Encourage your friends to come out and support,
And see you then!

P.S. We won the Gold for Best Original Dramatic Short at the Houston Int'l Film Festival!!

We got into the Newport Beach Film Festival!

2011-03-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Another Life was officially selected for the Newport Beach Film Festival!

A few blocks away from spectacular coastline and less than an hour from Hollywood, the Newport Beach Film Festival has established itself as one of the top film festivals in the world, annually hosting premieres and galas throughout a city that boasts one of the largest movie consumer groups in the world (over 50,000 patrons!) and a rich filmmaking history as well as fine dining, shopping, and exceptional recreational activities.

Another Life will screen with the "Suspenseful Shorts" program with the tentative date scheduled for Tuesday, May 3rd @8:30PM at the Triangle Square 8 Cinemas, 147 (1870 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92627).

I will definitely be in attendance along with the producers and some key cast members, ready and raring for a super fun Q&A session after the screening!

Once again, thank you to Cast and Crew for making this film the festival favorite that it is! And now I'm off in a flurry of excitement to prepare to make a big splash at Newport Beach!

Hope to see you there! Looks like we're on a roll! Stay tuned for more news!

Thank You For Talking Through the Movie

2011-03-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, Another Life made it's East Coast Premiere at the DC Independent Film Festival... and it was a smashing success!

After much facebook posting, postcard hocking, and nail biting over the past month, the glorious night finally came ‐‐ and it was all thanks to a select few:

Thank you cast and crew for making Another Life such a crowd pleaser.

Thank you Carol Bidault and Kelly Williams for being such tireless and passionate programmers who championed our little film and lead a very fun Q&A.

Thank you to DC area friends (Suzanne, Nick, Kate, Adam, Peter, Jon, Brad, Cat) who came out to support the film and encouraged friends to join us.

Thank you to the intimate audience who all told me how much they loved the film.

Thank you to the moviegoer who said to me, "I can't wait to see the sequel!"

But most of all, my undying gratitude goes to the lady in the front row of our tiny theater who just would not shut the hell up.

I'm serious about that last one.

You see, when a filmmaker watches their comedy with a live audience, they get to enjoy the instant satisfaction in knowing whether or not their film is working every time the audience laughs... or doesn't laugh.

But with a thriller like Another Life, there's usually dead silence for the whole screening followed by obligatory applause... so you never know if the audience is actually enjoying it.

But not this time.

With every twist in Another Life's plot, this lady in the front row let out a loud "HMMMMMM" that reverberated throughout the theater. With every poignant character moment, this lady ooohed and aaaawed for all to hear.

Then, when the climactic conclusion of the film finally came, she broke the suspenseful silence with a booming "Oh... MY... GAWD!"

That right there, ladies and gentleman, was worth the price of the plane tickets out to D.C.

In fact, working on this film through all the trials and tribulations for months and months and months, all to lead up to getting a genuine, immediate, and emotional response like that loud lady in the front row... well, that's what making movies is all about.

P.S. The big Writing Assignment for the established producer is done for now and being sent out to major production companies all over town. Some of the most powerful people in Hollywood are now reading my writing!

P.P.S. Speaking of which, some of my writing got me a few meetings with managers...

P.P.P.S. Still waiting on the official email, but I may have some more good festival news! Stay tuned!

7 Days Left!

2011-03-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

One week till Another Life screens at the DC Independent Film Festival!

That's March 8th @7PM at Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre @ 1611 N Kent St, Arlington, VA 22209 (Metro Stop: Rosslyn)

Buy your tickets here! Why, you ask?

For those who don't know: Another Life is the award-winning thriller about a young female veteran tapped with the daunting task of killing a fellow soldier -- or else they both die.

This exclusive East Coast Premiere will have veterans and press in the audience and many other critically-acclaimed films featuring strong women to celebrate International Women's Day!

Still not convinced? Check out the trailer here:

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Houston International Film Festival!

2011-02-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

Another Life was officially selected for WorldFest: Houston International Film Festival!

Not only that, Another Life was nominated for Best Original Dramatic Short!

It gets better: we are guaranteed to win an award! Only 4 shorts were nominated in this category, so at the very least we will bring home the Bronze.

This wouldn't be possible without the unbelievable talent, unparalleled hard work, and astonishing support from our cast, crew, friends, family, and fans. I am so proud of all of you!

Houston Worldfest is the oldest independent film festival in the world! Their Short Film Showcase was the first to honor Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ang Lee, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Joel & Ethan Coen, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and David Lynch with their very first awards. I only hope to be mentioned in the same breath as these legends.

The festival runs April 8-17, 2011 with Another Life screening at least once.

More details soon! And don't forget our screening at DCIFF next week!

P.S. The big writing assignment goes out on the spec market this week!

P.P.S. And I'm now meeting with some new Big Hollywood Moguls who have genuine interest in finding me paid writing gigs!

Still One of the Best

2011-02-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

Only 2 weeks away until Another Life has its East Coast Premiere at the DC Independent Film Festival! Are you excited? You should be. Here’s why:

Another film to not miss is Another Life by festival newcomer Nathan Ruegger... I have literally watched this three times now, it is one of the best independent short films that I have seen.
-- Kristin Southall, Hollywire

We are still so thrilled to get such high praise! Check out the full article here:

Support the Arts! TVIFF Offers Something for Everyone

But we'd be even more thrilled to see you there! So come catch Another Life at our exclusive screening on Tuesday, March 8th @7PM at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre @ 1611 N Kent St, Arlington, VA 22209 (Metro Stop: Rosslyn).

Get your tickets and festival info here! Spread the buzz and see you soon!

The 5 Ws and How

2011-02-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here are all the details for Another Life's screening at the DC Independent Film Festival:

Who: You and all your Washington DC friends!
What: Another Life's Exclusive East Coast Premiere!
Where: Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre @ 1611 N Kent St, Arlington, VA 22209 (Metro Stop: Rosslyn)
When: Tuesday, March 8th @7PM (3 weeks from tonight!)
Why: It's the best way to celebrate Int'l Women's Day!
How: Get tickets here!

Please share with everyone you know in the Washington DC area!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! More splendiferous news next week!

Mark Your Calendars: March 8th, 2011!

2011-02-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

It's official! The schedule is up!

Catch the exclusive Washington D.C. screening of Another Life at the DC Independent Film Festival on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 @7PM. Theatrical location TBA.

Why Tuesday, you ask? Why that's International Women's Day! And what better way to celebrate than to enjoy a super shorts showcase of strong female characters in the heart of the nation's capital!

Not only will you see the film, but you'll get to meet the director (me!), enjoy a Q&A session with the other great filmmakers, and if you're nice enough, we just might leave together :)

So find out more from the festival website and see you there!

And speaking of nice, check out this little music video I made for my brother Cody:

Bests of Fests

2011-02-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

While I'm still waiting to hear back from the DC Independent Film Festival on all the details, I thought I'd share with you some of the best short films on the festival circuit:

Sudden Death! just won the Official Best of Fest Award with over 30 official selections and awards! This film is set in a city overtaken by a virus known as Sudden Death Syndrome, a disease that causes its victims to die suddenly and has only one symptom... spontaneously breaking into well-choreographed song and dance. Check out the trailer here!

11 Weeks was just accepted at the Cleveland International Film Festival! This touching film tells a gripping tale of love and redemption set amidst violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the troubled region of Kashmir, India. Check out the trailer here!

Kiddo just won Best Student Film at the California Independent Film Festival! This film is about a meek young man who helps his friend rob a diner -- and must come to terms with the newfound power at the end of his gun. Check out the teaser here!

Penny and Charlie was just accepted to the Los Angeles Women's International Film Festival! This film is about an eight-year-old girl struggling to cope with her mother’s impending death from a chronic illness. Check out the trailer here!

The Curious Case of Cordelia Botkin was also accepted to Los Angeles Women's International Film Festival and DCIFF too! This film is a tragic tale of love, chocolate, and murder most foul. Check out the trailer here!

Potter's Field was also accepted to DCIFF! This film is a dark comedy about a teenager who just can't get rid of his brother. Check out the latest here!

This week, I'll be editing a hot new viral video. Stay tuned and I'll post the link soon!

We Got Into the DC Independent Film Festival!

2011-01-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

That's right -- Another Life was officially selected for the DC Independent Film Festival!

Once again, I am deeply grateful to the cast, crew, and fans who made Another Life possible with their talent, hard work, and support. This success is all thanks to you!

The Washington DC Independent Film Festival (DCIFF) is an award winning annual festival showcasing: the best independent films from around the world; Master Classes, Seminars & Workshops conducted by industry professionals; blending with a Music Festival to provide world class event. In addition, unique to DCIFF is the annual "Independent Film Summit on the Hill" which brings together filmmakers and policymakers to discuss the state of the industry.

The DCIFF runs March 3rd-13th -- with Another Life screening once, the showtime TBA on February 1st. So Washington, DC area fans, mark your calendars!

Work permitting, I will be attending the full run of the festival in all its glory. Come out and support if you can -- and we just might win some more awards!

As a finalist in this film festival, I'm invited to speak to members of Congress about the future of the American independent film industry! What should I say?

I'm so excited! So much to prepare! So much to do! But now I'm off to a pre-production meeting for an exciting new music video. More news next week!

Karma Police

2011-01-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

January is a month for looking forward and backward.

So while I was looking forward to meeting brand new people to take on brand new projects, people from my past popped back up and showed me the way.

a sharp co-worker asked if I was interested in rewriting a feature (um, yes!)
a blogger and TV writer asked me to help shoot some web videos (again, yes!)
a friend from film school asked me join in on a film related podcast (how cool!)
a great friend and talented musician asked me to make a music video with him (okay, of course, but now I might need a clone to do all of this too)
a talented actress who saw Another Life in May last year looked me up again to ask about my next projects (always good to have talented fans!)
a friend and brilliant writer asked for notes on her script and now wants to read my scripts and go out to dinner (movie talk over food... mmm)

Hollywood is always looking for the next thing, so it's easy to think that you'll find your next gig by sneaking into elite mixers and trying to make friends fast with some VIP hotshots... but that new gig just might come from a friend you haven't seen in a while.

Law #1 of Hollywood: Follow up.

Oh yeah, and be friendly about it. The only way I think I was able to rack up any of this good karma was by trying to always behave in a fun and professional manner.

In other news, I recently accomplished one of my New Year's ambitions: finishing another feature script. And tomorrow I have a meeting with a manager. Wish me luck!

P.S. Speaking of passing along good karma, download these awards-contending feature screenplays while you still can!

Keeping Busy

2011-01-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

Following my New Year's resolutions, I set up the following work for this month:

directing a little music video
going to 5+ networking events
a steady assistant job next month
meetings with agents and managers
doing a 2nd rewrite on my writing assignment
finishing another feature script of my own this month

And I'll be hearing back from 10+ film festivals in the next month! Cross your fingers!

Now back to writing, writing, and more writing...

New Year's Ambitions

2011-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

It's 2011. There is no time travel. There are no flying cars. There are no robot overlords (yet). But in this future, wild and impossible dreams will be achieved. In 2011, I will:

get into more festivals
write more feature scripts
get an agent and/or manager
pitch a script to an established studio executive
maintain a paying job in the entertainment industry
and maybe even begin pre-production on my first feature film...

Pretty ambitious? Well with 2010 in review, I remember hitting these milestones:

finished a feature script
completed Another Life
graduated USC film school
received Official Selection at 4 Film Festivals
and rewrote a screenplay for an established producer

Vanessa Walilko put it best: your success is all a matter of attitude. And looking back at the old year, maybe I'm not being ambitious enough about the new year.

What do you plan to do in 2011?

DONE!

2010-12-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally finished my feature writing assignment for a producer with promise of exposure at Sundance and major literary agencies.

More news to come in the New Year. 'Til Then! Happy Holidays!

Clear Your Weekend!

2010-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Another Life screens at the Big Easy International Film Festival this Saturday!

Catch our exclusive showing on Saturday, December 11 @2PM at The Theatres at Canal Place in New Orleans' historic French Quarter district!

Not only will you see Another Life, but you'll enjoy a bevy of award-winning films, the Theatres' trendy and cutting edge all-HD experience, and all the color and culture of the famous French Quarter. So find out more about the festival here and hope to have you there!

Speaking of awesome, the #1 Blog for Aspiring Screenwriters, Go Into the Story, posted a feature on Another Life here!

If you can't make it, spread the word and wish us luck!

Black Friday Discount

2010-11-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

High Point of the Week: seeing Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and then spending Thanksgiving with family, new friends, football, and scrumptious food.

Low Point of the Week: returning home to find out I no longer have a paying job.

Oh, I still have a job. But as we're currently developing new models for attracting investments and a steady revenue stream, my position is no longer sustainable. So for now, I'll be working pro-bono on a credit-only, part-time basis... meaning I have no income.

And with that psychic blow, I'm back on the market for more work. What to do?

Network. After all, I got my current job by meeting old friends at a birthday party.

So I looked over my connections and now I'm going to 8+ networking events this month, on top of working a part-time job and writing a full-length feature assignment before Christmas.

The silver lining to this cloud? I have to write and party like it's my job... until I get paid for it.

That sounds like a challenge, Hollywood. I accept.

Christmas Comes Early

2010-11-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

This week, I finished the First Ten Pages of my Writing Assignment.

Some of you may ask, "Really? Just the first ten?" Well as many professionals have said, the first ten pages of a screenplay are the most important.

The first ten pages are the first and ONLY chance you get breaking in. Hell, the first three. And with this assignment, I have to deal with subtitles, flashbacks, AND voice over, perhaps the three biggest No-Nos for an unknown writer...

And dammit, these first ten pages will suck in the most bitter, skeptical reader in Hollywood.

Now that I've thoroughly outlined the entire script, mastered the first ten pages, and received the go-ahead from the producer, I'll be pumping out pages like a machine till Christmas.

Also, check out tomorrow's DVD Release for IN/SIGNIFICANT OTHERS:

A multi-narrative drama in the vein of Crash that navigates through the different lives in a small North Carolina town -- an Iraq War vet returned home to an emotionally disturbed wife, a new father living in the shadow of a successful brother, a sister caught up in a web of addiction, and an overly ambitious cameraman exploiting everyone's dirty secrets -- all of whom are connected to the same murder investigation. As the subtle manipulation of every relationship is exposed, the search for truth turns into a gritty struggle of a life and death.

This film was EASILY the best drama I've seen in my festival run. A must-see for any aspiring indie filmmaker. So check it out!

Available tomorrow at Amazon, Target, Netflix, and Blockbuster.

Low Point of the Week: My boss showed a recent cut of a project to his Agent and bragged about the great work I did on it. My boss said, "Look out, Nate! He's going to poach you!" The agent then offered me his card -- then took it back, laughing at me. You know, he just offered to represent me and kick start my career -- as a joke.

High Point of the Week: Well it's really YOUR high point. Feeling in the Holiday Spirits, I will extend the following offer for the rest of 2010:

If you haven't seen Another Life yet, and you'd love to have you very own copy, then Christmas has come early for you. Just send me an e-mail at anotherlifefilm@gmail.com with your postal address and I will mail you a DVD or 2 as soon as my schedule allows.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

See you on Tuesdays from now on!

Bye, Bye Social Life

2010-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

This past week, I have:

clocked in a 40 hour work week
guided research on several TV projects
chugged along on the Writing Assignment
submitted materials to the Big Easy International Film Festival
submitted to 3 more film festivals
went out to drinks with 4 cool filmmakers
did some Voice Over work for a TV pilot
went to see a Kabuki play, the "Ghost of Oyuki" -- so much fun!

Highlight #1 of the Week: My boss wants to shoot our next project before we close shop on December 3rd. So with Thanksgiving on its way, and an investors meeting coming even sooner, he asked me to package and lock up two more TV shows by the end of this week.

It's an awesome challenge and I'm very excited to take it on.

Highlight #2 of the Week: I finally got the greenlight for the Writing Assignment with a Christmas deadline or earlier (since most of Hollywood will be skiing by December 17th).

Then the script's producer mentioned:

"Oh yeah, I just got off the phone with one of the head lit agents at XXX [one of the Big Five agencies in L.A.] who wants to read it as soon as it's done."

So yeah... I'm going to forsake my social life until I finish this rewrite... because if the script's good enough, I just might get an agent for Christmas.

We got into the Big Easy Int'l Film Festival!

2010-11-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

Another Life was officially selected for the Big Easy International Film Festival!

The most amazing story is how we got in. Here's the email I received:

Nate,

I am the director of both the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Festival and the Big Easy International Film Festival... I had asked the programmers we have working on the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Festival to keep an eye out for any soldier related short films as my programmers for the Big Easy International Film Festival needed another one to fill out a program. They suggested your short film.

We would like to screen it at this year's Big Easy International Film Festival (Dec. 10th - 16th) in New Orleans, if you are interested. I need to know fairly soon so we can get it in the press release.

I didn't even apply! Programmers at a different festival not only watched Another Life -- they not only liked Another Life -- they suggested Another Life so strongly to the Big Easy festival director that we made Official Selection!

I had to say yes, especially after I read all about them:

When hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, it almost destroyed one of America's national treasures... the city of New Orleans. It was at that point when Laura Martone, seasoned film festival director, decided she wanted to do something to help bring the culture back to her home town.

The 4th Annual Big Easy International Film Festival seeks to bring the world of film to the amazing city of New Orleans. We are going to make this festival a massive party... utilizing places like the French Quarter, the Big Easy Film Festival will be a one-of-a-kind experience. Screening every type of film, from comedy to drama... from horror to documentary... from thriller to experimental!

We will be screening on Saturday, December 11th at 2:00 PM at The Theatres in Canal Place, a cutting-edge HD cinematic experience in the historic French Quarter district!

Sounds like tons of fun! Wish us luck!

What Is This "Sleep" You Speak Of?

2010-11-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

This past week, I have:

clocked in a 40 hour work week
packaged a few projects
wrote a few treatments
read a pile of scripts
worked on my own writing
submitted to more film festivals
went out to drinks with cool writers
got sick for two days...
Recovered!
AND got my Halloweekend on, costumed as Dexter Morgan

And today my boss returns from his film shoot, and I aim to start the day by wowing him with my progress report... and this week I have my final notes meeting on My First Writing Assignment before I am unleashed into the wild world of rewrites!

Highlight of the Week: After a hard day at work, a coworker asked to borrow a copy of Another Life. The following day, she came in telling me she really liked it and she was enamored by the story, the performances, and the sound design. And she meant it.

Oh yeah, and she just so happens to work with a really snazzy film festival...

Wish me luck! More next week!

"So What's Next?"

2010-10-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

After back-to-back festival news, from Temecula to Mountain Madness to the Accolade, we've got a long wait ahead of us -- the next I hear from a festival will be in December.

So what's next? Twiddling my thumbs till that next festival phone call?

Hardly. At work, we've been busting our butts for the past few weeks, prepping pitches for a few new projects to potential investors -- and we got an investor! And now my boss is out shooting one of our projects! Very exciting and very busy times.

So after all that hard work, do I go home and relax every night?

Hardly. Thanks to pure luck, good face, and maybe a little skill, I landed my first writing assignment.

I can't say much, as I've signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement and we all remember the second rule of Fight Club... What I can tell you, my dear readers, is that I've been asked to rewrite a feature that closely resembles my spec work in the crime thriller genre, so this assignment is a perfect fit for me. And I hope to have it done by the holidays!

So between festivals, work, and writing, that's all I have time for? Right?

Hardly. This past weekend, my wife and I entertained guests Friday, went to parties Saturday, and schmoozed at a networking event Sunday. To make it in Hollywood, you can't just lock yourself in a room and write... you need to get out there.

For example, I enjoyed a Little Victory thanks to meeting with an old friend. She told me about working at mega-agency CAA, and after catching up over coffee, I practically begged her to read my script... and she sent me the following:

I feel a bit at a loss because usually when people send me their stuff I have to restrict the amount of critical comments to give them, but really I have very little negative or critical to say about the script! I think it's very well written and definitely marketable. The beats are all in the right places, the characters are three-dimensional and engaging, and there's certainly room for a sequel, or even prequel. I really enjoyed the script, and I don't normally enjoy movies like this... Again, I really like the script, and I definitely think it's ready to be read and seen.

An e-mail worthy of framing, right? But here comes the hard part:

I've spent the last few years working very hard to get to this point where I have a short film in festivals, an executive assistant gig, a writing assignment, and this polished screenplay ready to be seen -- but if agents or producers do take notice, guess what they're gonna ask?

"So what's next?"

Hrm. Let me get back to you on that. Until next time, dear readers...

Award-Winning Short Film

2010-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Another Life won the Award of Merit from The Accolade Competition!

The Accolade Competition recognizes film, television, videography and new media professionals who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity, and those who produce standout entertainment or contribute to social change.

The official letter came in the mail this weekend, stating:

It's not easy to win an Accolade as the judging standards are high and winning means the craft and creativity exhibited by your entry is outstanding and stands above other productions. You can be justifiably proud of winning.

And I am deeply proud because of all the amazing hard work and sheer talent from my cast and crew, who made this award possible.

Stay tuned next week and I'll let slip some more fantastic news!

Mountain Madness Film Festival

2010-10-04T09:07:00.001-07:00

Another Life was just selected for the Mountain Madness Film Festival!

Mountain Madness Film Festival is a celebration of the people, products and passions involved in the art of motion pictures. MMFF provides the community of Gatlinburg, Tennessee with a cultural institution that inspires, educates and entertains through screenings and events. MMFF also provides the makers of films, and the makers of film products, with a unique and powerful opportunity to enjoy together, the fruits of their labors– films.

The Festival will take place October 7-10, 2010 -- this weekend! -- and Another Life will screen this Friday at 9 PM.

So if you're in the general Tennessee area, come on down for a good time!

I've got more good news to report in coming weeks, but the first rule of Fight Club is... don't break your Non-Disclosure Agreement. Till next week!

One of the Best

2010-09-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Only 4 days away until Another Life premieres at the Temecula Valley International Film Festival! Are you excited? You should be. Here’s why:

Another film to not miss is Another Life by festival newcomer Nathan Ruegger... I have literally watched this three times now, it is one of the best independent short films that I have seen.
-- Kristin Southall, Hollywire

We are so thrilled to get such high praise! Check out the full article here:

Support the Arts! TVIFF Offers Something for Everyone

But we'd be even more thrilled to see you there! So be one of the first to see Another Life at our exclusive screenings on Friday, September 17 @3PM and on Sunday, September 19 @3PM at the Movie Experience at Tower Plaza in Temecula, California.

Find out more at the festival’s website, spread the buzz, and see you this weekend!

Mark Your Calendars!

2010-09-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's official! Another Life will make its World Premiere at the Temecula Valley International Film Festival next week!

Catch our exclusive screenings on Friday, September 17 @3PM and on Sunday, September 19 @3PM at the Movie Experience at Tower Plaza in Temecula, California.

Not only will you see the film, but you'll get to meet the director (me!) and key cast and crew, enjoy a Q&A session with us, and if you're nice enough, we just might leave together :) So find out more at the festival's website and we'll see you there!

Speaking of nice, check out this sweet article on Another Life by Kerri Mabee of SWRNN:

‘Another Life’ premieres at Temecula Valley Film Fest

Life in the Fast Lane

2010-08-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, I drove over 105 miles to go to the big Media Night event for the Temecula Valley International Film Festival -- and it was worth it.

I enjoyed amazing drinks and appetizers at the gorgeous Monte de Oro winery and met some very cool filmmakers and reporters -- all of whom were excited for Another Life. What a great party! I can't wait for the festival!

For example, check out these cool films coming to Temecula:

Then I came home to 2 more rejection letters.

The film festival circuit -- and the career of any filmmaker -- is going to be an emotional roller-coaster ride. To keep my sanity, I have developed the following philosophy:

If they don't like my movie, then we have different tastes in film, so we probably shouldn't work together. If they did like my movie, then let's do lunch.

If you second-guess yourself after every rejection or only validate yourself with every success, you will go crazy. If you poured your blood, sweat, tears, money, and time into your work, and if you know in your heart of hearts that you made a good script/film with professional polish and masterful craft -- then it is good.

And don't let any festival or producer tell you otherwise.

Yes, rewrite your script for that perfect draft. Yes, tweak your press packet to better sell your short film. But never take a rejection personally.

For example, here's an excerpt from one of my rejection letters:

The XXXXXXXXXXXXX Festival is an international program, which premieres fewer than 35 films each fall. Since more than thirteen hundred films are submitted to us every year for consideration, the selection process is necessarily highly competitive, and our decision is in no way an absolute judgment on the quality of your work. We hope we will have the opportunity to see your films in the future.

I did that math on that festival's acceptance rate: less than 3% of films submitted were selected. So from the very beginning, every filmmaker has to know that they are up against the most impossible odds to achieve any kind of success.

How do you conquer these odds? Check out Indiewire's Filmmakers Toolkit, with tips and advice on how to break into the indie film scene from the mouths of film industry veterans.

But stay tuned this week and the next -- as I'll be getting some big news soon, such as Festvial Showtimes for Another Life and published articles on the film. See you soon!

Antici......... pation!

2010-08-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, Another Life was accepted into the Temecula Valley International Film Festival. And this week...

* tumbleweeds roll by *

Nothing. Happened.

But not for lacking of trying! I had an interview with a reporter about Another Life, but she's still writing and wants to publish when the time's right, so I'm waiting to hear back.

At work, I've been plugging away at an undisclosed project under a tight deadline, but with my boss out of town, I'm still waiting to hear back.

I've been writing a lot, preparing for another meeting with the Hollywood Hotshots. I e-mailed them about when next to meet and... you guessed it. More waiting.

As an aspiring filmmaker knocking on Hollywood's doors, so much of your life is spent in anticipation. You send your film out to festivals... and wait. You send your script out to Hollywood Hotshots... and wait.

And a lot of the time, you never hear back.

Here's what NOT to do: Stare at your monitor and refresh your Gmail every 5 minutes, thinking that this time -- this time that e-mail will appear, finally saying "Congratulations, kiddo! We're gonna make you into a star!"

The healthy thing to do: Move on. Like a professional actor at an audition, you have to put your best foot forward, show them your best work, and then get on with your life.

Don't even expect a reply. Hang out with friends. Cook a tasty meal. Enjoy life.

So when the good news finally does come, it will be a delicious surprise.

But what to do with all that nervous energy? Why not read some o' the BEST blogs on the web? Like these tasty morsels for fellow filmmakers:

And here's a real treat for all you Animaniacs fans:

Tom Ruegger's Cartoonatics
John P. McCann's Write Enough
Paul Rugg's Froynlaven

For more, check out the Blog Roll on the right. For next week, stay tuned for a big press release on Another Life at Temecula! Till Then!

We got into the Temecula Valley Film Festival!

2010-08-16T08:30:00.001-07:00

Another Life was just accepted into the Temecula Valley International Film Festival!

Thank you to everyone involved -- cast, crew, friends, family, and fans -- I am so very proud of all of your hard work, sheer talent, and support. This couldn't be possible without you!

Ranked as one of the 'Best Kept Secret Film Festivals' in the US, the TemeculaValley International Film Festival started as a small grassroots affair and then evolved into a world class film and music event, showcasing and honoring some of the very best in entertainment from emerging filmmakers to established celebrities such as Leonard Maltin, John Landis, William Shatner, and many more.

The festival will take place September 15-19, 2010 and Another Life will screen there 2-3 times -- showtimes TBA on September 6th!

I'll be attending their red carpet Opening Night event, special screenings, industry workshops, exclusive soirees, and the star-studded Closing Night Awards Gala.

More details soon... and I've got a good feeling this is just the first of many festivals.

SPECIAL EDITION: On That Guy With The Glasses

2010-08-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Check out my interview with The Nostalgia Critic about my glory days on Animaniacs by clicking HERE! There's also a little piece in there about Another Life!

Rejection? Rejoice!

2010-08-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Another Life was rejected by six film festivals.

While some people frame their rejection letters, I'm not so cocky. When I read an e-mail that starts with, "We regret to inform you that your film was not selected..." it ruins my week.

But last week, I gave myself three reasons to move on and rejoice:

1) Another Life was featured on Hollywood University! Get the full scoop here!

2) After searching for months, I joined a new Writer's Group. Not only are all the writers talented and hard-working, but they're all so easy to get along with and great note-givers. I'm glad to know them all before they become rich and famous :)

Last week, they gave me some good notes on my horror feature and this week they'll give me notes on my action feature -- just in time for my next Hollywood Hotshots meeting!

I think this is the beginning of some beautiful friendships.

3) After seeing Shakespeare by the Sea last night with some good friends, a newly-made acquaintance told me that she just saw Another Life -- and she loved it.

And it's for moments like these that made me want to write and direct.

Last week, I let the cat (or squirrel) out of the bag and revealed my past as a child voice actor on Animaniacs. This week, I'll tell you how I went from there to here:

While I once thought about going back into voice acting, when puberty hit and my voice cracked, that pretty much killed my career as a child voice actor. I did work on my acting in high school, but as I found myself re-watching some of my Dad's shows, I was instilled with a love of good writing and great movies.

If you watch Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, or Pinky and the Brain closely, you'll see episodes that are obvious homages to classic American films like Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, and The Third Man. So instead of going back into children's TV, I dug deeper into this inspiration in great American films, worked on my own writing and directing, and approached my career from there.

But that's all I can say for now! Check out my full video interview on That Guy with The Glasses later this week along with other Animaniacs' greats like Sherri Stoner, Paul Rugg, John P. McCann, and Tom Ruegger!

So stay tuned!

SPECIAL EDITION: We're on Hollywood University!

2010-08-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

Another Life has been featured on the Hollywood University blog. Check it out here!

Truth Will Out

2010-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Bruce Wayne is Batman. Dexter is a serial killer. And Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris.

Dark secrets. Skeletons in the closet. Everyone has them.

Even me.

Last week, I was interviewed by the beloved internet personality That Guy With The Glasses, best known for his hilarious 5 Second Movies and wonderful Nostalgia Critic articles.

Little did I know he was an investigative journalist ready to blow the whistle on my past. But before he publishes my most shocking secret, I think it's best you heard it from me.

Here goes... *sigh*

I am Skippy Squirrel.

That's right. This dark, brooding, film-noir-loving writer-director was once a child actor, providing the voice of a chipper, fuzzy, animated squirrel on the children's TV series Animaniacs.

Don't believe me? IMDb rarely lies.

How did I go from Animaniacs to Another Life? Tune in next week to find out.

The Blurst of Times

2010-07-26T08:30:00.001-07:00

This past week, there were 3 intensely anticipated, potentially life-changing events:

Another Life's first real world screening
my Hollywood Hotshot meeting
our 3-Year Anniversary of Marriage

It was neither the best of times, nor the worst of times.

It has been the blurst of times.

1): Another Life screened with Film Independent at the W Hotel... with mixed success.

We were the first short film in the line-up, and since we were in Hollywood, lots of people showed up late, looking for seats during the most emotional scenes in the movie. The audience was quiet throughout the screening with polite smatterings of applause afterward...

I thought it bombed -- but we played to a packed house. Almost everyone stayed for the Q&A. And fifteen or so people stuck around to shake my hand and congratulate me.

Always a good day when strangers shake your hand and tell you they loved your movie!

2): Then there was the big Hollwood hotshot meeting. Two hotshots actually.

I prepared myself in every way possible. I put on my best clothes and my lucky red shoes. I memorized the loglines and pitches to all of my scripts. I made lists of my favorite movies and TV shows. Then I let all of that go so I could just go with the flow of conversation.

It was like getting ready for a first date, hoping for a break instead of a kiss.

And I got it.

In 3-4 weeks, we'll meet again, and depending on how I respond to their notes on my script, they'll take a professional interest in turning me into a working Hollywood screenwriter.

3): Then I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad anniversary.

It started out beautifully. My wife and I went to Porto's -- where we had bought our wedding cake -- and had an early, romantic breakfast. We reminisced and were downright obnoxious.

Then we both had work. She had overtime that night. I had to help out on a shoot.

On the way to the shoot, my boss called, and instinctively, I picked up the phone. A policeman pulled me over and gave me a ticket for cell phone use.

After the shoot, I came home to find several film festival rejections in my inbox.

I was so furious I turned off my phone -- only to find out via facebook chat that my wife had been calling me for the past 45 minutes to get a ride home.

UGH.

But the next morning, I got up, had a lovely breakfast with my wife, sent Another Life out to another high-profile film festival, and went to work.

I have to stay focused that Another Life has screened well, and somewhere out there in Hollywood, there's two power players who believe in me. Also, my wife loves me :)

Take the bad with the good. After all, what's a writer without turmoil?

Now I got 3-4 weeks to prep one script for notes and finish another script as though my career depends on it. Because it does. Back into the coal mines...

To Write, or Not to Write...

2010-07-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Not really much of a question, is it?

Answer: Write. Much better than not writing.

But the life of the young, emerging writer is more than just sitting at home alone, writing a damn good script. What’s the point of writing a script if no one will ever read it?

Alternate answer: Self-promotion. “Ya gotta get out there, kid!”

For example, this past week has been intense at my boutique production company. I can’t say much (Non-Disclosure Agreement, anyone?) but I’ve been working long hours setting up complicated film shoots with lots of paperwork and assisting my boss on set.

I’m forging some key relationships that will help me break into the business – and this week is just as packed with intense, hands-on Hollywood fun:

Tuesday, Film Independent is screening Another Life at the W Hotel in Hollywood, and I’m invited to speak on a panel afterwards!
Wednesday, big Hollywood hotshot meeting! Wish me luck!
Thursday, three-year anniversary with the wife (most important thing this week)

So I was going to prepare for all these events this weekend, but my Mom begged me to finally take away all of my old boxes of childhood paraphernalia and store them myself.

And as I’m going through these memory-packed totems, I find my little Idea Box, filled with all of my most cherished story ideas from when I was a kid.

Then I found this gem, apparently right after I saw Glengarry Glenn Ross:

Always be writing.

No matter how long you’re at work, no matter how you schmooze the party, no matter how hard you self-promote, none of that matters unless you’re still writing.

After all, what’s the point of getting yourself “out there” if you don’t have a polished script or three to show for it?

So this week, I’ll be working long hours, going to my screening, big meeting, and anniversary shindigs, and writing a damn good script. How, you might ask?

Sleep is for normies. Caffeine is for writers.

Sweet dreams, dear readers. More news next week!

The Case for Film School

2010-07-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

The age-old question for the aspiring filmmaker is this:

Do I go to film school? Or do I just move out to L.A.?

I've asked this question at various Hollywood parties and on top insider blogs like Hollywood University, John August, and The Anonymous Production Assistant's Blog.

And the consensus is always the same: film school is a big waste of time and money.

Most point out the lack of recent successful film school grads: where's today's George Lucas? Today's Martin Scorsese? Hell, Steven Spielberg didn't even go to film school.

So when you finish film school, you're 3-4 years older, thousands of dollars in debt, and still unemployed because that job you interviewed for went to some Hollywood hotshot's nephew.

And when you go to industry panels, Hollywood's top directors, producers and executives say they never went to film school and neither should you.

"Just go out there, write some good material, meet some good people, and if you listen and learn, you can do anything you want in this town."

Right?

Wrong. They are all wrong.

If you want to break into this business TODAY, film school is your best chance.

Case in point:

I've been working for an emerging director at his boutique production company and we had a film shoot the other night.

To prepare for the shoot I had to do everything. And I mean everything:

I supervised and taped the casting sessions.
I organized and edited the casting tapes.
I scouted and locked filming locations.
I drafted contracts for actors, background, and location owners.
I found and hired essential crew members.
I made the call sheet, shooting schedule, and budget.

And while on set, I ran the shoot as the 1st A.D., I managed the actors and crew members like a producer, and I was even the 2nd Unit Cinematographer.

At the end of the night, my boss told me that it was one of the easiest shoots of his life.

To break into Hollywood, you need a broad range of filmmaking skills and experience that only film school can give you.

Maybe 10-20 years ago you could break in with just hard work, connections, and good taste. But in today's market, assistants are expected to get their hands dirty and do just about everything under the sun to get the job done, day after day.

Sure, my boss could've hired some hotshot's nephew instead of me -- but that nephew wouldn't have lasted if he didn't know editing, casting, producing, shooting, etc. inside and out.

Sure, you can make it in Hollywood without going to film school.

But here's the kicker: my boss not only appreciates my work, he's seen my short film Another Life, and he's recommending me as a director to anyone asking around.

Try doing all of that without film school.

You Get What You Need

2010-07-05T08:30:00.001-07:00

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you all had a blast. Pun intended.

So big news: last week, I was scheduled to meet with a super secret Hollywood VIP.

For a kind of meeting that could change my career.

I prepared my best answers to all their potential questions. I put on my coolest clothes and my lucky red shoes. I staged a mock meeting with my cat -- and I have to say, my cat thought I was very charming.

Tuesday night, they called me.

They confirmed the meeting.

They gave me directions.

They put me on hold for just a sec -- and then told me that they had to reschedule. And push back our meeting to several weeks later.

But that's Hollywood, baby :)

And it's a blessing in disguise too. I'm half-way through writing the final draft of a new feature script -- and if I write 3 pages a day, every day, until this meeting -- I'll finish the script just in time to send a copy to this Hollywood VIP.

"It's so crazy, it just might work!"

But then there's another twist: my current employer, the rising writer/director [UNDISCLOSED], apparently likes me so much that he wants me to stay on as his assistant even longer!

So I looked at my calendar and almost died: I will be working a full 8 hours a day and then coming home to write 3 pages a night. Every day. For the next four weeks straight.

I thought about giving up on my crazy writing scheme -- but then I'd come empty-handed to the big meeting.

I thought about asking for time off at work -- but at my boutique production company [UNDISCLOSED], I'm scouting locations and putting together pitches, which beats making copies for minimum wage.

And then it hit me. This is it. This is the dream life.

Working with a hot, new director by day. Writing a hot, new feature by night. I'm Peter Parker with Final Draft instead of a spidey suit.

Of course, I want to get paid gobs of money to work under a studio bigwig. Of course, I want gobs of time to write the perfect script.

But if I try sometimes, I might find... I get what I need.

And now, I must be off. Writer-senses tingling. Thwip!

I Have A Job!

2010-06-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, I finally have a job in this business.

I'm working at [UNDISCLOSED] -- a boutique production company for TV, film, internet, and comic books. The company's founder -- writer/director/producer [UNDISCLOSED] -- sold a pilot this season and now has several other TV projects lifting off the ground.

So I'm assisting this director with research, casting, and light clerical work for one of his TV pilots -- and I'm sworn to secrecy not to tell more.

This director has a very impressive reel of music videos and commrecials as well as a great voice in his writing. He's also a pleasure to work with and I'm learning so much from him.

It's only a two week gig, but I plan to get the most out of it.

Oh! This week's Another Life Festival Application Count: 35

And stay tuned -- there's a super secret Hollywood meeting going down tomorrow night. More details will get posted as I'm allowed to give them away. Till then!

Is Girl Power Gone?

2010-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

There are no heroines in Hollywood today.

The other night, I went to a party with several young screenwriters, all of whom were working on scripts -- action, comedy, horror -- with strong female leads.

And none of us could catch a break with our scripts. Why?

One writer told a sad story: he pitched an animated action-adventure TV show to a major studio. The show starred a brother-sister duo. The studio exec loved it, but he had one note:

"Change the sister to a brother. Women don't sell overseas."

This is a crock of bullsh*t.

You know who was the biggest Box Office draw of 2009? Not Robert Downey, Jr. Not Johnny Depp.

Sandra Bullock. That's right. Her two movies The Blind Side and The Proposal raked in over $600 Million worldwide (see box office mojo).

So either this studio exec doesn't read the news, or this "Strong Women Fall Hard" Myth is very pervasive in Hollywood.

To prove my point, try the Bechdel Test for Women in Movies for the last 3 movies you saw. Just ask yourself:

Are there two or more female characters with names?
Do they talk to each other?
If they talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man?

If you answer "No" to any or all of these questions, it's not really a movie with any real, strong female characters, now is it?

Now obviously this is not a perfect test, but just reverse it: almost every Hollywood movie ever made features two men talking about something other than a woman.

So what happened to roles like Ripley in Aliens? Sarah Connor in Terminator 2? The Bride in Kill Bill? They've been replaced by frivolous fare and eye candy, as in Mamma Mia and Transformers.

How do we get strong women back on the silver screen?

Simple: If you stop going to bad movies, they will stop making them. Stop seeing movies that objectify women as damsels-in-distress.

Vote with your wallet at the box office. Do NOT see Eclipse. See Salt.

And we all have to work together. Writers, keep writing strong female characters. Actresses, keep taking on strong female roles. Producers, keep developing movies starring strong women.

We have to do this together.

We have an IMDb page!

2010-06-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Now that we're officially in consideration at over 25 film festivals, Another Life has its very own IMDb page! Check it out:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1662626/

We'll hear back from our first festivals in July, so cross your fingers!

Exclusive Hollywood Screening!

2010-06-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Film Independent just selected Another Life for an exclusive Hollywood screening at the W Hotel! Come join us!

The screening is Tuesday, July 20th @ 7:30 PM. Here are the details:

Film Independent’s Cinema Lounge is the coolest way to view short films and meet filmmakers. Cinema Lounge takes center stage at the hip and chic W Hollywood Hotel. Sip a cocktail on a comfy couch and watch an eclectic mix of fascinating foreign, inspiring documentary, brilliantly crafted animated or truly entertaining short films. With usually 3-6 short films, the night runs 60-80 minutes long followed by Q&A -- and they also serve free beer and popcorn.

And I can get you in for FREE, but only if you visit our Facebook Page, check out the Event Invite, and click "Attending."

See you in Hollywood, baby.

You Win Some...

2010-05-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, I interviewed for a Writers' PA position on a hit TV show.

I spent the 24 hours before in intense preparation: predicting their questions, coming up with good soundbytes, reading up on juicy Hollywood gossip to schmooze about, picking out the perfect clothes, researching the show meticulously, etc.

The interview lasted 15 minutes. And I left feeling good.

I found out on Friday I didn't get the job... so I applied for five more similar positions and the waiting game begins again. C'est la vie.

But I've been hard at work on Another Life! I submitted the film to *15 more festivals.* That's a grand total of 27 Festivals I've already submitted to!

I also just finished a comprehensive "Film Festival Submission Plan" that outlines a Total of 100 Film Festivals that I'll be sending Another Life to -- with detailed research on their festivals' deadlines, entry policies, programs, etc.

That's right, 100 film festivals. Everything from Venice and Telluride to Topanga and Omaha -- all festivals that are best suited for Another Life. We're shooting for the stars!

But this week... there's one big, exciting, confidential meeting going down... more on that when I'm allowed to talk about it...

Keep your fingers crossed -- until then!

First Festivals Submission!

2010-05-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today, I submitted Another Life to 11 film festivals across the world! I'll hear back as early as July from a few of them. Fingers crossed...

Where do you think I should apply to next? Become a fan on facebook and let me know by clicking on that link right over -- over there! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Lately, a day in Another Life has been a day in The Adventures of the Unemployed Filmmaker. All kinds of really exciting things are happening like:

sending my resume to top TV Shows and Production Companies
waiting patiently by the computer for them to e-mail me...
doing dishes
tidying
neatening
deliberating on which bathrobe to wear today
writing
more writing
still more writing
or actually just watching lots of Netflix Instant
meeting friends for coffee and talking about how it's hard out here for an unemployed film school grad... and pimps. It is also hard out here for the pimps.
checking email for job application replies every two minutes.
checking facebook every three minutes.

Stay tuned for updates on getting into festivals, getting a Hollywood assistant job, getting an agent/manager, and getting the next hot script written. Until next time -- stay classy, internets!

And oh, yes, I chose the blue bathrobe today.

Screening Success & New Website!

2010-05-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for coming to the screening! It was a major success!

We got such a magnificent audience at the Paramount screening last night -- everyone was so supportive and gave such wonderful, positive feedback. I'm all aglow...

Oh, and we have a new and improved website now! Check it out:
http://www.anotherlifefilm.com/

It was quite a whirlwind. If any of you shook my hand and wished me congratulations, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail -- now that I've got more time on my hands, I'd love to meet up and talk more over coffee or something.

So What's Next?

* submitting Another Life to film festivals (obviously!)
* job-hunting (Hollywood assistant, fingers crossed)
* write, write, write, write, write
* meet more cool people at screenings, parties, etc.
* keep getting my work out there till it sticks!

Now that Another Life is finally done, this blog will keep you posted on getting into festivals and the ups and downs of a young writer/director looking for work in Hollywood.

Tomorrow, I graduate from USC film school. Then, the world!

Trailer is Up!

2010-05-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

That's right! Check out the new trailer right here.

Also, don't forget to RSVP for the exclusive screening at Paramount Studios this Thursday, May 13th right here.

But please note that the line-up has changed: the screening will begin at 7:30PM and now there is no intermission. If you just have to sneak in after the screening starts, Another Life will probably begin at 9:00PM (but no guarantees).

See you on May 13th behind the pearly gates of Paramount!

Screening on May 13th!

2010-04-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

We're screening at Paramount Studios!!

Here are the details:
The Fresh Voices Screening
Six USC thesis films. Six new directors. One fantastic evening.
Thursday, May 13th @7:00pm
Paramount Studios - Main Gate

And Another Life is saved for last in the line-up. If you cannot attend the entire evening, please come during the intermission at 8:00pm and stay for the last three films.

To RSVP, visit the link to our screening's website here.

See you all behind the pearly gates of Paramount!

Scoring, Strategies, & Trailer

2010-02-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

This past week I met with our composer John, developed a marketing strategy with our producer Min, and worked on the trailer with our editor Beth.

What a good week.

My meeting with John couldn't have been simpler. He showed me two cues for Angela's "romantic" theme... and they were brilliant. Subtle but emotionally evocative. Just the right sound for the film too. We had a great discussion bouncing around ideas to tweak these cues to perfection and developed a decent plan of where to go from here: having her romantic theme darkly echoed in the final scene and developing a dark, rumbling electronic sound for her more suspenseful Doug-related scenes.

Oh yeah! And props to Chris (different from Lead Sound Designer Chris) for inviting me to join a big screening night. Chris and several other thesis film directors are banding together to organize a thesis film screening night in mid-May. We'll all be working together to find the perfect venue, advertise, promote, and invite agents, managers, and assistants to the screening.

I haven't seen Min since the film shoot in August, so it was wonderful to see an old friend again. She's doing very well for herself in Stanford business school and I'm very proud to have such an intelligent, well-put-together, and fun friend. We laid out the potential "Another Life" has after the final mix:

I'll meet with my film school's festivals office in May for a festivals strategy
I'll be at our school's First Pitch event in early May -- the best and brightest of our film school pitching our projects to up and coming agents and managers -- and I'll pitch not only my feature scripts, but plug my upcoming screening
I'll help promote and plan our thesis film screening in mid-May
We'll have a trailer up on the internets by March
Between now and May, I'll be putting together a press kit, posters, and DVD art designs
Most importantly -- have polished scripts ready to hand to agents at the screening!

And Beth, as usual, is amazing.

Last weekend, we discussed our trailer ideas. This past Wednesday, she made a rough cut of the trailer that was damn near perfect. I sent her notes, she's working on a new cut this morning, I'll be seeing it late Monday, and we'll meet up this week and probably finish it.

There's still much to be done, like coordinating Foley and ADR.

So stay tuned till next week, when we should finish Dialogue Editing, make progress on Backgrounds, and try to lock down our schedule!

Sundance & Sound Design

2010-01-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

What a crazy past few weeks...

Early last week, we pushed "Another Life" into the sound design phase after meeting our keys: Beth, our editor and post supervisor; Chris, our lead sound designer; Rebecca, our dialogue editor (first at work on sound); and John, our composer.

And the meetings all went well.

Rebecca and Chris both spotted the film with me and gave very good notes about the challenges ahead in ADR and Foley, the exciting opportunities of developing backgrounds, and the surmountable difficulties of dialogue editing. And some pretty great ideas with developing a new take on the film's soundscape!

John and I met and spotted the film. I discussed my initial impressions for the score and he came to the table with some brilliant ideas on developing two themes for Angela's two worlds.

After a few technical difficulties, Beth and Chris stepped in and made sure that John and Rebecca had all the right files to begin their work.

And, yes, I was at Sundance this past weekend.

I woke up early and stood in line for hours and hours to wait-list tickets for amazing films that will change the landscape of independent cinema. Films like Animal Kingdom, Abel, and Cyrus.

I took buses, waited in long lines, and struck up conversations with complete strangers, making budding connections connections with emerging filmmakers and passionate filmgoers.

I went to late night mixers and parties, rubbing elbows with actors, actresses, writers, producers, directors, and all kinds of exciting filmmakers until I ran out of business cards.

Why?

The whole time I was there, I generated buzz for "Another Life."

Stay tuned as next week, we review dialogue editing, build sound backgrounds, start making a trailer, and keeping the post-production schedule chugging along!

PICTURE LOCKED!

2010-01-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

No better way to ring in the new year than with a Pic Lock...

Picture. Editing. Is. Finally. DONE.

Earlier today, my editor Beth and I watched the film for the first time since the winter holidays break. With fresh eyes to the 6th Cut and our last (very successful) test screening's notes, we watched the film, and... there was very little left to do.

Beth had a few edit points she wanted to massage just right, cutting/adding a few frames at a few moments that felt slightly off... and then those scenes felt ten times better, just because there was half a breath more after a provocative line of dialogue or a stronger connection between the actors' eyes.

I had one big note from the screening notes: a few audience members felt a little confused with the last flashback when Angela watches Tom die in her arms. They didn't understand what happened to the off-screen insurgents . Beth and I agreed and inserted a shot of Angela shooting down an off-screen insurgent before turning back to Tom bleeding out on the floor. Beth and I took some time picking just the right take, inserting it into the timeline, reconfiguring all the gunshot sound effects, massaging the edit points, getting the timing just right... and we nailed it.

Beth and I both had some tweak notes on sound design and then we had some business to cover to make a smooth transition from picture to sound: making the OMF file and a high-res quicktime with the TCR embedded into the screen with no sound as well as a discussion of credits. I'll be compiling the final list this week (minus the names to be added during the sound design process) and we'll find a credits artist and finish that work before Spring Break.

And after two hours of work, that was it. Final Cut Done.

This is the way the editing ends
Not with a bang, but with an AWESOME.

Next, sound design! And then, the world!

6th Cut Finished!

2009-12-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

Wow. That was fast.

The other day, the film's editor, Beth, and I sat down to watch the pickups and edit the film one more time. We were done with everything in about 3 hours.

Why? Because we rock it like that.

First I watched the much dreaded pick-ups. But there was no dread. The pick-ups looked amazing, thanks to our amazing cast and crew. As usual, Beth cut them in a way I had not even anticipated while shooting -- and of course it was better than what I had imagined. We had a quick discussion about sound design for the scene, matching the cut to our ideas about the sound design, smoothed out the transitions between the other scenes, and presto! We had seamlessly integrated the pick-ups with the rest of the film!

Then we watched the film, scribbling our notes throughout... and we were kind of taken aback that we didn't have any major notes for the film. The only notes I had were tweaking sound design here and there. Beth had some notes make a polished fine cut on a few edit points. We incorporated our notes and called it a day.

Yesterday, Beth met with her mentor Norm. He suggested a few quick little tweaks to the pick-ups and a few scene transitions that streamline the film, and I agree with all of his notes.

And this weekend, we export the film and have our last test screening. BAM. This picture is soft-locked, baby!

I'm totally amazed at the sheer magnitude of progress this film has experienced from the past 6 cuts in 4 months. I am so deeply grateful to Beth for lifting this material to the next level and higher, making the film exponentially better than either of us could have dreamed of on our own. She has helped me grow as a director and a human being, all the while making "Another Life" into a riveting and powerful short film. Also, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everyone who lent us their eyes, ears, hearts, and minds in watching early cuts of the film and giving constructive feedback in shaping a rough cut into the polished gem it is today. So to the cast, crew, supporters, and fans of "Another Life," thank you. We could not have enjoyed this much success so early without you.

So that's it for 2009! See you after New Year's when we polish the final cut, hard-lock the picture for good, and move into sound design! Happy holidays!

Pick-Ups Shot and onto 6th Cut!

2009-12-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

Egad, it's been a while. Because I've been up to so much:

enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving vacataion!
locked our sound crew!
shot our pick-ups!
jumped back into editing!
and got an internship in a TV series writer's room!

And much success and progress was enjoyed by all!

My thanksgiving vacation was cut short when we lost our location for our pick-ups, I had a 24-hour deadline to find one more sound designer for our team or else we wouldn't be allowed to continue on to the sound design semester, and I had to turn in 12 documents filled-out and signed -- all in one day. So I spent that day on the phone in front of the computer, much to the annoyance of my vacationing family members, and after a lot of work, lo and behold I had a full sound design team and all my paperwork turned in!

Later that week, the full sound design team met with Rich, the head honcho of the sound post-production facilities, and he approved all the sound designers and our schedule, gave us a brief talk-through of the sound design process, and we were greenlit! I'm so proud of my team! I can't wait to work with them in January!

But actually, to be honest, during that meeting I was mostly stressed out of my mind planning for the pick-ups. We ran through a five different locations, two camera houses, a different script, a different production design for the scene, a scare with the loss of cast/crew, running around and changing permits and insurance paperwork less than 24 hours before shoot... pretty stressful... but it all came together in the end.

And the shoot was such a breeze! It was like getting back on a bicycle. We all seemed to fall back into our rhythms of happily working together. Once we started shooting, it only took us about two hours and then we started packing to leave. Working with such talented and amiable filmmakers is so great.

Yesterday, I met with the film's editor, Beth, for the first time in almost 10 days. Kind of weird to admit that it felt too long to be apart. We're so used to seeing each other every other day!

Over the break, Beth tried two things to much success: slowing down the first flashback and taking out two lines of dialogue in the garage poker scene. In the first flashback, just that slight change, and we feel like we're watching Angela falling in love. In the garage poker scene, we don't even miss the lines of dialogue and it streamlines the scene, straight into Doug pushing Angela around and controlling her.

I had a few notes here and there, just tweaks to the overall film: trying titles over the first flashback, changing a take in the garage poker scene to add to Angela's panic, giving some air between scene transitions, and shortening the ending. Beth also had a Fine Cut meeting with her mentor, apparently a great session on how to polish *every* *cut* and so after we revised a scene from my notes, she took a fine tooth comb to the scene, worked on every edit point... and the scene was ten times better but I couldn't put my finger on what was different.

Guess why? Every. Frame. Counts.

You ought to know that one by now.

We're inserting the pick-ups on Wednesday! And we have our final test screening this weekend! Wish us luck and stay tuned!

5th Cut Finished!

2009-11-19T17:04:00.001-08:00

This morning, Beth and I watched the film, discussed a few things, tried a few things... and then we were done before lunch.

I love days like these.

After reviewing the cut, we found that the only problem areas were the transitions between the flashbacks and the present. We put in just a little more time after the flashbacks, resting longer with Angela's reaction in the present... and the rest just flowed. Also, we finessed some of the music and sound in key scenes and slightly modified the beginning scene-let, just to bring up the level of emotion that much more.

We also covered some essential business: ideas for the pick-ups, preparations for screenings and meetings, and some initial plans for the transition from winter break to picture lock on January 10th.

Run time? 15min57sec!

I will be on Thanksgiving break next week, but this weekend we'll be having a test screening, and over Thanksgiving break, we'll lock our sound crew and prep for pick-ups. So stay tuned!

5th Cut Almost Done!

2009-11-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

So over the weekend, Beth, my editor, incorporated all of our outlined notes into a rough cut. I met with her yesterday... and after 4 hours of work, we have a new cut.

Are we that good? Really?

So the overall idea for the new cut was to develop a new structure of interspersing the Angela's flashbacks to her traumatic war experiences throughout to put Angela's moral dilemma in context with her survivor's guilt, bringing us closer in line with her mental and emotional experience.

The majority of our work was smoothing out the transitions between the flashbacks and the present-day scenes, putting in temp ADR lines of dialogue that make these new juxtapositions really resonate, putting in some new material, and then revising some dirtier edit points in the balcony and final scenes. And then Beth found some fantastic ways to trim down some overlong scenes without taking out any story or much dialogue really.

We were kind of amazed that after all our work, we watched the whole film through, and we were pretty damn pleased with it. So we decided to step away, get some fresh perspective on this intermediate cut, review it on our own, and meet again on Thursday with new notes to revise and put finishing touched on the 5th cut.

Oh yeah, and the run time now is 15min56sec!

Maybe we just are that good.

I'm also keeping VERY busy preparing for pick-ups and meeting with sound designers. But stay tuned as we finish the 5th Cut on Thursday and have a cut screening this weekend!

Screenings and Meetings and Mentors, Oh My!

2009-11-12T18:06:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, my editor Beth and I screened the 4th Cut for a very small audience...

We got some very hard notes. Very hard. It's always difficult to hear people you deeply respect as fellow filmmakers tear your film apart.

Screening your film is like standing naked amongst a room of strangers and hear them tell you exactly what parts of your anatomy they hate and want to change.

So I spent the past few days doing a lot of soul-searching... re-connecting with the core of the film, what it means to me and its intended audience... conceiving plans for shooting pick-ups... trying to find the right way to improve the film and ultimately make a movie that people will enjoy watching...

So after developing some elaborate plans for pick-ups and re-editing techniques, I met with Beth's editing mentor, Norm... and he brought us back down to Earth.

We do NOT need to drastically re-edit the film

We do NOT need to drastically re-shoot the film.

A long conversation with Norm helped us figure out a new structure for the flashbacks -- every time we see Angela on the verge of making a critical decision, we cut back to another piece of her experience in Iraq -- that will engage us more with Angela, make us sympathize and understand her all the more, and pull us into the emotion of the film.

There are some essential tweaks to the first scene to shape the tone, but most importantly, to make Angela's dilemma more clear and accessible. We also need to smooth out some transitions and add some temp sound design to enhance the emotion in some scenes.

And a One Day Shoot pick-up of Angela outside her door.

And that's it. Great notes from great mentors are SO great.

Beth and I had a State of the Cut meeting after all the notes sessions, and after a strangely short discussion, we found that we had just put together a pretty cohesive outline for the 5th Cut's new structure.

Beth will take the weekend to cut the film to this new outline. So stay tuned for Monday, when we'll get back to cutting together!

4th Cut Finished!

2009-11-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Today, my editor Beth and I finished the 4th Cut! Hooray!

I came to Beth's editing suite this morning to a happy surprise -- she had already started work on Scene #15: Angela and Scott share their war experiences over dinner. She cut out 20 minutes, trimming the fat of the scene... and it works really well. Each moment feels just right and the scene just flows right along.

Then there was the always the dreaded climax, Scene #16: Angela pulls a gun on Scott. I came in expecting major surgery on this scene... and it didn't need it. I was just over-stressed from the thought of pick-ups and over-analyzing the scene. Beth found a great solution: she trimmed down the lingering moments on Scott, so there was an even amount of time on both Scott and Angela, and a natural pacing and organic suspense took over the scene. With this faster rhythm, the ending with Angela staring down Scott at her feet in near silence had us at the edge of our seats -- and with the small tweak of focusing on Angela's close-up when she pulls the trigger... shocking... powerful... We put the wide shot over the top of the scene to orient the audience, shaped a few edit points, and it was done!

Scene #17: Angela runs into Kaylie. Didn't touch it. Perfect.

Now Scene #18: Angela smashes her apartment needed some significant changes. A lot of the footage in this scene rhymed with footage we cut out of the film -- footage mostly on Angela's back, packing, falling apart, drinking, smashing the glass, throwing pots and pans, throwing papers, tearing apart all the pictures on the walls... and it was just too much. The scene felt too long and overstayed its welcome. Beth and I tried a lot of stuff, and a lot of stuff didn't work... but then we found a way to cut from Kaylie to Angela in the kitchen drinking, then smashing up her kitchen, and a powerful new close up of Angela stopping in her tracks and staring at the picture of Tom... we left the rest of the scene as is with a new piece of the final close up at the end... and damn, what a riveting ending...

We re-mixed some sound, shaped some cuts, and that was it!

Oh yeah, and the new and improved run time is 16min33sec -- we cut out 2 minutes and 45 seconds since the last cut! BAM!

Stay tuned for a long week of screenings and notes! Posting soon!

4th Cut Almost Done!

2009-11-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

What a session! 14 out of 19 scenes finished!

Yesterday, my editor Beth and I picked up where we left off at the Scene #5: Angela meets Scott. We took one more pass over it, Beth doing all the hard work cleaning up edits and shaping cuts. Trying to incorporate a note to linger on Angela longer, we added a few more frames of Angela listening to Scott's pick-up monologue... and she gives this evocative, emotional glance to him...

Every. Single. Frame. Counts.

On to Scene#6: Angela stalks Scott at home... major restructuring here. We re-shaped the scene to focus it from Angela's point of view. We dropped the classic intercutting suspense structure and just went from Angela leaving her car, marching up to Scott's window, seeing him inside, getting her gun out -- the machine-like speed with which she prepares to kill him is so much more real and suspenseful. Plus, the sound of a gun cocking at the window really works!

And for Scene#7: Scott sees Angela outside Kaylie's room... we cut it. Instead, we ended the scene on Angela's face, staring longingly at the heartwarming scene between . Not only an emotionally effective cut, but it brings us deeper into line with experience of Angela's dilemma: she can't do this, but she has to.

Then for Scene #8: Angela prepares to kill Scott. This scene wasn't working. With this new organic structure, we felt emotionally sucked into Angela's experience: following him, liking him, going ahead with anyway, seeing him with his daughter, then unable to do it...

But then we don't have anything that pushes Angela back into trying to kill Scott. We need some reminder of Doug's hold on Angela's life. A story beat that shakes Angela to her core, lets her know that Doug could kill her right now if he wanted to...

It's just not in the footage. So we have to do pick-ups.

That's right. Pick-ups. More on that later.

As for Scene #9: Angela and Scott connect over war experiences... we could barely touch a frame of their conversation. It was near perfect. We tightened a few moments in the beginning that felt overlong, cut out an extraneous line of dialogue, but this scene is working so well... my heart wells up every time I see it.

Scene #10: Angela starts to fall for Scott over drinks. This started to feel like, "Hey Audience! Here's the love montage!" And that's probably because the music fades in strong right at the top of the scene. We tried hearing the start of the conversation, watching Scott gush over Kaylie, how it plays on Angela's face, and then fading out Scott's dialogue and gently bringing in the music... just magical.

Moving on! Scene #11: Scott asks Angela out on a date. Near perfect. Just some shaping and trimming here to boil the scene down to a size that matches the pacing of the other shortened scenes... god, I'd go out with Scott if he asked me like that!

Now Scene #12: Angela prepares for the date has some major structural changes. Instead of talking to Scott on the phone, she's talking to Doug -- telling him that she will be going over to Scott's house tonight and "getting it done."

Then, when Angela finishes her make-up in the bathroom -- HERE is when she flashes back to Tom's death in Iraq. We tried so many different ways about it: what pieces of the flashback to use, what sound design to use as an audio flashback... but when we found the right pieces of the performance of Angela in the present alone in the bathroom, synced up with gunfire and shouting, and bringing us right into the moment Tom dies in Angela's arms... really powerful. Wow.

Scene #13: Doug threatens Angela. Again, near perfect. This just needed some trimming.

Scene #14: Scott invites Angela in for dinner with Doug outside. We cut out all the flashbacks here and put them into Scene #12. This is *so* much more effective as we get a real sense of Angela's terror and conflict, that she's stuck inside here with this loving, caring father who is prosecuting Doug as a district attorney, and she can't leave until she kills him. We feel that here, and throwing in flashbacks is just too much for one scene... Some shaping, trimming, and we we're done!

Stay tuned as I meet up wtih more sound designers during the week and we finish the 4th cut by Friday!

We Have A Composer!

2009-11-02T09:51:00.000-08:00

Good news!

After a rigorous search, over 300 submissions, and extensive interviews, we are happy to bring John Jennings Boyd aboard as our Composer! Please feel free to check out his website at:

http://www.johnjenningsboyd.com/

This week, we'll close in on locking a sound team and the 4th Cut! Posting soon!

Into the 4th Cut

2009-10-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

This week, I held back a tidal wave of midterms with my bare hands and just now resurfaced. But the cutting has been going very well!

Monday, my editor Beth incorporated our long, comprehensive outline for the 4th Cut and started cutting on her own. Yesterday, I came in to see her work... and damn, is it working.

Cutting out a few scenes and significantly trimming others -- down to the bare bones of what's emotionally riveting for Angela and the audience -- really gets it to work. Whatever keeps the pace flowing...

Editing is all about the small things. Like so:

Scene #1: Angela drinks away war memories

We received a lot of notes that this scene feeling too jarring, like we're thrown into an intense story and we're reeling to catch up. We added one shot -- a wide shot of Tom and Angela playing cards in the Iraq poker game flashback -- tweaked and re-shaped some of the edit points, and the first scene started to work so well. The scene felt clear, well-paced, and engaging. Loving it.

Scene #2: Angela begs Frank to let her in

This scene is perfect as is. No need to touch it.

Scene #3: Doug forces Angela to kill Scott

Beth cut out some dialogue and changed the ending with some re-purposed footage and it was already working very well.

We only needed to shape the scene to make the poker game clearer, connect us more to Angela's emotional experience, and make Doug more menacing. We spent a little more time on the wide at the top of the poker game, and then the game made so much more sense. Cutting out one sentence of Doug's speech and overlapping dialogue a little more, really ratcheted up the suspense and scared the hell out of us. We went for a subtler, quieter ending: Doug speaks softly, saying "Then we'll kill you and find someone else to do it." Then he chuckles a little and just leers at her... and god, was it terrifying.

Scene #4: Angela follows Scott to the bar

Right now, we're smash cutting from Angela's horror-struck face as Doug looms over her, saying "You have three days" to Scott leaving his office and Angela sitting right outside. And it's fantastic. Also -- gasp! -- we cut out the whole middle bit of Angela trailing Scott as he turns the corner. Losing that piece keeps the tension up and the story charging forward and we don't miss a beat.

Scene #5: Scott asks Angela out

Beth intuitively cut out some dialogue -- and now the scene no longer lags in the middle, keeps the tension up, and only contains the most emotionally riveting moments. We re-shaped it for a while, using the best pieces of each performance, and trimming here and there to keep the rest of the scene's pacing in line with the new cuts.

Then we were 35% through the new cut and called it a day!

We also made some radical cuts with the scenes later on, and they're working very well! I'll be reviewing the footage over the weekend so I can come up with solutions to new problems and make sure we're using only the very best takes.

I'm excited to get back to work next week. We've got a 4th cut deadline by the end of next week, so we've got a lot of work to do to finish the cut in time. So stay tuned for Monday!

Oh yeah, the Total Running Time is now 17min25sec. BAM.

Happy Halloween! Here's something to get you in the spirits.

State of the 4th Cut

2009-10-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Notes, notes, notes...

What a busy week. Beth, my editor, and I spent the past seven days getting thorough and transformative notes from Beth's editing mentor, my directing mentor, and our producers.

In the past three cuts, we have been very faithful to the script. We've moved a few scenes, cut lines, and repurposed some footage, but the overall emotional experience of watching the film closely resembles reading the script.

The most unanimous note: forget the script.

French director Robert Bresson put it best:

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.

If Beth and I were to remain entirely faithful to the script, we'd kill the film. So we have to walk into the editing room as though our film never had a script, write the film with the footage, with cuts instead of words, and develop an organic, emotional editing structure that has nothing to do with page count or inciting incidents.

Yesterday, Beth and I met over a late lunch to discuss all the notes. Wracking our brains on how to incorporate the each note got our juices flowing and ideas started to bubble up. We kept discussing, flowing, throwing out ideas, and after 2 hours or so -- lo and behold, we had a comprehensive outline for how to restructure and revise the entire film, scene by scene.

Aren't great editors great?

There are some exciting changes ahead. Cutting scenes, moving them around, reshaping for emotional impact... the film will get leaner and meaner and have a whole new look and feel from the 3rd cut. This is going to be exciting!

Also, I've narrowed down 300+ submissions for composers to about 6 top composers and I've met with nearly all of them. I've contacted many, many, many sound designers, and it's getting down to the wire before I pick the new crew!

Last night I saw Tracy Coogan in the scary new thriller Dark Woods. Check it out. As usual, she's amazing. A riveting performance and a treasure to work with. It's only a matter of time until I'm saying "I knew her when..."

Not only that, I ran into Kharrison Sweeney at the screening. God, that man makes me laugh non-stop. Any of you would be lucky to have him on your project.

So, next week we'll be adding sound designers and a composer to our crew and jump right back into editing. Stay tuned!

Third Cut Finished!

2009-10-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

After two more nights of cutting with my editor Beth, this past Tuesday and Wednesday, we're done! And the new running time is 19 minutes 15 seconds!

Tuesday, we spent most of our time working on the dinner scene.

Somehow, we only needed to tweak the pre-dinner scene with Angela's flashbacks for a half an hour. We applied some earlier ideas for shortening the long, uncomfortable pauses with new uses of footage. The scene clicked and we moved on.

The dinner scene... we spent hours on this scene. All night.

The scene started to free itself up from some of its flaws once we cut out a few lines. With the removal of polite transitions in dialogue, we could try to just see the two of them flirting, just see Scott open up out of his own connection to Angela... then we were able to shape the scene into a full-bodied, emotional connection between two souls.

But the lesson learned here was giving into a bad cut to make a good scene. Not even a bad cut really... a less than stellar cut. We kept circling back to the same problematic cuts, where we wanted to linger a little longer on a moment or realization, only to discover a complete shift in the footage just one frame later... so while a few cuts feel less than perfect, the scene is great.

Wednesday, driving through rainy rush hour traffic to Beth's editorial suite, we found that we had very little to do. She had already shaped the final two scenes much to our liking and we were left with re-shaping the Balcony scene.

The balcony scene felt like it was missing a beat. We re-shaped it, spent more time on Angela between Scott's lines, and re-shaped his dialogue... then we felt more connected to Angela and the full arc of Scott's surprise, anger, fear, and begging for his life and Kaylie.

Then after a few music tweaks we were done!

Now, I have a whirlwind week of meeting mentors, producers, composers, and sound designers with story notes and job interviews!

Stay tuned till next week for more cutting and crewing up!

Two Days, Third Cut Almost Done

2009-10-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today, my editor Beth and I cut for 12 hours.

We cut 13 out of 18 scenes.

All in two days. Editing is going so well.

Here's the so-called "edit list" of everything we wanted to improve with the pacing and overall quality of the film in this upcoming cut:

Scene#1: Angela drinks away war memories. Restructure to begin with Iraq Poker Scene with Angela and Tom, smash cut to Angela looking at Tom's picture in her apartment, then intercut Angela drinking with her flashbacks of Tom.
Scene #2: Angela begs Frank to let her in. Feels too long.
Scene #3: Doug forces Angela to kill Scott. Make the poker game clearer, make Doug's entrance more organic, get a clearer sense of Frank, draw us into Angela's fear.
Scene #4: Angela follows Scott. Didn't touch it. Perfect.
Scene #5: Angela meets Scott. Draw us closer into Angela's nervousness sitting next to Scott, heighten the romantic tension, a little long.
Scene #6: Angela stalks Scott at his home. Feels too long, needs more suspense. Craft a better arc for Scott from depressed to elated, and a better arc for Angela from ready to kill him to shock at Kaylie's entrance.
Scene #7: Scott sees Angela outside Kaylie's room. Raise the suspense of Scott protecting Kaylie, like a bomb went off.
Scene #8: Angela prepares to kill Scott. Didn't touch it.
Scene #9: Scott and Angela connect over Iraq experiences. Make Angela coming up the steps and getting seen by Scott more suspenseful and the ending feels too long.
Scene #10: Angela starts to fall for Scott. Didn't touch it.
Scene #11: Scott asks Angela on a date. Shape to show the scene from Angela's POV and build a stronger arc from liking Scott to thinking about calling him.
Scene #12: Angela prepares for date. Didn't touch it.
Scene #13: Doug threatens Angela at Scott's house. Too long.

And over two days... we did just that. All of it. And so, so well.

And we watched all of it today. Beth and I got chills watching it.

My task as a director is to effectively communicate, and I'm having serious difficulty communicating to you how we accomplished all of this over two days. I can only offer up one possible explanation:

Every single frame counts. Every single shot counts.

When it felt too long, we trimmed it down to the most essential frames, cut it for suspense, and threw out extraneous shots. When a performance or scene arc felt a little off for that moment, we tried a different take or different pieces of the same take until the scene improved. And so many scenes that felt too short, after we started trimming, felt just right.

And Beth is the master of tweaking it till it works.

There was some wizardry in restructuring the first scene -- starting in Iraq, with Angela smiling and having fun with Tom, then smash cutting to Angela present day in her lonely apartment was the strongest opening we came up with. Luckily, I rolled long on a wide shot of Angela to the point where she picked up the picture of Tom -- and we were able to cut around so much of that footage to just used Angela looking at Tom's picture and then going to drinking and avoiding the bad memories... it just started to sing...

Beth and I will edit Monday and Thursday next week.

And we might finish Cut #3 a week early! See you then!

The Wife Always Knows

2009-10-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I asked my wife, Alexis, to watch the 2nd Cut.

She hasn't seen any of the footage. She went in completely cold.

The verdict? Shorter. Everything shorter.

"Thats it?" I talked her through the cut, scene by scene, asking about pacing, tone, performance, digging for any more notes...

"Stop lingering so much on her and move on!"

So we're continuing with pacing as our chief concern for Cut #3 as planned. Looks like we're heading in the right direction. Right now, I'm listening to over 300 submissions for the film's composer and looking for more potential sound designers!

3rd Cut Begins!

2009-10-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

It began not with a bang, but a whimper. More like a cough.

Beth, the editor, is sick today. So we had to call it a half day and focus our efforts on cutting the re-imagined Scene 1: Angela drinking away her war memories.

This scene used to be Scene 3, so Beth and I spent some time asking questions about how to establish the space, introduce Angela, and finding the right pacing so as not to disorient or confuse the audience -- but to make them engage and identify with Angela immediately.

Not an easy task.

We tried starting in Iraq, watching Tom and Angela laugh over a game of poker, then going to Angela remembering Tom in an alley, marching into her apartment, getting a drink, remembering Tom again... and it just felt too long.

And it made us care less about Tom the second time. Not good.

The real challenge here was in the flexibility of the footage. We wanted to introduce Angela in her space, intercut between flashbacks and Angela drinking and reacting, and then watch her drink herself to sleep.

But most of the footage was designed to show Angela at a distance, watching her drink, interact with her apartment, and gaze at her picture of Tom. So we tried killing our darlings and used just the footage that kept Angela on the bed.

And it was working for us. But not quite.

Beth picked up on the idea of intercutting the flashbacks with Angela drinking even more (in the 2nd cut, the flashbacks were more like watching Angela remember entire scenes). Once we found the right takes of Angela's reactions to the flashbacks and constructed an arc to her performance, then it really started to sing. We were really feeling engaged with Angela and her relationship to Tom.

But sound design had a big part to play. The enormous shift in environment -- from ghetto L.A. to war-torn Baghdad -- is missing since we haven't built these atmospheric sound backgrounds. Also, as we shifted the music around, we noticed how we become less/more engaged with Angela. Weird...

So Beth tweaked and tightened, and we left with a damn good cut of the new Scene 1 with strong ideas on how to put in sound backgrounds and music before we move on.

Ten minutes later, as I was driving away, it hit me like lighting.

I figured out a new, invigorating way to cut the scene using footage that I totally forgot we had! I conjured up a way to start with Angela and Tom playing poker in Iraq, then going back to Angela, and continue the flashback/apartment intercutting from there -- in a way that will engage us with Angela even more!

Wednesday, we're back at Scene 1 and moving on to Scene 2!

2nd Cut Screening and State of the Cut

2009-09-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today, Beth and I watched the 2nd Picture Cut of Another Life.

Usually, the first 4 cut screenings are depressing for a director.

But I got choked up. Beth and I were elated. It's so damn good!

The dinner scene is beautiful to behold. The scene where Angela drinks away her memories of Tom dying had tears in my eyes. The ending was just as powerful as when we cut it. The relationships, the character arcs, the mounting suspense... it's all there.

However, I feel like I'm too close to the film right now. The film is running a little over 22 minutes, which is a lot longer than the patience of most studio execs and festival audiences. But I love the film so much, I can't think of what to cut out right now.

I feel like (I can only guess) a father seeing his baby walk for the first time -- I'm just so proud to see her standing up on her own two feet and walking in a straight line!

Beth, as usual, brough me down to Earth. We had the official State of the Cut talk and discussed how to improve this film from hereon out. Here are her notes:

It takes a while before we get engaged in Angela, somewhere around the scene where Angela remembers Tom dying and drinks those memories away. Start the film with this scene, then go to the poker scene.
The tension dissipates in the first bar scenes. Use different takes of Angela than the ones we have in there now to show her seething with nervous apprehension that Scott is sitting one bar stool away from her.
We're missing a beat in the balcony scene. Perhaps this scene's structure is too similar to the dinner scene? Too elegant, free-flowing, and lingering? Beth and I have some ideas to use other takes of Scott to show his anger and the scene's inherent violence.
Then there's some general tweaks and trimming to do.

Some of the stronger notes came out of conferences with Beth's mentor, Norman Hollyn. He has an uncanny sense of good taste, a great eye for story problem, as well as clear and consise solutions to these problem areas. A director's best friend, really.

But what do next? Make that one essential change for the first scene, cut out redundant dialogue and moments, trim wherever we can, tweak the scenes just right, and carefully shape the rise and fall of the suspense throughout the film with a big picture perspective.

And that's it. Pretty damn good progress, for a 2nd Cut, I'd say.

So I'll be watching the 2nd Cut a few more times with more a critical and objective eye. There's also dishes, laundry, writing, homework, emails, and business to attend to.

Stay tuned for Thursday, when Beth and I first dig into the Third Cut!

Finished 2nd Picture Cut!

2009-09-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today, the editor Beth and I finished the 2nd Cut of Another Life!

And we're a week and a half ahead of schedule!

As this is the Director's cut, I spent the last four weeks visiting Beth's Editing Suite, cutting the film together, crafting the available footage into the story that best fit my original vision -- the closest thing that comes to "watching the movie in my head."

Usually, the Director's Cut is a depressing affair.

Usually, the Director realizes in this cut that the footage does not and will not match their original vision ever.

But this Director is very happy with his (and Beth's!) Director's cut!

We finished the day with shaping the transitions between scenes, putting in temp music, and smoothing out audio. We glimpsed some of the scenes we haven't looked at in a while...

And the rest of the scenes are just as powerful (if not more so!) then when we first cut them.

The big challenge of the day was re-cutting the climactic balcony scene -- at the end of a romantic date, Angela pulls a gun on Scott, her only way out of her lethal bet with Doug.

And guess what? We fixed it. And it rocked.

How did we do it? We did our homework.

Early this morning (too early), I wrote down a moment by moment emotional beat sheet for both Scott and Angela's character arcs. Then I reviewed the footage. Beth and I agreed on a thesis for a cutting style where we focus on Scott, building suspense by watching him beg for his life and then showing little snippets of Angela with a stoneface on the verge of cracking.

I cracked how to reconfigure the scene on watching the climactic begging scene at the end of the Korean action masterpiece, Oldboy. My favorite film. See it.

In the climactic scene of Oldboy, the hero begs his nemesis for one last shred of mercy, and instead of intercutting between the hero and the nemesis -- we never see the nemesis' face. The editing focuses only on the hero begging and we watch his face fall and contort with fear, sadness, rage, and desperation every time he asks the nemesis something, and the nemesis doesn't answer. One of the most brilliant performances I have ever seen.

Then I saw something in the third take of Scott's close up: he tells Angela "I'm a father. Kaylie needs me," and then as we watch Scott wait for an answer, and he doesn't get it, we see his face shift to heartrending desperation as he shouts "You can't do this!" Powerful performance by Robert W Evans.

This one moment became our inspiration for cutting the scene. Long, lingering shots on Scott begging, getting no answer, and watching his emotional transition -- but also cutting to Angela when we feel the need to get a succinct, suspenseful reaction.

Then, since this scene was so complex in tone and performance, I made a cut list -- exactly which pieces of which takes to use from beginning to end.

Beth and I went through the cut list. She had a very similar impulse to linger on Scott to amp up suspense and shaped certain moments in ways I hadn't imagined that heightened the romance, the performances, the suspense, and the ending.

What an ending. Very powerful... wow...

Stay tuned for Monday -- when we watch the 2nd Cut with fresh eyes, have a "State of the Cut" meeting, and discuss where to go next with the film from here!

Interacting

2009-09-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the editor Beth and I started out in the late afternoon to cut the even more dreaded dinner scene: Scott opens up to Angela about his war trauma and encourages Angela to open up to him.

Why so dreaded? Again, not the footage. In fact, the footage was FANTASTIC. Perhaps some of the best footage in the film.

Amazing performances.

Rob Evans as Scott in this scene is at the top of his game, tender and heartbreaking at the same time as he relives his dark past to try to inspire Angela to hope. We watch Rob go from making genial first date chatter to confronting his inner most demons with the chops of an A-list movie star.

Tracy Coogan as Angela was just as fantastic, but her performance was a deeply moving in its subtlety. As Rob carries most of the dialogue, watching Tracy is like watching an example of a professional actress being present in the moment -- she hangs on every word Rob says, and with the slightest movement of her eyes or her lips parting, we feel the truth of her character washing over us.

Again, why so dreaded?

The challenge was in cutting it all together. Let me explain: in the first cut, Beth very religiously cut back and forth from Scott saying his lines to Angela's reactions... and somehow, all of that resonant energy in the seperate takes on Rob and Tracy... just vanished.

It looked like Scott and Angela were talking *at* each other. The connection wasn't there.

I had an idea: from the footage, we see them truly listening to each other, heart and soul, and we can cut this together to create moments where we see them falling for each other.

Great! We started cutting it on instinct. Going with our favorite pieces of each take. Shuffling them around. Using only the frames that worked for that particular moment in the scene (every frame counts, remember?).

We stepped back, watched it and the scene improved... only for Rob's performance. We instantly felt conntected to Scott, experienced a full emotional arc for him, and saw him connecting and falling for Angela.

But Angela still wasn't connecting to him -- even though she does in the footage! Filmmaking is so weird.

This is what it came down to: Beth and I workshopped each beat of Angela's emotional arc in this scene -- What do we want her to be feeling when she says this line? What do we want her reaction to be here? We came up with an emotional map of exactly what Angela is feeling/thinking for each beat in the scene.

Then we studied the takes of Angela with the sound off. Over and over and over again. We stopped on every imperceptible nod, blink of the eyes, tilt of the head -- any shift in movement or emotion -- and figured out where it fit into Angela's arc of the scene.

We cut that in... the scene improved. A lot. But there was STILL something missing. We had to step away. We paced. Got a drink of water. Tried talking about other things.

We came up with the idea that what if we focused on Angela over some of Scott's best lines. But his performances were so good to watch! But we tried it...

And it worked. It REALLY worked. Using the dialogue as sound bridges to long takes of Angela listening and Scott talking set this beautiful pacing, watching how each moment resonates in the other person, builds in emotion, motivates the next moment...

At last, Angela and Scott were interacting.

After all 4-5 long hours of headache-inducing work, we tried to cut the climactic balcony scene, but our brains were just fried. We gave each other our homework to do -- develop written-down emotional maps and game plans for cutting the scene -- before Thursday.

Stay tuned for Thursday -- when we finish the 2nd cut!

Oh yeah, and I went to an event called Comic Book Sunday this weekend and traded business cards with several film producers interested in my action feature script, Furious Angels.

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Flashing Back

2009-09-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Today, my editor Beth and I cut the dreaded Scene 19 -- Angela remembers her war buddy Tom dying while she's on a date with Scott. Why so dreaded? Well, in this one 2-page scene:

Angela just saw Doug -- she must kill Scott tonight
Scott reveals the babysitter canceled so the date's at his house
Angela blushes at Scott complimenting her (she likes him!)
Angela sees Scott has a file on Doug's criminal record
Angela overhears Scott talking to his adorable daughter
Angela flashes back to Tom dying in Iraq
Scott asks Angela if she wants to talk about her war trauma

As you can see, there's A LOT going through Angela's head. And each of these beats are important to the story.

To be honest, I was secretly planning on cutting this entire scene.

When I first looked at the footage, I was embarrassed. The cinematography was great, the performances were perfect -- but I was rushed that night, I combined a lot of shots, and I was certain that I had made an unusable mess with some hastily chosen angles.

That's where Beth comes in.

We had some trouble getting Angela in the front door -- again my gap in the footage -- but after the placement of the sound Angela's high heels walking in and some careful use of intercutting, the whole beginning of the scene worked seamlessly. We see all these beats washing over Angela's face and we could watch the story play out.

Then the flashbacks.

I had invented this creative rule that all the transitions between Angela on the date and Angela in Iraq would be sound cues -- sounds of Scott cooking that could resemble the sounds of gunfire, etc. But because of the lack of footage, we couldn't sync each of these moments up exactly.

Beth stepped back and looked at the four most important moments of the flashback: Tom falling over, Tom bleeding, Angela pinned down by gunfire, Angela shooting the insurgent and going over to Tom's side -- only to watch him die.

Once we identified those four pieces, we found the right sound transitions between the scenes, like Scott slamming a fridge door and Tom's helmet hitting the ground. But Beth found better transitions elsewhere -- Tom shouting over Angela's reactions on the date and then Angela In Iraq answering in Voice Over, an audio memory playing over Angela on the date and leading us right back into the final flashback.

It sounds confusing. Believe me, it got confusing. But after shaping a few cuts, dropping a few redundant shots, and tightening things up, Beth made this scene sing.

We banged out scenes 17 and 18 -- Angela preparing for the date and then seeing Doug outside Scott's house -- after a few minor tweaks. And we were done only after 4 or so hours of editing.

In fact, we finished early.

Word to the wise: Don't edit your own stuff. Hire a kickass editor. Better yet, hire Beth.

Stay tuned for Monday, when we'll cut the thrilling climax scenes!