The Poetry Fix News
| VOL. III, ISSUE 02 | August 24 , 2005 |
Hollywood Here We Come!
Actually, we’ll have to stop off at the BET studios in NE but before you know it we’ll be LA bound. The “we” includes Charneice Fox, Justin Follin, Drew Anderson, and yours truly, Michelle Sewell. We have just been announced as the 2nd Annual Rap It Up/Black AIDS Short Subject Film Competition winners (a honor we share with a screenwriter in California). The contest was co-sponsored by BET, the Black AIDS Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The $25,000 prize money will allow us, in part, to produce our 30 minute short, Multitude of Mercies, that will air on BET on World AIDS Day (December 1, 2005).
I joined this merry and diverse band of scribes four months ago on a writing adventure that no one could have imagined would end like this. We got together in April to compete in the 48 Hour Film Project. The Project requires that a team write, shoot, edit and deliver a movie to the finish line in 48 hours. It was a crazy weekend at warp speed, with no sleep, and every production mishap known to man. But out of it came our clever detective dramedy Paper Trail. The seven minute short has been screened at the AFI Theatres and the 2005 Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, with rave reviews. We enjoyed the process so much we decided to look for another project to work on together. In late April, I received a press release from the Black AIDS Institute and they were looking for screenplays that dealt with the ever present issue of HIV/AIDS. They wanted a story that was "ethnically relevant" and one that tackled the subject aggressively. Our quartet, newly dubbed Straight, No Chaser Productions, decided to take on the challenge. Our biggest hurdle was going to be time. The deadline for submission was May 27, 2005. The contest had been running since February and we were just receiving the information. By the time we convened at Charneice's apartment, a ritual that would be repeated almost every night for three and half weeks, we had about 22 days to finish the script.
Undaunted, or maybe just plain stupid, we jumped in head first. We decided to write a church drama; we theorized that our target audience for the contest, black folks, had some intimate knowledge of the historical relevance of the black church (and you thought screenwriters were dumb) and there were dozens of stories that could be told. Our job was to weave an entertaining and educational one. Once we decided where the story was going to happen, we had to populate it with realistic, moving, and provocative characters. The task was made even more challenging because there were four of us. Four different styles. Four different perspectives. We did agree on one thing: we wanted to write an unforgettable story. Within the first week we quickly figured out our individual strong suits - when it came to working as a team.. Charneice is our idea woman! She usually starts something like this, "...now if we have Pastor Tim stand - off against Pastor Bernard, that would be a good tension moment. I don't know how to get there from here but y'all can figure that part out." We would look at her like - WHAT! - then go figure it out. Drew is our long monologue guru. If you have ever been to a black church you know the pastor can go on for hours, so his skills definitely came in handy.
Don't tell him I told you this but Drew's favorite place to write is in the bathroom. He's not doing anything in there, I think, except writing some amazing sermons - that would save any soul. His stuff is so good that when we got to the last edit stage (we had to shave two pages at the 11th hour) we did everything not to touch the ridiculously brilliant sermon in the beginning of the story. Justin, our totally Buddha, Gandhi, chilly most guy, has a way of sewing scenes together that makes the story totally realistic and organic. We heard him say (often), "okay, guys, would that really happen?" I recently reread the script and its authenticity comes through loud and clear. Me – I keep the train on the tracks. When you are writing a screenplay you are tempted to dump everything you can think of onto the page – especially when there’s a blank page staring back at you. But in reality, a screenplay has to be light on verbiage and heavy on movement. If it doesn’t move the story along it doesn’t belong on the page. There were many nights when I found myself staring back at my writing partners saying, “that’s a GREAT idea but that doesn’t have anything to do with the story we are writing tonight” or “there’s a HUGE hole in this story and if we keep going this way we are going to paint ourselves into a corner we can’t get ourselves out of.” They would roll their eyes; we would keep writing and try to figure out how to seal up that damn hole.
When you are in a writing partnership (especially one as big as ours) you have to have some basic ground rules. First, everyone has to show up. A simple rule but you would be surprised how many groups fall apart at this stage. Our writing time started at 9:00pm, after Charneice had put her beautiful sons to bed, and went on 'til midnight (towards the end of the month we were writing until 1 or 2 in the morning - and yes, we all have some sort of day job!). No excuses, no call outs, no slacking. We were VERY good about showing up. Justin was especially good considering he was coming from some netherworld in Virginia - every single night. Second, we had to produce five pages a night. Because we were short on time and needed to create a thirty page script, we had to produce volume if we were going to seriously meet the submission deadline. The five pages could be in any order. We could jump around in the existing story or write a new scene from beginning to end. However we did it, we had to walk away with five pages. This strategy helped us finish the first draft in a little over a week. There would be seven more drafts before it was all over with. Third, and most importantly, you could not get into your feelings. No dramatic artist temper tantrums allowed. No stand offs. No, "...well, I'm leaving then." Anything that would disturb the writing and the progress of the script was totally outlawed. Now, I am not going to act like we didn't have tense moments. When one of your most brilliant ideas ever (or so you think) is shot down before it even gets mid flight - there are feelings. But you take a time out; pout if you must, then get back into it. Finally, don't seal yourself away from other creative resources. DC has an amazing population of poets and actors. We pulled from this wealth of talent when we decided we wanted to hear the voices of our characters.
The table reads (we had two) gave us the necessary information to make changes, fill holes, and to hear if the intended story was coming through. We are forever grateful to Dwayne B, Raquel Brown, Sir Reign, Brian (our director), Delrica, and Jamal for lending their voices and feedback during the process.
So three months later, we find ourselves in pre-production (literally overnight) and we are about to see our baby born. We must submit our finished product to BET by November, so we have a lot to do. We have quickly found out that $25,000 is not really a lot of money, at least in movie terms, so we are definitely low budget. We spoke to one of the winners from last year and he advised us to try and get as many free things as possilbe. The more stuff we can get free or reduced - the better. Over the next month, I will be sending out SOS signals for help and advice as we make our way through the planning stage. We are anticipating a ten day shoot, and our story asks for locations and props that we simply can’t come up with on our own. I am hoping someone out there can. Starting in September we will put up a blog so that folks can follow our successful and not so successful days. Feel free to send a shout-out.
So that’s the beginning of our True Hollywood Story. Stay tuned!
If you want to see us in our first group shot, check out www.straightnochaserfilms. com.
BLOG http://wemakemovies.blogspot.com
YIPPEE!!
Michelle
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FRESH OFF THE PRESS!
Michelle Sewell's debut CD, Consider This..., is full of fire, passion, and a dash of Revolution! Consider This... takes a look at love, hate, and all the things we do in between.
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