Killjoy

Good Morning, Mr. Bootles.

Flashback:

Geeze - I don't know. 8 years ago? It was a while back...

Really frustrated with parts of my life. One was that I was doing all to well at my job - Producing and Directing commercials and TV shows for Discovery. (And by well, I mean - staying busy doing stuff that was not really considered any thing but a credit by people in the industry - but was work nonetheless.) I loved my job. Hell - I loved having a job. But I didn't go to film school to do TV and Commercials - although one could do much worse - I went to school to make films.

There were a number of us who felt the same way.

About the same time - Smoke came out. Not sure how many of you saw the film. Directed by Wayne Wang - it was about a cigar shop in NY with Harvey Keitel as the lead and a huge cast under him. The director and cast liked shooting so much - they kept going - and shot another film - Blue in the Face - completely improved right after Smoke.

I liked Blue in the Face even better.

Now at this time - Christopher Guest and his films were just starting to come out - and the idea of an improved movie was bandied about. I knew better, having tried to make it as an actor a looooooong time ago - that improv is best left to the geniuses - and we were not geniuses.

So we gathered together a group of like minded individuals - and decided that anyone could write anything. We had an over-arching idea.

Something happened in Seashore State park. No one knows what it is. But the Government has come in and shut things down.

We imagined that there would be crowds of people coming from all over the country - gathering - each with their own opinions as to what happened in there.

And so we met once a week. 12 of us. Each writing something down - and then getting together and reading it to the group. Most people brought 4-5 pages of stuff. The more ambitious of us brought 8-12. Tadd brought 40 each week.

Guess who became the professional?

After three or four weeks we had about 500 pages of script and no idea how to shape any of this into a film.

And then Tadd read a scene.

It was nothing more than an ambulance pulling up to the edge of the crowd and a couple paramedics rushing into the park with a gurney.

When they come back -there is a body under a sheet. And as it passes through the crowd - part of the sheet comes off -

Revealing a huge shoe. A clown shoe.

I don't know what it was about that scene - but I was completely engaged.

Tadd followed it up with a frantic call between two clowns about some kind of mysterious conspiracy - and I was completely hooked.

We threw everything else away and kicked out the rest of the group - and whittled it down to four.

Shawn, Blair, Tadd, and I.

Shawn brought in two wanna be Men-in-Black type agents who were charged with delivering a cooler to an undisclosed location. They ended up becoming cops in the final script.

Tadd brought his genius - and his disgusting sense of humor.

I helped round out the cast of clowns and tried to bring a semblance of order.

Blair - well. He tried in vain for us to remember that we were good guys - regardless of what we wrote on page. He mostly put his head in his hands and cried - saying there is no way he can have any part of this.

We would meet once a week - talk about the next batch of scenes - assign them to each other - and then go write. We would always up the ante - writing to impress each other more than anything else.

I remember crying we would laugh so hard.

When we got to the end - Blair finally wrote one scene. The end credits.

After two passes - we sat and read the final draft.

It was true. It was mighty disgusting. But also pretty damn funny. Maybe more than any of us wanted to unleash on the world.

But even now, we talk about it.

Over the years - Tadd has gone on to have some great scripts. He was always the best writer amongst us. He has an agent at CAA and has written a huge sci-fi script for Fox and had his other script almost put into production. He has a new script that kicks ass - and currently writes for a big Toy and Game company.

Shawn - who never considered himself a writer, but always did pretty damn good - wrote another abortive script with me - a horror script called the Jungle. He also ended up moving to Indiana with me to do our first film - which didn't quite work out the way we thought. He is now the Head of International at a big company - avoiding travel anywhere because he is too busy to leave America.

Blair actually started writing once he left our group. After writing and producing a kids show for NASA/PBS - he is now the star/writer/producer/director of the dumbest concept ever sold. He does a fake radio show that is filmed for the internet. And people pay him crazy bucks for it. First one comes out in the next two months. Expect to see it here.

Me?

Well. I guess I blog. I write. Have agents at Paradigm. My movie is still out there - with a big name attached. But no one is moving too fast with it. And in the meantime, I work in China.

But there looming in the background -

A mean group of clowns. Snickering. Plotting. And waiting for their chance.

Just like us.