Anyway, I've been meaning to post about my visit with the screenwriter. His name is Andy Callahan and he flew in from LA on June 7 to interview me, Jane Rinehart, Marcus Leach and Day Brown (he'd been in Louisville the day before, interviewing Ebony). After a day at Central with Jane and the kids he swung by City Hall to pick me up and we went to Arthur Bryants. Later we wound up on my front porch talking with Allie.
Honestly, I think she and interviewed him more than he did me. It was fascinating to hear about life as a screenwriter.
Andy is working his way up in the world of screenwriting. This will be his second project for Lifetime. It's kind of a break for him, really, because his first film was kind of a first-level Lifetime film, which means it's lower budget and it isn't marketed anywhere but on Lifetime. The movie based on my book would have a larger budget, and it would be advertised on other cable networks.
The way he broke in was to write several screenplays that were never sold, much less made into movies. But based on these works, he was able to get an agent who matches him up with projects. These projects are conceived of by producers, who make a whole lot of money just to come up with ideas and to manage the shaping of the story and the film. For his first completed project, his meeting with the producer went something like this:
Producer: Have you seen Single White Female?
Andy: Yes.
Producer: Have you seen Pacific Heights?
Andy: No.
Producer: Well rent it, because I want Single White Female meets Pacific Heights.
Andy told me the story of his first screenplay, which never sold, and it is a hell of a story. A true story! But Hollywood people are so conformist they couldn't buy it, mostly because it was based on rowing. But, I'll tell you, it was a wicked cool story, and I suggested he think about making it into a book.
All and all it was a fun informative evening. Strangest thing of all, I think, is that he's going to wrote my character into the movie, which I thought was kind of a dumb idea, but I warmed up to it after he explained.
At any rate, he seemed to think the movie was going to get made. The network people are apparently quite motivated.
2 comments:
Thanks for linking to me - and thanks for doing your job the way you're doing it. You have more fans than you know . . . The critics are loud, but your supporters are sitting back quietly. At least the ones smarter than me are . . .
My son is studying to be a screenwriter, and is at the mailing in scripts stage.
Of course he is going to write your character into the story. A white man coming face to face with his racism is a story - maybe THE story. But then maybe I'm jumping to conclusions.
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