Learned my legal lesson.

            We all know good lawyer jokes of varying degrees.  There is a one-act play that features a lawyer defending himself in Hell, trying to ascertain what crime he committed that condemns him to spend an eternity in damnation.  After much speculation and wordy legaleze, the devil presiding over his case finally states: "You passed the bar."
            All kidding aside, I've recently come to learn how invaluable they are. (Lawyers, not devils.)
            A few years ago I was involved in a writing project with a good friend and fellow writer.  He managed to secure a good deal and his manager was going to represent us all.  That in itself proved to be a conflict of interest.  The manager e-mailed drafts of many contracts and other agreements.  I wasn't educated in legal contracts and I didn't understand the wording of it all.  My good friend and collaborator told me what it all meant in a nutshell over the phone.  Still I wasn't sure.  I thought I should get someone to look it over.  The problem was, I had just bought a house, had a small daughter to look after, and didn't have extra money kicking around to pay a lawyer for legal advice.  Add to that my co-writer calling me up the very next day, frantically stating, "If you don't sign that by 5pm today, they're going to replace you.  I'm just trying to watch your back.  If you don't sign, you'll be left out in the cold."
            I didn't know then what I know now: it is your legal right to have adequate time to have a lawyer look at anything that will be legally binding.  If anyone puts an unreasonable time limit on it or tries any sort of pressuring, it's usually because they have something to hide and know that a lawyer will spot it.  But this was my friend of over ten years.  We had worked so hard together for so long.  He knew I had a child to support.  He said he was watching my back.  He wouldn't screw me.  Right?
            So I trusted my friend and co-writer, and I signed.
            I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  I was screwed.  The language in those agreements was so vague and so open to interpretation that I was not only screwed, I was royally screwed.  They are so badly worded that, I have found out much later, some of these agreements actually don't contain information in them that all parties assumed they contained.  No lawyer would have allowed me to sign them.  But it was too late.  I signed in good faith and that faith was totally misplaced.  Greed does strange things to people and friendship offers no protection from it.
            No matter what type of collaboration one is getting into, everything should be put in writing.  Gone are the days of a handshake partnership, because in the end it comes down to your word against theirs and if there is nothing in writing, there is no protection for either party.
            What would I have done differently?  Perhaps borrowed money for a lawyer like my wife had suggested at the time.  In my case, getting into a professional writing agreement, had I only known about the Authors Guild Advocacy (www.authorsguild.org) that has a variety of services and resources.  For other artists here in Toronto (and all of Ontario) there is ALAS (Artists' Legal Advice Services).  ALAS has provided summary legal advice to artists, actors, musicians, dancers, writers and filmmakers for many years.  Though these volunteer lawyers and students cannot represent you in court or draft up a contract, they can inform you of your legal rights and steer you in the right direction.  See their website http://alasontario.com for details.  For artists in the United States visit:
http://www.starvingartistslaw.com/help/volunteer%20lawyers.htm
            There ARE economical ways out there to help you protect yourself.  I thought it was too much at the time.  But in the end, not having a lawyer has cost me more.  Far, far more.

Judging a book by its cover.

            You know the old saying, 'You can't judge a book by its cover."  Well, let's test that out.  Looking at the cover in the above photo, can you figure out what the book is about?  There is a very large iceberg and the image of a familiar ocean liner sinking into the water.

            If you guessed the book, Futility, is about the infamous ill-fated ship, RMS Titanic - you would be wrong!

            In fact, this book cover was designed and published in 1898 -  fourteen years before the Titanic set sail. But the irony doesn't stop there.  The ship in the above novel was called: Titan.

Both the fictional Titan and the real Titanic had many striking similarities: both were considered to be 'unsinkable', both were over 800ft long, both were moving too quickly (Titan: 25 knots, Titanic: 22.5 knots) on a cold April night, both hit an iceberg on the starboard side, both sank 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland and neither of them had enough lifeboats for their 3000 passengers and therefore both had a tremendous loss of life.

            It is one of the strangest cases of life imitating art. After the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the novel Futility was re-printed with an extended title, Futility or the Wreck of the Titan.   The publishers wanted it in the title to capitalize on the recent sinking of the Titanic. It has had the extended title ever since, which is what makes this original 1898 edition so rare.   This one pictured above is not mine, but it is for sale at about £10,000 ($15,574.01 USD).  It is in tremendous condition for a 114 year old book.  If anyone is seriously interested, I can give you the contact information of the private seller, who seems like a very nice guy.

            The book Futility becomes an important clue in my historical-thriller novel, The Depth of Deception (A Titanic Murder Mystery). 

My novel Depth of Deception (A Titanic Murder Mystery) can now be purchased at an introductory rate of $0.99 from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007O3IKTY as well as in other e-book formats from Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/144531.    

http://depthofdeception.weebly.com/

Killer Research!

           So what does a writer do while he waits to hear back if his book will be bought by any publishers? Well, the best idea was to start work on the next novel. After all, when I met with Michele (my literary agent in NY) regarding my current book that she sent out, she asked, "What's next?"

            I'm doing research. The book is set in two time periods:  Victorian London and present-day New York.  I've amassed a great deal of research material about Victorian London, including old maps, photos, language styles and etiquette.  I used some of this information for Dracula the Un-Dead.

            At present I'm researching the 'profiling of serial killers' (not light bedtime reading).  This is not just to get into the mind of a serial killer, but, more importantly for this novel, to get into the mind of a profiler.  The protagonist in my next novel is a profiler so in order to find her authentic voice I need to find what motivates one.

            I have ordered some books that detail some profilers' case studies, and it's been quite fascinating to read the train of thought of a profiler as they explore the darkest side of humanity. Psychologist Carl Jung believed that everyone has a darkness or shadow inside of them. He also said, "Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people."

            Real life is very different from the neat and tidy crime-fighting format that you see on certain current TV shows where the murder is solved and the sociopath brought to justice.  More often than not, killers are still out there because the law interferes with justice.  Police departments and District Attorney's offices refuse to listen or re-examine the evidence.  Reading these cases, it's hard not to get infuriated by narrow-minded pigheaddedness.  Something I can relate to, on a lesser scale, as I've experienced the law enforcement's impotence when I was a victim of fraud. Even though I had a huge papertrail of evidence, the local police, the FBI, the RCMP, NYPD and the District Attorney's office of New York were not interested in helping me... they just passed the buck or ignored me. I can't even begin to imagine how that must feel for the profiler or the victim's family when the 'Law' allows a killer to roam free because there is no rule or law that states they have to investigate a crime even if it's inconvenient for them. Profilers encounter these issues all the time, and yet they carry on.

            I try to be analytical as I read of some horrific murders that have taken place and the facts are far more disturbing than anything I've seen on television.  Now, as I try to create my fictional killer, one thing that is clear from these cases and from the most diabolical figures from history: evil people don't see themselves as evil. In their own sick, twisted way they are doing what seems logical in their minds.  As an author I have to find that truth in the motivation of my character.  

            When Robert Bloch wrote the novel Psycho, which was later adapted into the famous Alfred Hitchcock film, he loosely based the character of Norman Bates on some newspaper articles he found about the serial killer Ed Gein.  The newspapers at the time did not publish the gory details of Ed Gein's murders and mutilations. Only after his novel was complete, did Robert Bloch finally read all the ghastly details.  There was one startling similarity that Robert Bloch created for Norman Bates that Ed Gein actually committed.  Art imitating life by chance. It was so disturbing for the author that Robert Bloch couldn't look at himself in the mirror just after that discovery. 

            I put my research down, and go watch a sitcom on television to try to shake it off.  But it's hard to do. I make some notes, then go check on my daughter who is asleep in her room. At six years old, she still sleeps with a night light on, and insists that her closet door be kept shut.  I understand. I recall as a child fearing the monsters that lurked under my bed.  Eventually l grew out of it and learned that there are no monsters under the bed or in the closet. No green, hairy fanged beasts with horns. The real monsters look like the person down the street, and rarely have a 'sinister' look to them.

My Updated Demo Reel

Here's the YouTube link to my updated directing demo reel.

http://youtu.be/EI5vmSXUtug

Creating Yoda Cameo - Old School

           Even when making a film, it can be useful being a historical researcher.  The past has so much to teach.

            When writing our Star Wars spoof, we wanted to have a cameo of Yoda via hologram projection as a Keynote Speaker for this Group Therapy session.   We also knew that we wanted Yoda to be a puppet as he originally was, rather than computer generated animation.   My wife has been a puppeteer and we have a few friends who build puppets.  The tricky part was, as an entry to the Atom Film Star Wars Movie Challenge, anything 'Star Wars'-related appearing in the film had to be officially licensed by Lucasfilm. We did have Han Solo's blaster, a Lucasfilm licensed  toy, originally bright red so that no one is fooled into thinking it's a real laser blaster... my wife painted it to look like the blaster in the film.  Likewise, the lightsaber handles were licensed toys that were modified for sword-fight choreography. Yoda was more of a challenge. We ordered a couple of different licensed Yoda puppets from e-bay. While we were waiting for them to arrive, we picked up a Yoda mask from a local costume store. Did a few camera tests with the mask...  it so didn't work.  Not at all.

            One of the puppets that arrived was ugly but could be workable. The problem was that his 'hair' was moulded rubber, as were his clothes. With the help of Meghan Sullivan, a colleague I had worked with on a few films, we created new 'clothes' for Yoda, added crepe hair and modified it so that the mouth would move. It became a decent working puppet, just much smaller than Frank Oz's original. We hoped the holograph effect would hide any flaws.

            Then came the challenge of how to do the hologram effect. I already had a friend and great visual effects artist, Paul Stodolny, doing the lightsaber effects. He did an amazing job,  taking the edited footage and adding each glowing light beam ... frame by frame. (Think about that for a moment. There are 30 frames per second.)  Everyone involved in the project donated their time for free, so there's only so much I can impose or ask. I went on-line and Googled "Star Wars Hologram projection effect".  I found a link to a 47-page document explaining how to create the illusion in Adobe AfterEffects.  Forty-Seven pages!  It detailed a ridiculously long and  time consuming plan to replicate the hologram illusion. There had to be a better way.  After all they didn't have  AfterEffects... or even computers back in 1976 when they were filming Star Wars. How did they do it then?

            Then I remembered my wife (a huge Star Wars fan) had a book from her childhood that had some 'behind the scenes' info and pictures from the original film. And 'yes' she still had this book. Looking through it I found how the fledgling FX crew that would eventually form Industrial Light & Magic created the holographic effect.

            They filmed Carrie Fisher against a blue screen, then  took that footage and transferred it to video (also a new medium unheard of by many consumers).  They then connected the video player (which in the 70's looked like a reel to reel player) to a TV set and played the footage while filming the TV screen with their movie camera.  As I mentioned above, video plays back at 30fps (frames per second), a film camera shoots at 24fps.  The frame difference causes that horizontal flicker effect that you sometimes see on movies where they didn't sync the playback. Then using optical effects, they super imposed that flickered image of Carrie Fisher into the scene.

            I was using a Panasonic DVX 100 to film my Star Wars spoof and was going to be shooting 24fps, so that it looked less like video. Using the technique from the past we filmed the Yoda puppet on a blue screen and repeated the process as George Lucas' crew did in 1976.  The final result was perfect and took a fraction of the time the Adobe AfterEffects would have taken.  

            A small example of how to learn from history and that some answers can be found in books, not just the internet.

Filming the Yoda puppet for Blasted Behavior.

My Star Wars Film On-line

If anyone hasn't seen "Star Wars: Blasted Behavior", it can be found here on the official StarWars.com website:

http://www.starwars.com/video/view/000952.html

It can be also viewed on the Atom films website:

http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/sw_blasted_behavior/

Enjoy.

Star Wars: Blasted Behavior

My Star Wars film in Dragon*Con

     My spoof short film, Star Wars: Blasted Behavior has been accepted to the 2011 Dragon*Con Film Festival (a huge Sci-Fi & Fantasy convention) in Atlanta, Georgia.  I would like to go, but unfortunately I can't seem to get a hotel room for this event, being held over the Labour Day weekend.

     Blasted Behavior has been doing well.  My wife and I wrote it together in one day, and three weeks later, with the help of many of our talented friends, we shot it in one day, too.  We did it primarily to enter the 2008 Atom Films Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.  After rushing to get it edited in time, we uploaded it to their website on the final deadline date. Unfortunately, due to so many others uploading at the same time, their system couldn't handle it and my film was one of many that simply didn't get there. We re-submitted the following year and were thrilled that Blasted Behavior was one of the finalist films in 2009 (George Lucas was one of the judges).

     In our spoof, the main characters from the original Star Wars Trilogy find themselves in a group therapy session. Unfortunately, these characters have unresolved "issues" and before you know it tempers flare and the lightsabers ignite.

     To prepare, I watched the original 1977 Star Wars film and muted the sound so I could study how George Lucas framed his dialogue and lightsaber fights in order to duplicate the look for my spoof.  Then I went out and bought a blue plaid shirt, like Lucas', to wear while I was directing.

     Kevin Robinson played Luke Skywalker with eerie attention to detail, and Erik Buchanan braved the full Darth Vader armour with grace. Both men are fight choreographers who put together a terrific lightsaber battle for this film that they should be proud of.

     Our film's music was scored by Graeme Wearmouth, who duplicated the famous John Williams Star Wars opening and end credit music, and expertly incorporated the main theme into the lightsaber fight. In 2008, it was unclear if there was a limit to how much of John Williams' music we could reproduce, but when we re-submitted in 2009, we found that we were only allowed to use two 59-second sequences. So Graeme had to go back and re-score to comply with the new rules. Although he was understandably not happy, he captured John Williams' essence amazingly well.

     Everyone, cast and crew, worked every hard in all aspects of the production and I am grateful to each and every one of them.  Last year Blasted Behavior won "Best Foreign Sci-Fi Short" in the New York International Independent Film Festival and now it is about to be screened at Dragon*Con.

     I am thrilled and proud.... now if only I could find a hotel room.

Filming Star Wars: Blasted Behavior