And so we’ve reached summer. And, again, I feel the clock ticking on shooting this year. The endless tick-tocking of my personal timeline for this film. If you don’t have the patience of Gandhi, filmmaking may not be for you. Patience was never a virtue I embraced. This has been agony at times. Utter agony. But I’m learning to be a bit more gracious about it. The industry is in flux, to put it mildly. And some people don’t know how to handle that.
I’m not sure that everyone has fully embraced the fact that the industry is forever changed. The big names in Hollywood can’t open their own movies. We’ve seen flop after flop after flop this year (I’m too kind to list them here). The audiences are either being assumed or misread…or the movies are just merde. And it’s frustrating to watch. The smart money would be on solid independent films with reasonable budgets requiring smaller audiences to make a profit. But, maybe I’m the only person who sees it that way. And, being a writer, who’s going to buy my take? I’m an unproven entity. It’s easy to dismiss my experience in the industry because I’ve not had my name in the trades or carry an executive title. I’ve not produced a film. I’ve only paid attention to audience trends and box office since I was in elementary school, excited when the LA Times was finally delivered to my suburban town, where I studied the deals, the successes and failures and came to understand why one film was a hit and another a miss. Not to mention I was an assistant in the chairman’s office of a major studio, where the marketing team knew what you’d eat for breakfast even before you did, and the box office predictions were never off…even if they weren’t in our favor. You learn a little in that environment. But it isn’t really about what one knows, is it? Because, right now, no one knows anything.
The thing we keep running into is that people don’t want to make a film about Hollywood because they don’t think audiences want to see a film about Hollywood. Um, Black Coffee is not *about* Hollywood, it’s merely *set* in Hollywood. Why? A film studio is more fun than a law firm, don’t you think? This isn’t an “insider” film. There isn’t a lot of mumbo jumbo dialogue about production, deals or development. And, if people really read the script, I think they’d see that. But, it seems that they just get hung up on the location rather than the characters, plot and action. Yes, I know the track record of Hollywood insider films. The Player and Swimming with Sharks are films I love and indie darling classics…with pretty anemic box office returns. But, because of that, no one wants to try again? Even if Hollywood is only the backdrop? Really???
August will mark three years of this waiting. Some would say that’s a helluva long time. Others would tell you their tales of five, ten and twelve-spans of holding breath before their project saw the greenlight of funding day. I mean, I nearly cried when I watched the DVD extras of Rachel Getting Married and heard Jonathan Demme say it took him eight years to make that film. That’s a painful reality check. Yeah, I don’t have the wherewithal to wait eight years. We need to make this movie soon. While I don’t necessarily come with the patience required for filmmaking, I certainly have the tenacity, and stubbornness to spare.
At the end of the day, the one who should get the Patience Award is our fabulous director who isn’t reading any other material. Really. Who does that? That, right there, is commitment and belief in the project. He’s keeping himself busy with commercials, so thank God for that. But I am amazed and truly grateful that he’s stuck by the project, because I couldn’t imagine doing this without him. And, if you’ll recall, last summer, I had to do just that. Boy, that sucked. But, we got through it and we are more determined than ever to make BC.
The one who should get the Dipped in Gold Award is our amazing producer, who is responsible for bringing this project to life. He has shopped it for nearly three years, and has gotten us really close more than once (damn this economy). Not to mention, he’s put up with my impatience. I tell him regularly that I worship and adore him, and that’s not flip. I do. I am very fortunate to have these two people on the BC team, and want nothing more for them to reap the rewards of their belief in the movie that will one day be.
And so, we just keep moving forward. We just keep believing we will get Black Coffee made. Because we will. There’s another meeting next week. Perhaps this will all come together soon.
Black Coffee 