Mark Davidson. The Writer.

He’s a handsome devil, ain’t he:

Finished up BELOW THE ICE (this is not to be confused with all of the other postings re: Finished up Below the Ice) and out it goes.  This time of year, though, as things come to a virtual standstill, feedback will probably be delayed… maybe all the way ’till after the first of the year.

I did a polish on The Disciple for Richard Clark, Jr. at Newdaydream.

I also spent several days on Pinky Promise in a sort-of-heavy re-write. I consistently get the note that the shifts in the time line are (at first) jarring.  My first thought was — “ok, don’t make the time line shift.” But that’s what makes the story so cinematically engaging. The first time we jump back is to look at an inciting event in our main characters child hood. That happens on page 19.

No big deal because the slugline clearly indicates…

Like I said: pretty clear. Any reader should be able to follow along. We come out of the sequence on the middle of page 21 with PRESENT DAY.

BUT THEN things get dicey.

At the bottom of page 21, we go INTO THE FUTURE thus starting a frequent back-and-forth in time, cutting between the main story line in the present and the consequences in the future.

To avoid constantly shifting sluglines (which readers frequently ignore anyway…) I went back and made sure that there were visual clues that time had shifted.  At the beginning of the story, WE SEE the end of a Texas summer. Bright green leaves, short sleeves, etc. The future time line is late November. When we’re in this time line, we see Thanksgiving decorations, marquees about Thanksgiving events. Talk of Thanksgiving vacations.  Enough so it’s clear. Not so much that it’s distracting.

It works. Or at least it works much better than not mentioning it at all.

M A R K

Yawn.

Hollywood’s winding down. Time for them to take their long post-Thanksgiving slumber.

Me? I keep on going. Like the energizer bunny. I don’t have a choice. I can’t take 6+ weeks off at the end of the year to..uh… recharge the batteries.

We (me and Alex) are making good headway. Just about have BELOW THE ICE retooled. It’s looking good.  Like THE POSSESSED, it’s a long, sometimes painful process of collaboration. They say out of fire comes… crap, I forget. Something good, though.

Richard Clark, Jr. (why does Richard keep the Jr. on his name?  I’ve never called his cell and gone “Richard?” and had the response “You lookin’ for the junior or the senior?”) presses forward with PINKY PROMISE and THE DISCIPLE.  Allegedly, he’s shooting GRINDER in Shreveport sometimes in the near future.  This is a good thing.

Shreveport (99th largest city in the US!), if you didn’t know, is about 250 north of the Gulf of Mexico, sort of on the Texas - Louisiana - Arkansas corner. Because of killer tax incentives, it’s become the 3rd largest city for the film industry (behind CA and NY).  It’s known as “Hollywood South” and has had a number of large productions there over the years.

Saw a BAD ASS little short called KIRKSDALE.  I see a lot of shorts. Most of them look horrible and suffer from a plethora of problems. KIRKSDALE, though, is different.  Beautifully composed by Director Ryan Spindell. Very well executed and worth the 20 minute run-time. Seek this one out.

Lotsa phone meetings lately. That’s good.  We’re getting good reaction to the writing from some of the biggies and getting on the radar of more and more people who can get things done.

OSIRIS (formerly VOID formerly VENTURE) is shaping up as well. We’ve got a large prod-co on our side and It’s ’sposed to go out to select directors this week, maybe next week.  We get a good name on-board and bingo-bango-bongo, we’re in business.

One of the frequent objections to OSIRIS is the cannibalism. Yep. They eat each other. Over the years, I’ve come up with a thousand retorts for this (”no, it’s not about cannibalism, it’s about survival. Cannibalism is HOW they survive…”).  Of course, this is an uphill battle. It’s hard to get past the cannibalism part.

Thankfully, THE ROAD is coming out about a post-apocalyptic world where, you guessed it, they have to eat each other. Luckily, THE ROAD isn’t a B movie:

And, like OSIRIS, it isn’t about cannibalism! It’s about survival!

M A R K

Saw many movies. Two stand out: “Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen” and “Inside Deep Throat.”

Transformers 2: it was beyond bad. Horrible. Spectacular special effects, though. The part I liked? When that one blur of pixels attacked that other, same colored blur of pixels? Yeah… that was cool.

I’m not alone in the criticism. There’s a long line of … vocal detractors.

But really, this about “Inside Deep Throat”, the documentary ABOUT “Deep Throat.”

Deep Throat was shot in ‘72 on a budget of $22,000 and had a global take somewhere around 600M. Biggest. Return. Ever…. EVAR!!! Of course, there were all sorts of “accounting irregularities” and the mob was involved and… well… it was pretty much a mess.

There was a scene in the documentary where director/writer Jerry Girard explains how he convinced the producer, Lou Perry, to move ahead with the film. Jerry explained to Lou that his hook was that his protagonist, Linda Lovelace, had her… uh… “sexual organs” … uh… in the … uh… back of her mouth.

Producer Perry explodes “What the hell! That makes NO sense! People won’t go for that…”

Of course, Girard convinces Perry it’s a good idea and the rest is box-office history. Hell, box office gold, right?

I have to imagine that much the same conversation happened between Bay and his production team. THEM: “This makes NO sense!”  Bay “It’s GIANT F’ING ROBOTS! It doesn’t have to make sense!”

And… well. He was right.

As of this writing, T2 has grossed 832M worldwide.

Sooooo… why didn’t they just shoot them all with that rail-gun thing mounted on the ship…?

DON’T ANSWER THAT! No need. Just move along.

The backlash is fervent. Left and right, people feel cheated. But do ENOUGH people feel cheated? When the inevitable T3 comes out, will Bay give more of the same, or will he react to feedback and do something to resurrect the franchise. I don’t know.

Because when you have THAT big of a hook “Giant f**king robots!” do you REALLY need a story? Just like in Deep Throat… do you REALLY need that big of a story? Or does a woman with sex organs in her mouth carry the day?

Something to think about. Behold… the power of the hook.

M A R K

The world premier of Primal (aka ‘THE LOST TRIBE’) is going to be at the American Film Market in Santa Monica on Saturday, November 7th, at 7:00 PM PST.

Click HERE for a link to the event.

Here’s the PRIMAL poster:

(Cool poster!)

And here’s a link to the DISTRIBUTORS version of 2:20 trailer (it seems a little dark to me)

Just so we’re all clear.  All of the information (above) was gathered from OTHER PUBLIC SOURCES! I am not the source.

M A R K

That phrase occurred to me just a while ago as I was writing a new ending for Below the Ice.

It literally had to go to 11.

I looked at what I already had and thought: Is it an 11?

No. It was not an 11.  I need an 11. I need it to be so ass-kickingly spectacular ™ that it went to 11.  It had to be an orgasm for the eyes. An unexpected spectacular explosion of awesomeness.

Simply put: that’s the level of competition.  Sure, I could wrap it in subtle metaphors. Paint a textured portrait. Something that changes depending on the light. Sure I could.

But really, it just has to kick major ass. It has to go to 11.

And that’s the rub, right? Art vs. Commerce?

Art rarely puts cereal in the bowl. Art won’t unclog a toilet. Last I heard, I can’t pay the electric bill by telling the electric company to “charge it to the art account.”

It has to be a cupcake. Not an ordinary cupcake. The best cake. Best icing. Best sprinkles.

So — instead of having a “pretty good” ending.  Or a “logical ending.” Or “an ending you’re happy with” I’d say, “ask yourself, does it go to 11?”

M A R K

I love music. All kinds. The Police are playing in the background right now. My playlist, which I stream from my wife’s computer via WinAmp remote

to the XBOX 360 and out of the good sound system, is comprised of 514 choice tracks from my library of 21389 (and growing). I don’t say this to say “ohhh, look how many” — I say it to demonstrate the diversity of the music we listen to.

Here’s a sampling of some of the other artists in the playlist: AC/DC, Bee Gees, Blink 182, Blue Oyster Cult, Springsteen, Butthole Surfers, Darius Rucker, Doug Sahm, ELO, Fuel, Garth Brooks, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, Kings X, Zeppelin, Lucinda Williams, Mike Doughty, The Crue, Natalie Merchant, Primus, Prince, Radney Foster, RHCP, Ryan Adams, Third Eye Blind, Van Halen… etc. etc.

Like right now, Foo Fighters came on. The song “Statues”

We’re just ordinary people, you and me.

Time will turn us into statues, eventually.

Brilliant. So simple. So true.

Ryan Adams. The song “Two”

I got a really good heart

I just can’t catch a break

If I could I’d treat you like you wanted me to, I promise

But I’m fractured from the fall

And I wanna go home.

Very simple. Yet conveys such a vivid UNIVERSAL message. “And I wanna go home.” Dude — who doesn’t wanna go home, right?

Somebody much smarter than me pointed out how Springsteen’s writing was a lot like a good screenplay.

Take this opening from the seminal THUNDER ROAD:

The screen door slams.

Mary’s dress waves.

Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey that’s me and I want you to want me.

Don’t turn me home again

I just can’t face myself alone again.

Again. Beautiful. So simple. So UNIVERSAL. “I just can’t face myself alone again.”

OK, so no, this isn’t going to turn into my sophomore lit class, where i went rogue and decided that instead of  dissecting the Canterbury Tales I would discuss the REAL meaning behind Queen’s “Another One Bite’s the Dust!” (an AIDS allegory, me-thinks…)

But recently, over the last, oh, say 7 months, I’ve been doing less of what I want to do and more of what I have to do to make a living as a writer. I just got back from a whirlwind LA trip. Lotsa meetings. A good time had by all.

One of the common questions is “what do you want to write” and my first answer is “police procedurals that give a voice to victims.” But … that’s not really gonna pay the bills. So if I have to be pigeon-holed, I’d rather dance with the girl I brung and say “horror.”

And that sort of got me thinking about doing what you want to do vs. doing what you have to do and THAT got me thinking of the Rush song ‘SPIRIT OF THE RADIO.’

In the song, the Canadian rock trio ponders the dilemma about doing what they want to do as artists, and what they have to do to remain commercially viable.  The lyric goes like this:

One likes to believe

In the freedom of music

But the glittering prizes

And endless compromises

Shatter the illusion

Of integrity

For the words of the profits

Are written on the studio wall,

Concert hall.

A long time ago, I mentioned (I think…) that some things HAVE to be written. You can’t not write some things. For instance, AMERICAN MONSTER had to be written. Will it ever be made into a movie? I dunno. Probably not. But the story-teller in me said “you have to tell that story” and so it was.

Conversely, I have ideas that I don’t want to write, but I have to write to keep myself afloat as a commercial entity.

MARK

P.S.  Still need an artist.

Need an artist for a sketch: muscular guy (but not a muscle-head), bald, a maniacal grin on his face. Aviator sunglasses that hide his eyes and a mass of scar tissue where his eyes were.

Email:  markdavidson_houston@hotmail.com

See. Now THAT would be a great title for a script!

I was thinking about the importance of titles and that popped into my mind.

I’d just HAVE to read that script!

Wheee!

M A R K

Shake off the cobwebs.

Here are three interesting links.

In THIS LINK on ScriptForSale.Com, Hal Croasmun tells you how to get an agent. Or, specifically, how to say the things an agent needs you to say.  Good, quick article.

Switching to something a little more dense…

Over at indieWIRE, Peter Broderick discusses the Ten Principles of Hybrid Distribution.

Contrast THAT article to Roger Ebert’s blog entry Indie security alert level: Severe.

M A R K

Don Jackson passed away on 9/8/09.  Don was man of many talents. Actor. Writer. Director. Mentor.

I will miss him, as will many others, I’m sure.

Rest easy, Big Guy.

M A R K