A Limey in LA LA Land - One Writers Gurney - Part IV

by Michael Donald

(Part IV. Missed part III? Check it out!)

INT. HOTEL - BREAKFAST BAR - MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE

Over a burrito themed breakfast we compared notes on the many short films we'd sat through whilst waiting for our "producer" to show. Some had made an impression, others had merely reminded us of the uncomfortable seats. One in particular had knocked us out...HECTOR CORP, made by a Dreamworks employee who'd obviously had far more computing power to play with than us mere mortals. It transpired the film had taken around four years to make, and had needed a major re-shoot when they discovered that most of the principal footage was unusable due to a camera fault!

I hope that the director (Gary H Lee) is rewarded for his persistence...certainly the scene where thousands of miniature penguins attack an office worker is an image that doesn't leave one without a fight! Another film that had the room laughing was called BLOOD FROM A STONE, in which Director Bill Palmer did pretty much everything. It was a hugely entertaining spoof on the old style macho tough guy heroes, and featured a faux Rambo hard man with a shotgun in a muscle car going around blowing people away in a refreshingly non PC way. There's a great scene where our hero faces a villain holding a women hostage with a gun and a can of gasoline...the V.O runs through the possible scenarios open to our man...he does neither, and with the phrase "Non of the above!" fires at the gas can blowing them all to kingdom come. Subtle I know, but it brought the house down.

Another film that caught our eye was called BEAT BOYS BEAT GIRLS by Yariv Sponko. This looked like the director had pulled in every favor going from not only his own life but also with help from the afterlife. It had gangsters, action sequences, beautiful women that looked like the entire staff of Hugh Heffner's bunny estate, flying chairs, wonderful shots, great performances, scenes in casinos...it was incredible. The budget was around $50k, but it looked like $50m! Sadly, to me, it made no sense at all! We later realised it was a homage to Jack Kerouac and the beat generation, cutting back and forth over thirty years and featuring a stand up performance from a man in a large fur coat.

The film was shot in 2003, so seeing it in 2009 made me feel that it had had a difficult birth. Certainly I wish Yariv all the luck in the world, and had he used those favors on a more coherent story I feel he could be sipping Martinis by an infinity pool in the Hollywood Hills by now. The day stretched ahead of us once more, short films beckoned, and we passed some of the time in the land of the velour chairs until we became a little crazy and decided to go over the wall. I had swiftly grown bored of the burrito themed meals, and yearned for some recognisable food groups that could look me in the eye from a bed of fresh salad, or maybe even some sort of cold, protein based snack.

It was the overall winner of the short film script competition, a wonderful guy with a great sense of humour, actor MARWAN KHOUSAN who wrote FRANKO, that stirred the rebellion. Let's go downtown and get some Sushi he suggested. Downtown? Surely this was the land of the gun, and to step outside of the boutique décor and manicured lawns of this Long Beach enclave was just downright crazy? I was assured that the streets of the City did not resemble a shoot out from HEAT on a daily basis, and that we would soon be ensconced in a restaurant which specialised in recognisable food groups and fresh salad.

INT. MARWAN'S CAR - MOVING - BUT NOT IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!

We set off with high spirits in Marwan's car. This fitted perfectly with my preconceptions of the US, as it looked like the door had recently been T-Boned, whilst the interior resembled an untidy office. We headed onto the freeway without the benefit of my rogue SATNAV. Instead we relied on Marwan's local knowledge. This was possibly a mistake because he was local to Hollywood and not Long Beach! We saw a lot of that freeway; in fact I think I saw our hotel sliding past on both sides of the car on more than one occasion.

Eventually we arrived outside the restaurant...at which point a man had the audacity to offer to park the car. In contrast with the UK, car parking in the US is some sort of spectator sport, and the game is to never allow someone to valet park your car. The reason for that is they will want to extract six bucks from you for the pleasure. No way was Marwan going down that route. We'll park downtown and walk back he announced. Walk, on the streets? Once again, I felt that this was foolhardy...weren't people seen walking in America arrested and given the third degree.

After another half hour of cruising through the streets we parked in a faceless concrete multi storey car park and headed out into the real world. I was pleasantly surprised, as it all seemed perfectly normal, people were playing with their kids, walking their dogs, and the sun was sparkling off the river...we'd made it! One of the reasons to escape the hotel was to save a bit of money. The menu there, while being burrito heavy, was also heading towards the a la carte end of the price scale, and having already flown out and hired a car, bread and water was just about in my budget range.

INT. SUSHI HEAVEN

We entered the air-conditioned restaurant and ordered a selection of sushi, soup and drinks...hours later we left, stuffed to the gills, having over ordered in a burrito fuelled backlash. As we staggered out I wondered if spending a hundred dollars on cold fish was entirely sane? We returned to the multi-storey and headed out. At the kiosk that guarded the exit a very nice lady requested six dollars...exactly the same amount we had dodged by skipping the valet parking at the restaurant. I looked at Marwan, the perpetrator of this particular crime against reason. Apparently, if you keep your receipt from the local restaurant the fee is discounted to two dollars...we didn't have our voucher. This was serious, already a hundred dollars down and a heap of shoe leather I had no choice, I had to bring out the big guns...my English accent. You may scoff, but never underestimate the power of being slightly different to the majority of the people in the area you are visiting. I fixed her with what I assumed was my best smile, and asked if she would accept the two dollar rate if I used my best Hugh Grant accent...there was a pause, she smiled, job done.

We sped away from the car park one hundred and two dollars poorer but four dollars richer, I made a mental note to use my accent whenever negotiating contracts.

INT. THE VELOUR PALACE - ETERNAL NIGHT

Back in the stygian gloom of the hotel viewing room, we ploughed through another selection of short films. One of these, "THE LIFTER UPPER" was a nice surprise and was the story of a little boy hired to cheer up a woman getting over a series of tragedies, directed by Micah Chambers-Goldberg. It was a beautiful little film with some great performances. As we watched another film I became aware of somebody trying to attract my attention...the festival organiser no less. Our missing producer had arrived, and it was my turn. With no reluctance I left the thirtieth short film and emerged blinking, into the Mayan themed corridors before heading into a nearby room for my meeting.

INT. THE MEETING ROOM

He lay slumped in his chair like a man at an airport who'd just had his flight cancelled. World weary, tired and in need of a good nights sleep, I could see he was desperate to hear my story. His first words sent a chill through me..."Who's the Hero?" You see for a highly trained writer these are strong signals...he hadn't read the script. Yes I was sitting in front of a man who was going to produce a script he hadn't read.

Maybe this was the way the film making process was going, rather like a blind tasting session. In the future people would just produce the whole thing without ever reading anything. As my script was an animated feature entitled "ROSE'S WAR" aka The St Valentine's Day Flower Massacre, I'd assumed people would pick up on the fact that this was Rose's story. Anyway, we chatted, or rather I had to tell him the whole story. After my pitch he wanted to know if I was happy to have him raise the $20m necessary to make the short from his investors in India and China, and of course I said that would be fine by me. As I bid him goodnight, I had the nagging feeling that I might never hear from him again. Still the night was young, the films were still showing and I had my press junket and red carpet experience to come...what could go wrong?

Updated: 06/24/2010