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      <title>Who Are You People?</title>
      <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/</link>
      <description>transmissions from the ninth circle of Hollywood | Michael Gilvary</description>
      <language>en</language>
      <copyright>Copyright 2008</copyright>
      <lastBuildDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:40:26 -0800</lastBuildDate>
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         <title>She&apos;s A Trip, But She&apos;s No Vacation</title>
         <description><![CDATA[The producers of <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059925/">Greta</a></em> have put up a <a href="http://www.gretathemovie.com/">really slick flash site</a> for the movie. Check it out. It incorporates a lot of the music and production design that's used in the film. I'm particularly enamored of the doodle animations.  

There are also sites for the film on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/greta_2008">MySpace</a> and <a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33373941552">Facebook</a>.

I'll post more news about the movie when we know what the release plans will be. ]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2008/09/shes_a_trip_but_shes_no_vacati.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2008/09/shes_a_trip_but_shes_no_vacati.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Greta</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:40:26 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>Where&apos;s The Corkscrew?</title>
         <description><![CDATA[I've been mum for a while because this bit of good news had not been officially announced yet and I didn't want to jinx anything, but...

My first movie just went into production.

It's called <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059925/">Greta</a>, and it's being produced by <a href="http://www.whitewaterfilms.com/Home.html">Whitewater Films</a> and directed by <a href="http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm1636655/">Nancy Bardawil</a>. It stars <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0240381/">Hilary Duff</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000995/">Ellen Burstyn</a>, <a href="http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0614526/">Michael Murphy</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1963091/">Evan Ross</a>. It should go without saying that I'm completely floored by this great cast, especially considering that this is a pretty small movie. 

Here's <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071002/people_nm/duff_dc_2">an article</a> about the project.

This project has been a long time coming. It's one of the first scripts I ever wrote and, at one point, in a <a href="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2005/12/be_a_digital_packrat.html">careless moment</a>, I nearly threw away the only existing copy. A number of producers have gotten involved -- and then uninvolved -- over the years. But it's finally, truly happening. 

In one of my <a href="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2005/12/previously_on_who_are_you_peop_1.html">early posts</a>, I talked about the bottle of wine that I've been saving until my Big Break, and how, year after year, no matter what good things had happened to me, I've yet to pop the cork. 

Well, I'm about to pop that motherflippin' cork. And drink the whole damn bottle. ]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/10/wheres_the_corkscrew.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/10/wheres_the_corkscrew.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Greta</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:33:50 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>One Small Step</title>
         <description><![CDATA[Last weekend was the second and last of the two-weekend shoot for my short film, <em>Walking Wounded</em>, and I'm still recovering. It's a 16-page script, which means we averaged four pages per day. That's like shooting a 110-page feature in about 27 days, which is pretty respectable. 

The <a href="http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/HVX200/">Panasonic HVX200</a> treated us pretty well. It's got its limitations -- gainy blacks, for instance -- but overall I'm very satisfied. It functioned flawlessly and we've got some great images. However, I don't know how anyone could work with the 4 or 8GB P2 cards. The 16GB cards were released right before this shoot, and we got to use two of them, for a total of 32GB of in-camera storage. That allowed us to shoot an entire day before off-loading, a process that took around half an hour or more. If we had to swap out 4GB cards so we could off-load and keep shooting, I think I would've jumped in front of a bus. 

Among the random things I learned on this shoot...

- August in the San Fernando Valley is mighty hot, and white people who spend all day on the roof will get sunburned. 

- Assistant directors and script supervisors are essential for any production that aims to be even a hair above amateur; I know because we didn't have one and we suffered for it.

- People who will work on your short for free because they like you -- or, even better, they like the project -- are priceless. 

More updates to come as editing and visual effects get underway.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/08/one_small_step.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/08/one_small_step.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Short</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:02:03 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>You Run And You Run To Catch Up With The Sun...</title>
         <description><![CDATA[Okay, so there haven't been much in the way of updates. Sorry, I've been pretty busy working on two different feature projects and trying to fit the short prep into whatever spare moments I can find. 

And, all of the sudden -- we're shooting in 3 days! Wow. How did that happen? The good news is, I think we're almost ready. A very talented cast is in place, the crew is assembled, the script is tight and I've got most of it storyboarded. 

The cast consists of <a href="http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm1884657/">Rob Zabrecky</a>, who starred in my last short and currently appears in the new -- and pretty damn cool -- MTV show, <a href="http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/room_401/series.jhtml"><em>Room 401</em></a>, and <a href="http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm1033193/">Mageina Tovah</a>, whose filmography is downright intimidating, and includes both <em>Spider-Man 2</em> and <em>3</em>. 

I'm storyboarding the film with <a href="http://www.frameforge3d.com/">FrameForge 3D Studio 2</a>, which is pretty useful, but can also be frustrating. There's so much that you can do with it, but if you aren't disciplined, you end up fiddling with details to the point that you've spent two hours laying out a handful of shots that only take 30 minutes to actually shoot. That kind of dicking around can turn a time-saving tool into a real time waster. 

My advice, should anyone give this software a go is, try not to endlessly manipulate your character's poses and facial expressions, and build really elaborate, detailed sets. Build a roughly accurate set, position your characters roughly where they need to be and move on. 

Here are some sample frames that I rendered in a "sketch" style.

<center>
<img alt="storyboardsample1.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/storyboardsample1.jpg" width="534" height="300" />

<img alt="storyboardsample2.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/storyboardsample2.jpg" width="534" height="300" /></center>

Wish us luck...]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/07/you_run_and_you_run_to_catch_u.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/07/you_run_and_you_run_to_catch_u.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Short</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:21:23 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>Things Are Shaping Up</title>
         <description><![CDATA[The short is coming together. Shooting dates are set. Locations are secured. The script is polished. A slick FX shop has come on board to help out with the effects. And just this week, I secured the talents of a really gifted illustrator for the design of the aliens and their various machines. 

His name is <a href="http://tarrzan.deviantart.com/">Alex Ruiz</a> and here's a sample of his work.

<center><a href="http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/44921000/"><img alt="Ambush_by_tarrzan.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/Ambush_by_tarrzan.jpg" width="512" height="241" /></a></center>

I'm currently reading <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Star-Wars-Definitive-Original/dp/0345494768/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-0595820-0796762?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183150690&sr=1-1">The Making Of Star Wars</a></em>, which I highly recommend. In it, some of the people involved with the film talk about how Ralph McQuarrie's concept sketches really informed everyone's vision of what the movie would look and feel like. Looking at Alex's work, I'm starting to understand what they were talking about.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/06/things_are_shaping_up.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/06/things_are_shaping_up.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Short</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:00:50 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>It Begins...</title>
         <description><![CDATA[I'm about to pull the trigger on a fairly ambitious project -- a new short film, produced under the auspices of the <a href="http://www.socalfilm.com">Socal Film Group</a>. It's been a while since my last short, <a href="http://socalfilm.com/films/dustdevil.html">DUST DEVIL</a>, and this one will be considerably more demanding and, if things go well, a much more impressive piece of filmmaking. 

It's a sci-fi thriller set in the aftermath of an alien invasion that has decimated the population, a nod to sci-fi films like <em>Omega Man</em>, <em>War of the Worlds</em> and the like. 

On a budget of zero. 

Okay, not literally zero, but virtually zero. We'll be renting an HD camera and there will be some basic costs that you just can't avoid. I also need to pick up a computer with some serious balls and some FX software, but that stuff isn't a direct production expense, since I can use them for many other applications. But everything else -- lighting, grip, crew, talent, locations -- will be borrowed, bartered or stolen.  

The real trick to this project will be the effects. There will be many. Lots of CGI and lots of really challenging compositing. On a budget of zero. 

(If there are any CG artists out there interested in donating their talents in exchange for material for their reel, don't be shy. Click my name at the bottom of this post and email me.)

Barring unforeseen circumstances, production is going to happen toward the end of July. Postproduction will take considerably longer. I intend to document the entire process right here, in gory detail. So, wish me luck and watch this space. ]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/06/it_begins.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/06/it_begins.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Short</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:52:03 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>&quot;I Hear You Guys Are Going On Strike.&quot;</title>
         <description><![CDATA[I have a good friend who's a camera operator on a big TV drama. He told me the buzz on set is that the WGA is going to go on strike, and he asked me if that was true. He's a dear friend, and there was no rancor behind the inquiry, but it's an inherently loaded question. If my guild goes on strike, that means his show shuts down production and he's out of a paycheck indefinitely. 

I'm hearing that statement, in one form or another, more and more nowadays -- "I hear the writers are going on strike." A lot of people in LA make their living in the entertainment industry, and many of them will be affected by a work stoppage. Sometimes I hear a touch of bitterness, because a WGA strike is out of their hands. 

Well, guess what, folks. It's out of mine, too. 

<a href="http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/02/strike-striiiiikkkke.html">We might strike</a>. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-mazin/something-picket-this-way_b_41352.html">We might not</a>. It all depends on how events unfold once the writers and the companies sit down to begin negotiations this summer. We're all waiting with bated breath. 

I don't want to strike, but I don't want the guild to eat a shit sandwich, either. Technology is bringing about great change in our business, and we don't have a system in place to account for these new revenue streams. If we accept lousy terms, we'll likely be stuck with them for a long time to come. 

Uncertainty sucks. But there's no real solace in being certain you're screwed. 

Anyway, I just wanted to provide an answer to all of you who have been wondering if the writers are going on strike. The answer is: there is no answer. 

Fun, huh?

Believe me, nobody hates an unresolved plot line more than we do.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/04/i_hear_you_guys_are_going_on_s.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/04/i_hear_you_guys_are_going_on_s.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Business We&apos;ve Chosen</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:59:11 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>&quot;Quiet&quot; Makes Film Threat&apos;s Top 10</title>
         <description><![CDATA[This is pretty cool. 

<em><a href="http://www.socalfilm.com/films/quiet.html">Quiet</a></em>, a short film written by Steve Barr and directed by Marshall McAuley, two very good friends of mine, made <em>Film Threat</em>'s list of <a href="http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=features&Id=1863">best short films of 2006</a>. 

Way to go, boys!]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/01/quiet_makes_film_threats_top_1.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2007/01/quiet_makes_film_threats_top_1.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:56:52 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>An Open Letter to the New Year</title>
         <description><![CDATA[<center><img alt="stickdrawing-2007.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/stickdrawing-2007.jpg" width="430" height="240" /></center>

Dear 2007,

No pressure, but I'm expecting big things from you. I don't want to bad-mouth your predecessor, but 2006 could've done a better job. Sure, the Republican stranglehold on Congress was finally broken and Rumsfeld got the long-overdue boot, but my father didn't even live to see any of it. And for that alone, 2006 goes down in my record books as Shittiest Year Ever. 

<center><img alt="dad.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/dad.jpg" width="232" height="328" /></center>

Even my lesser heroes took a hit this year. After Mel Gibson performed self-immolation on his public persona, Michael Richards apparently thought that even that kind of bad publicity beat whatever hell of anonymity he'd found himself in. What am I supposed to do with my Kramer T-shirt now? There's a Mad Max action figure on display in my son's nursery. I guess I'd better take that down before he's old enough to start asking questions. 

Treat my heroes better this year, 2007. That's my first request. If Harrison Ford winds up on You Tube in crotchless panties, I'm going to drink myself into a coma that lasts till 2008. 

Something else you've got on your plate is the upcoming contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP. Plenty of opportunities for disaster there. Try not to step on your dick, okay? Everybody's <a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117956115.html?categoryid=18&cs=1">talking about a strike</a>, so the studios are already stockpiling scripts, which means, even if we reach an agreement, there could be a development slowdown once the dust settles, just like in 2001 (remember that <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52564">Shitty Year That Was</a>?). It's going to take some grace to navigate these waters, 2007, but I'm counting on you. I'd like to keep feeding my family. 

Hey, why not let me score a big spec sale in the stockpiling frenzy? It's the least you can do after 2006 waylaid my <a href="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/01/have_you_written_anything_ive.html">indie project</a> on its journey toward production. 

Which reminds me -- please put my indie project into production this spring. It's the least you can do if you're going to ask me to walk the picket line in the fall. 

And, hey, as long as we're talking about my career, can you try to get a certain A-list director to move forward with my big sci-fi project? I'm not getting any younger here. 

Don't look at me like that, 2007. I told you I'm expecting big things. It's not like I'm asking the impossible. I didn't ask you to end the genocide in Darfur or, you know, bring my dad back. (Though, if either of those occur to you...)

Look, I'm only asking for modest, realistic developments. This is your chance to make a real mark on my life. You want to be fondly remembered, like the year I lost my virginity, or the year my son was born? Or do you want to be thought of as just another 1993. Remember what happened in '93? I sure don't. And that's my point. 

You can do it, 2007. I know you can. 

Happy New Year. Now get to work.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/12/an_open_letter_to_the_new_year.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/12/an_open_letter_to_the_new_year.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Who is this person?</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:58:53 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>No Strings Attached</title>
         <description><![CDATA[<center><img alt="No-Strings-Attached.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/No-Strings-Attached.jpg" width="432" height="180" /></center>

This is a rant. No, actually, it's a desperate plea.

Can we please stop with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_fu_film">wire-fu</a>? 

Seriously. It was fun for a while there. We had some good times in <em>The Matrix</em> and <em>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</em>. But lately, I just feel like we're going through the motions.  

Within the past decade, we've seen an increasing prevalence of action movies that are in blatant violation of the law. No, I'm not talking about Lindsey Lohan's inevitable drug offense. I'm talking about <a href="http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/newtlaws/newtltoc.html">Newton's laws of motion</a>. These movies defy gravity. And I think that sucks.

Now, I won't argue that movies are, or should be, anything akin to a perfect replica of reality. From the time of George Melies in cinema's infancy, the art form of the moving image has been used to subvert, heighten or completely ignore reality. And I love it for that. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's why we have movies like <em>The Wizard of Oz</em>, <em>Brazil</em> and <em>Pretty Woman</em>. 

But, the action within a story must be internally consisent with the laws of that story world. And, unless that story world has a valid reason for rejecting the laws of phyics as we know them here on earth, what goes up must come down -- and at a rate consistent with what we'd anticipate.

Not being an early fan of Hong Kong cinema, my first experience with wire-fu was probably in <em>The Matix</em>. And I loved it. I flipped for it. It was a reality-bending effect in a movie where bending reality was part of the fun. It was, in other words, part of the <strong>story</strong>.

But not once did I think, "Hey, that's a cool effect! Let's put it in every other action film from now on."

Though, to be honest, my problem isn't even necessarily with the wire-fu. It's with the effect that bad physics due to wire-fu -- and also CGI -- is having on movies.  

Suddenly most of our action films are brimming with preposterous action sequences. These movies are frequently derided as "cartoonish," but let me tell you something -- that's an insult to cartoons. Even the Looney Toons of Fritz Freling, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones had a healthy respect for the laws of physics.

Sure, they didn't always follow those laws, but they didn't ignore them either. They played with them. They exaggerated them. They obeyed them right up to the moment when they didn't -- and that was the gag. Wile E. Coyote running straight off a cliff and NOT falling was the joke. And then, of course, he fell. Which was also the joke. 

But how many modern action films have you seen -- ones ostensibly based in reality -- where something like this happens: an explosion detonates and the hero is sent hurtling backward through the air, following a trajectory so flat that <a href="http://www.forgetfoo.com/?blogid=6874">Kiera Knightley</a> could sue for trademark infringement. Even a 90+ mph <a href="http://www.drmikemarshall.com/ChapterTwenty.html">fastball</a> carves out a discernible arc as it sails toward home plate. Yet this actor, traveling a fraction of that speed, floats above the ground in a straight line.

Nobody's fooled by this. We all know he was suspended by wires. The wires have been digitally erased, but you can still tell. How come you can tell? Well, because it turns out that human beings have a well-developed sense for how objects in motion should behave. We develop this ability at a pretty early age. We have to. Without it, we wouldn't survive very long. 

In <a href="http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~lds/pdfs/kim1999.pdf#search=%22human%20perception%20gravity%22">this study</a>, researchers found that between the ages of three and six, children develop the ability to predict the motion of objects under the influence of gravity and inertia. Here's a salient passage:

<blockquote><em>Human adults are sensitive to a variety of effects of gravity and inertia on the motions of objects. In particular, a hand-held object that is released in mid-air looks natural only if it begins to move downward, an object that falls freely looks natural only if it undergoes appropriate acceleration, and an object that rolls off a cliff looks natural only if it moves downward on a parabolic path.

What are the origins of this sensitivity? Gravity and inertia have constrained the motions of objects through-out the history of the earth, and humans and other animals have evolved a variety of sensory and motor mechanisms that take account of their effects. It is therefore possible that humans have also evolved perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that are sensitive to effects of gravity and inertia. Alternatively, human adults have a lifetime of experience observing objects, and they may have learned about natural object motions.</em></blockquote>

It's precisely because of this innate perceptive ability that animators will tell you one of the biggest challenges of animation is convincingly reproducing the effects of gravity. If an animated character jumps in the air and lands a fraction of a second too late, we sense that something is wrong -- even if we can't pinpoint the reason why. 

But, for some reason, it's become acceptable -- sometimes even expected -- for a movie character falling off a building to slow down, as the wire harness brakes him, instead of accelerating as he plummets toward his death. Or a CGI monster runs along the wall instead of the floor -- not like a fly or lizard, gripping the surface, but bounding across it, as though gravity were suddenly pulling it sideways instead of down (I'm looking at you, <em>Underworld</em>). 

Sure, sometimes these sorts of effects can look really cool. The problem is...

I don't care.

When the hero suddenly, at the most convenient moment, displays an ability to defy the most basic laws of Newtonian physics, I no longer fear for his safety. I no longer worry that he can't achieve his goal. I no longer wonder how he'll defeat the bad guy. 

I no longer care about him or his objectives. And, the moment that happens, the story stops working. 

That doesn't mean Superman shouldn't fly. Of course he should. That's why he's Superman. But how come a mortal man who has simply studied martial arts can make gravity wait while he dispatches his enemies? Do they teach that ability at those strip-mall dojos? It's one thing for <em>Fantastic Four</em>'s the Thing to lift a car over his head; his superpower is strength. But there's no good reason why he should take a punch and soar forty feet backwards in a straight trajectory. That's just stupid. And it shows a frightful lack of respect for the filmgoing audience. 

Wire work is a groundbreaking tool that allows for stunts that could never before have been safely attempted. And CGI has developed to the point that there is literally nothing a filmmaker can't put on the screen (given enough time and money, of course). But just because we have these tools, that doesn't mean we should use them every chance we get. 

This isn't a rant, or a desperate plea. It's a call to arms. This sloppy storytelling (and that's exactly what it is -- a failure of storytelling) is ruining movies. It's turning them into mind-numbing video games where the more that happens, the less we care. 

Watch the stunts in an older film like <em>Mad Max</em>. When that guy flies off his motorcycle and goes ass over teakettle into a field, you never suspect that he's got a wirework team keeping him aloft. His trajectory matches the distance and speed that he travels, which makes you instinctively cringe. And that keeps you in the story.

Nobody instinctively cringes at a wire work stunt.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/09/no_strings_attached.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/09/no_strings_attached.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Business We&apos;ve Chosen</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2006 10:50:55 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>Master of Your Domain</title>
         <description><![CDATA[It's a bit of a cliche in Hollywood that screenwriters are frustrated people. We have relatively little power and influence. We tend not to be household names. We're easily and frequently replaced, and so on. The list of complaints is endless. But they all spring from one inescapable fact: 

Screenwriters don't make movies, we make screenplays.

That is to say, a screenplay is not a finished product. It's merely one of many required components of a finished film (some wouldn't even call it a requirement, but rather an optional step). So, the screenwriter pours his guts onto a page, revises it until his eyes bleed and, eventually, finally, at long last, gazes upon the fruits of his labor -- a half-inch stack of paper with thousands of little black runes printed on it. Pages. With words. It's quite a feat, when all's said and done.

But it ain't a movie.

It won't become a movie until you add one director and a couple of stars, stir in a generous amount of financing, bake for about a year and a half, and then glaze with domestic and foreign distribution deals. It's bad enough that most of these ingredients are on the endangered species list. It's even worse when, in the end, the finished film bears little resemblance to the screenplay. 

In other words, a screenplay has to pass through a lot of hands before it becomes a film. That's a lot of complicated layers between the screenwriter and the audience -- most of them well beyond our control. And let's not forget: most screenplays -- by a breathtaking margin -- never make it past the stack-of-paper phase. You stay up nights and weekends writing your masterpiece, call in every favor trying to get People in Power to read it, and then try not to let them see you cry when they say, "Loved the script. What else you got?"

What else have I got? WHAT ELSE HAVE I GOT? Why you self-involved little prick --

I'm sorry, where was I going with this? Oh, right. 

So, the screenwriter's lot in life in inherently frustrating. That's why it behooves us to look beyond the Hollywood landscape to find other means of getting our stories in front of an audience. Writing novels is one way, and there are a number of screenwriters who routinely bounce back and forth between scripts (where they are peasants) and novels (where they are kings). 

Another route -- and one that has really become much more viable in recent years -- is to write a comic book. And I have several friends who've done exactly that.

<a href="http://www.socalfilm.com/members1.html#stevebarr">Steven Barr</a> and <a href="http://www.socalfilm.com/members3.html#dannygrossman">Danny Grossman</a> co-wrote a screenplay a few years ago called <em>Devil Water</em>, an action/western/horror/comedy, but never managed to sell it. Recently, Steven saw an opportunity to repurpose the story as a limited series of comic books. The first issue of <a href="http://www.kingtractorfilms.com/DevilWater.html"><em>Devil Water</em></a> is out now, through <a href="http://www.kingtractorfilms.com/">King Tractor Press</a>. 

<center><img alt="DevilWatercover.GIF" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/DevilWatercover.GIF" width="157" height="240"/></center>

Another friend of mine, <a href="http://www.stormcrowhayes.com/">Sam "Stormcrow" Hayes</a>, has just seen the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598166921/sr=1-1/qid=1156699514/ref=sr_1_1/104-5150419-6358326?ie=UTF8&s=books">release </a>of his manga-style graphic novel, <em><a href="http://www.entertheafterlife.com">Afterlife</a></em>, through the <a href="http://www.tokyopop.com/S-1700/">Tokyo Pop</a> imprint (not that you'd know, from the scant bit of marketing they do for it on their own freakin' website -- not even an image of the cover? WTF?). 

<center><img alt="Afterlife.jpg" src="http://www.michaelgilvary.com/images/Afterlife.jpg" width="162" height="240" /></center>

The book will have to fight for attention in the crowded marketplace, but it's already getting some pretty <a href="http://comics.ign.com/articles/725/725695p1.html">stellar</a> reviews. 

The payoff with the comic book route isn't complete autonomy, since the writer must rely on an artist to interpret their work (although the writer might be responsible for chosing an artist, and can have approval authority over the artwork). But, in the end, the writer has something tangible to show for their efforts -- a finished book on store shelves. The layers between storyteller and audience have been largely eliminated.  

And there are other benefits as well. Both Steven and Sam got to attend this year's San Diego Comic-Con in a professional capacity, as opposed to mere fanboys. And there is still the possibility that the stories they've written can find their way to the big screen -- as an adaptation. By publishing the story in comic book form first, these writers are attempting to create what Terry Rossio calls <a href="http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp42.Mental.Real.Estate.html">Mental Real Estate</a>. In fact, as a result of the publication of <em>Devil Water</em>, Steven and Danny have recently optioned their original script, which would otherwise still be sitting on a shelf. 

Bravo, boys. Best of luck.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/08/master_of_your_domain.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/08/master_of_your_domain.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Business We&apos;ve Chosen</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Sun, 27 Aug 2006 10:07:29 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>It&apos;s (Not) Alive!</title>
         <description><![CDATA[You hear cautionary tales about it all the time, but the true horror doesn't strike until it happens to you.

CHDD: Catastrophic Hard Drive Death. 

I spent the past five weeks traveling -- visiting family and driving all over the northeast. I planned to do some work while we were on the road. After all, the home office is a nice comfort, but not necessary. I work on a laptop. My office goes where I go. 

Two weeks into the trip, I settled down in an unused bedroom of my in-laws' house to start polishing up my latest spec. Half an hour later, I noticed an occassional, faint buzz emanating from the left palmrest of my Apple Powerbook. 

That's where the hard drive lives. 

As one of the few moving parts in a computer, hard drives make noise. But I've been using this laptop for a couple of years, and this was a <em>new</em> noise. 

And it started to get worse. Louder. More frequent. 

I made a panicked phone call to my Techie Friend, who had me run a couple of disk utilities that should tell whether or not the hard drive is starting to fail. The tests showed nothing. The hard drive appeared to be in good health. 

But then something really disturbing happened. I went to save a file and, while the program was writing to the disk, the buzzing noise kicked in and the system froze. I got that spinning, technicolor pinwheel of death (you Mac users know what I'm talking about). 

I was about to force quit when, all the sudden, the buzzing noise stopped and the system unfroze. The file had even been saved. But, disk utilities be damned, something was definitely not right. 

As <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/quotes">Somerset</a> warned Mills, "This isn't gonna have a happy ending." 

I transferred my working files to my wife's iBook and, the next day, my Powerbook shit the bed. Wouldn't even boot up. It was dead. Kaput. It was no more. 

This was an ex-hard drive. 

I shipped it back to Apple, and they replaced the hard drive. What that means, of course, is that everything on the old drive was gone. Just a ghost of ones and zeroes, lost to the digital ether. 

The good news: I had a backup. I always backup. I'm practically religious about it. I'm gay for backing up.

The bad news: the backup was at home in Los Angeles, so I lost a couple weeks of laptop use. Which was annoying, but tolerable. 

The great news: my backup procedure has always been to simply copy my personal files, not the programs themselves. In otherwords, I just drop my home folder onto an external drive. It's a simple and quick system. The drawback is, in the event of CHDD, you have to reinstall every program and reset every preference. However, in one of the few strokes of good fortune to grace my pathetic life, I had recently changed my backup procedure. A couple months ago, I bought a new external drive -- a 500GB <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1744196,00.asp">Maxtor One-Touch </a>Firewire drive. 

My old external was also a Maxtor One-Touch, but I'd never used the one-touch feature. With the new drive, I decided to give it a shot.

Here's how it works:

Before you use the drive, you partition it, creating a separate partition that is at least as big as your internal hard drive. Then you setup the Maxtor software, creating a backup script., which allows you to perform a complete backup of your hard drive by simply pushing the lone button on the front of the external drive. 

It takes a while to run the backup. But, when you're done, what you've got is an exact duplicate of the contents of your internal drive. You can even boot up from the external drive (which is exactly how you restore the backup to your new internal drive).

I had run my very first one-touch backup just a week before we left for our trip. So, instead of reinstalling several dozen programs and futzing with preferences and settings, all I had to do was boot up from the external drive and, using the Maxtor software, restore from the backup. 

The results are, essentially, <a href="http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/776.html">magic</a>. It's like the hard drive never died. 

I'm going to make this full backup procedure part of my regular routine.

My work -- the fruits of my labor -- exists in an ethereal form on my hard drive. In years past, I made sure to have paper printouts of every version of every script I wrote. That practice filled up a four-drawer filing cabinet. But nowadays, I tend to deliver drafts to my employers as a PDF file. The last script I wrote, I never printed out a single copy. I don't need to anymore. 

That's nice and convenient, but it means I have to take extra measures to make sure I don't lose this stuff. I take this seriously. My work has value. I always felt that way, of course, even before I was getting paid for it. But now that I am getting paid, my work has value to people other than myself. 

I simply can't imagine the horror of having to call a studio executive and tell her that the script they paid me to write, the one I spent the past six months working on, vanished in a flurry of grinding noises inside my laptop. That would be a catastrophic failure -- on the part of both the hard drive and my wee little brain.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/07/its_not_alive.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/07/its_not_alive.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Free Advice: Worth What You Paid For It</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Sat, 22 Jul 2006 07:41:24 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>A Midsummer Night&apos;s Brief Update</title>
         <description><![CDATA[I haven't posted much lately. Work and some unexpected traveling have kept me busy. Also, I'm lazy. Also, there hasn't been much fun news to report. But there are two developments worth mentioning.

<u>A New Attachment</u>

We've got a new director on board the Lucy Liu project (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467399/">DEVIL TO PAY</a>) -- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000944/">Antonia Bird</a>. 

This is exciting news. Antonia is a fine director (<em>Priest</em>, <em>Mad Love</em>). She made <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398093/">The Hamburg Cell</a></em>, an excellent, understated film about the 9/11 terrorists. It's an interesting piece because the protagonists are about as unsympathetic as you can get (i.e. mass murderers) and there are no real antagonists in the story. Ordinarily, that's a recipe for a flat, conflict-challenged film. Yet, somehow it works extremely well.

I can't wait to see what Antonia does with my script. 

<u>Meet My Shorts</u>

Another, smaller recent development is that my short film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479902/">DUST DEVIL</a>, is now <a href="http://www.socalfilm.com/films/dustdevil.html">online</a>. 

A special thanks to <a href="http://nopermissionfilmmaking.blogspot.com/">Rod Ramsey</a> for making that happen (despite my total lack of cooperation). 

The short played at last year's <a href="http://www.lashortsfest.com/">LA Shorts</a> festival, <a href="http://www.shriekfest.com/">Shriekfest</a> and the <a href="http://www.haydenfilms.com/">Haydenfilms Online Film Festival</a>. It's a flawed film, but there's a lot about it that makes me proud. Also, everybody involved busted their ass on it, and I think it serves as a fine show reel for several of them.

Please <a href="http://www.socalfilm.com/films/dustdevil.html">check it out</a> and lemme know what you think.]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/06/a_midsummer_nights_brief_updat.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/06/a_midsummer_nights_brief_updat.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Devil To Pay</category>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:21:32 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>The DHS Ate My Weblog</title>
         <description><![CDATA[So, after a couple of friends notify me that my site is down, I contact my hosting service and come to find out that the Dept. of Homeland Security confiscated the entire server because some sub-human uploaded something that he probably shouldn't have. 

Meanwhile, the hosting service set me up with a new server, but of course my files are gone. And what's on the top of my to-do list? 

"Backup my website." 

I admit it. I was lazy. I didn't back up any of my content. Lesson learned. 

The good news is, by doing a few quick Google searches and clicking on the "cached" links, I was able to find all of my posts and most of the comments. So, I'll be able to restore <em>Who Are You People</em> pretty soon, thus narrowly avoiding a global panic. 

And this time, I'll back up the whole darn site. 

LATE UPDATE (May 22, 2006): Posts have been restored. I'll eventually try to restore as many comments as I can. ]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/05/the_dhs_ate_my_weblog.html</link>
         <guid>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/05/the_dhs_ate_my_weblog.html</guid>
                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">Good News/Bad News</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Thu, 11 May 2006 15:21:45 -0800</pubDate>
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         <title>Gone Tomorrow</title>
         <description><![CDATA[The Revolution has failed.

Joe Roth's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/business/01revolution.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Revolution Studios</a> is winding down operations, just six years after it burst on the scene with the promise of quality movies at modest budgets. Well, I guess if you consider <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gigli/"><em>Gigli</em></a> quality filmmaking...

It's interesting to me that an autonomous studio predicated on "quality" films turned out such an unimpressive slate. There were a few fine films, like <em>Black Hawk Down</em>, and there were quite a few dogs -- <em>Hollywood Homicide</em>, <em>XXX</em>, <em>The Forgotten</em>, the aforementioned <em>Gigli</em> (which has become synonymous with failure). But, perhaps most tellingly, the slate was comprised largely of films I'd never pay to see -- <em>Radio</em>? <em>Stealing Harvard</em>? <em>Christmas with the Kranks</em>?

In other words, the Revolution slate was more or less exacty the same as every other studio. And I wonder if that isn't indicative of what's really wrong with Hollywood.

During Hollywood's golden years, the studio logo at the head of a movie usually told you something about what was in store for you. MGM, for example, was known for its bright, lavish musicals and literary adaptations, Warner Bros. for its darker, grittier gangster pictures, and so on. But nowadays, to a large degree, studios really don't have much of a brand -- at least not in the eyes of the moviegoing public.

And it's not even that I think studios need a brand so much as a passion for something -- anything! Instead, what we get are movies that are born not from a desire to create something interesting, but from a desire to turn a profit. I'm not naive enough to believe studios should operate as charities or artistic patrons, but, in modern times, the business has changed in ways that encourage studios to focus <em>solely</em> on the bottom line.

Films are -- by orders of magnitude -- more expensive to make and market then they were just a few decades ago. And that has contributed to massive wide release patterns that put all of the studio's eggs in one basket: the opening weekend box office reports.

Movies live or die based their opening weekend returns, which means that a film's success is no longer determined by how much the audience likes the film (i.e. word of mouth). Instead, it's determined by how many people show up on that opening weekend. So, we become more reliant on known quantities -- sequels, prequels, remakes, etc. -- in order to get asses in seats in front of 3000 screens on that first Friday night. If those people universally hate the film, no big deal. We've already got their money.

It's this attitude that leads to movies like <em>XXX: State of the Union</em>.

It's a scorched-earth policy. We make shit because we know the audience will buy it. But when all we sell them is shit, eventually they stop buying it. They stop trusting us.

And, as a result, it's not just the movies that are disappearing by the second or third weekend. Now, apparently, the studios are becoming disposable as well. ]]></description>
         <link>http://www.michaelgilvary.com/2006/05/gone_tomorrow.html</link>
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                  <category domain="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category">The Business We&apos;ve Chosen</category>
        
        
         <pubDate>Tue, 02 May 2006 21:45:21 -0800</pubDate>
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