What the hell is wrong with me?

The network loves the movie. I had a terrific dinner with my agent yesterday talking about all sorts of new ventures and avenues. I had an especially wonderful and loving night with my wife last night. My kids are happy and working hard at their various endeavors. I left the house feeling good about the movie and about life, and was looking ahead to all the uncertainties of being in this business with a sense of excitement and expectation. Then a friend called to whom I hadn't spoken in many months. A talented (in fact Oscar-winning, for a short subject) director and writer. He just called to check in and to hear about my adventures on the movie. I was happy to hear from him as we see each other far too infrequently. But as he started talking about his various projects, and the pilot he is going off to Africa to shoot, and this star he is working with and that star he is working with, my state of mind started to crumble. I may not have shared this previously in the blog but I am a terribly jealous person. I fight it, I meditate on it, I pray to have it lifted from me, but there it is. I got to the cutting room a rather reduced version of the me that had left my house half an hour earlier.

Then I settled down with my editor to some little tweaks we wanted to make, and we were enjoying ourselves, and the phone rang and it was the word from the network that they loved our last set of changes and are enthusiastically sending the the cut off to their bosses in New York for the final sign-off. All good. All good. Just one proviso. They want the music to be more "contemporary." They feel the drama is all working very well and they want the music to play against that. They want more songs and source cues. They are okay with the classical music in the piece as it relates to the older classical-music-loving character. They just want the main character's cues more contemporary. More Gray's Anatomy. More ER. I was assured that the music person at the network is talented, filmmaker-friendly, lovely to work with and has flawless taste. So why am I all crumbled and panicky again? Panicky that I'll lose a couple of cues that are making people cry and working wonderfully. Panicky that I'll have a score I don't like. That they'll plaster some kind of horrible pop crap all over what I've done. Panicky that they'll take so long to schedule the music meeting we're going to have that my composer won't have time to do the score. And on and on and on. Yes, there's another level of uncertainty here, but also a lot of reason to believe it'll be fine. So why the insta-crumble on my part? What's the answer here? Depakote, the mood stabilizer that I've been prescribed and stopped taking? More therapy? What kind of therapy? Auggghhhhhhh!

I know what answer I'm going for right now: I'm getting back to work on my next script this very second.

(He said, wondering if that was really going to happen.)

And then, out of the blue...

About an hour after I wrote the previous post I got a call: they watched it over lunch and they're giving the notes at 3:30. Well whaddaya know. So I high-tailed it back to the cutting room and the conference call came in and they loved it. Loved it. Cried multiple times. The head of movies for the network says the film should be used as a psychological test: anybody who sees one particular scene and doesn't cry is officially a sociopath. The underling who had called in the morning and seemed a little negative apologized, saying "I loved it and cried three times but I couldn't say that until I knew what my boss thought." Ah Hollywood. But all's well that ends well. The only criticisms were the placement of a couple of the act breaks, a couple of small moments they wanted to clarify (they were right on all counts), and the choice of music in the temp--which is okay--the music I really want to keep is staying and they're probably right about the rest. They'll take a look at the changes tomorrow night and then it goes to the big bosses in New York. One more gate to get through...

Arrgghghhhh

The post production schedule was agreed upon by the producers, the studio and the network weeks ago. The schedule is of particular importance to the studio because the network only gives them X amount of dollars to make the movie and anything above and beyond that amount comes out of the studio's pocket and delays in schedules cost $$$. The schedule called for the movie to be delivered yesterday and for notes to be given today. So last night I zenned myself into some kind of calm and yes a glass of pretty damn good red wine didn't hurt and I woke up today reasaonbaly ready for the notes. Which didn't come. Because the network didn't watch the movie last night. That is, the head of movies didn't. Her frightened underling did and all she said (pending finding out what her boss thinks) was: "Um, I think there may need to be more contemporary music in the, um, temp score," and that was it. This sends horror to my soul because in this spiritual story about life, death, dying and acceptance the music of Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart that I have used tells the story better than anything written after about 1805 possibly could. So we'll see what happens with that. The problem is that I SUCK AT WAITING. We're told we'll hear Monday. My mind is racing about the ways in which unskilled underling is going to transmit her fear and bad ideas to her boss. My mind is racing about oh, all kinds of grim eventualities. For better or for worse, my mind has no future-reading skills at all, as has been proven many times. So will somebody please tell my mind to Shut The Fuck Up for a minute so I can get something done between now and Monday and maybe even have a good time with my wife who is coming back from a week away and my kids who are both home this weekend?

When Will I Ever Learn

You have no idea what it's like to look over after the end of a screening of the movie you've just directed and see three people sitting on the couch in your cutting room with tears running down their eyes. It's....very very nice.

On the music front: on my last movie I had a composer crammed down my throat with a baseball bat. I went into the relationship (silently) seething with resentment. At the end of the day he totally kicked in and the score was awesome.

On this movie I got exactly the composer I had wanted the lasyt time. I went into the relationship (audibly) bursting with excietment. Today I heard some music. Among the first batch of cues there was some good stuff but a lot of it was wildly wide of the mark. I'm thinking the score is doomed. When will I ever learn?

On the last movie, the week before the network saw the cut I was gripped by anxiety. I walked around arguing in my head with this note or that note I was sure they were going to give me. I was terrified they would mess it up. I was terrified they wouldn't think it was great. The loved it, the notes they gave me all made the movie better, and they gave me another movie right away.

On this movie, it's now the week before the network sees the cut and I am gripped by anxiety. I walk around arguing in my head with this note or that note I am sure they are going to give me. I am terrified they will mess it up. I am terrified they won't think it's great. When will I ever learn?

What We Do This For

Today I spent the day in the cutting room with my fantastic composer talking about where music should and shouldn't go in the movie. We're using some Bach, some Mozart, some Vivaldi, and or course the composer's original music which will tie it all together. Lots of solo cello and in some places a great big choir. We got to talking about the dub stage (see lower photo), on which all the sound is mixed together, and how fantastic the movie sounds on the huge speakers, and how lousy it sounds when it's all compressed and broadcast in mono and comes out of a TV, and the composer, who has done tons of movies, said "Oh, I never watch the things on TV. You kill yourself if you do that," and I said "Then what do we do this for?" and she said "For this. For sitting around today talking about music and trying things out. For the joy of making this thing together." And I realized: the suffering I feel when I watch the movie with people--what are they thinking? why did he cough? why didn't they laugh harder at that joke?--is something I can choose not to undergo. The awful feeling of hearing the sound tinny and small and the picture weirdly re-framed by the way its broadcast--the same. I never have to watch the damn thing once it rolls out into the world. I can do it for the parts of it I love: the haggling over exactly which frame a music cue should start on for maximum emotional effect. The glory of looking around at the crew and seeing that they are crying because of what the actress is doing in front of the camera. The awe of going outside the church you've been shooting in for six hours (see upper photo) and discovering how the camera crew has pulled off the miracle of turning night to day. This is enough. This is enough.

Why I'm Not Blogging Right Now

So I took the rate-your-life quiz posted over on Bigg's blog and here's how it turned out:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	8.4
Mind:	7
Body:	7.1
Spirit:	8.8
Friends/Family:	7.8
Love:	9.1
Finance:	8.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

What can I say? I have a really good life. It feels like a crazy thing to say (especially today when I scarfed down tons of 72% cacao chocolate this afternoon and now feel kind of crashed-down-low) because my mindset has always been so focused on what's broken about me and what therapy or philosophy or achievement might be the right fix. I know that's no excuse not to write about the stuff of my life. I'm sure Barista Brat also has a really good life and somehow or other she manages to find something witty, biting, insightful and funny to say about a whole bunch of stuff practically every day. And I can't say I don't want to blog because hey, busman's holiday, I write all day long every day anyway, because John August is brilliant and successful and an internationally acclaimed artist and he, too, always finds something witty and insightful and illuminating to blog about. I think I'm not blogging because I thought it would be one area of my life which wasn't competitive, which just WAS, but in fact I end up reading lots of blogs that are so much more focused and funny and narratively suspenseful than mine that I end up going, why bother? And it's hard enough for me to keep writing screenplays and directing them with that feeling always lurking just at the edges of my field of vision--why add another you're-not-good-enough endeavor?

Who knows. That's why I haven't been posting. But I sure love reading all your blogs.

I will say one thing: I think the movie I'm making right now, based on evidence to date, is an authentic class-A four-hankie tearjerker, and that's something I'm damn proud of.