Report Card

When I was in elementary school I used to get nervous to the point of sweating over what grade I was going to get when Teacher was handing back tests and papers. An A and a smiley face meant hours of happiness and pride. Anything B+ or lower and the absence of a gold star or a smiley face meant gloom and shame. Do you think anything has changed? The day before yesterday EP #1, the lovely, warm one who is my friend, gave me five notes on the whole movie, said only nice things about it beside those notes--which were small, detailed and very very smart--and then went on to talk for an hour about the temp score--the music from other movies which we've put on the film until our composer has finished his cues--also in a detailed and intelligent manner. She liked the movie and it was all very positive. She even said "What kind of notes will the network possibly have on this?" So why am I on the gloomy side? Because I didn't get an A+, a smiley face, a "this is brilliant and perfect." Then yesterday EP #3---the famous one, the one who ran two studios and a big record label into bankruptcy in the 80's and 90's and made several hundred million dollars in golden parachute fees along the way---spent a few hours in my cutting room being condescending, vague, and, truth be told, quite sharp and creative. And also quite positive about the movie: almost all of his comments had to do with ideas about the music. All in all, with a couple of exceptions which I will deal with, his comments will make the movie better. So why am I so low? Again: lack of a big hug, a YOU ARE BRILLIANT. So grow up already, Tom! You're a grownup professional, not a first grader whose entire ego is wrapped up in his precocity. In the land of grownup professionals it's about getting the job done, not about petting the cute little A student on the head. Basta, basta, basta,. I'm cross with myself for so easily giving in to feelings of insecurity, hurt feelings and fear of never working again (have felt that one since my first job 28 years ago) to the degree that I am.

Here's my biggest problem with EP #'s notes. It has to do with romantic music--music that expresses love. I feel that all the great love songs ever written are about yearning, longing, aching, not about happy happy triumph. Think of Unchained Melody. It's not a Sesame Street alphabet song. It's a ballad. There's a sadness to it, a sadness that makes you happy. EP #3 wants all the love music to be positive. First I have to not throw up at the thought of it. Then I have to figure out how to win on this one without making any enemies.

Oh For Crying Out Loud

You'd think this was the first piece of work I had ever turned in to a producer. You'd think I just fell off the Hollywood apple cart. You'd think my survival depended on what I am going to hear tomorrow at 10 A.M. when Executive Producer #1 comes into the cutting room and gives me and the editorial team notes from herself and Executive Producers #'s 2 and 3. They all watched the film today. I've heard nothing. I'm dyin' here.

EP #1 is a very warm and good person, my agent's wife, always supportive and intelligent in her note-giving, though in some cases driven more by second guessing of what the network will say than by her own gut. That said, she has a good gut and never, in all the work I've done for her, have I ever been forced into a creative move I didn't embrace.

EP #2 is a deal making guy, an administrator, an exceptionally calm and supportive person who, as far as I can tell, has little creative sense in these matters and tends to defer to those who do. Yes, he's the guy who helped spearhead hiring a composer based on the famous name of the composer's mentor, but I like him a lot. And he has always treated me with great respect and warmth.

EP #3 is famous. Famous for being involved with 4 best picture Oscar winners, famous for running three studios into the ground and walking away with a few hundred million dollars for his trouble, famous for being a big talker. Along the way of making this movie he has contributed several truly excellent ideas that have become effective moments in the film. He has also come up with some howlers, such as: "In order to really sell the Southern setting, can we see Confederate flags flying here and there?" I kid you not. And this story is no period piece, this story is 2007. He was gracefully dissuaded from this notion by the entire team, not just me. He also prefaces all his notes with "Take what works for you, leave the rest."

I'll also be getting notes from Foreign Financier Lady. FFL, in the script notes, suggested that in order to sex up the international version of the film I should have the heroine start out in her underwear as she dresses for her mother's funeral. For her mother's funeral! She was dissuaded from that by the whole team. (The weird post script to that one is that the always classy and ultra modest La Starlet, when shooting the scene, started out in her underwear, completely unbidden! Classy guy that I am, in the film I cut into the shot when all that's left to do is tie the belt of her elegant black dress.) FFL is a little crazy but in an appealing way, we've worked together before, and I've never had a problem with any creative note I've ever gotten from her.

So why am I scared shitless about tomorrow morning? More scared, maybe, than for any notes-session I've had since my early days in the business? Does it have something to do with the fact that it's my 25th anniversary and my wife and I are going out to get matching tattoos of love tonight, and it's the needle I'm really afraid of? No. It's about the notes tomorrow. It's my fear of being asked to do something that won't work and that the film will be stuck with. And, more than that maybe, it's my fear of being asked to do something that I know is right: that shows me a flaw in the film that I didn't see. And even more than that: a flaw that might not be fixable.

Oh shut up, Tom. Go get your wife some flowers and celebrate. Celebrate the 25 years, the wonderful kids we've produced, the life we lead, how happy we are together these days. Go!

Well, maybe two glasses of wine will get me there.

Note to Self

Self:

Do not, NOT, show unfinished copy of movie to nervous star. NOT.

La International Star called me last week in the cutting room. Of course I could barely hear her over the voice that was yelling SHE IS CALLING ME! IN MY CUTTING ROOM! SHE OF WHOM I USED TO DREAM WHEN I WAS TWENTY! IS CALLING ME! IN MY CUTTING ROOM! Still, somehow, I did manage to hear that she was concerned about the southern accent she had adopted for the film, and was it sounding all right, and she didn't want people to see it and say "she can't do accents". My reassurances that it was all fabulous (said with my fingers slightly crossed, I'll admit) did no good, so then I, Mr. Genius, said "I'll show you a cut of the film!" Any thoughts that I might have made a mistake were swept away by her closing words: "I hope to see you soon. I don't want you going out of my life." Meltsville!

So I sent her the film.

Today she called. Using her full name to identify herself, when the other day she had used her popular affectionate nickname. She is disappointed in how I edited her performance. She feels I put 20% of what she gave me on the screen. There was no emotion, she felt. I had cut all of her closeups, she said. I had her standing there motionless, she lamented.

Oh what I wouldn't give for five minutes on the planet where it's always okay to say the truth no matter what. Here's what I would have said on that planet:

You weren't emotional in the takes and closeups I didn't use in the film: you were overwrought, melodramatic and forced. I didn't use the closeups because this just intensified the problem. And if you didn't want to be seen as motionless, why didn't you move around? I'll tell you why: you didn't move around because you didn't want to risk leaving the perfect star-close-up halo lighting you had asked for. In the one scene where you did suddenly start moving--wonderfully, I thought--you were still overwrought and melodramatic, which again limited my choices of takes.

But of course I don't live on that planet so I said "Oh, I'm so sorry you feel that way, I think you are so wonderful and strong and I see all the emotion in your eyes and I feel the character is stronger if she doesn't let everything show etc. etc. etc." She wasn't buying any of it. I told her I was heartbroken that she didn't like her work in the film (and I was, in a way: I want her blessings and approval!). I told her I would look at everything again and try to use more closeups. And I will look at all the takes again. Part of me wants to cut together a version of her scenes with all the worst over-acting in them and send them to her with a sweet little note saying "Is this more along the lines of what you were hoping for?"

But here's the truth about why this upsets me. I'm afraid I've lost that "I don't want you going out of my life." I'm afraid that I, the nerd, have lost my big shot at getting invited to sit at the popular kids' table.

I'm afraid that my chance to invite her to a dinner party and impress all my friends has just gone out the window.

And that's something I would only, ever, admit to you guys.

Here There Be Monsters

That's what they used to put at the edges of old maps, before the continents were charted and we settled into the current boring state of knowing where everything is: Here There Be Monsters. The idea being, if you don't know, expect the worst. I'm coming to the edge of the map of the world of my movie. A week from yesterday, on the day of my 25th wedding anniversary, I hand it to the producers, and a few days after that to the network. At that point I go from King to serf. I can argue my case, I can make my point, but at the end of the day I don't have final cut. What am I worried about? That they will soften the edges? That they will demand clarifications of things that I already know, from showing the movie to people, are already clear? That I will hear things I know are true and won't want to hear? That they won't like it? That they won't hire me again? All of this adds to the general feeling of post partum letdown and creeping anxiety that has taken hold of me. The party is winding down...

The pad in the picture is the apartment they rented for me while I was making the movie. It was virtually never as neat as shown--I am a domestic slob and I cleared everything off the surfaces before I took the picture. I loved that apartment, and it actually makes me happy to look at it: the party may be winding down, but its been a damn good party and I think I've gotten everything out of it, and put everything into it, that I possibly can.

Sad Dad

My father--now 93, retired, and suffering from non-Alzheimer's dementia--was very successful in his career. He won awards, raised his kids in affluence, traveled the world. But he had the misfortune to have started out in his career with three other men who went on to become not just rich, not just famous, but household names. Every single one of you who is reading this knows all three names. My father never recovered from their mega-success. For decades he brooded on it, gnawed on it, raged at it. When one of them spoke in the press about the project they had all started on and failed to mention him, or did not give him sufficient credit for what they had all created together, he would call them up and rage at them on the phone, guaranteeing an end to what might have been lifelong friendships. This is sad enough. What is sadder is that now, with 90% of his memory gone, the faces of his grandchildren only vaguely familiar to him, unable to read a newspaper or carry on more than the simplest conversation, he still remembers, and talks about, and broods on, and gnaws on, the three famous friends and how much more successful they became than he did. Yesterday he told me that he wakes up in the middle of the night and tries to think of anything about himself that makes him important. I tried to tell him that nobody is important, everybody is just a normal person living their life and getting by, because I knew where this was going, but he said no, no, and mentioned the name of one of the three friends, and said "He's an immortal." All of this detailed recall from a man who, just after eating dinner, will ask when he's going to have his dinner. And here is what is sadder yet: I talked to him about all the other projects he has worked on through the years, the awards he has won, the beautiful things he has created. But all he remembers is the work he did in the early 50's with three men who went on to become immortals. He has, it now appears, no recollection of anything else he did for the rest of his career.

Here's where all this really hits home for me:

I also started out in my career with somebody who has gone on to become more famous and successful than I am. And in my case, it's my brother.

He has a new project out that is getting all sorts of attention in the press and last week my mother said "I have a question and I hope it doesn't offend you." And then proceeded to ask, "All this hoopla around your brother, does it bother you? Does it give you a twinge?"

And you know what? The answer was honestly no. At first I couldn't figure out why it was no. And then I realized: years ago I took a vow not to carry on my father's sickness and sadness. I prayed to be released from it. And apparently the vow and the prayer worked.

Thank God. Literally.

I'll tell you what did bother me, and did give me a twinge: the fact that my mother would ask me that question.

But that's another story.

First Screening

Today my baby went to its first day of nursery school. I called one of the executive producers into the studio--the one I like and trust the most--and ran the whole movie without interruption. Also without sound effects (birds in the forest, chatter and clatter in restaurants, traffic on the streets, etc.--you have no idea what a difference these things make) and only a few music cues. I was weirdly un-nervous--I guess I know the movie is in good shape and what it's going to rise or fall on at this point is the story itself.

Her reaction?

The comment when the lights came up was "Very nice. You should feel good about this. Very good first-showing-it-to-me." I take that as a B-. She had only three or four small notes, all of which I thought were very good and all of which we executed. Except, of course, the recurrent one about making Le Star more sexy. I'm sorry, he's exactly as sexy as he is; short of plastic surgery, three months in the gym and a total reshoot there isn't much I can do.

Of course I wanted her to leap to her feet and hug me and say "that's the best director's cut I've ever seen." So why didn't I get that?

Because it's a nice enough story with terrific performances well told. She did admit that she has trouble seeing movies clearly without music and effects, which she'll have in about 10 days. Still...

Tomorrow is the real test. I'm showing it to a couple of strangers. To people who doesn't know the story or anything about it and aren't in the business. Then I'll find out if there's anything compelling about the characters and all their running around.

That one I'm nervous about.

A Small Thing

Going back to the composer who was crammed down my throat with a baseball bat by the producers:

I went to his studio yesterday to hear his first try at a few of the cues.

Auggghhhhhhhhhh!

We have ten year old children playing in a pond in the woods. There's somebody else in the woods, watching them, unseen. We don't know how much of a menace the watcher is, or if the watcher is a menace at all. I talked to the composer about a single sustained string line, maybe a couple of tentative piano notes, a sense of mystery, of anticipation.

I got a cue that wouldn't have been out of place in the climactic battle in Alien vs. Predator. Booming drums, screaming strings, wailing synths. I sat in the big comfortable chair in his studio listening to this and desperately trying to come up with what to say. I realized that if I had hired him, if he knew that I thought he was great, if there was trust between us, I could have said "Oh, man, that is waaaaay off the mark," and we would have gone from there. But he and I aren't there yet. So I had to say "That is so beautiful, but I'm not sure it's exactly right for this moment in the film." The good news is, he's smart enough to have been able to translate that to THAT CUE SUCKS THE BIG ONE, CHARLIE. The even better news is, he's extremely eager to please and get it right so he got right to work on a hugely scaled-down version. I listened to other cues. The ones that weren't entirely wrong were...what's the word?... Pallid. Fine. Good enough. In the past I've taken cassettes home from music sessions and played them in my car and for my friends and bragged about what an amazing composer I had. I don't think I'll be doing that this time...

Here's the capper. There are four movies in this series, of which mine is the first. After I went quietly ballistic at having my composer chosen for me (which is in contravention of the rules set by the Directors Guild of America, though those rules are in most cases unenforcable), they went to the next director, gave him this guy's music and said "What do you think of him?"--without telling him the guy had already been hired--hoping, I suppose, that the director would love the music and they wouldn't have to admit that they had screwed up. When the director came back with "I don't think this guy is great at all", all they could say was "Um, he's already on the payroll..."

Why would a producer who has made about two hundred million dollars in this business feel the need to lie to the director of a cable movie? Why be sheepish when you've got all the cards in your hand anyway?

Blind Pilot

In the strange language of the land called Hollywood the term "blind pilot" does not, as you might assume, describe somebody quintessentially unsuited for their job. It describes a deal in which a studio agrees to pay a writer X dollars to write a television pilot (first episode of a series) whether or not the studio and writer actually sell an idea to a network. I have such a deal and it sounds like an amazing thing except for two little catches:

1. Nobody ever actually makes the studio pay the money if an idea isn't sold to a network. Well, not nobody, but it's not smiled upon and, to me, it doesn't even really feel right. Or maybe I've just never had the guts. If no idea is sold the deal usually gets "rolled over" to the next development season.

2. I have NOT A SINGLE IDEA IN MY HEAD for a series right now. I've written eight pilots, three of which have gotten on the air, which is an extremely high ratio--and the source of getting the deal in the first place. But my head is blank. No, worse than that. It's full of REALLY BAD HACKNEYED IDEAS. Yesterday I pitched one of them to the studio over the phone and felt that sick creeping embarrassment you feel when you realize that something stupid is coming out of your mouth and real actual human beings are hearing it and losing their faith in you as you speak.

The simplest explanation for this is that my head is, appropriately, filled with the movie I'm in the process of editing. But it's worse than that. I've never been a flood-of-ideas guy. Good ones come to me rarely, though when they do come they roar into my head like a Category 5. But let me tell you, south Florida wishes it had my hurricane frequency. Ai ai ai. The whole thing feels EXACTLY like the dream where you are standing in your fifth grade classroom with no clothes on.

I am tempted to end this post with FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR REWARD TO ANYBODY WHO SENDS ME AN ORIGINAL SERIES IDEA LEADING TO A NETWORK PILOT DEAL FOR THE 2006-2007 DEVELOPMENT SEASON but I'm at least clear headed at 5:25 on this warm August morning to know what a legal tangle that would be.

So unfortunately you'll have to keep your no doubt way-better-than-mine ideas to yourselves, leaving me to beg God for inspiration.

Let me tell you, given that I am seen as something of a TV series idea machine by some people (people who don't realize that two of my three series were based on ideas given to me by the networks that hired me) what I feel like right now is a blind pilot.