California Here I Am!

 Santa Claus Goes to Pirate Island would have a long list of festival acceptances. One of what I like to call 'A-List Finishes' is that of ScriptP.I.M.P. (Pipeline into Motion Pictures.) I think there were an even dozen of finalists and I'm pretty sure we were all there. 

Shortly after I got the acceptance email, I got a call from a producer. She said she had read my script and wanted to know if she could present it at something called the Producers Showcase. It was an annual pitchfest where producers waited for would-be writers, directors, or producers to approach them with a script or an idea in hopes of seeing their project made. This particular producer told me Spielberg would be at the Showcase. She wanted to know if I'd be all right with having him read the script.

This was my headshot for programs for many years

Spielberg and had traveled similar paths. We'd gotten Super 8 movie cameras as kids. He went to film school. I sold shoes. It seemed only natural for him to see my script so I said yes.

I'm not a fan of doing things like this alone. My wife couldn't go so I asked a buddy of mine to go along with me. Kegger, as I'll call him, joined me. I took care of the hotel and flights. He took care of the rental car, which wound up not being the convertible he reserved but a jeep. 

I booked us at a Ramada in West Hollywood. It was down the hill from the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard. When I say down the hill, I mean at the bottom of a mountain. I had never seen handrails on the side of a building until then.

The Comedy Store

(SeeWestHollywood.com)

The trip from LAX to the hotel took us about two hours. Not because of traffic. We kept missing our turn on Santa Monica. We drove through Rodeo Drive shopping district to the point we were imitating Chevy Chase in European Vacation when the family gets stuck on the roundabout. 'Looks kids, Big Ben. Parliment.'

We eventually found our turn. After checking into the hotel, we took a cab to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. There weren't a lot of people there. It was us, a blond woman, and two other dudes, one of which was dressed all in black and sporting a matching cowboy hat. He kept drinking bourbon and buying memorabilia right off the walls. The guy he was with kept trying to get him to stop but the more the man in black drank, the more items he bought. The blond cozied up to the man buying framed guitars and autographed album covers until the man in black and his sidekick got into an argument. The altercation became physical. The woman abruptly left. The fight continued.

The Hard Rock Cafe

(SeeWestHollywood.com)

I remember the bartender casually asking if we wanted anything else. 'Just the bill,' I said. We drank a hundred dollars with of Las Cerveza Mas Fina, which sounds like a lot of beers, but was only like five a piece.

We took a cab back to the hotel. It was early. Dinner had. actually been late afternoon lunch California time. We walked up the mountain. Halfway up we found the House of Blues. The door was open so we went inside. They didn't serve until five. We wandered around. No one stopped us. We left and went up the hill.  We had thought about getting tickets to a show featuring a few eighties bands but passed on that idea. The next day I had a sit down with a producer. The meeting was at 11:00 a.m. at a Starbucks on Melrose. After that we were taking in an Angels game.

The Meeting Place

(Yelp)

We made our way back down to the hotel where we crashed for a couple of hours. We found a place that served burgers and Brazilian beer for dinner. Then it was back to the room. I went solo to a Trader Joe's where I got spicy flax seed chips and Mango-Peach Habanero salsa and a six-pack. I thought I saw Courtney Cox and David Arquette. I probably didn't.

The next morning on the news we heard there was a stabbing at the concert we passed on seeing. There was also the story of a man dressed all in black taking off his clothes except for his cowboy hat and running down Melrose naked. He eluded the police.

I went to the breakfast coffee meeting. It lasted about thirty minutes. I remembered how terrible I was at pitching a script. When he shot down Santa and asked what else I had I realized I had nothing. I went back to the hotel. Kegger was ready to roll. The Angels game started at seven. We grabbed lunch and then headed to Anaheim.

Angels Stadium

(stockphotos.com)

I was only half into the game. At one point we wandered the stadium. When we went back to our seats, someone else was sitting in them. We took different seats and left after the seventh. We were getting the hang of California driving. Good thing because the following morning we were going back to Anaheim to spend the afternoon at Disneyland.

We arrived at the park around ten. Kegger parked the Jeep and I serendipitously took a picture of the spot. We did all the E-Ticket rides, ate a lot of grub, and eventually left around five. A good forty-five minutes passed before we found our car. We were just about to flag security to report a stolen Jeep when I remembered I took a picture of the parking spot. A large Daisy Duck on a column guided us back to our vehicle. 

That night we ate at the Comedy Store. I had wings. A couple of beers. We sat near a couple of other writers at the festival. Shared plots. Comedian/Actor Jeff Ross sat down behind us. I recognized home from a CSI episode.

Pretty soon it was time to check-in. We made our way down the hall. Got seated. Got our free cocktail. Tipped modestly (struggling writer, after all). Tipped graciously as the night pressed on. 

The ceremony was open to all guests. I'd overheard the owner complaining the writers were being too tight on ordering. The compromise was to open the room to non-festival attendees so a wall slid or parted and there were all these other people. The comedians now didn't know if they should pander to the festival goers or the people buying drinks. The first few tried doing 'writer jokes'. The ones who killed were the ones who didn't. Every three comedians, the host announced another group of five finalist writers. Name and Script Title. When Santa Claus Goes to Pirate Island was announced, I got some laughs. Kind of fitting as we were at the Comedy Store.

After the top three scripts were announced, the festival ended. We had a couple of cocktails at the reception but we didn't stay long. I had my time with Hollywood. I wasn't disappointed.

It Was Nice When It All Began

I wrote a screenplay once and sent it to the brother of a co-worker. I was more familiar with writing for the stage. I didn't know anything about screenplay formatting. My co-worker's brother was kind. At the time he had written, directed, and produced several low-budget films.  He told me the story was a classic underdog-to-champ tale, but until I learned how to format a screenplay, forget it. 

I've since lost the script. I forget what I called it. Something dry and witty, I'm sure. The story follows four friends who form an in-line roller hockey team and battle for a trophy and some money. Along the way, they grow, find girlfriends, and become winners in their own ways.

I never did anything with the script. I left it to rot. A few years later Grind came out. That script followed four friends who wanted to be famous skateboarders.  My wife asked if that was my script. It was a running joke because I had once pitched the idea of a movie about a karaoke contest that follows the lives of the contestants. We'd gone to the movies and during the preview of coming attractions, the trailer for Duets played. I stood up, pointed at the screen, and said, 'That's my movie!' Ever since then, she asks if I want to take credit for other films. I had to explain I didn't think someone stole my idea. I explained ideas for stories or scripts present themselves and if we don't act on it, the idea will migrate to someone who will. 

'This is why I'm a math teacher,' she said. 

The script that started it all for me was a comedy-action-holiday thriller called Santa Claus Goes to Pirate Island. Ninety-one pages using every trope I could except Rudolph because of all the legal wrangling I thought it would create. Santa returns to a corporate board meeting that tells him profits are down. He becomes disillusioned until an emergency call comes in that a child was missed in the 1950s and he needs to go back to deliver a gift to alter a tragic event. He goes back even farther to rescue his brother from drowning, and along the way, he rescues children kidnapped by pirates. A sword fight ensues between Santa and Captain Bones Marsh, only Santa uses a window squeegee based on a popular animated character called Squeegee Rob Khakipants. Everything gets wrapped up with a bow on it just before the next holiday. 

I proofread it, missed a ton of mistakes, and sent it to its first film fest via Withoutabox, a website I think has since closed. Several months later, I received an email from the Great Lakes International Film Festival saying the script had been accepted in the festival screenplay category.

This was big. I'd always wanted to just be a writer. I wrote so much in so many styles. Short stories. Novels. Short scripts. Long scripts. Stageplays. Dramatic scenes. Kids books. Moderate success. But this, this was saying something to me about my ability. The acceptance and nomination cracked open a door that had been closed for a long time. 

Of course, you open one door and then you see there's another one you need to open. The important thing is the first door was open, right?

We spent the third weekend of September 2005, in Erie, PA, attending the Great Lakes International Film Festival. The entire event took place at the Roadhouse Theatre. I checked in and found out we were issued All-Access, VIP passes because I was a finalist. On the first night, we watched a series of short films. There was one about an abandoned factory in the middle of a forest and whoever went in, relived a memorable moment in their lives. Another film told what I'm sure was the writer's personal struggle of juggling her life as a single mom and her upcoming deployment to Afghanistan; the mother did not want to have to leave her daughter with the mother's abusive father. My wife still talks about it all these years later.

General Electric showed up with an infomercial for a new type of lightbulb. These lightbulbs are everywhere now but they were asking filmmakers what they thought of the lightning changes in their film. Directors, lighting directors, and cinematographers vocally approved as the GE film showed a scene in regular lighting and then with the new bulb. The man and woman from GE looked at us and said, 'You tell us. Which is better?' They were asked if they brought free samples.

The Roadhouse was packed. After each film, there was a very quick talk-back from the directors with the audience. Time just didn't permit more than a few comments or questions. The host/MC did a great job of moving the night along. We were exhausted at the end of the night but it was a good exhaustion. After a brief intermission, a feature film was shown. The movie was The Derby Stallion. It might have been the premiere. We didn't see it as we opted to go to dinner. The film starred Bill Cobbs, most notably from the Night at the Museum movies playing opposite Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney. Also featured in the movie was Zach Efron. Neither of them were in attendance that we knew of, though Efron's star hadn't risen just yet. 

The next day there were a couple of premieres of films by local movie makers. The host/MC showed up with a black eye. After a catered lunch for all VIPs, there was an awards ceremony hosted by two Erie, PA news anchors. My script didn't win but it didn't need to. That door that had opened had been enough.

Everything Old is New Again

This blog will be short. It's going to cover my experiences at film festivals. Though few, they are memorable. Sit back, surf, and if you land here, it's the story of being pinch-fingers-closed close to turning the corner to success.

Enjoy!