Friday, September 14, 2007

All Work and No Play Makes Nick A Dull Boy...

Why is it so hard to just do what you're supposed to do? All I'm supposed to do is write scripts, but my obsessive compulsive e-mail checking and Internet surfing keeps pulling me away.

I just finished the first draft of a 5 page mini-treatment for a children's film that I'm trying to write. I let Nancy read it so she could give me notes. She did and as always I was very defensive. She was right about her notes, but it just means more work for me to fix it up. I acted like I had a lot of shit going on or something when in fact I don't. I'm sort of not very good at taking criticism. I used to be super terrible, then I got better, now I've regressed back into my old ways. It's like loosing weight. You do good for a while, you start plumping back up and then you get it back in check.

My problem is I have an internal deadline clock with any project I start. I feel like I have to rush to get it done before someone else does it first. Ideas are golden in this industry. A good one could net you millions of dollars, so I'm very protective of my ideas. However, ideas aren't very loyal. They hop around from head to head until someone has the gumption and luck to get it made. And trust me, this industry is built on a solid foundation of luck. I've seen so many of my ideas get made by other people that it's turned me into a nervous wreck. The first one to the finish line wins in this business. Recently there were two movies made about Truman Capote. The Second one released was actually a lot better than the first, and was also in production before the firtst one that was released. But the second one that was released just got compared to the first one and that hurt it's performance at the box office.

So, I have to get back to work on this mini treatment. I have to add some stuff I was trying to avoid out of shear laziness. There's no race, but i feel like there is, and I feel like I'm in last place. Anyone out there want to buy an awesome kids movie?

No comments: