I Kill Spies

An actor friend keeps sending me his movie short pitches… the problem is, he’s not written anything on them. Ever. Basically it’s the pitch with the expectation that I (or someone else) is going to “run with” the idea and do 100% of the work.

So since it seems like I’m sending this out more and more, I’m going to paste what I emailed him this time. Actually I’ve sent this out more than once to different people.

Most of the work in screenplay development is not the brainstorming part, it’s the writing part. People are always telling directors their great ideas, hoping that they are going to “run with them.” But not only would this mean a tremendous amount of work on someone else’s idea, it would also be impossible for liability reasons.

Like what would happen if I “ran with” one of your ideas and cut you out entirely? I imagine you wouldn’t be very happy about that. Worse yet, suppose Sam Raimi develops an idea very similar to something I told him about once. Wait a second! He stole my idea! Now I sue Sam Raimi. But his new work very well could have nothing to do with what I told him. To avoid this scenario, most producers/studios do not accept submissions.

Here’s my point: the fundamental problem is that your current contribution (the premise by itself) is not a very significant percentage of the effort on the development, making it unlikely the idea will ever be made into a film. It’s just too much risk (the threat of being sued) for the possible reward (the free premise). I could get a group of screenwriters in a room for an hour and come up with fifty premises for shorts, or maybe ten fully-developed shorts. I could pay them in coffee. Or, to put a positive spin on this, YOU could get a group of screenwriters for an hour and pay them in coffee.

But: here’s a couple of suggestions to edge this and some of your other ideas closer to fruition:

1. Have you ever taken a screenwriting class, or considered joining a writing group? It might be very advantageous!
2. Your pitch is EXACTLY the type of thing that gets pitched at a Scary Cow meeting. You don’t even have to write it yourself. Lots of producers have started with just a premise, and recruited writers, the director, and the crew, right there at the meeting. This is what Scary Cow is for.

Once, when in Hong Kong in the late 1980s, my brother and I saw a comically terrible circus with a drunken monkey trainer, with monkeys who clearly hated him.

He’d yell at them in Chinese. They screeched at him angrily as they they rode little bicycles around while wearing opera masks.

At one point one of them deliberately pooped on the cement walk that was the stage.

You know how when you go to a zoo you feel slightly guilty to see the animals in cages, and wonder if they are being treated well? And you tell yourself little lies to feel less guilty?

Well there was no way around this one. Those monkeys genuinely hated that guy.

My parents were mortified. The whole thing makes me smile when I think of it.

BRAIN: *junior engineer* is a very whimpery guy
OSCAR: yes
BRAIN: I mean his common mode of speech is a whimper
OSCAR: I think every day his mom tells him his dog got run over

We got to hang out with author Neil Gaiman on Wednesday night, at a private ice cream social at Preston’s Candy & Ice Cream in Burlingame.

Even though we weren’t really supposed to harrass him, I snuck in some comics for Neil to sign: a trade paperback of Season of Mists, which was the first Sandman comic I read, and still one of my favorites, and a rare collection of the issues of Miracleman he wrote.

NEIL: who should I sign this to?
BRAIN: Oh, just sign it.
EMILY: Ha ha, you’re going to ebay it?
BRAIN: No, I just think it’s kind of cheesey to have your name on books.
NEIL: you know, it’s funny… the signed books without the owner’s name sell for more while the author is alive… but after the author dies, the books with the owner’s name are worth more. It’s that personal relationship, it adds the cachet…
BRAIN: Hmmm…. how old are you now?
EMILY: Brian!
NEIL: I’m only forty-seven. But I’ve had this cold…

Neil also dropped some hints about his new China-based project, but there are plenty of interviews published about that now.

I met Jen’s roommate on Sunday, who helps on photo shoots with Playboy models, but for product advertisements. She told us about bronzer, a sparkly goo that you put on the models so they will have that dark, tan, oiled-up look, and how the playmates all are the same exact hue of tan already.

We wondered if there is a color swatch the models use to make sure they tan to the exact shade.

She also told us how she worked a set as the “wedgie girl”– the models’ thongs would be in their crack, and her job was to pull it out again. Whee!

We all went out to M Cafe de Chaya for breakfast, and then to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Ben and I went to Fugetsu-do afterwards for manju supplies, and then flew home.

I went to the Bawdy Caste‘s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show screening at Lawlor Auditorium in Reno last weekend. That was insane.

There were over 7000 people there, 7500 tickets were issued. Diane was the star, playing Frank N Furter.

Being officially part of the Caste at this show was pretty wild. I sold “Tranny Packs,” little bags which hold all the props you need for the show. My pitch was increasingly aggressive:

• TRANNY PACKS!!! DAMMIT!
• EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR THE FULL INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, WITH A LIST OF CUES FOR WHEN TO USE EACH THING!
• VIRGINS!! YOU NEED A TRANNY PACK! IF YOU HAVE A RED “V” ON YOUR HEAD, COME BUY A TRANNY PACK!
• YOU’LL BE GLAD LATER IF YOU BUY ONE NOW!
• WHEN THE GUY SAYS “A TOAST” WILL YOU HAVE A PIECE OF TOAST TO THROW? WELL YOU WILL IF YOU BUY ONE OF THESE TRANNY PACKS!
• EVERYTHING YOU DIDN’T KNOW TO BRING IS IN THIS LITTLE BAG! PRETEND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!

We sold out at the front, so I went upstairs and sold the rest they had up there. When we were down to one, I grabbed Dan-O’s megaphone and shouted

“I HAVE HERE IN MY HAND THE VERY LAST TRANNY PACK IN THE ENTIRE BUILDING. I WILL START THE BIDDING AT ONE MILLION AMERICAN DOLLARS! I WILL ALSO ACCEPT THREE DOLLARS.”

That same weekend the heads of the cast, Jared and Shannon, renewed their vows in their hotel room. Diane and I were part of their wedding party. Shannon’s bouquet was made of inflated condoms.

Another thing: Reno Cal-Neva totally sucks. Everyone was walking around with these big cheesey plastic margarita tubes. I wanted to be cool too, so I ordered a virgin one. They refused to make one for me. Bear in mind I’m trying to pay full price for a virgin drink which is essentially strawberry syrup, ice, and sweet and sour mix. Nope!

The bartenders were pretty obnoxious about it too. So in retaliation I grabbed all the Rocky people I could find (over 20 of them) and led them away from gambling at Cal-Neva, to go lose money at Fitzgerald’s instead. Do the math on that one, morons!

DIANE: Hey come here and check out Hannah Montana!
BRAIN: No way.
DIANE: The Electric Mayhem is on!
BRIAN: What?!
BRIAN: *watches Miley Cyrus front the Electric Mayhem*
BRIAN: Man, you guys used to be a funk band. What is this pop bullshit?! Buncha sellouts.

I WAS INTO THESE GUYS BEFORE ANYBODY MAN

Seriously, does that drumbeat sound like something Animal would play? Maybe he got into rehab or something. Burn out or sell out!

BG: I once got a friend an inflatable goat for his birthday.
BG: I wasn’t there, so I told many of our mutual friends to watch him open it,
BG: and for them to force him to open it in front of everyone.

BRAIN: Heh heh.

BG: He later told me that “he thought he’d show me” by actually …
BG: inflating and copulating with said inflatable goat.

BG: But then he felt dirty, and wanted to throw it away.
BG: But he couldn’t just throw it away, because it was inflated.
BG: And he couldn’t deflate it because it was nasty.

BG: So he took out his knife and slashed its throat.

BG: And there it was, he fucked it, slashed its throat, and put it in the dumpster.

BG: For obvious reasons, I didn’t introduce him to my cousin when he asked.