Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Riding the Wave

I spent Thanksgiving week in Mexico, as one does. The days were filled with the usual mix of beach sleeping, trashy book reading, tequilla over-indulging and scoping out the new tourist knick knacks this year has to offer.

As the steady stream of beach vendors slid past our lunch table one day I mentally checked off the crap that's sucked me in over the years: Mexican blanket, check, fish-shaped mobile, check, loads of cheap silver, check, festive sarong, check, festive basket, check, traditional painting on bark paper, check, mexican wrestler mask...wha?!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the newest item of note available to American tourists is a genuine mexican wrestler mask. I actually squalked when I saw them. The vendor heard me and sauntered over.

"Nacho Libre?" He offered.

Nacho Libre? As if! Pistoleras, mi vato! I restrained myself from buying all our costume needs right then and there but it's good to know we've tapped into something in the public mind. Once again, the Universe says we're on the right track!

Oddly, moments later, we saw a big powerboat in the harbor with the name TENACIOUS in gold on its transom. Was Jack Black here too? He might have some good wrester hook-ups for us.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Vendors

The very word sends shivers down my spine.

Since August, Team Pistoleras has had a movie production meeting every Tuesday afternoon. And everytime I go over the list of things to do, the hold ups are caused by vendors who don't do what they say they're going to do.

And I found this in corporate life, too. You can give them respect, titles, copious paychecks, and they'll still have you on your knees begging and sobbing like a little bitch.

God dammit.

Our line producer says I'm great at delegating, but I swear to Beetlejuice, it always feels like we end up doing everything ourselves and they get everything for nothing.

This is my fantasy:

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Hipsters

So I go to drinks last night with some old work friends that I haven't seen in ages. I'm in Pistoleras-chic of course and this gets everyone on the subject of our movie. My super-stylie friend, Rob, is in this cool T shirt with a faded looking cowboy motif.

"Oh yeah," Mike chimes in, "Western stuff is all the rage these days. Rob always knows what's cool with the kids."

Naturally, Rob is the guy we always check with for trend updates. Has his finger on the pulse as they say. So the conversation progressed: Western is apparently the height of cool. The Von Dutch of this year.

So check us out! We're the cool kids.. The trendsetters we never managed to be in High School! The Universe is setting Pistoleras up to rock.

Is that noise I hear a celestial angel choir? Or my tea pot...

Monday, November 13, 2006

Graphic novel artwork

Check out this amazing cover by comic artist Charles Yoakum. We're going to use it for the cover of our Investor Pack!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ratings!

I'm totally curious to see "This Film Is Not Yet Rated." As we are on the verge of making a film which will eventually get a rating I figure it's good to know what we're gonna have to deal with.

We got some potentially controversial stuff going on afterall. Aside from the radical notion of women standing up for themselves of course! I recently pitched the project to a corporate entity that shares our goal of teaching girls that their lives are worth fighting for. It would mean a lot to us to have them involved.

"It's got some racy, some raunchy parts that...might scare off certain investor types," I fudged. "I mean, it's a Spaghetti Western after all and those were pretty gratuitous and violent, you know." The good news is the company head was totally into it. But the fact remains, certain types like, say the MPAA, might not be so much.

So here's my thought. If we in fact get something pushed as far as NC-17 and then have to wrestle with the MPAA and revise our cut to get an R...thats a good thing. Right? I'm thinking potential PR. No publicity is bad publicity and all that. Am I off?

All stuff we're thinking about as we get ready to story board and visualize scenes.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

NANOWRIMO


I finally joined NANOWRIMO.org this year, because, well I clearly don't have enough on my plate, so why not write my first novel.

I'm adapting the PISTOLERAS script into a novel. The goal is to have written 50,000 words (175 novel pages) by November 30th. They won't be pretty and polished, but I'll have a first draft to work on over the holidays.

All part of the plan to take "Pistoleras" into every medium. Heidi's working on the kick-ass soundtrack.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Happy Birthday Pistoleras!


Slept three hours because I was up writing. Locked the script down today.

Heidi and Tara are giving it today to a movie star and an A-list composer.

Holy crap. I'm not invisible anymore. People are reading my work.

Freaky.


Tomorrow we send it out to friends for blurb requests. Aaron is back in NYC raising the money.

Rock on.

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month

Sooo excited about the latest, hopefully last draft of the screenplay. The plan is to lock it down tomorrow and send it out for blurbs. Fingers crossed!