First!

Welcome to the adventure. Let’s start with those five important questions: Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

-Who

I’m Caleb. I’ve written 6 feature length screenplays. I hold a masters degree in film. I teach filmmaking to middle school kids. I’ve produced over a dozen short films. I have yet to enjoy a level of success that I feel proud of.

-What

This blog is an attempt to overcome one of the great challenges of the creative process: rejection. Over the coming days, weeks, months, and (hopefully not) years I’m going to write a script. This script will be posted to the blog, with my comments on the process. We’re going to go from the very beginning of the process (I honestly have no idea what I’ll be writing) through rewriting and then submission. Every word of every page will be shared here for you to criticize. And I hope you do. Discussion would be fantastic.

-Where

If you’re reading this then you’ve found the where.

-When

I’m going to commit to posting twice a week. If I miss a day or two you can mock me in the comments. I would deserve it.

-Why

“If there’s anything I can do.”

We’ve all heard it and we've all said it. The people who say it mean it. They really are offering to help. The problem is if I knew what you could do to help I would have probably mentioned it. If I knew what to do I would have already done it. As well meaning and truly generous an offer it is “if there’s anything I can do” hasn’t been that helpful.

My thesis film was highly praised. It was favorably compared to the work of great filmmakers like Coppola, Nolan, and Polanski. I'm not making that up. It's true.

You can watch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_CPrPZ2Cow

It got me a few meetings with people in a position to help kick-start my career. They all ended with "If there's anything I can do". One person said the film was proof that I’m ready to work as a professional director and writer "if there's anything I can do". I was astounded at the level of praise. The film got into precisely zero film festivals. It has failed at every turn to get me work as a writer or director. Rejection sucks and it can take the wind right out of your sails.

(As a side note I’m not referring to friends and family comments on my work. These comments are all from working professionals with no reason to be kind or spare my feelings.)

I could keep going but that would get boring. Instead let’s talk future. I’m writing a script here in the bright light of the interweb where everyone can see the bad ideas as they happen. The overwriting, the awful dialog, the pointless scenes, all the awful blemishes will be on display. I’ll be working through the process of getting a 120ish page script written and rewritten until I feel it’s worth submitting to agents, producers, and competitions. We’ll see what happens with it. The smart money will bet on failure. But that’s the goal. We’re here to fail. Since this will end in failure, let’s see how enormous that failure can be.

I'm planning to fail.

 Join me next time as I start figuring out what script to write.