Abridged Scripts

Do you read Rod Hilton’s parodic screenplays on The-Editing-Room.com? If not, you should.  Sometimes, they’re even funnier when you like the movie than when the movie sucks. There I go, aggregating again.  Don’t worry, I’ll have a real post up later today.

But What I Really Want To Do Is Direct

People often ask me what I eventually want to do. It’s a tough question to answer without resorting to platitudes. It’s an old Hollywood cliché that everyone wants to be a director, so I try to avoid that, even though I graduated from what amounts to a director factory. What surprises me, though, is that […]

Parking

As much as I love Los Angeles, I truly hate parking in this city. It’s hard to find, and expensive (two things that I suspect are related, somehow). Street parking is the worst. Downtown, a nickel gets you two minutes. Which is about enough time to get to the door of the building, turn around, […]

Killing the Joke

Here’s a classic joke, told on film sets around the world, that I absolutely love. A producer, a director, and a DP are scouting locations. As they’re wandering around, one of them spots a lamp. Naturally, they decide to rub it, and, just as naturally, a genie pops out. The genie says, “Since there are […]

It Won’t Happen Again

Higher-ups often ask questions when things go wrong– “Why are you late?” “What happened to all the coffee?” “Why is my dog dead?” I used to feel compelled to answer these questions. “There was traffic.” “You drank it all.” “You don’t know how to take care of anything other than yourself; it’s a wonder your […]

The Most Egregious Example of Journalistic Hyperbole, Ever in the History of Writing Things Down

I like Nikki Finke’s webpage. It had some of the most honest, reliable reporting available during the writers’ strike. She’s frequently informative and interesting, but she really needs to get a little perspective. Take her latest headline: URGENT! Warner’s ‘Watchmen’ In Legal Peril “Urgent”?  Nay, “URGENT!”  Really? The Watchmen are in danger!  Light up the […]

State of the Blog Address

Usually, since I don’t post on the weekends, I don’t get many readers on Saturday and Sunday.  So, I thought it a little odd when I received a few comments on a months old post.  Imagine me surprise, when I checked my blog stats and found I had more readers on Saturday than on Friday. […]

Telling Stories

In keeping with this week’s sexual deviancy theme, I thought I’d finally get to the “…And then he woke up with a dick in his mouth” story. In the film and TV business, you meet new people all the time. You’re regularly expected to exchange pleasantries with strangers. This kind of small talk bugs me, […]

The Porn Ranch, Part II (May Be NSFW)

When last we left our anonymous hero, he was speaking with a man who claimed to provide 45% of the pornography on the internet. I asked him, “So, uh, how many movies can you shoot in your three week schedule?” “About thirty to fifty. Plus the photo shoots.” Maybe we has telling the truth. Sure […]

The Porn Ranch, Part I

When you’re making a low budget movie, you try to save money anywhere you can. Deferred payment for the crew, low-budget SAG contracts, and especially cheap locations. I’ve worked on many a direct-to-video feature, where the “stages” we shot on were actually just warehouses with sound proofing. (Sometimes without the sound proofing; there was one […]

Passive Voice

Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash

It’s a great way of diverting blame, but every once in a while, though, the passive voice turns around and bites you on the ass.