The Film Directors Treatment.

Over the last few years it has become more and more common place to have a fully fleshed out directors treatment when pitching to direct movies. This will include lots of photographs and a breakdown of how you see the locations looking, framing, lenses, colors, set decoration etc. It’s a way for executives and financiers to really understand how you are going to bring the story to the screen. Some executives love it. Some push it off to the side and just want to talk story. But, for me, it is something that really helps get deep within the story and show executives that I have a unique voice.
So, my job today, once I’ve finished writing this blog is to put together my preliminary board for the Errol Flynn movie. Corey Large, the lead producer, has already given me the job as he loves FAKERS, but we need something extra to give the financiers to ensure they sign on the dotted line.

For me this is the start of a larger book that will go to all HoD’s (Heads of Department) once we begin pre-production. It’s something that all creative’s can come back to in order to get a grounding in how we are telling this story together.

I first got to see directors pitches when I was working at @Radical. One of the worlds leading commercial companies. Most directors, or someone at the company, would prepare a look book for the advertising agency to show why ‘x’ director should get the job. They looked AMAZING and went into a lot of detail - which of course when you are only dealing with 30-60 seconds is really important. It was here that I also got to see my first mood video. We put this together for Terry Gilliam for a Nike commercial. Terry didn’t really understand how the game of football worked so needed something to get him into the whole mood of the sport. Here is the finished spot:

In more recent years I’ve heard of more and more directors putting together mood videos for feature films. One such director recently hired an extremely talented and visual director friend of mine to help him work on it. This friend of mine worked alongside the big director and two professional editors to cut a trailer of the movie using pre-existing movie clips. Now, this is a very expensive thing to do. All those salaries AND the edit suites!!! I’m guessing that it must have run to at least $10,000. But when you are asking for a studio to trust you with $130,000,000 they need to feel really confident in what you are proposing.

The only thing with using footage and photographs from existing movies is that you can look at if you are trying to rip off older movies and some may question if you are bringing anything original to the table. It’s a tough one! Anyway I’m procrastinating enough. I should get on with my own directors treatment. Next week, providing the producers agree, I’ll post a link to what we sent out to our financiers.

Until then, feel free to ask questions and make comments below. And please, give me a dig using the ‘Dig’ icon at the top of the blog

Have a great week.

Hollywood SUCKS: Great movies that will NEVER get made.

I’ve been living in Hollywood for three years now. Some of that time I spent being represented at CAA (Creative Artists Agency - one of the big firms who look after the likes of Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan) management firm The Gotham Group and leading UK agency Casarotto. I’ll go into more details about working with agents and managers another time, but my focus today is on scripts that I’ve been sent by them.

I’m in the midst of packing up my apartment and moving the family some 3,000 miles to shoot a top secret movie for five weeks. We’re then back in Los Angeles for four weeks (and a very quick first cut) before we hopefully fly out to begin prep on my Eroll Flynn movie which will take us away for five months. So… I’m trying to get rid of as much as I can to cut down on storage costs while we are away. Sitting to the right of my desk is a pile of screenplays that are AMAZING but will never get made. There’s about ten of them. On the floor to my left is an enormous pile of scripts ranging from the unfunny comedy, the complete rip off and the ‘what the hell were they thinking putting this shit into development’. More on these scripts, which the studios have all paid good money for another time too!

But back to these ten scripts that I’ll be keeping in the hopes that one day one of their studio owners say “what do you want to direct next?” Last weeks blog I talked about great scripts that won’t get made because they can’t, for what ever reason, get suitable cast attached, but then there are also scripts that will never get made BECAUSE cast have attached themselves to a project. In my experience the majority of these scripts have leading ladies attached to them. One script on my right has Sandra Bullock attached and one has Reese Witherspoon. Both scripts need a little work but not a huge amount and it’s a crying shame that these ladies are not getting these scripts made - especially in the case of Sandra as the script she has could be a really wonderful heart wrenching story that could put her in the running for an Oscar!!!

Actors can only make a certain number of movies a year. Both in terms of physically and without the audience getting sick of them. But, with a good script being such a commodity there are many cases where an actor will attached themselves to a project to ensure they have a good group to choose from in the event that a bad patch of scripts comes through the door. Problem with this is that after two years they see themselves as playing different roles so a good script, that they once thought was perfect for them, moves to the back shelf. The studio has already spent good money on buying the script and they’ve then spent good money getting writers to punch the script up making it more suitable for the actor. So, by the time the script is put on the back shelf it can have $500,000 - $1,000,000 against it. At this price it makes it very difficult to give the project to someone else to make, as the script costs have become so expensive that it can only really be a studio that makes the movie. Very very frustrating - and sad for both writers AND the cinema going audience!

The other set of scripts on my pile are ones that I have no idea why they have not been made, but for one reason or another they just don’t move forward. The best one in my opinion is DREAM HOUSE written by David Loucka. A great great screenplay that was ready to shoot when I read it. It should have no problem attaching a really really strong leading man and getting financial backing at the $12M mark. But it’s been two and a half years since I was sent the script. With this one I didn’t even get a chance to go in and pitch. They attached a director the day I read it, although it seems like it might be a free assignment again. If it is, and anyone knows the Producers Daniel Bobker or Ehren Kruger do let them know of a fantastic British Director who could knock this one out of the ballpark!!! (Did I sound American just then?????)

So there you have it! Just one of the ways in which Hollywood sucks! Yes, Hollywood has a dearth of good scripts but the first problem that needs to be addressed in Hollywood is not how do we find better scripts but how do we free up the good ones so that they can be made - either independently or using other vehicles. If someone can crack that then their can be a lot of great great GREAT movies coming to our screens over the next few years.

Back to cleaning out my scripts closet… Ice Princess anyone????

Is Joaquin Phoenix worth $5,000,000 for 46 days?

For the same price you could make ten “Napoleon Dynamites” or three “The Squid and the Whale’s” or even a “Full Monty” (which went onto gross $256,900,000 world wide!)Well is he? It seems that that’s what he got paid for ten weeks to make M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” - in fairness we should also add prep time, fittings, adr and the days he spent doing press junkets.

I’m going through casting lists on my Errol Flynn movie as we try to work out whom to make pay or play offers to. A pay or play offer is when we go to an actor and offer them $1,000,000 to be in a movie that will shoot on x date. If they agree then we have to pay them the million even if, for any reason, we don’t shoot the movie - Denzel Washington got $20M when they canceled American Gangster the first time round and John Cusack is currently suing Intermedia for $6M for a movie that got canceled.

I have to say, it’s a tough one. To be honest we aren’t looking at Joaquin for this movie he’s just the only fee that I could talk about as I knew the budget was online for everyone to see. I’m sure his price was inflated to $5M because it was a studio movie AND a Shyamalan project where everyone knew the box office would be huge. But seriously, when you look at an actor and their fee you have to look at; are they really worth it? And, you’d be surprised as to how some actors, whom you might not have heard of, can help you sell your movie and some, whom are big names, won’t get it shifted for love nor money. I was chatting to a international sales agent a little while ago, and whilst they were lukewarm on Dennis Quaid they felt they could really sell Emily Blunt! Now to me I would have thought more people have heard of Dennis (for the record I think Emily is great too) but when it comes to independent sales it seems world popularity isn’t 100% key.

When it comes to independent financing the right actor can get you a green light over night. I have a contained thriller that we’re talking to the Willis Brothers (Bruce and David) about developing.  Before we ended up chatting to David we had a small number of good indie financiers read the script. The reaction was great but it always came down to get Kevin Costner, get Bruce, get Pierce Brosnan and we’ll greenlight the movie at $12M. Of course they would! If I got either of those then I’d have my pick of financiers!!!! Financier’s please take note! It’s one of the most stupid things you can say to a filmmaker. Of course you’d finance my movie at $12M with Pierce Brosnan! Any financier would!!! Try getting it to Kevin or Pierce! Their agents are only really interested in an offer which means that I have money already! And if I got Pierce or Kevin why should I now come back to you… Either you want the script so come on board or you don’t, in which case fine… but don’t tell me to come back with Pierce when you could call his agent and say “Hi Mr. Agent. I’ve got this great script and we’ll finance it if Pierce comes on board” You’d have a lot quicker response than I would!!!!

And that’s where the actor’s production company comes in key for an independent production. Bruce has his brother David run his company, Kevin has Tig Productions and Pierce has Irish DreamTime (where creative Exec Chris Charalambous is based - more about him later). Now if you can get the script to their company and they start to champion it as a producer as well, then you can get some really good names attached to indie movies and they can happen quickly. Pierce did this with “The Matador” ($10 million budget) and perhaps most successfully Don Cheadle did this with “Crash” ($6.5 million budget).

But it is so unfortunate how many great scripts there are out there that just can’t, for what ever reason, get cast attached. Chris at Irish Dreamtime (one of the few people in Hollywood who has amazing taste and everything he’s given me to read has been brilliant) gave me one of the most beautiful screenplays I’ve read. It was wonderfully written by Simon Vaughan and it is a crime that this British movie (in the vain of Finding Neverland) has not yet been made. Whilst they already have a director on the project, I just know I could have brought Simon’s amazing script to life getting it the enormous praise it deserves. So Big Name Actor; I don’t think they have anyone attached to play the leading man so get a hold of the script and make this one happen! - You’ll be celebrating come awards season I promise!

To finish I urge you to check out THE CASTING DIRECTOR’S blog. As soon as I heard that Matthew had cast “Mean Creek” I bowed down in awe to his extraordinary ability to bring together such an amazing, young cast. I then urge you to check out THE INDIE FILM PRODUCER who talks about how tough independent financing has now become. I also want to apologize. I’m moving away from my set syllabus as I realized that I want to talk more about things that are affecting me on a week-by-week basis. I’ll talk about filming with Jeremy Irons, as we shot a scene where he broke down in tears in front of me and the building we were shooting in went up in flames, another time.

Oh and, incase you’re a British producer or screenwriter reading this, I’m really hoping to find a great script to take me back to the UK. Britain has SO SO SO much to offer an international audience of cinema goers - but more on that too… another time…

Life as a child actor.

Precocious children, pushy parents, fat pay checks and missing school. These are all part and parcel of being a child actor. Having been a child actor back in England and having directed children on screen as an adult, I love working with kids. But would I put my two year old daughter in front of the lens? Hummm… Now that’s a different story! 

It’s a strange world for kids. Yesterday I went to see the musical Wicked with good friend Johnny Duda. Johnny was a child actor too. A little more successful than I was. He played the young Kirt Russel in the flashback scenes of BackDraft as well as parts in Flatliners, Eyes of an Angel and Rudy. We recounted similar stories of jumping from audition to audition and always seeing the same kid actors. You see, there aren’t that many child actors out there, and there are even fewer good ones, which is why a small community of child actors begins to emerge. But it really is amazing how one or two from that group really pop big. For Johnny it was Johnny Galecki. For me it was Keira Knightley (we played brother and sister in a never seen short for 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – even at the age of 12 or so she demonstrated that she had that special quality that the camera loved.)

But back to the point. Would I let my daughter act professionally? If she really really really wanted to then yes. It is an amazing experience. You very quickly learn how to deal with rejection – which is brilliant as I see a lot of people trapped in their lives as a result of that fear. You get to do some AMAZING things – drive expensive cars, stay in great hotels, eat at amazing restaurants, travel the world, you see the importance of team work in action and you get a lot more attention from the girls back home at school.  The only real problem with child actors are pushy parents. But, my guess is that if a pushy parent didn’t push their child into acting they’d push their child into something else and do as much damage. So the key is that it has to be 100% the child’s choice. And that this has to be reminded to the child at every step of the way. If they don’t want to do it, then it’s not a problem.

On my second acting job at the age of 14, a Children’s BBC based television series called The Demon Headmaster, I realized that where I really wanted to be was behind the camera in the directors chair – in this case the wonderfully generous Roger Singleton-Turner. From that moment on I took every acting job as the opportunity to ask the crew what they were doing and how they were doing it. As an actor you are in one of the most brilliant positions on a film set. You can ask any question you want and no one will tell you to get lost! As a result of my inquisitive nature I made acquaintances with two people whom enabled me to really forge ahead as a director at such a young age: Producer Giles Ridge and Producer Selwyn Roberts – Gentleman I thank you very much for helping a young actor with lots of questions!!!!!

Next week I’ll talk about how we are putting together our cast list for my next movie based on Errol Flynn. I’ll also be talking about the day Jeremy Irons broke down in tears and, as I tried to console him, I realized what it is that makes a truly remarkable actor!

Until then have a good week and go check out a few of the other blogs… THE SCRIPT READER got a good run of comments last week after knocking Tucker Max’s new script (there were 63 comments in three days!!!) and for some really cool insight into how a story is shaped check out THE EDITOR.