I Am A Screenwriter

At least, I'm trying to convince myself that I am! I finished my first draft of my script on Saturday. There were some holes where some additional research needed to go, but I got all the scenes out of my head and onto paper! I even outlined how I want the opening and closing credits to roll. I have very specific ideas b/c the documentary is already playing in my head, and I just have to get it out.

After I finished the script draft I began thinking of budget details and song choices for the brief musical sequences. I found the perfect Taj Mahal songs I wanted to use and was so happy, smiling, listening along to the songs, picturing just where I wanted to fit them in until I began to have an uneasy feeling about the whole thing. A phone call to my father confirmed my fear, that most likely Columbia Records or Sony Records or whoever would like nothing more than to charge me $25,000 in order to use a 45-second clip of a Taj Mahal song. Sob! HOWEVER...everyone knows my attitude of making Gatorade out of the Gators that life throws at me. I decided yesterday to instead focus on my local musician friends, of whom there are hundreds--and some of them even owe me favors--and identify some songs already written and recorded!

Today back at work where I have Internet, I found an Excel template online for a documentary budget. Now I just have to fill it in with my specifics and Lord knows I'm the Queen of Budgeting. I also got on MySpace and listened to several of my favorite musician friends' songs, which they all have posted on their MySpace pages. That has not been very productive b/c they only post like 4-5 songs so I need to do further research and perhaps attend some live shows in order to find the perfect songs. For example, I need a soft, poignant number, perhaps on acoustic guitar or piano. And I need a rockin' number for a specific scene and I want to end the documentary with an upbeat, up-tempo blues number (get it? Blues!) while the final credits roll.

Today I also fleshed out more of my script and filled in the holes of my research. Good job, librarian Adela! The script is really coming together and I sent the first draft to my father and brother. Unfortunately my brother is not sure he's in on the project and he is trying to decide what to do. Fortunately I got some more crew members in the form of friends who have volunteered and I am going to hold them to their word!

One of them is G. and she and I went to the House of Blues on Friday night. We saw our mutual friend play with his band in the restaurant portion and she shot lots of pictures with a really nice camera. I might use her to shoot still photos of the documentary process when she is not busy being a grip or whatever it is that movie crew members do. I managed to sleep in late on Saturday, 'til 11:30. I got a lot done that day before going to pick up Mudflap for a night of patrol on the 11-7 shift. There were some aggravating things that were going on, and I'm not even talking about the criminals but rather our fellow cops, but I was glad to be out and I was also glad to be doing all the driving since we were using my district's patrol car and were working under my unit number. I drove 90 MPH whenever I could so I could practice being an aggressive deputy.

Nothing much was going on and by 3am we just decided to lie in wait at a blinking red light to catch California rollers. But at 5am a total idiot Puerto Rican knucklehead ran his Mazda into a tree and so we got the chance to jack with him a little bit. We were actually going to arrest him and cuffed him and threw in the backseat, especially after we found a piece of straw that held a white residue in his pocket. However, we ended up having to let the idiot go home with his brother since neither of us had a drug testing kit on us--one of the downsides of being a Reserve [I will not be mentioning this in my documentary!] is that we just aren't as well-equipped as "real" deputies. But before we let him go I had a lot of fun repeatedly screaming at him to "SHUT UP!!!" in Spanish b/c he kept whining and moaning in the backseat. Pendejo! Later a narcotics unit drove by and gave us a whole mess of drug testing kits, including Meth! I took the little straw home and will test the residue when I get a chance, just for fun. I was too tired to do it yesterday since Mudflap and I didn't get done 'til 9am and I didn't get home 'til almost 10am at which point I fell asleep 'til 4pm.

The suspense of waiting for the Chief and Sheriff to get back to me is killin' me. I am working really hard on this project and now I am committed to seeing it to fruition. The creative process for me is quite easy though. I'll be meeting with my dad on Friday for a pre-production meeting. After I draft a budget and find the perfect songs, I'll work on a shooting schedule. Now I'm thinking I may want to be done with this film by next Spring so I can enter it at film festivals! What a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal--see Jim Collins) that is! Dare I dream???