So I work at this really great restaurant in town, sensational actually. Personally, I patrol the 12 seats that make up the wine bar - mostly 3 days a week, for lunch...and occasionally nights when someone needs a cover. It's safe to say that the people I meet there and attend to are outstanding. They're all there to have a good time, to eat amazing food, sip great Italian wine and take in the always, always moving scene. Being the bartender, I rap endlessly with any who care to rap back. This past week, I had a return hit it off couple that I remembered from New Years Eve. I told them they were superstars at life - mostly because certain people just have an energy you feel free to engage. They were like that. It was good seeing them again.
So I was on the heels of getting back this raw studio coverage I've been rambling about - and had that lurking in my mind. They sat down after a bit of a wait and we started in, lyrics of life. Round two usually goes a little deeper and we crossed the point of conversation where you ask the bartender what he/she really wants to do with their life. I don't usually offer things very freely to the world (this site is the exception), but I told them, especially her, that I wrote...that maybe I wanted to travel professionally...or buy the gym in Camps Bay and live out my days in South Africa. She told me she was a writer, too. Then I went on to find out that her manager was essentially my manager -- essentially being that I'm a glorified hip-pocket and she...well, she pulls loot.
So she gives me her e-mail and I tell her I'm about to get ripped by this stranger and she tells me to reach out, probably because she could see it was exactly what I was going to need...probably because she saw in me, exact parts of her past self.
I got them brilliantly smashed, and fed them well. And they sang praises of the night. And sometimes, I really have great fun working behind that bar.
And then today, I reached out, saving names where applicable...
On Jan 21, 2009, at 11:40 AM, Reilly wrote:
I don't know, I guess I feel like if I find my place out here, it's got to be as a writer who makes concept through writing...instead of a concept guy who just gets re-written.
-------
THIS IS SO KEY. NEVER, EVER FORGET THIS. Paste it to your mirror if you have to. Somewhere along the way, you will need to remind yourself that this is who you are.
Comedy comes from character, concept comes from character -- anyone worth their salt will tell you that. Those who disagree are either misinformed or not that smart.
That said, we are writing screenplays, not novels, and in movies... love it or hate it... in movies, concept is what sells. So, you may need to play the game a little bit, in order to get IN the game... does that make sense? You don't want to pander to concept... but I think you do want to be able to speak the language. I think. (I reserve the right to amend that last notion. I am not one-hundred percent sure I believe it, or whether it is just some bogus notion that I have been told to believe. So, I'll be in touch about that.)
The ********** journey was a bit of odyssey for me. For brevity's sake, I'm gonna to try to boil it down for you. (I will elaborate in person some time.)
As previously discussed, I had written a few scripts that were pretty bad. Then, I wrote a script that was not so bad (but still not great.) It was a thriller inspired by an unsolved murder that happened years ago in my hometown that had always intrigued me. I built my own story and characters around the circumstances of that case. ****** signed me off that script. It did not sell. To pay my bills, I was working on various film productions at the time, assisting a director and then an actor, so as a result, I would tend to write in fits and starts. I would work on a movie, have some fun, live some life, put away some money and then take a month or two to do nothing but write. Then I would panic about money and go get another production job. I was terrified the entire time. As we discussed the other night at Mozza (ahem, I think we discussed this... details are fuzzy, thanks to your heavy pouring hand. BLESS YOU, BLESS YOU, BLESS YOU) Anyway, what I mean to say is that I come from a long line of left-brained types: lawyers and bankers and other people who wear neckties. No one in my family had ever made a living doing a creative endeavor, so I struggled with the notion. I still do at times.
Sometime around then, I wrote a script called ******. I loved it. It was a somewhat autobiographical tale about an experience I had with another writer who became my mentor and whom I still keep in touch with to this day. It was very sweet and wholesome and inspiring. The script did not sell or get set up anywhere, but it didn't matter. I knew it was good. I was proud to give it to people and more importantly -- I knew, on that script, that I had found "my voice." (The irony is that now when I read ******, I die inside a little bit, because it reads so earnest and eager and I have become far more cynical, but that's my own journey and a conversation for a different day.)
Incidentally, ****** was also the script that got me an agent. A GREAT agent. (When she left to become a producer a couple of years later, I was beyond bummed) and that agent got me a lot of meetings with fancy people around town. All of those people were very nice to me and none of them gave me any writing jobs. Which led me to write ******.
I said I was going to make this brief, didn't I? Haaaaa. Sucker.
Bottom line: I wrote ****** over the course of one summer when I was up for my first real, live studio gig and they couldn't decide whether to hire me. It dragged on for MONTHS. I was completely out of money and I was feeling very angry that nothing seemed to be going my way. All my friends were working far less hard and seeming much more happy... and I thought to myself, well, maybe this is it. Maybe this dream is just not gonna happen. Maybe I'll just have to move back to Philadelphia and work in a bank. And I was taking a hike in Griffith Park one day, contemplating doing just that when the title ****** popped into my head. That's it. Nothing more than that. Just a funny play on words that I thought to myself: "Huh, that's interesting. That would be a good title for a movie. What if there were a guy that *********************************" And that was that. That's as concept-y as I got. I clung to that notion (and title) and day by day, I built on it a little bit more. And pretty soon, I was off to the races. The thing sort of took on a life of its own.
There is nothing quite as clarifying to the mind than the iron-grip of FEAR saying: If you don't get a move on, you are going to be back in your hometown with nothing to show for yourself but a couple of good L.A. Stories. And that was enough to strike the fear of God in me and I got quiet. Like, REALLY REALLY quiet and I sat my ass down and I did not get up until I had a script that was funny and that would show all these people that weren't giving me jobs that YES, I can write comedy, okay? I'd never written anything that fast before -- I started on Memorial Day, finished it Labor Day. I handed it to ****** in mid-September and she sold it like gangbusters the first week of October. I doubt it will EVER happen that easily again. Something was happening during that time period and I had, if nothing else, the wisdom to get out of the way and let it happen.
I'd love to tell you it's all been wine and roses since then, but I'd be lying. However, that sale did bust open the doors for me. One of the most frustrating things about Hollywood for me is that people are sheep. No one will hire you until someone else has hired you. So, this made my life easier I guess, in certain ways. I had money in the bank and finally people knew my name. Unfortunately, they still haven't made the movie. So, that's my next big hurdle, getting something produced. But let's talk about all that later. For now, keep writing - and ignore the guy at *******. He gets paid to pass on things. If he knew how to do it better, he's be out there doing it.
Didn't intend for this to be so long! Hope it was remotely helpful????? Oh, and I'll get you a copy of ******* and hopefully you'll have a laugh.
---------------
Sometimes, I feel like I have to step back and appreciate. That night. This letter. All the shit that can be so trying - not just sitting in front of a computer for months on end squeezing yourself out onto a flickering monitor. It's the chase that'll get you...and when you take a hit, she nailed it, the chase becomes something much worse...
Fear.
What if?
Dwell in it long enough and you're claimed. So I guess all I have to say, minutes past midnight on a Wednesday night, knowing I'll be waking up in the 6's to get going again tomorrow morning, is that when the medicine comes along, whatever form it's in, you gotta grab it and hold it...
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
