Tag Archives: Nash Bridges

Let’s start this rant with a truth. There are no shortcuts to screenwriting success. There are no shortcuts to getting a film you wrote or a movie idea you have sold and made. There’s an old saying that any film that actually gets made is a miracle. Well, that’s true, too. In fact, it’s a damn miracle.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard, “I have these movie ideas that are better than anything out there. How do I get them to a studio so I can collect my millions?”

Movie ideas. When I was working on the set of Nash Bridges for those six seasons, everybody had an idea or script. The guy who watered the plants, the dolly grip, the extras (especially the extras), the boom operator, the set decorator (I read his script, it wasn’t bad)... you name it, they had a script or worse, an idea to sell.

Now, to be truthful again, I also had ideas and scripts then, too. And I was also trying to get them to anyone who would pay attention, like everyone else. So, I’m not denigrating the people who want to see their films made, ok? That I understand.

What I don’t understand is the non-willingness to work for it. I was just exposed to a person who had “the best ideas for films Hollywood’s ever seen, but I just want to sell the ideas, because writing a script would be too much work.”

I was happy to tell this person how they could do that. “First”, I told him, “you have to go to Fantasyland.”

What he was looking for was a shortcut to success. He’d think of an idea, one or two sentences of a story idea, then the studios, who have bags of money just lying around, would dip into those bags and give him untold millions and send him on his way while they hired a writer to write his fabulous idea and a director to direct it. And then he’d come back and have approval over all of it, to make sure they did “his” story justice. See what I mean about Fantasyland?

Everybody everywhere has a movie idea. I run into people with movie ideas all the time when they find out what I do for a living. I tell them what I will tell you: NOBODY BUYS IDEAS. NOBODY. They buy the execution of those ideas. They buy YOUR hard work turning that idea into a wham bang script.

Yes, writers sell pitches. (This is always the first thing I hear after I say NOBODY BUYS IDEAS.) But the people who buy those pitches are buying the writer who pitched it as much as the idea. They KNOW this writer can take that idea and make it something special because he/she has a track record of doing just that. Hell, I’ve sold a pitch. But I sold it to a Production Company I had already sold a script to and had done multiple writing assignments for. They knew what I could do with the idea. I earned that right with years and years of hard work.

If you want to sell an idea, write the script. Do the work. Do the research. Do the outlining, if that’s the way you do it. Write it. Then rewrite it. Then rewrite it again. And when you’ve done the work to get it ready to read, do the work it takes to get it out there. Get it vetted. Have people you trust to be honest with you read it. Listen to their notes. Then rewrite it again. Then query/network it. And if you get reads... know that patience is what you’ll need. Lots of patience.

The average time it takes from finishing a script to having that script made (again, a miracle) is eight (8) years. Eight years. Average time. Jeff Willis and I wrote (finished) The Right Girl in 2007. It got produced this year. Only seven years. Not bad. Better than average. Not much better, but better. The script I sold from the pitch that I’m rewriting now gets made middle of next year. I looked it up. I pitched it in 2012 and wrote the first draft last year. So, that’s three years. Again, not bad.

My big theatrical that gets made middle of next year? I looked it up and got a little sick. Wrote it in 1999. Sixteen years from when I wrote it originally to production. Sixteen years. Oh My God... sixteen years?

Ok... I’m fine now. Martini helped.

Ok, so it’s taken sixteen years. In between time, I did nothing but work my ass off, writing, writing, and marketing myself and my work. And learning hard truths.

THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS.

There is no coming up with ideas and waiting for the cash to flow in. Doesn't happen. You want success? Do the hard work, execute those ideas brilliantly, and make miracles happen.

And above all, be patient.

(follow me on Twitter @bobsnz)

A while back I wrote a Blog about Expectation vs Reality when it came to what your script would look like after it’s been through the Production Company/Network development process versus what it looked like when you wrote it. I wrote about how much it would change and used as an example the film (The Right Girl) I wrote with my cherished friend and colleague Jeff Willis.

I also talked about how Jeff and I did six paid rewrites with multiple Production Company notes and made huge changes (monstrous changes) with even more notes from the Network with even more changes and even more notes from Production Execs as it got closer to production, and then finally, the director notes. To say the script was extremely different from the original script we wrote is way way too mild. It still has our stamp on it, but the movie we wanted to see originally from our idea and the movie they wanted to see were night and day. And we had to please more than a dozen people we ended up getting notes from before the film was made. All who wanted to put their stamp on it somewhere, too. And YOU, as a writer, better be ready for this and OK with it because that’s reality. Because if you’re NOT ok with it, they’ll hire someone like me to rewrite the way they want it anyway. Cold and brutal truth.

Ok... semi-old territory. Now... new territory. The Production Company sent us copies of the director’s cut of The Right Girl this week. So now we get to talk about the difference between YOUR final production script and what ends up on the screen.

Here, I make a confession. I was able to go to the set for a full day early in the shoot to watch, so I had an idea of what was coming. I had worked with the director many times before (he’d directed two of my other Cable Movies). I met him originally when he directed two episodes of Nash Bridges a lifetime ago. So I know how he works and like it and like him. I also got to meet some of the actors who were playing the characters Jeff and I had created.

Attention writers: Here is where I tell you what you don’t want to hear - - - YOU DO NOT GET TO CAST THE FILMS YOU WRITE. They may ask you who you had in mind, but when it comes to actually casting, you have ZERO SAY. None, Nada, Nyet. That’s Producer and Director Territory and YOU AREN’T ALLOWED. I know it hurts to hear, but it’s fact.

You can be happy when you hear who’s been cast, or sad, or confused, or angry, or you can say, “Who?”. But you have NO SAY. Beside the one film I wrote I’d like to disavow because of the final cut and the, in my opinion, questionable casting, I’ve been super fortunate to get wonderful actors cast in my films. This time was maybe the best.

There on set, I immediately fell in love with Anna Hutchison (Cabin in the Woods, Spartacus), who was playing our main character. Not only is she a sweet, just jaw droppingly wonderful person, she was stunning in character. She WAS our Kimberly. It was amazing and kind of an out of body experience to watch. I would use her again as an actor in a second. Add in Costas Mandylor (Who I also knew from Nash Bridges. He pointed at me and said, “Hey, I know you.”) and Gail O’Grady, who was also there that day, and I was a happy camper at what I witnessed.

I wish Jeff could have come with me, but he was in Brazil doing humanitarian work while I was hanging around the Craft Service table, showing me up once again. I’m not kidding. He was in Brazil building houses for the poor or something. An amazing man who puts his money and time where his mouth is.

So I got the film and I popped it in my computer to watch...  And once again it was a HUGE LESSON. A lesson to writers everywhere. It’s never what you expect, even when you watch it being shot.

When you as a writer have your finished written script, you see it in your head, or should. You see the scenes play out. You hear the line interpretations the way you want to hear them. But you’re not the director (unless you are, then ignore me) nor are you the actors, who bring their own skills with them. Skills, if they are good actors, you cannot fathom until you see what they do with your dialogue and action. Things you never even THOUGHT of. There were times in the film I was stunned at how wonderfully the lines were interpreted and how differently than I had heard them in my head. Better differently.

The direction was solid, but then I expected that. Some great camera use that really moved the story well. Zero problems with the way it was shot. Great sets, costumes, and production design. And the edit was good too. A little long, but it’s a director’s cut.

But since these are YOUR characters and you know them inside and out, you sit and pray for them to be what you envisioned. Good actors bring their own life to your characters you can’t anticipate. Again, Anna was a revelation in the cut. Just astonishing. The character of Kimberly, as we wrote her, is a very vain and arrogant (and funny, we hoped) person at the start of the film. We knew the actor playing her would have to be able to skate a thin line to not make her so unlikeable that the audience didn’t care about her journey. Anna did it with a classy ease that brought layers of dimension and humor we couldn’t have dreamed about. She was what I had pictured Kimberly to be and much more.

But then, a lot of the time, what you picture doesn’t happen. Costas’ interpretation of his character was nothing like we had pictured. Where our written character was lighter and more comic relief, Costas brought a serious twinge to him, too. Gravitas that we didn’t expect in the character. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. A lot. It was terrific. I never saw it in the character. He did. And Gail O’Grady was more sophisticated and urbane that we wrote her character and it worked too. Well. Dorian Harewood brought his considerable skills to his character, too, playing him exactly the way we imagined him. Overall,  all the acting in it was first class. And I thank these pros from the bottom of my heart.

A lot of the scenes were word for word what we wrote (AND THEY WORK) and I can’t tell you how exciting that is. You’d have to experience it to understand.

Sometimes you get really lucky... And sometimes you scratch your head... at the same film.

There's a whole big scene neither one of us wrote in the middle of the film. Smack in the middle. A scene that wasn’t in our final draft. It wasn’t bad. It just doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s there and I have no idea where it came from or why it’s there... one of those surprises you have to expect as a writer. And the choice of the producers and/or the director, because in the end it IS their choice and not yours.

And the last scene is completely different from what we wrote, too. Not a bad ending scene at all, I like it, just not close to what we wrote. A different direction yet again. A new ending that they rewrote while making the film. Something that happens every day, by the way. And as a writer you have to shrug and understand because, again, it’s not your decision to make.

Jeff called me after he saw it and we talked for quite a while. Are we happy with the film? You bet. Very happy. And our names are in the titles in BIG letters, right before the Director’s. You can’t beat that.

Is it our script the way we pictured it? Well, no. IT NEVER IS. In this case, I’m happy to say I think it is just as good and in some places better. That’s not always the case. You need to understand that, too.

I’ve watched The Right Girl three times now and get happier each time. I’m also starting an Anna Hutchison Fan Club.

 

I decided on the topic of this Blog before the subject of the Ghostbusters gender change hit the fan. I think I was a day or so ahead of the curve. But a day or so late posting it. We’ll blame it on Rock and Roll. My band, The BSides, had great gig this weekend at the largest Art and Wine Festival on the West Coast. Three hundred thousand people over two days.

We got up on the stage and played some kick ass music for an hour and a half. Played Mad Dogs & Englishmen’s version of “The Letter” for the first time in public and nailed it, thank you. It was, on the music front, a Triumphant weekend. But it kept me from publishing the Blog over the weekend like I wanted to.

We can start on my opinion about Ghostbusters. I LOVE the film. LOVE IT. Loved it from the first time I saw it when it came out and loved it every time I’ve seen it since. I see no reason to remake it, period. But… saying that… if you were to remake it, why not with women?  New dynamic. New directions in story. A whole new feeling. It could be great. It could suck. Just like any other remake. But it’s not something to pull hair out over. I’m sorry it’s a big deal. It shouldn’t be.

It worked with the Odd Couple, as one example of many, very well. I’ve seen a couple of all female versions of it and it was very successful. So why not Ghostbusters, if they want to do it?

And I’ve already Blogged in the past about my love of great female characters in film. I love writing strong women and stories that center around them. More now than when I first started writing.

I think I wrote my TV pilot script while I was still working on Nash Bridges, between my third and fourth feature scripts. It was a new take on a police procedural, something that still hasn’t been done by the way, and a couple of Producers thought it was great. Nothing happened with it, but c’mon, nothing happens with TV pilots when you’re a tiny small recurring actor on a series and not a writer. Or what they see as a writer. So it went back in my pile of unsold scripts.

When I got my manager, he asked for all my scripts, well… not at once. He wanted them sent in order that I thought they’d sell... (boy, was a wrong about that, too). I never mentioned the pilot. Then one day we were talking about pilots and I told him I had one and pitched it. Like everyone else who heard the idea, he loved it and asked to read it. And since I hadn’t even read it in ten years, my guess was it needed some updating. I was right. So, with ten more years of writing experience behind me I read it and found it lacking in a lot of ways and proceeded to rewrite it with a more 21st Century feel to it.

He loved it and now so did I. The one thing I didn’t notice, that I should have, was that the females were all background players. It was a Boy’s Club of monstrous proportions. I took what I had written twelve years before and updated the story, but not the diversity that it desperately needed. My bad. Despite that, it’s gotten some really nice reactions so far, but no bites. A couple of pretty front lines actors have championed it, but again to no avail. Then a woman exec at a network told my manager she liked it but they were looking for female centric series right now. And that brought about a conversation between my manager and me about maybe turning the pilot on its head and gender changing the main character.

It would immediately make the script kind of controversial because of the subject matter and the main character’s occupation. A woman in an extremely man-centric job. I couldn’t wait to do it.

The last two weeks have been spent doing just that. Turning the pilot on its head. Rewriting. Rewriting. And rewriting. His name was Jack. Her name is Althea. He was tough and strong. She’s tough and strong, but in a way more dynamic way. He was begrudgingly welcomed into a man’s world. She’s not going to be at all. His wife was understanding, but concerned at what he was getting into. Her husband is having all kinds of problems with it.

I’ve never had so many wonderful things open up in a script. Storylines have blossomed. I have two seasons worth of ideas of ways to make this woman singularly different from anything on TV now and that’s pretty exciting. It’s been a revelation.

Was I an idiot for not thinking of this in the first place? Maybe. But it was also twelve years ago and they probably would have told me to make it a man. Who knows.

All I know is that I love the pilot now and I can’t wait to see the reaction to it. It has a feeling of new to it, not just to me, but to the genre. A nice feeling if you’re the writer.

When I was young, all I could think about was being involved in making movies. All I ever wanted. As a kid I would add a child’s part to every movie I saw in my head, so I could daydream about being in it. Didn’t matter what kind of film. To that end, I started acting as soon as I could. From Elementary to High School, I did every stage show I could from the time I was about 10, moving to professional theater at about 16 until I was 22. Mostly musicals and comedies.

I was in the middle of a long run as El Gallo in the Fantastiks, when I met my wife. You know, in movies, where the guy meets a woman and cartoon hearts float in the air and his eyes roll back in his head because he’s smitten? It really happens. And like that… I was done with the theater (where poverty is the norm) and acting. I was now thinking about marriage, picket fences, and supporting a family.

She’s an amazingly beautiful woman, too. You should all be jealous. Way too sweet and way way too good looking to be with me. (People still see us together, look bewildered, take me aside, and ask, “How?”) Smart, empathetic, very funny, very sexy, a great mom to our kids, and unbelievably supportive. I was a solid businessman making a better than good living in sales and marketing until one day when I went to her and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to try acting again and maybe screen or play writing for a living.” Once I picked her up off the floor, she said, “Ok, you got two years.” That was twenty years ago. Told you she was amazing.

And that’s how I got to go to “The Don Johnson Film School”.

I did have to take a circuitous route to get there.

I got my SAG card right off the bat on the Disney Film, “Angels in the Outfield”, a miraculous occurrence that is a whole blog by itself. I then entered into the wonderful world of film extra work. By the way, while I’m on that topic… EVERY SCREENWRITER NEEDS TO DO THIS A COUPLE OF TIMES just to see what it’s like to be the lowest person on the filmmaking totem pole. You think writers have it bad? Try being a film extra. I once heard a producer refer to extras as “Props that eat.”

Right after Angels, I got a 23 day gig as a “featured extra” (where they cut my moustache off and shaved my head, making me look like a Moon Pie) on the film, “Murder in the First” playing an Alcatraz prison guard. Negligible film time, a ton of fun, I got to hang with Gary Oldman every day, and it made me a zero in the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. And, I found out, if you spend 23 days on a big film set and pay attention you can learn a whole lot about how movies are made. It was nothing like I imagined.

Wasn’t kidding about Gary Oldman. On one of our first bumpy ferry boat trips out to Alcatraz, he was looking a little green around the gills and I gave him a Rolaids. From that day on he’d find me, get his Rolaid, and we’d sit and talk and laugh all the way over and back every day. And on the set. One of my prize treasures is the picture he insisted his assistant take of the two of us on set, even though I was still in Moon Pie mode.

The experience with Gary Oldman also played into my getting accepted into the Don Johnson Film School. As an “extra”, you are told… Don’t talk to the stars, don’t make eye contact, don’t don’t don’t. After my Oldman experience, I, like an idiot, thought that those rules didn’t pertain to me.

(Note: Between Murder in the First and Nash Bridges I did a three week stint on the Michael Bay film, The Rock, but that deserves a whole blog someday by itself, too.)

Right after Murder in the First I got booked as an extra on the very first day of shooting on the TV series Nash Bridges, as an SF cop. Only one of two extras that night. So, like an idiot, I sidled up to where Don Johnson was and engaged him in conversation, made him laugh a couple of times, and was never used as an extra that night. Later on the set an AD came up to me and said he saw me with Don. He read me the riot act for talking to him, saying I’d never work on the show again. I felt terrible.

Next thing I know, I get a call from Extras Casting saying that the Nash people asked for me specifically and wanted me back to be in the Nash Bridges police station as a cop extra. I won’t bore you with the details of everything, but I ended up doing 122 episodes of the show as that same character. Even got a name (Carl Hoskins) and a promotion (to Sergeant), in season 1 episode 8. Did a few episodes over those years in that character as a principal, but was mostly a “featured extra”. Meaning, I was just an extra.

Those 6 seasons gave me an opportunity I could never have gotten in any regular film school. About halfway through the first season I went to Don and asked him if, when I was there working, I could have free run of the set to learn about every department, exactly what everyone on the crew did and how and why they did it. I got a big smile and pat on the shoulder and he said, “How do think I learned? You have my blessing.” I did it every season for 6 seasons. Not only has it helped me immensely as a writer and fledgling director, but it led to some meaningful lifelong friendships.

I learned about electric, lighting, the camera department, (even got to put on the steady-cam), props, set dressing, effects, sound (thank you Aggie), stunts, unit production, you name it, I asked them about it and sucked up untold amounts of priceless knowledge. I watched the directors. I saw who was good, who was bad, and learned from it all. I found out where to put cameras, where not to put cameras, what lens to use where and why, about coverage, rules of thirds, lines of sight, you name it… I learned it. And everyone was GREAT about it, too.

And my understanding of what it takes to make a film and what things cost has helped me beyond words, again, as a writer. I can speak with knowledge in production meetings and not illicit rolled eyes. Truthfully, it has been a Godsend in working with directors and producers because I understand what it takes physically to make a film.

Now… a word about the man himself. A lot of things have been written and said about Don Johnson over the years, a lot of it not so complimentary. But to me he was nothing but gracious, kind, and the one of the smartest guys I have ever seen on a set. That man knows. He doesn’t miss a thing. And I owe him a debt. He paid me to go to film school while I was writing my first scripts. I was able to network with the people on that set which led to my first options and boatloads of great contacts I still use today. I wouldn’t have the writing career I do without Don Johnson. THANK YOU, Don.

A couple of months ago, I got to put a lot of what I learned on the Nash set to uber practical use. I directed my first short film, “Ice Block Love”. It’s being edited now and I’m very happy so far. Not your typical short either. In the four day shoot (on a Red Scarlet with Zeiss Primes and a fabulous crew of 18 people), we closed streets in Berkeley and Oakland (had permits), had about 30 extras (who were treated GREAT) on one day and about 25 child extras on another day. We staged car stunts, a runaway shopping cart stunt, a sno-cone truck stunt (with live sno-cones), weaved our star through people like dog poles, invaded a very posh restaurant instigating a cloth napkin fight, there was gratuitous cross dressing on public streets, and we had multiple people riding and crashing large ice blocks down a very steep hill.

I used everything I learned on the Nash set. Everything. Including that you hire good people and let them do their jobs without micro-managing. The crew was beyond great. The actors, wonderful. I think I got wonderful performances out of them. The DP did ask, “You want me to put the camera where?” a couple of times, but saw the method to my madness afterward.

My point? If you ever have the chance, go to film sets. Stay there. Watch everything. Ask questions. Be an extra if you have to. Watch more and learn. It will open your eyes and make you a better film writer.

Honest.