Another Day Another Goodbye

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. We were in San Francisco scouting out locations for the Prostitution movie. I was planning to post after we were done on the plane on the way back but a medical emergency halted that. Well, I don’t know if I would call it an emergency but it seemed pretty intense when it happened.

Have you ever done something and then afterwards you wonder why the fuck you did it? You think…did that serve any purpose whatsoever and what was I trying to accomplish by doing that. That happened to me yesterday, and I still don’t know why I did what I did. And now all I have to show for it is a hospital bill and hopefully not a lawsuit.

We had a good majority of the production team on location as well. On the plane on the way over, the cinematographer said something that pissed me off. He said that he didn’t like the films ending and then he referenced a movie done by one of competitors as an example of a good ending.

I didn’t want to hire this asshole in the first place, but he came as a packaged deal with the director on the film. Agencies won’t give you anyone anymore unless you buy the whole package. We stopped by a little French Cuisine restaurant on the way back, and he says that if it were up to him he would have casted the movie differently. Finally, I snapped off and told him to shut his damn mouth or he would be out of the project for good.

He told me that I didn’t have the power to put him out of the project because he was attached with the director. He said I didn’t want to ruin my relationship with the agency. Do you think I give a shit about an agency? An agency? I told him if he said one more word he was gone. He quickly turned away and started to walk to the bathroom. I heard him mutter something under his breath that consisted of me being a hack.

As soon as I heard it I picked up the saltshaker on the table and chucked it at the back of his head. I saw the whole thing in slow motion and it spun end over end until it struck him right in the cranium. A saltshaker (stay with me here) a saltshaker split his head open and required nine stitches. The doctor told us later that the gash was further complicated by the amount of salt that fell in his wound when it struck. True story.

So, he’s off the project, and we’re in negotiations to bring the director back. At this point I don’t really give a shit. I just wish I’d thrown the pepper to save some money.

Star Struck

When you think of being star struck, you think of being in the presence of someone you idolized as a kid. You think of that great actor that you sat in the theater to watch. You think of someone that serves as a pseudo mentor to you and someone that you always wanted to be. Then you become a producer and you don’t give a shit anymore. You start to see the star of a celebrity as nothing more than a dollar sign attached to their head and a deciding factor to make a movie.

I used to want to be an actor, and then, I realized that they live and die in this town. They don’t have a long lifespan and the ones that do are the ones that can be recognized by their first names. Producers used to be the leaders of this town. They were the ones that dominated and controlled the town. They signed stars to long-term contracts and paid them little money. The stars got famous and the producers got rich.

Things have slowly changed now that everyone from the creative exec who presides over the movie to the hairdresser who fixes up the stars gets an executive producer credit on the film. Producers aren’t what they used to be now that every movie star becomes a producer after a few big hits. They want control over their vehicle and they want to drive their project forward. Movie stars and directors control the town these days because along with those nifty titles they can also throw producer by their name.

The days of the true producer who nurtures the movie to what the script meant it to be are over. These days producers are nothing more than people who whore out celebrities to get another credit to their roster that hopefully brings in enough royalties to afford the car lease and the semi-just outside of Beverly Hills mansion. I try every day to be the producer of old, but these days it’s so hard to get a beautiful movie in front of the right person that you have to take what you can get.

The people who say that they’ll never sell out are poor. You have to sell out in this town to get to do what you want. This is called show business. It’s not called show me your film theories you learned in your liberal arts college. If you take the movie part away we are just car salesmen and women (gender neutral) who are trying to move a product.

With all of my work in the business, I don’t get star struck by your average mega-star anymore. It takes something more. I will admit that I was out at Diddy Riese getting a cookie with the wife when Kobe Bryant walked up to the line. I had some loose connections with his agent when we were attempting to get a cameo out of him in the sports agent movie so we had a mutual connection. We really hit it off and I was as nervous as a hooker on tax day.(oooooh I changed that up bitches)

I kept trying to convince him that we could do the White Men Can't Jump thing and try to hustle some people on the court. We settled for a game of ping pong instead and I bet him one thousand bucks before we ever played the best of seven series. Folks, it turns out an athlete is an athlete, and that’s why I felt sorry for him when I “accidentally” forgot to tell him that I played a year of college baseball at a junior college down south. He beat me four games to zero but I think I really earned his respect when I smoked him later at Balderdash. Don’t fuck with me at Balderdash, Kobe. I’m badass.

LD