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Things I've Learned...
By Joseph F. Alexandre: Director of BACK HOME YEARS AGO: THE REAL CASINO and the upcoming WARRIORS OF THE DISCOTHEQUE: THE STARCK CLUB DOCUMENTARY.
One the hardest lessons I've ever learned in this filmmaking endeavor is that even when you think you've achieved a significant goal, or reached a huge milestone; you need to dig down even deeper, work harder and act as if nothing's happened at all. After trudging thru obscurity for a long while with a few minor success stories, one of 'em BACK HOME YEARS AGO: THE REAL CASINO (click here for Netflix)....
I achieved one of those significant milestones about four years ago to the day! I'd been in LA since late 2000 after years of being a regional filmmaker in the Midwest, and hailing from NYC. My Father was a true New Yorker and his attitude always was, "the only thing we know about the movies is how to go to the movies!" But, even he was impressed. I got my first significant writing gig in the form of a script to be directed by Joe Carnahan (NARC, SMOKIN' ACES, A-TEAM) whom I'd met back on the fest circuit when our films had both been indirectly financed by IFC. The production company was called FilmEngine and had done films such as all three BUTTERFLY EFFECT films, LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, and the upcoming Johnny Depp film THE RUM DIARY. For some background info on the film, this was the front page Variety article...
In the early summer of '05 Joe had emailed and said he had a project based on a true story, and would I be interested in taking a whack at it... Well, would I! We talked for awhile about it and he was deep in pre-production for SMOKIN' ACES and after a few months, in very late July, he set up a meeting with a few of the producers: Scott Bloom and Giovanni Agnelli. They were a couple of guys who'd come upon the story and this guy Will Wright as they were successful club promoters. They brought the project to FilmEngine (FE) and one of the key producers there, Tyler Mitchell, who'd found the script for LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN. FE was going to produce and finance the Will Wright (WW) story. I sent two scripts to Scott and Giovanni (S&G) as well as Tyler Mitchell (TM) for them to check out and approve of. They all seemed to really like one script quite a bit called "Clean Slate".
I met with Joe and S&G at the Hamburger Hamlet at Sunset in West Hollywood. We had a good chat, I pitched them on my take of the material which was very Great Gatsby-ish and everyone seemed happy. After the meeting Joe took off and I chatted for awhile with S&G. They let me know I was going to meet with TM the next day at the famed Chateau Marmont and this may be an uphill battle. To complicate matters there was a bit of tension between Carnahan and TM. TM was concerned that Carnahan (JC) had some history of stepping in and out of deals without committing to make the film. And indeed there was some truth to that. The next day I was at the Chateau early, saw TM was already there as FE's office was close by and we chatted for awhile and hit it off. Then S&G showed up and JC. We chatted for awhile, I went in to my pitch, which if you read the Variety article you'll up to speed on the story, I approached it as a kid living two lives while he was part of this drug smuggling operation. Everyone agreed on the terms and so forth, and when I left I had a deal to write a real Hollywood film. FE had a deal with New Line Cinema who was hot to do business with JC, and while FE would finance, they would distribute. I ended up getting paid about $32K total. An initial $12,500 to commence, then a few months later $6,250, then months later I had to fight to get the final payment that totaled $14,150 which included the re-write, optional re-writ, and some travel money as I traveled up to Blaine, WA, where WW was from to do some research... More on this pay thing later as FE owes me a WHOLE LOT MORE to the tune of 220K, but we'll get to that. Bottom line, this whole project turned into a virtual nightmare from here on in!
Before I'd even met with these guys I'd been doing some prep, when I did get the deal I had an outline figured out, and while I was up in Blaine I'd vomited out what would become the core script. I didn't have to hand in a first draft until September, but I knew JC was going to be beginning shooting ACES, so I handed in a draft to everyone around August. Everyone was shocked it had come so soon, but I'd really been doing some writing since late June. Big mistake! I handed it in too soon, but there was really no direction as to what it should be and even if I'd worked on it a few more months I had no idea exactly what people wanted or expected. TM hated it, S&G weren't thrilled either, neither was JC. So, it was back to the drawing board. One of the biggest problems was that TM fancied himself a writer and had written a few pages so he was likely to be hyper critical. The vibe of the film was sort of like A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE with a slower burn, and all the action building up towards the end of the film. TM passed on Josh Olsen's script for AHOV so he wasn't crazy about what I did. I did get some notes from JC on the script that were very, very helpful, and by then we were into October and JC went up to lake Tahoe to start shooting exteriors for ACES.
Right around this time the announcement in Variety came out, and by then I'd been continuing to work on the script, but most of the heavy lifting was over. Despite there being these 3 producers, I never got notes from any of them. There were also the other producers for FE who started the company named Anthony Rhulen and AJ Dix, Tyler was a partner with them. They each would develop their own projects and all three would share producing credit. At the time Rhulen was overseeing a Cedric the Entertainer film, THE CLEANER, which was shooting in Vancouver. I was also meeting regularly with WW at the Beverly Hills Hotel taking notes on his story and adding them into the script. I must have done about 7 or 8 drafts but it felt like just spinning my wheels. I worked my ass off on the script, but dropped the ball in an even more important area.
As an Indie filmmaker I was sick and tired of shamelessly promoting my work: an endless litany of screeners, press kits, letters, emails, phone calls to an endless list of distributors, film festivals, agents, managers, magazines, fan sites, etc. etc. etc... Now, that was all over as I was going to soon be on the front page of Variety and I'd have people coming to me for a change, right? Wrong!!!!!! If I was writing a script for someone like Stanley Kubrick or Todd Field or Paul Thomas Andersen that'd be one thing because they don't do a lot of films and they certainly don't do a lot of development deals. If they're in the trades chances are they're going to make a film. In JC's case he was in the trades all the time w/ this deal or that, he walked away from MI:3 weeks before they were to shoot so it was far from a certainty that the film was going to be made. And of course it wasn't. A day or two after the deal was in Variety I realized nothing's happening and I better get off my ass and make some calls and get an agent! I did get Michael Lewis whom I'd met a few years earlier and who has a small boutique that handles Michael Rhymer, who directed QUEEN OF THE DAMED, IN TOO DEEP, several other features, the pilot and key episodes of "Battlestar Galactica". But, I should have been on the phone and bombarding people with emails the day that came out, but nooooo!
Also, I should've taken a lot better care of my money. I had virtually no debt before I got that deal, god I wish I could say that now. I started living like the big shot screenwriter as I got a total of about 32,000 in less than 5 months. I just thought these checks would keep rolling in. Also, did I mention the production bonus of $325,000 had the film been made! I knew not to rely on that, but you might get my drift. If I was smart I would've gone back to catering as soon as I knew my work was going to be done, maybe buy Final Cut Pro, a Mac, and a decent camera so I could have the ability to make my own films when my little studio deal was done, but I had delusions of grandeur! I could go on and on about all the other nonsense that occurred: getting fired by text, I had to get JC to intervene in getting me the rest of the money they owed me, JC walked away from the film after I was canned (not because of that), or FE not doing anything with the script while I went out to Tony Scott's agent and actually got some meetings based on people really digging the script. I met with John Wells' ("ER", "West Wing", ONE HOUR PHOTO) second in command, Andrew Stearn, for an hour, he loved the script. I was up for a staff job on a one hour pilot that didn't get picked up at Fox. I joined the WGA just in time for the strike...
The contracts department notified me that FE owed me more money as they were signatory to the WGA and had to pay all writers they worked with the WGA minimums. This was spring '06, and months later business affairs let me know they owed about $109K with all the drafts I'd done. They (FE) kept ignoring that and it was kicked up to legal and we had an arbitration in Oct. '07, right before the hearing there was agreement to settle for 80K. Anthony Rhulen agreed but AJ Dix did not. The hearing went on, I was notified I won in Feb. 08. Then it dragged on as interest accrued. Finally, in the summer of '08 Rhulen called the WGA lawyer because FE was put on the WGA strike and they were trying to do BUTTERFLY EFFECT 3 with a WGA writer and they needed to settle. More back and forth with lawyers for months and now they owed about 180K but we'd settle for 137K, but then that fell thru last fall. Now the case was presented to a Federal judge in Feb. 09 and I'm still waiting for the Federal judge to confirm the award so I can hire someone in collections to put a lien on their assets, residual income from prior films, etc. etc. etc... I'm in debt up to my eyeballs 'cause at various points I thought this money was coming. Eventually, I guess, eventually!
And, I'm right back where I started. I'm an Indie filmmaker: an endless litany of screeners, press kits, letters, emails, phone calls to an endless list of distributors, film festivals, agents, managers, magazines, fan sites, etc. etc. etc. It's funny at a WGA meeting awhile back I was listening to some writers talk about how great the Internet would be, and we'd be able to control our own content like Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing along blog". It's like hello! We Indies have been doing that for years, where have you been? I guess things come full circle. Anyhow if you get a chance check out my blog and buy a copy of my movie! I could use the dough!!! You can see a trailer here, it's already been a few Academy accredited fests, so that's cool. Back to work!!!
But, I should say as a result of being in the WGA I do get all the Oscar contender screeners on DVD, and while I was on the script I did get to hang on the set of ACES and meet Andy Garcia and so forth. Btw, I'll sell someone those screeners, they may be cool collector's items one day!
Joseph F. Alexandre (WGAw)
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0018867/http://www.amazon.com/shops/jfa42