Thursday, December 4, 2008

Where to say what...

I forgot about this blog for awhile, I have updates and thoughts on the whole event, but think I will just complete the thread below with a quick summary of what happened that fateful Sunday.

I did bomb during the Bold Films pitch.

My Aussie friends wasted my time in the morning, hungover-ing, and the promised ride to the convention center never materialized. This left me scrambling to get to the pitch in time, driving through the smoky haze of fire-plagued SoCal and dashing down Fig, I made it with a few minutes to spare. I did the Gone Postal thing and Return of the Superbas, I think, was floundering and then I just started making shit up.

I talked about the story of a guy who came to a screenwriting conference on a flier cuz his grandma died and he had to meet with lawyers in LA anyway and a friend was starting his bachelor party and a bunch of Aussies were in town and he got loaded the night before a pitch and drove like mad to get to it and the production company rep liked his idea, the movie got made and he made a million dollars.

At least he laughed. Who would believe a story like that, he said.

So, I walked out of there at almost 11, picked up my semifinal scene which missed the finals by 5 points, and was wandering the nearly empty halls getting bummed out, and then thought oh what the fuck I'll go back and buy some more tickets.

I get in line and have no idea who to pick cuz I forgot my program and people are coming at the table from both sides and I'm waiting patiently even though I'm clearly getting cut in on and I don't care...I look down at the ground and there's a penny so I pick it up and it's from 1974 (don't know what that means yet) and the guy in front of my starts buying tickets and he says Gunn and something else, and I just step up, look at the times and buy two of what he said.

I borrowed someone's program and found out Gunn Productions did College Road Trip and Adam Sandler stuff, and think this is right in my wheel-house. I walk out, have a smoke and contemplate a way to adapt the bachelor party/Aussie idea. Make the protagonist an unemployed graphic designer, best man organizing an expensive bachelor party/road trip which he'd planned before he got canned and his wife wants him to bail on it because it's too expensive. Long story short, it's a comedy. A bachelor party/road trip/wedding movie, where there's no bachelor party, road trip or wedding.

Gunn was at Table #9 which is my lucky number. I walk up in my Dodger Spooner and she says nice shirt and I say oh are you a dodgers fan and she says no red sox and I say well at least we got manny from you, well, rented him, and she says we could have manny he's rude.

We had rapport.

She liked my pitch, offered some advice and then asked to see pages. I wrote down my email address for her, walked off feeling happy, gave away my second golden pitch ticket to someone I'd met at the expo in the days prior then bolted to go start writing the thing. I was heads down working on the thing for the next two weeks and finished it on Sunday. However, I still haven't heard back from Heather at Gunn.

I've started publishing it scene by scene with commentary here:
http://themostmediocrejokeevertoldalloneword.blogspot.com/

More later.