Tag Archives: my bad side

My Bad Side Movie: Rehearsal

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We just had the first rehearsal for our short film, Dee, based on the novel, My Bad Side. The actors are excellent. Megan Hill is Dee with Gardiner Comfort is Derek, while David DiGregorio will play the doorman. Biba decided not to rehearse for her role of Apollo.

Ready for her close up

Megan and Gardiner work very well together; it is something to see actors give life to characters, not exactly what you anticipated and something more as well. Mike Deminico directs the production with Adam Holz on camera.  There will be a lot of handheld work and a lot of movement. It might be black and white; that hasn’t been decided. But there will be close ups of high heels on the pavement and a struggle for the knife.

Dee towers over Derek

The shoot is on Wednesday. It doesn’t seem real. I wonder if I should have left Dee alone on the page.

Funk on: The over-write

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I’m still in limbo, still waiting to get back at the book, another week to go, maybe more, but I have to admit that I have slipped in and messed around, adding details, taking them out, putting them back in.

One scene I have spent the last few days over-writing is the night of Dee’s Grad Cruise. It’s a background moment, something I hadn’t fleshed out previously, and now in which I’ve added a classmate and dialogue to the counselor. She’s alone on the deck and then joined by a classmate who she doesn’t know. He gives her a cigarette, and the supervising counselor shows up.

“Your cigarette.”

“I thought we were allowed.”

“You thought wrong.” He looked back, almost like he was smiling; he wasn’t.

This last line is what I’m going back and forth with at the moment. I’ve tried each of the following:

He stared back, like he was smiling, but he wasn’t.

He glared back, close to smiling, although he wasn’t.

He waited, almost smiling; he wasn’t.

…and a few variations in between. I keep going back to the first because it’s neutral and still expressive. I don’t know. I know I should  just leave it alone. And I will…very soon.

Writing Rule #2: Stick with it.

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There are the good days…And there are the bad…Indeed it is often the bad that help the most. They make you question the work. You have to stop and think. Who is she? Is this worth anything? What the hell is the point?And then you think of something. Anything. Her hand is broken. She’s scared. She loves Jabberjaw. You think a little more and work on that. Just her finger is broken. She’s scared of her past. She wasn’t allowed to watch Jabberjaw. Whatever it is, that thing is a piece to the next. And you continue on, one step at a time, and maybe go back, because back can be forward too, whatever comes next.Or you don’t…and start something else.

Sell Out?!? Okay.

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Integrity is a catch word in the creative business. Whatever the vision, the aim, no matter what, we know that we must keep our integrity intact. We can’t allow the corporate world to debase and pervert our dreams. We cannot compromise ourselves for money. …unless of course that’s what we want to do.

I had a dream. There was a major science fiction film in the works. It involved eight worlds that were interconnected…that was about all they had. But the budget was big, a mega-monster, and somehow I had an inside track on writing the script. I was suddenly willing to do anything to get it. I offered to just give them my novel My Bad Side immediately, the book I’ve been working on for over four years, the book that defines my vision, and they hadn’t even asked for it. “It’s yours! Take it!” Just like that…just so I could maybe write a draft of this giant sell-out thing.

I woke up doubly disappointed. Mainly it was because I had been so willing to sell out…but more than that, it was the sad fact that there was no such film….which got me to thinking..

“It’s like this. There are eight worlds, and they’re all interconnected…”