...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Cannes - Maybe most of you know how hard is to picture an idea for a film project you have been working on for months to some big time producer who turns it down in a few seconds.

I am attending an event with English financiers that explain how they chose the projects to get involved into, what the projects need to have and how to present them.

In the second part of the seminar some big producers get on the stage to present the projects they are working on and are demolished in an embarrassing way.

Among them there is also the CEO of one of the biggest production companies in Italy, who is destroyed by them like an amateur and gets down the stage lowering his head.

I'm a bit ashamed to say it feels SO GOOD...

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

Nightmare on Elm Street is the most representative horror film for my generation, and one of my favorite horror series.

I bought the box set and I am now enjoying the 7 films.

In the 1st one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 2nd one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 3rd one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 4th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 5th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.
In the 6th one Freddy comes back from death, kills several people and then is killed for good.

I didn't watch the 7th yet, but I'm really curious!

QUITTERS CAN'T WIN

During the time of frustration young Actors face they should know a story about the Hollywood sign.

A urban legend says that at the beginnings of 1900 an enthusiastic young lady moved to her uncle's place in Los Angeles to get in the film industry and become a successful Actress.

But things didnt't go the way she figured: after about a hundred castings she didn't get a single call back, and getting more and more depressed, a night she climbed the H of the famous Hollywood sign and threw herself.

If she just waited a few hours more she would have recived a letter her uncle took instead, saying an important Studio had casted her for a role in a film.

Moral of this story: quitters can't win.

HOW TO REACH ACTORS

Unlike their agents, Actors are usually good people.

I guess this is because in their lives they suffered from failures and lack of opportunities, they felt frustrated, have been poor and close to give up, and the most of them know what means to receive an unexpected Yes that changes your life, or at least gives you the strenght and the optimism to continue.

This is why Actors in general are nice and willing to take part on your project if they like it, even if there is little or no money involved.

But how can you reach them?

On the internet it's plenty of sites with the agent's contact details, but they focus just on money: how can you skip the agents?

You know the theory of the 6 steps that separate us from anyone in the World.

What usually people do is thinking on someone they know, that could know someone, that could know someone that could know an Actor.

This is a quiet easy way to reach an Actor (not the best Actor for the role: just an Actor).

But I suggest to do the opposite.

A while ago I was interested in the most famous Italian Actor, and there was no way I could pay for his usual salary.

So I made a research on his life and found out his family came from a small town.

Then I took the phone and started calling all the people with his family name and the one of his mother.

After a while I reached his aunt.

Well, I'm not sure this is completely legal, but you know, The purpose justifies the action...

NO HOPE FOR WRITERS

A few days ago I had a meeting with a Hollywood Producer for a project that could take off together.

We were reasoning on an idea and how to develop the script.

- What about spreading the news we're looking for a subject, then let the writers contact us? - I say.

- It would just bring problems. People often ask me if I want to read their script. No! Of course not! - he says.

I look at him without understanding, and he continues:

- An accuse of plagiarism is very difficult to demonstrate, and when it happens it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, your name will be damaged. So if you want to live well in this business you always have to demonstrate you didn't take the idea from someone else.

As a former wannabe writer since I was 16, this activates a small bell on the back of my head.

- But say I wrote a good script, how can I bring that to you ? What's the best way to let you read it if I don't know you?
- You can't. American Producers and Publishers contact the agencies and ask them if they have something ready on a certain topic, or they work only with Writers they trust. The right thing to do is find a good agent. But to do that you need to write several successful works first, and the most of the best Agents don't take emerging Writers. This is why it's so difficult to become Writers in the USA.

And we're talking about the place known as The land of opportunities.

Now I guess my face shows my thoughts, because he tries to find some nice words:
- Everybody wants to be a Writer, and even if on the major studios sites there's always written they don't accept unsollicited scripts, you know how much money I spend to send back the scripts people send me, without even opening them?

He says he recieves 1.000 scripts a week (I recieve just 6). All of them are sure they strucked gold and think will win an Oscar for that.

The most of the Writers (or wannabe Writers) lock themselves in their room thinking that the most difficult thing will be writing a nice story.

But the most difficult thing is to let that story leave the room, actually.

Would they continue writing knowing their chances to succeed are almost none?

Ping your blog

TO MISS THE FOREST FOR A TREE

A few days ago I was invited as a film production expert to the press conference of the new film by Franco Tibaldi and Rita Barbero, Return to Santa Vittoria.

It is a low budget film, but despite their lack of money, it’s impressive the organization and the professionalism they showed: they have been able to fill the press room with journalists and local authorities and can go theatrically in many cinemas at the same time.
All of it not with solid deals and pre deals, but the involvement of the local population, enthusiasm and friendship.

People who are looking for 10 million have the same problems as the ones who just look for 10 thousand: both are desperate for money.
But who works on a big project needs to have all very well organized, whilst the one who has just a little budget to cover can be careless and say Let’s start, and we’ll find a way.
And while I was waiting for my time to intervene in the press conference, I found out I miss this kind of mentality.

Are we filmmakers missing the forest for a tree?
When we work on a project where our strengths and money are not enough anymore we are so busy to find the budget we need, close our deals with the actors, try not to be destroyed by the banks and fight the distributors to let them respect the deals and distribute our film we miss the reason why we loose our health in doing that: making a film is fun.

HOW FAR YOU WILL GO TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAM?

A good number of people contact me every week from allover the World, telling me they wrote a script worth an Oscar, that they locked themselves in their room for a certain period of time, just writing and watching films, and now they want me to produce it.

Guys, this is not how it works. If you really want to know how it works, below I report the story of my friend Geoff Talbot: a talented Writer, Director and Producer who like most people in this business is fighting Destiny to find his way.

I left London for Hollywood in March thinking I had the world at my feet. With two very different screenplays in development and an offer of full finance (US $20 Million on The Emancipation of Putz) things were looking positive. I had a couple of meetings lined up with very big Hollywood Producers and although things were tight financially… surely the dam was about to break…

But the dam didn’t break and so the desert (my bank account) is still very dry. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. As artists we can learn so much from our hungry & thirsty times. These are crucial periods that provide us with a deep wellspring of experience, from which we can draw water for the rest of our lives. So what happened? What didn’t happen more like it?

I had to tell some financiers that I didn’t want their 20 million dollars; it was easier than you might think because despite all their promises (aka small untruths) I didn’t believe they actually had the money. So I flew back to Europe, to Cannes, to the sunny Rivera where the French girls were just as pretty as they had been the year before; only this time they were not quite so friendly.

During my hungry & thirsty times I had dreamed up a new way of filmmaking that used the internet and social media sites like facebook & twitter. I had created this model around the second feature film I have in development, a bohemian love story called Lucky & Rich. Technology is changing so rapidly, and the internet enables the filmmaker/artist to converse directly with their audience like never before. It stands to reason that the way we use to make films… will not be the way we make them in the future. So I went back to LA, to the land of broken dreams.

I wish I could say that it all went swimmingly, but it never rains in California.

One of the things I’ve learnt in the last five months and I mean this in an encouraging way… when it comes to a new idea, or a film, or new technology… NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. If your script, if your song, if your idea is truly great, if it is different in any way… nearly everybody will turn it down. They will reject it because their reference points are the films they have already seen or ideas that have already worked etc. New is different and different is scary. But keep going. Colonel Sanders was an unemployed pensioner who spent two years taking his revolutionary chicken recipe (KFC) around restaurants in the United States. He got turned down 1019 times before someone finally said yes… and the rest is history.

Since I left London in March I have slept in over thirty different locations and I have run out of money 25 times… soon to be 26. Some days I wouldn’t know exactly where I would be sleeping that night, and for a couple of days all I had to eat was stale pizza and flat coke.

Never again will I look down on someone who lives on the street. You try it and see if you can do it better than them.

I'M NOT BAD, I'M JUST DRAWN THAT WAY

I lately met a Hollywood Producer whose neighbor is Keanu Reeves, and he told me he's one of the nicest persons he knows: hard to say he's actually one of the biggest Holywood stars.

So I told him an impression I had: I said that I met a number of film people now, and they have all been nice to me.

This world is not as dirty as it's said. I think this is because they all know how difficult is to make films, and are in general open minded and willing to exchange ideas, or tell their story, or looking for future collaborations.

And most of all, they all know there's not all that money people usually think: it's true we talk about projects worth millions, but when you start taking off the salaries for the Actors and the technicians, all the expenses, the cut for distributors and advertising and the money you have to give back to your investors, what it usually remains is very little.

He agreed with me and confirmed my opinion: the real nasty people in this business are the ones who don't really belong to it: Agents, Lawyers, and most of all Investors.
Most of the investors think they will put in your film project 100 and will take a million, and because they finance a (small) part of your project they own it. They ask to change the script, to cast some of their friends or fiancé or want to use your film to wash the money they earned illegally.

You have to face difficult situations: from a side, you want to make a film that costs an enormous amount of money and can't do alone. From the other side, accepting their offer could mean destroying your film project and yourself.

So you spend most of your time looking for money, and when you find someone interested, in most of the cases you have to turn his offer down.

This made me think of Jessica Rabbit as a metaphore of the movie business, and her famous sentence as the catching phrase movie people should use to present themselves to the World:

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".

THE ADDAMS FAMILY CAFE

A few days ago I met Actress Elizabeth Cooper, who lately opened a very special coffee shop and for this decision had 4 pages on the local newspaper.

Although being in London, the coffee shop is based near Westcombe Park Station, in a place that seems to be another world, so hidden that most of the locals are unaware there is a park in there.

After half an hour of desperate search, a woman shows me the entrance, and says she lived there for 2 years before finding that park.

Then I find Elizabeth having a tea with a customer and his dog, in a calmness I never saw in London.

She shows me this amazing eco sustainable place: on the roof she has solar panels to get electricity independently and flowers to attract bees, and out of the walls she has iron framing where ivy is growing up: "Next spring the coffee shop will be all covered in green", she says.

Admiring the place and all her efforts to make it something unique, I ask her:

- Isn't it a graveyard you have in front of your coffee shop?

- Oh, yes! - she replies enthusiastically, and takes me to see it.

She introduces me to some of her friends (soldiers died in past wars), and shows me her secret place when she wants to stay alone or read: a small portion among the tombs, covered by the willows.

She asks me what I think about all this, and I ask her "What about your career in acting?".

She says she is planning to drop it for a year, let her coffee shop take off and then come back to the scenes.

She says she has been an actress for 10 years now, always rushing for castings and taking any jobs, just because of all the competition there is in this business: everyone fearing to be forgotten, losing opportunities and not being able to pay the rent.

She wants to build something to care about now, something that can make the difference.

And if a part of me is starting to agree with her, another one says:

- But Actors have a limited career, and especially for women it's hard to find a job when you get older. A year is a lot of time.

I stated the obvious, and she smiles at me.

With the manners one would use to calm down a child and open his eyes, she says:

- Films reflect real life, and as far as there will be old people in real life, there'll be always an acting job for old actors.

She is so beautiful...

EMBARRASSING MISUNDERSTANDINGS

One of the things that commonly happen when you're a foreigner in England are embarrassing misunderstandings, often based on sexual double meanings.

That usually happens to me with women.

I think this is because English is so different compared to Italian in the way you structure sentences, and because it's sometimes difficult for a foreigner to have a correct prononciation, so when Italian people in London gather they like to laught telling these anecdotes one another .

DISCLAIMER: This is something that just happened to me, and it contains some vulgarity I can't avoid. If you follow reading, some of you could feel offended.

There is a TV series I like called Hustle, produced by BBC , and I decided if the DVDs are not too expensive I'll buy them.

I get to the information point of the store and start cueing. The guy at the computer is visibly gay.

The man before me is the classic Londoner with a bad mood, smoker and big time beer drinker who you know will send you to f*** **f as soon as your glance will cross his.

This fellow asks the information guy for a certain DVD he doesn't know the title of. The guy tries some combinations with no results, the customer loses his temper and argues he's not finding that effing DVD on purpose, and going away, he calls him fag.

Which is strange in London, because here homosexuality is something people are used to and don't care about, so the guy feels angry and humiliated.

After a few seconds to recover, he smiles at me and pretends everything's fine.

Understanding his feelings, I try to be more gentle than what I'd usually be, and I ask him:
- Do you have the DVD, Asshole?

Between the instant I complete the sentence and the one a killing glance raises in his eyes I get aware of the missunderstanding, and very shyly I say to him:

- Ma-maybe I pronounced it a little bit bad...

P.S. for my Italian readers:

HUSTLE, pronounced ASSOL, is the name of the TV series.

ASSHOLE, pronounced ASSOL, with the A that slightly waves to an E, is offensive, and you should be careful in using it.