BPS 308: Lessons Learned Writing Oliver Stone's The Doors with Randall Jahnson

You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulleproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three h eight. You fail only if you stop writing. Ray Bradberry broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we

really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex

Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now, unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are in the goals of the project you are, so we actually break it down by three categories microbudget, indie film, market, and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that used to reading tempole movies when your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars.

And we wanted to focus on that At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, WM, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over to cover my Screenplay dot com. Now, today we go inside the mind of screenwriter Randall Jansen. Now. Randall is the writer of The Doors Mask of Zoro and he worked on Tales from the Crypt HBO Legendary HBO

series, among many other projects in the course of his amazing career. Now the interview with Randall originally aired on the Filmtrooper podcast and Scott over there did an amazing in depth interview with Randall. Enjoyed this episode with guest host Scott McMahon. We are at the Highland Stillhouse in Oregan City, in Oregon City. So Organ City used to be the original capital of Organ before it was they moved to Salem. But Organ City was it sort of the last city

or the city established at the end of the Oregan Trail? Was That is correct? And it was also auspicious in that it was settled by a guy who bailed out of the Hudson's Bay Company on the fur trade, doctor John McLaughlin, and settled down and put a trading post right at the foot of the Willamette River falls here, which was the site of a magnificent Native American

metropolis and had been for thousands, probably thousands of years. And he just came in planets his trading post right there at the right in the midst of it, and took a Native American woman for a wife. I believe his biography is or is his story is one of the things that's on my list to really read about it. But it's a fascinating story. But this was back in the eighteen forties, I believe. Well, so it wasn't wow, Okay, So I mean when I think about it, it's like,

what was the Organ Trail was really eighteen hundreds, wasn't? Yeah, it started in the eighteen really in the eighteen forties. You know, once the Organ Territory was established and they the word got out of the very fertile farmland potential of it, it started creating the migration west. You know. It's

funny. I went on a field with my daughter. They went to the Foster Farms over in Organ City was one of the first farms outposts for all the trout you know, pioneer years coming in from the Organ Trail and Foster he was successful starting up like a general store on in Boston or something like that. And once he saw that the Organ territory was opening up, he

decided not to take the Organ Trail. He took a ship with his family and he took his business and decided to open up another store over here in Oregon. But he took the route of going down the Atlantic all the way down past the tip of Chile, you know down there the Pacific, coming all the way up to Pacific. So he never he took that route all the way instead of taking the wagon trail. Yeah, so he established an

option. So he established the farm and like the outposts of where people came through hood mountain Hood, right, so, and they would help actually carve out some roads and passages. Because when I think people when the pioneers came to Oregon, either they were going to take the Columbia River all the way you know down or some would take try to get through mountain hood. And so those who try to venture and get through mountain Hood, they had to

um you know, they got stuck or something like that. So Foster and his people end up you know, helping him out, helping out a lot of pioneers and developing a road there. So they he had this outposts and he had the general story there, he had the farm, he had like a little you know, like many what he called lodges or ends, you know, where people could stay. So it's like it was the first site of civilization for a lot of pioneers after his long journey and he just made

a killing. And so they had this farm that you can go to. It's an educational farm, but it's still we're walking through the house, you know, seeing the stuff they use, seeing the farm, seeing the barn. And it was just made. It was allowed all the kids, so like, you know, really hands on experience what it could have would have been like as a you know, a pioneer in the Organ Trail. Wow. So it was a little bit of history that I had no idea about.

There. I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. Sure they have they have a museum over here for the Oregon Trail Museum, which I believe has been shut down now because of lack of funding. Because of the budget cuts and everything else. But that was one of the things I've been amused actually since I moved up here from California that that with the Oregon Trail, that was the the overland route that a lot of people who were heading

to the California gold rush took. Yeah, and so at one point, you know, you have the trail diverts, you know, and you go go to California search for gold or you go to Oregon and both and growth things. You know. I think that was a very interesting dichotomy there of where you know, it sort of really underscores the differences between California and Oregon. Now that I was funny because it's sort of the what exists today. Oh, I'm that's my point. That's my point exactly. So I'm a

little slow today. That's all right, We'll just have another have another beer. There you'll you'll catch um. It was a great segue. So one of the things I wanted to do with you is, like I one of my favorite podcasts is the Creative Screenwriting UM podcasts UM hosted by Jeff Goldsmith, and he's now since left a senior editor of Creative screen screen Creative Screenwriting Magazine

and Uh. He started his own podcast called Q and ANK Question and Answer with Jeff Goldsmith because he's been really instrumental and and holding these uh free screenings down in Los Angeles of just different movies. And at the end of every these free screenings, at the end of every movie, he would have um the screenwriters there to like talk for like an hour and a half about the

movie, their their experience and all that kind of stuff. What a concept actually having the writer, Oh, I know, you know, and he's he's great, and I really enjoy like his style of interviewing, and you know, and I could tell like sometimes he's polite to like some of the people or some of the work that they've done. But inside I could tell, like that comic book geek in him once ago, what were you thinking? You know, that kind of thing. But he's still very cordial about

it. Sure. He actually happened to be in college the roommate of Dame Jaffee. Jame Jaffee was the creator of God a War and some of the Twist of Melsers who I worked with that sony for many years. So when I met up with Jeff, you know, I introduced myself via that way. So he was very cool, but he's very busy. And again, for anybody who wants to check out his stuff, definitely check out Q and A with Jeff Goldsmith or some of the past stuff on Creative Screen Screenwriting magazine.

But anyway, this is my chance to do my really horrible impersonation of Jeff interviewing you randall as if like we just finished the screening and oh you know, and we had this big audience, but right now we're just we have this cool little puff. It's funny because I note is I normally do my UM podcast and at Mars Irish Pub and right yeah, like it's gonna suggest that for you as well. Yeah, so we go there every other week, my buddy Frederick and I and we go down and he knows everybody

there and so we we're regulars there every like every other Monday night. Okay, um, But it's funny that it's an Irish pub and here we are crosses away in Oregan City and a Scottish Irish pub. Again, so they will tell you it's a Scottish pub. There won't be There's not much any there, not much Irish here. Okay, good, you know, although I do see the Bank of Ireland. Uh yeah, him go over there, you know, but if they had a choice, it would be you

know, basically it's anti English and it's charming. I mean both places are just charming on this like old style bar. So anybody gets up here, you gotta check out these places. So we have Mars Irish Pub and l and we have the Highland Still Still House here in Organ City, ye, which which if you're a fan of single Scotches, We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. This has one of the best collections you will find anywhere, arguably even on the entire West

coast. So this the the Mick and his wife who owned the place, are huge Scotch files and they're just uh, I have to learn more about this. Yeah, I have this. I had this, the nate desire to want to get into tastes. Well, there's part of it. I was my honeymoon in Scotland and so that's where I started. That's where I started, you know, acquiring the taste, and so it was it was it was more of what you were acquiring. You weren't just because now you're

married. You were just drinking more. I well, I come up, well, I come up for excuses to drink more, you know, and I started drinking. I should never drink until my daughter was born. Yeah, and then I started to drink drink a lot more. Yeah, ways

upon you heavily. So anyway, being the parent, So I wanted to the first question that Jeff always asked us is he always wants to know breaking in stories of like how you got started in the business, or what was your like your first paying job, or how you know, yeah, how

you broke in. Well, I went to film school at UCLA, and at that time I entered the film school there in nineteen seventy nine, and you were basically thrown into a little life raft with a bunch of other people doing that had the same aspirations to either be a writer, director, working in the film industry in one way or another. And so you also quick was that time the late seventies, like, because I know that this is the very late seventies seventy nine when I started, But I was wondering if,

like the early eighties was it? Um, I can't remember. Was there a golden age of like where everybody wanted to go to film school because I know that there was a kind of a the the film school sort of bonanza occurred in the UH I would say probably the mid seventies, okay,

and carried on all through into the early eighties. Um. And that was basically because George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, they were all products of film school, you know, Francis Coppola of course, yeah and Squirses yeah yeah, yeah, you of course and um so and that was it. I mean, basically we just covered the film school landscape. At that time. There was three places to go, USC, UCLA, and NYU.

And for me, I had grown up in the San Diego area, uh and I couldn't afford going to SC and NYU was just about as far removed from a South California beach as possible. Um. And I used to go with my dad, who worked for the UC system, up to see basketball games at UCLA when John Wooden was coaching there. So, um, that was sort of the natural place to go to and it was vastly cheaper

than SC. Right And actually what I liked about SC that there were differences in the curriculum at that time too, which was that if you wanted to be. UM. If you if you had a very specific idea of what you wanted to do in the in the film industry, whether you wanted to be a sound editor or an editor, or a cinematographer or a director, producer, whatever, you would go to SC because they had very clear tracks

and each of those those specific professions. UCLA it was much much looser and they were kind of had this had sort of the stigma, if you will, uh, being of creating a tours um. You know, you were you were the complete filmmaker in a sense once you came out of UCLA. But the difference, another difference was is that you had to fund all your own stuff after after the basic Super eight class that occurred when you first entered

school. Uh, SC that didn't happen. You had to um. They funded the advanced projects, um, but you had to compete with other people to get that one or two directing positions that they would do. Anyone could be a director at UCLA if you had the money for it, which to me, it was really like the real world, much more like the real world. Yeah. Yeah, Coppola came to UCLA. Jim Morrison and ray Man's Erica. The doors were there. Um, you know, that was

in the that was the very early sixties. Um, you know, but I mean there's you know Paul um oh um names. I knew this would happen. The names start fading, you know, from me who wrote a taxi driver, um Trader, Paul Schrader, thank you. I went to UCLA. Um, you know, I mean the list of names, he's very long and prominent, right that UCLA is produced and n SC as well. So you know when I went to uh UCSD and I was looking around,

I went to junior college. First, went to UM Palmar College, right, and the only fame claim to fame we had there was that Phil Tippett was famous visual effects artists from the Star Wars films and his you know, all his stop modes. I interviewed Phil when I wrote for the Carl's Bad Journal back in nineteen seventies. Okay, so you know great, right, So his claim to fame was that he went to that school. So it was great, you know, T year school, you get out,

sure, then you can transfer anywhere. And then I didn't know where to go exactly, I want. I looked at San Francisco State. I looked at uc USC like the UCLA. For some reason, I decided, of all places, to goo UCSD, which probably wasn't the best choice of film school, but I don't know. It was nearby near a beach, near beach, definitely, definitely. So the funny thing was I spent a lot more time when I was there because the way they had the film track was

that everything was really dedicated towards the graduate film students. As an undergrad, you were you didn't really get chancey two hands on. Knowing that now, I probably should have gone to maybe like Santego State, which is much more of a more of a vocational approach to the education. But I spent a lot of time with this scraduate film student from UCLA who was doing her thesis

or her work down in UCSD. So she had access to all the you know, the editing bays, the rooms, and she's trying to finish her her thesis. She just needed an assistant. So I was there and I got all this hands on training of how to like you know, cut film and you know, put all this stuff together. And then she would I would go up with or Um on a regular basis to UCLA and just I was crashing courses. I didn't even go to this school where I was at

UCLA, just sitting in at the short courses. So kind of give me a different perspective of things. Hey, that's my yeah, okay, well there you go. Well, um, at that time again, this is in the late seventies, you know, those were the three places to go. Now it's the landscape is vastly different. Every almost every college has a film department or media department and something something like that. So I mean that

just shows you how thing things have changed. Um. So anyway, I went through the film program and at UCLA at that time, they didn't have or the difference. There was no difference between the undergrad and the graduate programs those days. Those days. Um, literally in my in my second year there, the graduate students rebelled and stage a little um demonstration and really forced the hand of the school to alter the curriculum in a sense to favor grad

students because basically, and I think they had a legitimate beef. They were competing with you know, freshmen who were new to the or new to the department for you know, the limited amount of materials and cameras and things that we had to do their graduate films and so which were really wasn't fair. So they did an overhaul of the curriculum and my like or they didn't do it overnight. It actually happened right after I graduated. So basically I benefited

from having basically had a graduate education as an undergrad. Wow, because I stuck it out and went an extra years as an undergrad. Later. Yeah, and then they kicked me out. I said, it's time for you to move on. Yeah, I had maxed out every unit possible, but knowing that I took every writing class I wanted to do when I first got in there, I was hoping to be a director. That was my aspirations.

Like everybody else, that's what I wanted to do. But you you had to fund your own films, um, and I didn't have that kind of money. Um you know. Um. So I realized that well, typing paper was cheap at that point, and I said, well, shoot, I'm just gonna I'm gonna write and I'm going to direct my movies on paper and then eventually, if I get enough clout, I will be able to direct something that I write myself. So that was that was the philosophy.

That hasn't happened, by the way, but it has happened for a lot of people that I know. Now. You wrote, so you're a writer when you're younger too, Like, yeah, I mean I was. I started writing, like as soon as I learned to write, you know, I just was. I had kind of spates where I was very prolific. Third grade, especially seventh grade was also a big one. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.

But I initially wanted to be a journalist. I actually wanted to be Cameron Crowe because I loved Rolling Stone and loved music still when I was in high school. That that's what I was aspiring to be, was to be like a music journalist of some sort. Um. There was a great writer for

Rolling Stone at that pool point. I think he's back now writing some stuff for them again, but named Charles M. Young, who did just some fantastic interviews with like the Sex Pistols and Kiss And I still have those issues because the writing is just so so funny and insightful and really great and just

inspired me a great deal to be to be, you know. And this was the era too, where Tom Wolfe was doing um, you know, electric cooleid acid test on the heels of that kind of what is known as the new journalism, where it was just wasn't real cut and dry, but actually there was a great deal of reportage uh going on and and uh quasi sermonizing that would be worked in by um, the likes of Charles M. Young or um, um you know, the our Gonzo Hunter Thompson kind of

you know, people of that sort. It was a it was an interesting time to be in journalism. Um. And then I wanted to be a magazine freelance magazine writer. I thought, yeah, and then I realized I probably really couldn't make a whole lot of money at it. Um. But I and I had started working for my hometown newspaper in Carl's Bad, California, writing writing sports for them, and then in the summertime when I was out of high school, it worked into full time work where I was doing

feature articles. So I was interviewing surfers and runners and and Carl's Bad was also the site of a motocross, um, uh say, seeing out there and doing some reporting on that. It was just a lot of it was it was very interesting, and I learned how to interview people at an early age, which was a great thing. Then I knew that I wanted to continue with writing of some sort but in my studies at school, but I just wasn't sure what kind it was. So I too went to Community College

Maracosta. Okay, yeah, just because I was working at the at the newspaper still and I was getting experience there part time, and I thought, well, get a couple more years their experience and then take classes and get my basic education out of the way, and then by that time maybe I'll know what to do. And I happened to take a playwriting course and that

was very interesting. That opened up my eyes to dramatic writing and I and I realized that, yeah, playwriting wasn't quite it for me, but screenwriting

that sounded very avant garde and very cool. So that's what I was all like, maybe like when the first moments that you like wrote a piece or a paragraph or something or somebody else wrote and you were able to witness sort of a a positive sort of emotional response from it, or it's just like a like a one moment like you wrote something where maybe you felt good about it or somebody else's reaction to it was surprising, but you know what I

mean, it's just like it. It made you want to keep going or or want more of that or anything or feedback. Um. Yeah, that's an interesting question. Um. I wrote three scripts when I was at UCLA, three full length scripts, and they were pretty abysmal. Um, but my instructors were very supportive. I got a's on them. Okay, um, yes, that's right for you here, thank you. What did they

called Scottish as Yeah, the Scotch eggs. Yeah. Um. And that was initially I think, be studying and doing that to get that kind of thumbs up from them was very positive. That that made a big impression on me. Um. And then once I got out of school to have some peers of mind to just kind of comment, there's mustard right there, you

can dip into that. Um. That was positive, but nothing was as strong as getting um, um, the kind of the endorsement of a true professional somebody working in the business kind of just mangle this one, this matter. Yeah, that's all right, there we go. Yeah, it's good, all right, mm hmm, yes, what's it's funny? Um can get my trains top. All right, now, this is really delicious. I know. I'm sorry, we can keep. Don't worry about this. I pause, cut this out. This is good. Oh no, don't

I mean this. I mean it's like your interview. So it's like and the food. Oh yeah, mah oh no, there's more mustard right there. Yeah, I got something to say. Yeah. So it's an egg. It's wrapped in sausage and deep pride. M h it's really healthy. So so is it a boiled egg first? And then they put it into like a sausage and they have to fry that, I think so yeah, m hm mm hmmm. No, I'll show with this beer I'm drinking. You know, listen, yummy. It's a great place to be in anytime.

But I love coming here on a when it's howling wind out and co there you go. And well, this place is located right by the river vers Falls. This is the fall, like is it the lamb it falls? Yeah, lambit rights. So he definitely has a propensity for the wind and the weather. Chains Um, before the paper mill was shut down, certain fumes wafting up from from the mild and uh sort of sweetened things. And I mean that I mean that facetiously. So yeah, So anyway,

so can you recall like, um, well, let me backtrack. Do you recall like one movie, like a movie experience you had where you thought to yourself that you were like moved or inspired to say, yeah, I want more of this or like for me as a kid, I remember, you know, movies were just always sort of part of just growing up. But the first time I remember seeing the sort of a I don't say I had a more mature, non sort of spectacle movie, you know that I

realized was different than what I had seen before. It was one of my parents, I think, took me to see Amadeus. Oh you know, so I was floored by that movie because I thought to myself, I just went through something that I never thought I would be entertained by because I thought I had to have like, you know, laser guns or cowboys or indians or aliens or spaceships or explosions, because that's, you know, that was

my appetite. I just that I was second nature. But once I was introduced to a film that was had none of that but engaged and captured, my interest had definitely changed something in me. As well as another film that I wasn't expecting to was somewhere in time because I was just like, oh, it's super Man. But to me, I was like, what was that? And that that got to me. And so I remember those two films of all films that sort of changed my perspective. And then I remember

having UM. When I got into college, I wasn't thinking about film. I was thinking about studying illustration and art. I went there for that, but then got sort of the film bug myself and came across I had to take a scriptwriting class. It's very, very cheesy, but I remember going to the library. At the time, this is before the internet. You actually had to go to the library. We'll check out the reference books, and they had real scripts, and I remember reading Ordinary People and I never

seen the film. I just read the screenplay, and I remember it was just turning the page out to turning the page because I just had to get through it. But just having that first experience of absorbing what a script looks like, and I didn't know what, you know, all the wrole things meant, you know, what is I and t X all that kind of stuff. We started beginning to figure out the little code or the language. But I remember having that significant moment as well coming out of that going what

did I just read? What did I just experience? And we wanted to ask you did you have anything like that? Well? I did as a kid. This is I mean going way back. We'll be right back after

a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And I really would have to say that I didn't know the impact that would had on me at the time, obviously, but it's really almost now that I look back on those times as they want, now I understand why I was so moved and influenced by And this is it goes back to when we first moved to California and my parents were running a beach front motel in Oceanside called the Buccaneer, which was the Buccaneer Beach, you know in Oceanside, and it

h it had all these pirate motifs and everything like that. So my first five years in California after moving from Utah to we're here at the Buccaneer Motel with all the pirate motifs running around there, and I used to, you know, run around there and have a lot of fun and meet a lot of different people. That were staying there. But they would always on the weekends we would go my parents would take a break. Because we lived on

the premises, there was no escape from it. My parents would go to a drive in movie out an Oceanside and yeah, yeah, and so the the it's an airfield now, yeah it is, and the the the ritual was basically they would pop their own popcorn ahead of time, put it into a big brown paper market sack, and we would They would take a cooler full of Cragmont sodas and they would put me in pj's. I had two older brothers who were ten and twelve years older than me, so they didn't

want to They were teenagers by this time. They didn't want to have anything to do with that, so they would just stay at home. But I would go with my parents with them to the drive end and then I would be in my pj's and they would always hope that I would fall asleep in the back seat. At least that was the plan while they watched these, you know, sometimes very adult movies, and lo and behold, I never

fell asleep once because I was so intrigued by what I was seeing. And I can tell you exactly what I saw, you know, I saw Bunny and Clyde. WHOA, yeah, well, I think they had intended that I had fallen asleep. They had no idea and I don't, and they probably were. They were not film savvy at all. They were probably didn't

have any idea what they were in store for. Um. But I recall, I recall very clearly, um the opening frames of that where you see, you know, the naked fade unaway in her but you know up there on that big screen, I just my eyes grot really wide. I'm going, wow, this is wild. And I was just riveted from that point

and r oh. I mean, I can still recall being in the back seat and seeing my parents visibly recoil from the one after they make the one robbery and the guy comes out and try and stands in front of the car and tries to either he's got some kind of a weapon at him, and they run him down and he ends up hitting the windshield and falling off it. My parents just like wow, he kind of gasping over the over the

violence of that, and I was like wow. So Bonne and Clyde, I saw Bonne and Clyde, I saw in the heat of the night. Um, guess who's coming to dinner to serve with love? Pattent with my dad Planet of the Apes. Then my dad and I started going and seeing me Okay, some of these an original, h I mean, my mom

stayed at home for some reason. I don't think she wanted to see Patton, but my dad did and I saw Planet of the Apes with him, and um, these now, these are the films that I actually hearkened to my and to my students nowadays too in teaching, because I think these were

This was a fantastic age of American filmmaking. It was really from that from about sixty sixty six to about seventy six, that ten year period produced just astonishingly great American films and made by the studios, made by the studio at the time. Yeah, and and ultimately what killed it, of course was

Jaws, right and the block you know and Blockbuster. From that point on, it changed everything and how the studios started doing things films, and again, not not to take away from the you know, the Spielberg's of the World and the in the in the geeks, you know, the film school geeks, which who basically started running the business at that point, which was great, but um, you know, prior to that, we still had The Godfathers and The Conversation and Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and

Five Easy Pieces and the last detail of hal Ashby's Harold and mod you know, making these movies, these kinds of movies, and there was just nothing like it, right these so a little big man, you know, Um, you know these are these are films that I think still really uh resonate today hugely. Um in the studios have sort of lost sight of that, you know, because they were they were really socially conscious, uh conscious in a lot of ways. Um, they pushed the envelope, you know.

Um, the subject matter was truly adult, the notion of of of like uh catering to demographics the pubescent a boy yeah, and action figures and all that unheard of no way, right, no, you just you know you

didn't do that. It was still the days where you had people like Robert Evans, who was running you know, Paramount apparently in between his yeah that document, you know, he was uh he still was somebody who had gut instincts, you know, and could do things that um and in green lit stuff that got you know that will never see they haven't seen stuff like that. You can. The only way to find it now is, you know,

in the independent realms. What do you think about there's this sort of a article I read a couple of years ago about how like HBO and Showed Time, all these the cable network or pay per view and the cable channels are now providing that sort of fix for adult drama. That um, where the movies, theatrical movies have just becoming such tent pole spectacles either of you know, um, the sci fi genre or whatever it is, or then or comedies that are you know, the gross out are are it? It?

Whatno comedies? When you you have a little sprinkle of independence independent films, but the canvas of what's going on in the television spectrum right now, where you have long form where you can develop a character and a law, you know, a much slower pace and the more in depth is why you're

seeing like the success of like the Sopranos and and all these things. So I don't know whether or not that sort of fulfilled the niche or the need that once was supplied during the late sixties mid sixties in the seventies for what the studios are supplying. You know what I mean Now it's just got fragmented. I don't know, that's sort of a yeah. I mean nowadays everything has gotten fragmented. It's it's really broken down. I mean we once we

entered the digital age, right, everything became fragmented. And that's what digitizing analog does. You know, it breaks things down into these little bit into these little bits. You know this whether it's a sound bite or it's a you know, it's a bit of information. Um, and that sort of its job in in one way. So we we we've but we've lost a lot, you know in the in that at the same time. Um,

you know, it's just it's just changed. These are This is part of a larger conversation that we'll get into here that the benefits and the curses of the digital the digital world now in digital culture. But uh um yeah, I and answer to your question, I would say yes, indeed, HBO, Showtime, AMC, running Madmen and stuff. They are feeling a niche now where so many of us have a thirst for those great adult dramas. Right, you know that that deal with touchy material um um. Not.

So it's not necessarily high concept material, but it's really important material, um. You know. I mean, for example, it recently doing the they did the the you Don't Know Jack, you know, the Jack Cavorkian story. I knew nothing really about Cavorcian other than just seeing the headlines always about them from that. But you know, Pacino really owned that role, and Barry Levinson, you know, came in and directed it and it was a

really it was a really compelling piece of piece of work. But there was no way a studio would make that wake that movie. It would have it have to be HBO. And of course HBO loves to flaunt the fact that only HBO can do it, you know. And so so I think it's great, um, But you know, again, HBO is part of a larger conglomerate mega monster that they too have to answer to someone. Uh if not, they're in not only their ratings, but you know, it's a

corporation. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. And so, you know, to find truly independent the stuff, you might have to even go further out into the margins then. But comparatively still to the mains, the main studios and the three major networks that we're used to. It's pretty still pretty very controversial and exciting stuff they

do. So we'll we get back to. Do you remember like the first time you read a finished script that got you like turned on, like well I can do this. Well I don't necessarily recall reading a script and going daga over it. I recall seeing movies and going just like, oh crap, that's what I want to write. That's you know, and and that that's what I want to do. Um. So we have to remember, you know, as a screenplay is a is is only stepping stone to the

final the final piece of art. You know that it is. And it's hard, it's hard to admit that as writers, but we do have to remind ourselves, if you're a screenwriter, that it's a it's a way station to the ultimate, the final product, the ultimate vision. Right. Okay, So so again in you know, I would look at a script and

I was like, okay, all right, that's that's okay. But it's the movie that really inspired me. And it's still the movies that really inspire me now, um um, I don't get overly excited about reading scripts per se. Um. You know, I have to. I just I want to see the movie so so in so great movies make me want to write great scripts. And but it's always interesting and instructive to look at the scripts that have become great movies and to see that they that they are not perfect,

um that sometimes they're far from it. Um. For example, Uh, well, whenever you you let's say you go to a bookstore and you'll find a the screenplay of a certain movie right there that's been published. Now, it's usually the the the shooting script that they'll um publish, you know, and so they'll have scene numbers and everything like that. That's anytime there are scene numbers on there, you know, that's a very late draft.

It's something that they probably you know, it was the shooting draft or close to it, if they were numbering scenes. Um. Years ago, Frank Drabon, who wrote and directed The Shawshank Redemption, published a version of Shawshank that was not the shooting draft. It was a book that I think included the early draft of the script and then uh, and then the shooting draft

something like that. And I'm mad at myself, right I never picked that up, and I remember thumbing through it, but Frank had the courage to to go ahead and print an earlier draft of it. And the thing was a mess. It was all there was a full of stracouts and crossed out stuff and notes in the margins and things like that. And that's what a real script looks like, right, you know. So beware to anyone out there who's considering writing scripts and they think that that has to be all perfect.

That's just not the case. You know, a screenplay is it cannot be chiseled in stone. It really can't. Um it has. It is a living, breathing entity, and it will ebb and flow. It will inhale, it will exhale, It will do things you don't expect. Sometimes you have to make alterations due to weather, to cranky actors, to the whims of a studio or a star or director or whatever, for good or

for worse or whatever. These are. These are just the things that It's constantly in a state of flux and will be until the film is shot, edited, and screen before paying audience. You know. That's you know, and that and that's the way it is, and you have to understand that, so you can't be overly precious with it, you know, and just think. I mean, if you're starting out and you're trying to write a great writing sample, of course you want to make it as good as you

can possibly be, because you want to get your best foot forward. You want to show people what you're capable of. But once you are working and or in that business, you have to know you have to suck it up, man, and just know that this thing is going to get mangled and trundled under by the Hollywood machine sometimes. Um, and even in the independent realms, it doesn't matter because there was still things are going to be constantly

changing because the universe is just throwing you change ups all the time. Know. Okay, it's raining. We're supposed to shoot a sunny a scene under sun today in blazing heat. Um, okay, the bar is more crowded

than than we expected to have our you know the scene. Yeah, I talk, you know, I mean as these are right mics, you know, I mean, these are things where you just constantly you have to think on your feet and you have to be sort of flexible in terms of so as storytellers too, you have to have the acuity of mind and the flexibility to say, Okay, that doesn't work, I can switch this, I can do it here, and I'm like, shuffle this around and will make

that work, and we'll we'll we'll fit it for the occasion when you know, right, do you feel like sometimes I've heard the expression or heard things where sometimes writers discover the story like it's sitting up there in a cloud of the years or of moments of inspiration that are just sort of permeating, where they start picking it up, like it just starts trickling down and they start, you know, like almost invisible ink, like it starts revealing itself,

the story and the shape that even though your your intentions might not have been there originally, but as you as it, like you said, ebbs and flows and evolves, you're discovering it. And it's almost as you just had to be in the right sort of mental space or capacity to grab hold of it and and and sort of let it like as I yeah, let it evolve. Yeah, And I don't know if um oh yeah, oh this is good. Yeah, I'm good, this is good. Stop. So

I was wondering if um so like when you're so you're in college. You were taking the writing the screenwriting class, I guess, and getting feedback from your professors. UM, do you remember like sort of the first permeation of like the the germ of the idea for your first full length story that you were like, you know what, this would make it, this would make a good movie. And I think, I gotta you know you've heard writers or that with that term. I gotta beat on it. I gotta beat

on it. Yeah, well, yeah, there's you bring up a couple of points, but just specifically to to me. UM. As I mentioned before, when I was at UCLA, I wrote three scripts that were completely uncommercial. They were just they were bad, you know. I wrote a you know, sprawling period piece and a couple of other just not not good,

you know, pieces of work. UM. And then I graduated, and I knew that I had to um in order to get somewhere, you know, to get a get ahead in the business, I had to make a conscious effort to write something commercial, you know, just to get on

the map. Right. I can be artful and and and write artie movies later on, you know, but I really need to get it on the get on the map first, and get get try to make a living because at that point I was I was working in the mail room of the Academy Emotion, Pictures, Arts and Sciences, and I and I, you know, I just which was a great job actually, but because I allowed me a lot of time to write during the day. But yeah, I had

to. I couldn't stay there for the rest of my life. So so I said, okay, I'm going to write something commercial and and write something that could actually get made, you know, for a relatively low sum of money. So at that time, which that translated to write a horror film. Okay, So then well, okay, how do you write a horror film? Or even at that time, it's like, oh god, everything's been done already. So I was really looking to do something different. Um,

And so what I wrote. I wrote a script in that summer called Slaughter Alley, which was about a haunted highway or haunted a stretch of road, a rural road that was haunted by the ghost of a hot rodd who had been killed on it back in nineteen sixty two. So he races up and down it in the middle of the night, UM in his fifty seven Chevy bell Air, you know, running people off the road and claiming souls. And as you're explaining this, I can completely hear the twiny guitar right

now. Oh yeah, oh it was. I mean, oh that's the link Ray, you know, the Cramps. I mean it was very music inspired in that sense because it, you know, just like those great big Detroit steel iconic cars you know from the you know, from the late fifties and sixties, all the muscle car era and stuff. Um you you know, you hear the that that big guitar sound as well the Ventures and you know all the Eddie Cochrane and all these these the rockabilly sound and stuff.

Um is Eddie repels Eddie? Um but did Rebel Rouser or yeah, but Eddie something. But anyway, almost like a more of a punk version of that. Well, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. What was interesting simultaneous with this for me was that I had I was in LA I was staying in LA after he graduated and was really caught up in the music scene in Los Angeles at that point, which was getting swept um with the real, real kind of I

don't know what to call it, a renaissance of music. But it was it was the punk rock thing that was at the core of it, and the hardcore specifically was taking over and really having a profound influence on everything. It was basically taking a flamethrower to everything right um and just burning it down. So you had and that was led by Black Flag and the descendants and

irrelevant today Oh sure, sure. I mean the Dead Kennedy's up in San Francisco, and you know there was in Social d down in Orange County and stuff. So yeah, um, and and to me it had a huge influence on me on a number of levels. Specifically, you know, just creatively how you attack things, um and they strip it down. There was

no pretension. You just went out and you did it and you made it work, and you did it with passion and really with an attitude, and there was just something elementally bitching about it fly and oh man, it just was incredible. So I was witnessing a lot of this, and then at the same time with the hardcore stuff, there was the sort of the art

damaged bands that were doing things like this. There are bands like Savage Republic and the Fibonacci's in um Wall of Voodoo even that were heavily influenced by film right, and so they were doing a lot of like soundtrack stuff. Wall of Voodoo used to do a medley of Sergio Lee any movies a soundtrack, so you know, the good and bad and the ugly and hang them high. They would they would do this in concert and it was just like wow. And that had that big twangy guitar and it was just like wow,

this is this is really really stuff. Um, speaking of what while I wud yeah you um the lead the frontman for Yeah stand Ridgeway? Yeah n Did you become friends with him working on a project. Yeah, Well just a quick aside there. I was, Um, after I wrote Slough a Rally, I wanted to write a murder mystery and what I was doing. My my notion for it was to have it was a murder mystery that was set in the punk rock underground of LA and it was about a hardcore kid

who was accused of killing someone and who had been apprehended. And then his public defender was like a like a hippie liberal middle liberal hippie who had to you know, defend this kid, and they were I was very interested in just the opposing sensibilities kind of thing, you know. And so I started doing all this um uh quote unquote research you know, in the in the music scene at the time, and going to I'll see all these different shows

and and I made contact with the number of bands. I just reached out to them and one time or another and say, hey, could I'm doing this, would you mind if I come to a rehearsal and see what you guys do? And and everybody was really cool, you know. The Minutemen was one of those bands, and and uh and stuff, and so um the script didn't pan out. I just it just never quite got over the

hump for it. Um. But I made all these contacts with all these bands and very very good friends, and so that's that's what led them to getting doing some music videos for them and whatever. One of the band and said, I really that were very welcoming to me was a band called the Fibonaccis. And the Fibonaccis had artie party and ready to party, as the La Weekly describe them, The Fibonaccis were open for Wallavoodoo at one time,

and they knew Stan Ridgeway very much. And so one time I was at Club Lingerie and I forget who was playing, but it wasn't The Fibbs, but I was with the keyboardists of the Fibbs, John Dentino and Stan. Ridgeway and his wife came in and I said, oh god, you know John, can you introduce me to Stan? I said, I'm a big

fan and I'd really loved the first time I saw them on stage. I was just like, oh wow, these guys just to completely especially Stan, just captured a lot of how that sort of the collectic approach to every anything and everything. He said sure. So I met Stan and we talked and I told him I, you know, Wall of Voodoo was actually a big influencing writing slaughter rally for me. And he said, oh, send me

the script. I'd love to I allowed to read it, and I said okay, So I did, and a couple of weeks later I got a postcard. He actually mailed me a postcard and said, I read your script. I really like it. I'm going to call you in a couple of days with a plan. Stan is always scheming. He's always got something working up with a plan. But basically that started a friendship that still continues today. And ironically his manager eventually manager when he went solo, was my wife's

older brother. Um but I even before I started dating her. Yeah, I knew Chris, but I didn't know he was related to Kate when we first met. It was just really so stan Stan and Chris. They both argue they like to take credit for introducing us, but it sounds like it was just already in there. It was already in the words, it was a pretty yeah yeah, but um uh, it was going to add.

One of the things that intrigued me about the music scene at that time, especially in the rockabilly circle that you would see is that when the Blasters were playing, and there were a number yeah, yeah, there were a number of bands that were you know, there was the Stray Cats that were the real big commercial gap, but the Blasters were the big the ones in the LA scene, but there were there were some other Los Lobos was really kind

of rockabilly influencing on that. But anyway, they would bring out these these crowds that you would see them come up and they pull up and there their vintage cars and these guys would come out when their pompadours and their and their jeans and t shirt and their their cuffed jeans and their cowboy boots or whatever, and the and then they would have their their girlfriends and the poodle skirts and them and uh, the Betty Page kind of you know, a hair

and and all of because it's that scene is like it's a greaser scene by like a full start. Like you said, it's it's not like it's not like a happy Day's cutie. It's it's a little bit the edgier. It was. Okay, pay with it now, it's like tattoos everywhere, right. Granted it was a little edgier then, but it still struck me. I was still rather amused by it because to me, it they still struck me. It was kind of like the posers, you know, because there

had been the real the real guys. That's me, thank you. Okay, hey we're back. We just take a little dinner break. But listen, we were talking about slaughter Alley right, which right by the way, So it was like one of your first scripts, yes, my first attempt to write something commercial. Yes, but that story is dear to your heart because we've been working on a little bit launching your site slaughter Alley dot com. Correct now, just let you know. I'm going to take another crack

at that map. I think because I've learned since since we met last year, I've learned so much about like launch, how to you know, make some websites, how to do just my job. Recently, I've just been working in flash lately, so like all this other stuff, I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I can go back and like fix what I kind of oh I tend to do. But anyway, that's in the back burner. But one of these days the things that get cleared up, I think I have a way that I can make that thing launch. So that's

great. But again that's just my interests of like learning stuff like that, and it each year I get more and more knowledged and it's like, oh wait, I can apply this now. Sure. Sure. Anyway, so

you write Sladder Alley and you have two other ones now. During the process of like writing these scripts, and you were trying to make it something commercially viable, Um, was there any moments in there where you feel like, I don't know, like you felt your groove, Like I know that sometimes I write stuff like it's a lot of times it's painful, but sometimes you get these magic moments where you just feel like when it's completed or something, or like wow, you know I did it or I could see this or

something like that. Yeah. Um, Like what the question is, where do you find your enjoyment in the writing, because if you've done it so long, obviously there must be some grain of well. Slaughter Rally was was fun to write, and I've I've done multiple drafts of it over the years, and it looks like I'm going to be doing another one here, maybe very soon, um, because I've got some interest in it yet again.

Um Um, it's the script that refuses to die. It Uh, It's this is what I was saying that you know, scripts are alive and breathing, and this is some kind of like a monster that just lurks in the primordial slime somewhere that every now and then somebody keeps coming back and coming back to it and saying that like the story of like, uh, Lawrence Kazan when is one of our early scripts, the Bodyguard and Costner. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.

You saw it in his shelf something like one of his early early skips and he said, I'll grab that, and they made that. But it was you know things, look those stories where they take they've just been around for so long. Yeah, you know, I mean, look, the lesson I've learned from it isn't that nothing is ever dead in Hollywood. It's just you put it in a drawer for a while and then you know, six months a year later, bring it back out to show it around again.

Um, that's if it's a spec script. But right, well then again even that now it's like lead it into bled into the actual finished films. With what Lucas has done with his Star Wars films, Yeah, and it just read somewhere the new Blu Ray release. He added some more like dialogue to Darth Vader and returned the Jedi where he like screams no, like during the death scene of like the Emperors, and so fans are like again

like what the hell are you doing? Wow? So anyway, so yeah, even in the film form, it has life that it freezes and sure, sure, yeah, and that's interesting now that it's come to that where it's so except easy and accessible to be able to get to make, you know, slight alterations, nip and tucks, here and there and all that.

I mean, that's the that doesn't surprise me. It's it goes back to the I think it was as Ezra Pound who said, uh uh, you know, nothing is a poem is never never finished, it's abandoned. And uh so anythink that's apropos for any kind of art. You know, you just uh, including scripts. At some point, you just got to abandon it because it's it's never quite done, it will always be a work in progress. You've got to make a T shirt of that, like goes

ready for like those writer conferences and stuff like that. I never thought of that. That's actually pretty good. You've seen these like cute like shirts like bustats dot com somewhere, really funny things. But anyway, yeah, I think that's a great great little say what what nothing has ever finished? Its

abandoned on the it's just something like abandon it. So like this, you know, and they give like the little web you know, like a website in the back something to like T shirts that are specific to that market of writers. But yeah, people like we want to like walk by goes, what does that mean abandon it? Because then it strikes up our conversation like you just like, what the hell is that that term or that phrase?

Yeah? So yeah, anyway, um well anyway, uh kind of back to the to the question, Um, Mike, is it the inspiration or working? And you have these moments of like where you just feel like you're like you're the ship, like you're like you know, I mean, like you feel like you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a genius. But or sometimes you know, well, I I think if you ever are thinking thoughts like that, you're really asking for it. You're doomed. You know.

That's the day you really start worrying. I really think. I had the good fortune one time to meet David Lean, director of Lawrence of Arabia and stuff, and a friend of mine was assisting his restoration of Lawrence of Arabia and I was. She knew that I was a big fan, and she arranged for me to meet him at that and sneak in on a screening of it that Spielberg and a few other people were there, and so he

came back and shook my hand there afterwards. But she told me later that he had told her this story about when he was directing Lawrence of Arabia and the day came for him to shoot the scene where very late in the movie, where Lawrence is leading the Arabs on the cutting a swath through the Turkish lines and heading straight towards Damascus, and then he has to make a tactical choice of either wipe out and slaughter this Turkish column that had just had raped

and pillage to village, an Arabic village, or move on to Damascus in greater glory, and the smart tactical thing to do. But Lawrence opts succumbs to the thing, and where he goes and massacres the Turkish column right and sort of satiates his his his need for blood letting in a way. And and uh Lean told her that the day that they filmed that scene, he drove the limo came and got him at his hotel, and then they drove the hour and a half out to the to the location or wherever it was.

Lean got out of the car and looked at, you know, the hundreds of extras, all in uniform and costume, you know, waiting waiting for his first command, you know, And he looked at all these people cast and crew were just looking at him, and he got struck with them with diarrhea just immediately had to jump back into the car and told the chauffeurs that just take me back to the hotel. Took him back to them the hotel, and he camped out in the bathroom for two or three hours,

I guess or whatever. And then uh um, I finally got enough courage up to go back out to the scene and direct it. But he didn't. The point was, he didn't have any idea how to direct that scene. And he was so struck with fear and insecurity that you know, he was crapping in his pants. I mean, he just was literally, I mean, he just got struck with it. And so he said, he said to my friend Jude that you know, that just goes to show you

it could hit anyone anytime. You know. It's just it's it's always when you're when you're when you're putting yourself out there, there's a there's a great risk that you're that you're taking you're overcoming a great amount of fear there, or or you you're embracing the fear, you're crossing over you're taking these big risks and stuff in so it takes great effort to do it. But he said, somebody like the implication was somebody like him who's got all these accolades

and stuff like that. He said, sometimes they just don't know how to do it. You're scared. You're scared too, you know, I am, thank you, um and so so I always thought that was that,

that was a great story. I felt very privileged to have heard that, you know, secondhand, you know, um uh and and and so anyway back to what we were talking about, if and if you know the times that where you're really starting to feel cocky and say, damn, I'm good right right um is uh, you know, that's where you could be into a little bit of trouble. My best I probably arguably my best writing is probably stuff that I was mortified that I wrote. You know that I was

scared. I was scared really to pass on because I was afraid of the reaction it would get that people would just think, what are you thinking? Are you out of your mind? God's sakes, we're paying you all this money to write this, direc you know, you pretentious of a bit for you know whatever art damaged? You know, kind of geek um, you know all these all you know, all these thoughts run through your mind. I mean, it's just you know, racing, your mind races with a

lot of irrational, irrational stuff sometimes. But um, I think that and again, fear and insecurity can paralyze you right when you're when you're working. But the key thing is to have enough of it that it keeps you on edge, and it keeps you vigilant and keeps you always um uh wanting to take a risk, you know enough, just enough to where you won't settle

for the ordinary and the safe. But at the same time, you know it, you don't want you just want to push yourself just just enough, you know, just so to just keep yourself on edge with it, you know, don't settle for the low hanging fruit if you can't. Yeah, yeah, And that that is I think a really you know, a really valuable lesson when when you start feeling like you're dialing it in and all I can do this behind my back, you know, And then I think you're

kind of losing something. You're losing a passion, you're losing um, you're losing the healthy fear of your stuff. I read something recently about um uh, it's it's it's in a book called The uh. I think it's in this book called The War of art Um that's written by a novelist and screenwriter. This the guy that wrote Bagger Vance. And don't ask me his name

because I couldn't summon his name right now at the moment. But he was quoting, or were using, the anecdote of how how actors, especially famous actors, choose their roles, why they make the choices of and he noted that many actors respond to that question by saying, oh. He was citing on the actors studio, outside the actor's studio, and he said, invariably they get that answered that question, how do you choose the roles that you

that you do and what prompts you? And invariably they answer it scared me. Yeah, you know, a good one, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I chose because it's scared me. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. So translation is that it was something I haven't done before. It was challenging, and I wanted

to rise to the occasion. I wanted to meet that challenge, you know, I wanted to do something that I haven't done before, right right, you know, and go you know boldly go where no man has gone before, you know, with the be at the Starship Enterprise or your screenplay. You know. I was up and until three thirty last night working because I was scared of not being able to wrestle Flash the program. I'm trying to

learn this program Flash, like I don't know it. I'm online, I'm learning as I'm going, and it's such a high learning curve, but it's still it was a challenge and like, I don't I don't feel necessarily tired because I was motivated all last night because this just sheer desire, like I've got to learn this, I've got to figure this out. How did you?

How did they do this? How did they? And then just because that desire wanting to know, and then you and then getting to that place where you kind of break it, where just like you accomplish it where you started and where you end up. It's such a far journey, but you're like, wow, I did it. I was kind of scared jumping into because I didn't know how I was gonna get, you know, where where to start. But as you finished and when you found out you could actually

do something or finish a task, that's always you know, satisfying. So I guess for me that's so now coming back to it's like you have this, um, you have three scripts that you've abandoned. Yes, yes, yes, and right yeah so consciously, so when was the first what was the first gig you had that m that was like where you got paid as a screenwriter? Well, um, actually I got I got paid to do

a rewrite on slaughter Rally. So what what happened was I wrote it, um then that summer of eighty two I think it was, and then uh, I gave it to a friend of mine who had gone to film school with UM. It's actually former roommate of mine, Richard Green, who was now a very powerful agent at CAA. Actually, um, there you go,

there you go. And Richard had at that time aspirations to be a producer, and so he was working um for a true producer, a real working producer, and as a guy named Bill Finnigan who made TV movies and such um as opposed to those you know who are in our Hollywood. There's a lot of producers. Yes, yes, yes, I think it's true working yes, yes, yeah for the same exactly the same. And you

can apply that to writers and actors and all of that. Um. Um so I'm gonna order another pipe here when he comes back again, but I'm just keeping one eye on him. Um So, what happened was, um, can I get a no? No, okay, but no no, I actually I want to go for something a little redder? Yeah, and the color you you you had a nice poor you were tooken to someone there earlier the Nelson. Oh really, Oh it is an ipa. It's that red really wow. Wow, that's actually for something that's red that's going to

be multi Yeah. Yeah, I would recommend getting the working Okay. Then oh that all the skull splitter. Okay, I've had it. I've I've had it in a body of don that in draft. Okay, oh you do, Okay, I don't want to go I want to get stick with the draft. Then do you have the thistle? Yeah? Yeah, they bring that, thank you? Actually some water. I just need to Um. So, Richard I gave the script or Richard because he said, let me let me take this to the producer I'm working for, Bill Finnigan,

and um he said, I think you might like it. Because Richard read it and really liked it, and thought, Wow, it's just this is cool and so it's great. Um. So he took it to his boss and lo and behold, the boss loved it. They um optioned it from me, and then they like it was at first it's surreal. It's you're through the roof, you know, you're just uh, it's just an exciting, wonderful feeling and you could just feel like, wow, I could do this the rest of my life. Do you like it's all this is like

a moment of thank you? Thanks? Is there like a moment of I don't know where all of a sudden, like your whole future is right in front of you. Oh you're like boom that instance like oh I'm I'm on my way and and all this stuff. Yeah yeah, you it up right real fast and just see it, you know like billboards on the on the on the freeway. Uh man, how is that? That's good? That's good? You want to try that? Yeah, I mean just gave a quick sip that like, um, very frothy. Yeah, it's a nice

head on that so good beer. So so they optioned it, um and then they sat on it for like a year for one thing or another. Reality. Yeah, yeah, just it just it just took a while. And then um, I think it was that following summer they they called up and said, I think we're going to get some action on this. Now, we're gonna start rolling on it. And I think they renewed the option. They optioned it for one year, and I think they renewed the option.

And then then what happened was they got some money and they asked me to do a rewrite on it, and they had started they were getting a direct and they had Judd Nelson and Alexandra paul Um cast. This was about eighty three eighty two. Jett Nelson with Jett Nelson. All right, okay, well we knew who Judd Nelson was. Breakfast Cub hadn't come out, The Breakfast Club hadn't come out yet. He had done um forget what he had done before that that garnered a fair amount of attention. So he was

cool. He was a cool actor, right, We all like, oh, yeah, that's cool. Um, So what happened was I did the rewrite. I got like five thousand dollars to do a rewrite on it. Like, I remember, you have an agent at the time, did you well that? Okay, quick, quick, aside on that, there's a lot of different things that Slaughter Rally is instructional for those listening and in many different ways. Yeah, you got your Yeah. First of all, let

me roll back. I've literally finished writing the end on slaughter Rally, the very first draft of it. UM and I took because I lived in Westwood at the time. I said, I'm gonna go take a walk into the village and uh, you know, get a cup of coffee or a beer

or something like that. And I feel like yes. So I walked into Westwood Village, which at that time still had bookstores, and I remember going into um it was like Hunters Books that was there on Westwood Boulevard, and I walked in and prominently displayed on a case and the whole little setup as you walk in is Stephen King's Christine, which has had the cover of it was the car, the car, you know, and basically the grill of

that. I think it was an old Chrysler. And I looked at that and I thought, oh, no, don't tell me, it's no, it can't be about like and it wasn't quite the same, but boy, it was close enough. It was like, Oh, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it, So that that first that was less than number one, which is that you know, there are like you were talking about earlier, there are ideas up there in the cloud that you just sort of take. Well, if you don't act on the idea that you have,

somebody else is going to act on it as well. Right, And one of my instructors that UCLA used to say that, look, ideas are literally out there floating around in the ether. It's not uncommon at all for someone or several people to latch onto the same idea at the same time. Right. And it's not a case of somebody ripping off someone else or anything. It's just sometimes you all and you can call it the collective unconscious, you can call it any synchronicity, you can call it any number of things.

But it is a reality. It happens. So my testament as well. Yeah, okay, so my only advice in the front is that it will happen to you sooner or later, and act on your ideas. You get an impulse, you get a creative impulse, then act on it right away, you know, and if you can, you know, sometimes it's just not possible and you know, and sometimes there's not quite enough of a of an idea. Okay, So so that was that. Then, So anyway, um, I did this. I did this rewrite on slaughter Alley.

They were on the fast track. They were going to head an into production, Alexander Paul and Judd Nelson starring in it. I was doing this rewrite. I finished the rewrite. I remember this very well on Halloween nineteen eighty I guess it's eighty three at that point. And then, um, two weeks before they were scheduled to go before cameras, the money disappeared, it evaporated. And oh and oh, I forgot to say. We got the proverbial green light after my rewrite on it. Okay, green light, they're

going forward. It's happening. Boom. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. I quit my job at the Academy, and I was kind of like Solong mail room, Solong suckers, You're never gonna you know, you're never gonna see me again, you know, except when I'm walking up the red carpet to collect my little gold mane. And uh, well that's what I was saying, you know, just after that option, that initial payment of like, wow, I

am truly a boom. It's just you're getting You can see the billboards on that highway lighted up all the way to the horizon. What you're gonna do? You know, the old it's all laid down for you. And so then the money is yanked two weeks before the start date. It just fell apart. I never got an answer as to why it happened, and suddenly everything came to a screeching and I mean screeching. Yeah, so the big pay day that I was going to get once they started filming never happened.

And so I actually had to go back to the Academy and ask, in the most humiliating circumstances, asked for my old job back, which they gave me. And yeah, God love them. And but that taught me such a valuable lesson, you know, just such a valuable lesson m a very early on about the film industry, how volatile it is, and no matter how good it looks or whatever, there are there are things, there are bolts of lightning that can strike at any given moment out there that will just

derail even the most seemingly the most soundest of projects. So U so, just always be aware of that. Do not count your chickens before they hatch, because it's just too many things can happen until an audience, until your film is playing before an audience who has paid money to see it in a theater you know and near you. Um man, it does you know, Just keep keep knocking on wood the whole way. Just be lucky you can

even you know you've gotten, You've gotten that far. So um So, Then in answer to the agent, um so, when they first made the offer to option it, I was I had no agent, I had no representation at all, and so I didn't know what to do. Yeah, so um uh, through some friends of good friends of mine, um they knew they they recommended an agent to me. They made a call to him,

and this guy came in and negotiated a deal. And suddenly, and this was another valuable lesson, I learned the figures that they were offering me directly were suddenly twice as high as I ultimate. After the agent got into the into the business, so he basically knew agociated a better deal for me,

so he get his cut. He certainly w got his cut. But he also you know, they stepped in and they made sure that I wasn't taken advantage of because you know, you're young and you're hungry, and I think, yeah, yeah, I'll take You'll take anything that they want to want to throw at you. But they this agent came in and his name was Shelley Wile, and Shelley came in and got that did a good job

on that on that first deal. However, Shelley wouldn't take me on as a as a full as a legitimate client at his agency because they didn't represent well as He would keep me on as what he called a pocket client, which was kind of in his back pocket. But yeah, but I wasn't a regular client yet based on the merits of a quote unquote exploitation script. So you know, slaughter ally was still for him, didn't merit a you

know, real representation yet. So so that's how so I had. I was his pocket client for a while, and so he wasn't going to do

anything for me. He would be there to negotiate a deal for me, but I wasn't going to be able to get out and meet other people or or move on the success of or the limited success of slaughter Ally, so what happened was I went back, I had my took back my job at the at the mail room, fell into a deep funk of a depression where I was like xerox in my face every day, and you know, because thinking I'm never going to get out of here, I'm going to die an

old man in the mail room, you know, all this stuff. It was just oh so depressing, um and I felt I was never I wasn't going to find anything worth writing about again. And so then then what happened. And during this time, I was going to all these punk shows, and I was starting to make music videos for Black Flag and Henry Rollins and the are you um cinematographer director part of the crew I was. I was directing them, you know, you know so I mean basically I just was

going to these guys. I went to the Minimen after a show and I said, I talked to Mike Watt, the bass player, and I said, Mike, you know, I can make it. I've had a couple of beers and I said, Mike, I can make a I can make a video for you. You guys were like, you know, three hundred dollars and Mike said, okay, let's do it. Do you mean, do you recall any songs the videos have you done? Oh? Yeah?

It was for the minimen. It was this Ain't No Picnic? And then we uh in the same session we shot, we went down and they were performing live that night too. We were shooting on a weekend, and so we shot on a Saturday and Sunday, and then they were performing Saturday night at a big punk rock show down at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown LA, which used to be an arena for like you know, old wrestling gigs and

stuff like that. It was just a concrete slab and so we had all the camera equipment everything, and I had the crew and we were all young. I said, look, I'll pay everybody, you know, we'll we'll you guys, let's get some pizza and let's go down to the frecking show and we'll we'll um shoot um, what what do you shoot? And we'll man, we'll shoot um. I said, I want to shoot him doing um uh this um ain't talking about Love, which was their cover of the

Van Halen Opus. You know, Van Halen's first big hit, Ain't Talking about love and when you know, when Van Halen performed it, it's like six minutes long, you know, and then it finally climaxes with it, you know, hey hey, hey, yeah, you know in that whole um. The miniment did it in thirty seven seconds and basically they just took the last um, the last stands of lyrics and then, uh, you know, I've been to the edge. I stood and looked down. You know, I lost a lot of friends there. I got no time to

mess around, no way. And then um, hey, hey hey, you know, hey, hey hey, and that was it, and they played it really fast. So I told the miniment, I said, let's let's do this live. You know, I mean, I'm gonna shoot you guys live performing this, but try to perform it at the tempo you remember recording it because we had no playback room, right, you know, I had a cassette that was playing back for the stuff earlier in the day and so um um and they said okay, and I said, do one other

thing. The song is so short, just play it twice so I have time to switch camera positions because I had two cameras, and I said, I just want my two guys to switch, you know, angles so we can get full on coverage, right And he said, sure, you know, we'll do it. So so we get down there. We get and it's this big punk show. There's like half a dozen bands on on.

They were pretty high up in the in the order in so we we were there and we were right on the edge of the procenium and I had all the camera stuff in there, and they told me where was going to be in their set, you know, and so I said okay, and they gave me the signal and I said, roll the cameras and then they started playing the song and the guys, we're shooting, and then the song d thirty seven seconds later and great, now we're going to switch. They just

went right back into it without any break. And I said, Mike, no, no, you know. And d boone you know, on the guitar, was just I remember him just kind of shrugging like, oh, dude, you know, rock and bucket. So I had good My good friend Bill Judkins was doing a second unit quote second unit, which was basically he had an old spring wound bell and Howe sixteen millimeter camera that was like

the leftover from World War One or something. You know. And uh, and Bill was right next to me, and I remember he just scrambled up onto the stage. He just clambered up there right away. And as soon as they started doing the second version and got behind them looking out at the audience, he got a great got a great angle. My other friend, John Hart couldn't do it because the camera was too too big. He just couldn't get it up. It was an airflex and so Bill got got these

great shots. But the problem was Bill's camera was so old. The the spring on the cameras it would get lower in the wind, it would start slowing down. So when the film starts moving slower through the aperture, you capture more action on each frame. So basically when you project it, everything starts speeding up and it's like an old silent film, you know. And so the last footage bits of them, they're just like jumping around. They look like you know, Buster Katona. It was just it was crazy.

But once we started cutting it together, it kind of added to the whole frenetic quality of the video. And then we did some in this because it was early eighties, we could solarize some video and stuff. As we added some kind of effects to it, and it's just it's I have it on my website, you can you can see it. Yeah, but MTV played

it as the world's shortest video. It made the MTV news. I never saw I saw that, but apparently Kurt Loder introduced as the world shortest video at the time and now which says something like that, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. But I thought was pretty cool. But um, this ain't no picnic, the

one that we really did that was sort of legitimate. That that played quite a while on MTV and uh um and and actually a lot of that footage, all the outtakes and everything else were proved to be pretty valuable because you know, Dee Boone, the guitarist for the miniment, was killed in a car wreck. Um late in the December of that year. This is eighty four, and um, you know, it's great having some really good, great images of him performing, although we don't have sound one on it,

but there's some really crisp stuff. And then I did another one for them, um no that yeah, later later that year. Um, um, this ain't not this Saint King of the Hill, which we shot on video at the time, and we had a steadicamp for that. We really stepped up, you know. Um so um, so you did all this stuff, so we're, um, what what doors are that opened for you? Well? Do you think that um that you saw on top of your writing? All right, sorry, we're back, okay, so you've done well

videos. Yeah. So what I was my idea at the time was like, okay, cool, I'm I'm getting my some directing experience now doing these these music videos, you know. And uh and it was again it was real, real shoe string budget kind of stuff. It was totally punk rock um. But SST Records was really happy with the with the the minimum videos, and so they started talking to me about doing something with with Black Flag. Yeah. It was because they were black Flag basically ran SST at this

time. It was Henry Rollins was ahead of it, wasn't he. No, well, well yeah he wasn't. The original Well that my memories old black Flag was always Greg Genka and and Chuck Takowski. But then Chuck eventually left um and just continued to sort of run SST. But but Greg gen started SST Records and he was the guitars for Black Flag and so Henry excuse

me, it was not the original Yeah, no vocalists. There were several before Henry Um, but he was the one that finally stepped in and became really the face of Black Flag because Henry really relished, i think, being the front man there and he was, you know, a formidable personality.

Um. And so who formed the Circle Jerks after that, well, Chris Morris and he would been Chris Morris was the original vocalist for Black Flag, right okay, And he sang on like nervous breakdown and some of those really that that very first EP for fives that they did, um and then and then he went on to he left and to start Circle Jerks. I was up at Skywalker Sound a couple of years ago, huh, and they had

a project there. They had all the original masters for the Black Flag um, you know albums and really they were remastering oh wow, and it's it was just classic, Like at my box, they were showing us like this project they were working on. I'm just like, that's interesting, crazy black Yeah. Yeah, there's a clash of stuff right there. But um, um, and that's that's another story. Working with with Henry and and and

all that. But you know, by my I was hoping that what this would do would would give me continued cred, you know, as a director, and then my writing career would be kind of moving along simultaneously, you know, with this, so that eventually I would be I could parlay it into a thing where I write something and say, okay, I want to direct this, okay, and and hoping that somebody would give me that option,

it would give me that chance. Um what happened then was that I'm back at the mail room right and I'm like in a funk now because the production fell apart, and um and I just didn't think I was going to get anywhere out. So like I was saying, I've seen all these punk shows and really may be inspired by the music. And I that's when I really tried to write that failed murder mystery thing that fell apart, and it

just it just didn't come to come together. So I also started a record label shortly after this too, but that but that was a little further down the line. But um so anyway, still in working there, m I ran into another old friend of mine that I had gone to film school with, and he said, um, what are you doing? And I said, on the licking stamps in the mail room, dude, I've kind of I'm like bummed. And he said, well, whatever happened to slaughter Alley?

He said that was a great scrap And I said, I'm just sitting there on a shelf. But he said, give it to me. He said, I'm working. I'm working in the mail room of William Morris Agency. And he said, oh, you know, I can't tell you the crap I have to read every day, and a lot of this is by in a lot of the scripts are by people who are making a lot of money. He said that slatter rally is just as good as any of the stuff that I'm reading. So let me get Let me get it too.

A couple of young agents there that I have in mind, and I said okay, So he did, and within a couple of weeks I was asked to come into William Morris and I met with a couple of young agents there, Rick Jeff and Carol Yumpkis were their names, and they they loved the script and they signed me and that was just like boy, Suddenly it was like, oh, well, being represented by people my age, whereas Shelley while was an old, much older guy, and now here were people that

like in my age bracket and speaking my language right, And they just loved it. And they said, we're going to get you out of meetings and we'll start, you know, we're gonna start finding some things for you. And I said, fantastic. So I was really emboldened by that. Um Rick Jaffa incidentally, UM left a couple of years or three three, three years or four years later UM as my agent, UM to become a writer

himself. And he just recently, he and his wife just recently wrote Rise on the Planet of the Apes. Oh wow, Yeah, so he's done, all right, okay, and yeah yeah, but um but he was a he was a terrific guy and a terrific agent, you know, for me at the time. And I remember meeting him the first time and he said, I gotta tell you. I said, I got your script. I read it. I couldn't put it down. He said, when it was done, I threw it in the air. I was so happy reading

a really good script. This is a really awesome script. I love it, you know. And this was just like, oh God, thank you. Hearing stuff like that from somebody really in the know, yeah, you know who said we're gonna take this and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna get you some work, you know based but it was still under option with the company that had so it was tied up. They couldn't go out

and try to resell it. But they said, we're gonna, we're gonna use this as a calling card for you and get you out there now and start starting out. Yeah you start, you know, thinks. So that's um, that's what what led to my first bit of employment, which I can tell you about now, or we'll hold until next we'll take it later. I think we'll wrap it up for two. Okay. I think this is great. This is this is better than I expected about it. I

mean, because it's I feel like there's so much more. There's so much more we could talk about. And I think that the uh, the audience of one whoever's listening to this podcast get kick out of it. Okay, but um, yeah, so let's wrap it up and sure we'll catch up another you know. Sure we've kind of jumped around all over the place with music and yeah, but it's good. Okay, let me finish the thought though, which was maybe you can put this back into the context that it

really should have been. Okay, when I was are talking about going to these the shows and like they've seeing the blasters and and a lot of this rockabilly stuff that was happening, Um, they struck me all as being a little bit like posers, right and I and and I felt very acutely, um that you know, there would have been a generation or two before them who were the real McCoys, if you will, that were the real the real rockabilly guys, the guys who were sniffing glue and racing their cars at

three o'clock in the morning and like, you know, drinking they got a pint of sloe gin in the back pocket and high school you know, and and and would rumble with a chain and a dire iron, right, And I always was thinking about, boy, would be really it's amusing to what would happen if some of those guys came and met up with these kind of poser blockabilly pussies, you know, and it really come to rumble, what would happen, you know, what would happen to these kind of posing guys

who looked like really tough, right right, You know if the real McCoys showed up one night on their doorsteps. So that was kind of an impetus to start writing slaughter Allister. Really, what would happen if the past came and visited upon the future? Yeah, and how how would either hold up? You know, it is cool and it's such a cool little subculture. Um yeah, like um, you know like um conan and Bryan is a huge Rocketbilly fan. These guys all his own Rocketbilly band and you know,

oh really I didn't know that was his brand of brand. Yeah, he go, he goes sometimes on these little tours, like on his hiatus of the show, where he and his little Rocketbilly band play across the you know country. Sure so, but he's got this little he's got this affinity. It's probably why his hair is a pompado our time or whatever. Yeah, okay, well that's that sort of explains a lot. He's a Harvard guy whatever he is, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. H

it'd be funny if he met at with the past. Now we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Well, that's kind of what I'm talking about, you know, so you know you look at it. I mean again, it's partly our our fascination with people like Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins and all those all those early guys. You know, they weren't they weren't bright educated guys. They were tough as

nails though, and they were really they were the real deal. And uh so I just you know, kind of wonder what would happen, what would happen? So how funny? All right, cool? Yeah, we can wrap this up and we'll We'll continue another time for sure, and I know I'm interested. There's so much more to talk about. So yeah, and hopefully the next time we talked, I'll mention whatever the next steps of projects

are going on, and we'll catch up at what you're doing. Yeah, there was kind of a cluster back to vity there at at a period there that really, um, you know it, career in Hollywood is very streaky. It can be like like a hot streak in sports, you know, where if you're if you're hot and you're you're working at then were you work at? You know, surf that wave you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, because you never know when if if another good one is going

to calm or not right right again? Thanks. Hollywood is always throwing the changeup ball at you. So I'm mixing my my sports metaphors. I know, you know. We got about three or four of them in the span of a two or three sentences here, But I think you get the gist of what I'm talking about. You lost me on the wave when I was just my brain started thinking about the wave. Yeah, yeah, yeah right cool? Well right, Scott, thank you, Yeah, we'll catch up

later. Cool. I want to thank Scott so much for doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv forward slash three h eight, and if you haven't already, please head over to Screenwriting podcast dot com and leave a good review and subscribe to the show. It really helps us out a lot. Thank you so much for listening, guys, As always, keep on writing no matter what.

I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.