The Return
Hiatuses are good. Returning is better.
The end of a season on a TV show is always a bit of a bummer. You’ve hopefully just enjoyed 8 or 10 or 22 episodes of some fantastically fun show, written by some of the most interesting people in Hollywood, and you’ve fallen in love with the characters, or at least enjoyed watching them self-destruct or make fools of themselves. The storylines have converged to a high tension payoff in that season finale. Now the show must rest, and so must you.
Hiatuses are good for the soul. We cannot endure too much of a good thing, lest it spoil our appetites and set us up for false expectations of an unending parade of good things from the world.
I think I needed a bit of a break from this newsletter. I was (and am) slammed with work, and between that and moving to a new city and the two strikes, I felt a bit like I was starting to rush to produce a weekly post without being able to meaningfully give you anything worth talking about.
The focus had also been lost a bit, if I’m honest. This newsletter was begun specifically to speak to the making of a feature horror film from idea to distribution. Perhaps that was naive of me to think that nothing else would happen in the interim. Of course, there’s lots of down time, lots of waiting, lots of uncertain moments where nothing seems to be happening. And one thing humans are good at, it’s filling empty time. Which, we have done, admirably. Not to our detriment, or the detriment of the Lucid feature. But they have happened and are interesting and maybe those interstitial events and projects are part of the journey of this film. They certainly shape our attentions and our focus. They also give us extra perspective on best practices. Doing a short film helps us see the microcosm of a larger feature project. We can adapt our approach in certain areas.
That said, taking some time away has helped. I feel refreshed. I still expect to reduce my output here, especially while the strikes are ongoing.
But! This week there’s something to talk about! It’s about the value of a trusted collaborator who you can get down and dirty with on nitty gritty script stuff in prep to shoot.
But first. The SAG-AFTRA strike! We’re now a few weeks into it. We’re something like 87 days into the WGA strike, and the two unions have joined forces in a way that’s inspiring and confidence-building, even while the studio heads muscle their way through bad public relations interviews (and positive media spin helping their cause).
I’m honestly surprised a bit. I thought the studio was going to offer them a late deal that would have been politically difficult to turn down without enraging membership. Whether that happened and SAG-AFTRA leadership held steady, the dynamic has shifted, and it came at just the right moment.
WGA strike had hit a bit of a lull in enthusiasm. People are still out there, passionate and dedicated to the cause, but you can’t sustain the high levels of those initial weeks forever, especially as savings dwindle. The strike has become writers’ new job. And like most jobs, it had become a grind. And like some jobs actors and writers sign on for, it doesn’t pay anything!
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a crack on the writers. But there was a palpable fatigue that was lifted as soon as the SAG-AFTRA strike was announced at that press conference (watch below if you missed it, the speeches were amazing). They needed a shot in the arm, and they got a big one.
With SAG-AFTRA’s worldwide membership dwarfing the WGA’s, the picket lines have swelled, solidarity has been reinforced, the camaraderie and resolve has been doubled.
Not to mention, the average attractiveness on the picket lines has increased by a decent amount. I’m not saying writers aren’t beautiful people. But there’s beauty and there’s beauty. Actors are the visible part of our hidden work, let’s just put it that way.
Of course, the studios have doubled their resolve as well, and based on their comments in the press, it does not seem likely they will bend any time soon. They mean to starve us out. But they don’t realize the term starving artist isn’t just for painters and musicians. Starving is what we do on good days. So they underestimate our commitment.
I do foresee this strike lasting through October, and potentially beyond. With the unions, well, united, they have more power to hold out longer than they would have had separately.
Studios hold a ton of juice. But the two striking guilds have recognized the existential threat, not simply in terms of the AI problem but in the way data is used to control outcomes (ie, paychecks, including residuals). With AI, the downfall would be swift and merciless. With data transparency and pay rises, the decline would be slower and result in further hollowing out of the industry. More content demands, less money to go around. More of us fighting for scraps.
In some ways, this is the last bulwark. If the strike is broken, there’s little reason to think mainstream filmmaking has a chance of surviving the fallout in the long term. Indie filmmaking will have just as tough a go as it always has, but some incredible filmmakers and writers would emerge out of that cratering. But what a cost it would be. We don’t want that to happen.
Saliently, for Lucid, the strikes have been an interesting opportunity to button the script down and ensure the elements in the script that are most challenging from a production standpoint are presented as well as they can be to ensure production doesn’t fall apart due to lack of practical feasibility. It would suck for me to write something that sounds cool on paper but is simply not possible given the constraints (budget, time, skill level, etc.).
We intend to shoot as much of the effects in this practically. This includes the strange world of the lucid dreams protagonist Martin encounters. There are mixtures of environments, freaky characters and costumed demons. There are massive lighting changes requiring us to map out the mechanics of each shot and how we can deliver the best possible version of that shot, achieving everything in-camera.
And then coordinating that with the production schedule, requirements of the shoot (for instance, to qualify for New York state film tax credits we have to shoot a minimum number of days on a state-approved sound stage). So now we’re bringing outside considerations into the mix.
But there are also opportunities to tighten the script scene-wise. Emotionally, can we get the same thing across in one scene/moment vs. two? Can we combine these locations into a single? Can we take this two pages down to a page and a half? And even as we go through the logistics, we always keep an eye on character. Are these moments landing emotionally? Is there something not quite right about this development section? Is this reveal honest?
I had a script/production meeting with Cameron this weekend (in person, since we now live in the same town!) and one of the things we discussed was taking out a little plot point that we see a few times. It’s an element that adds to the mythology of the killer, but Cameron felt it wasn’t working, but didn’t know why it was bumping for him. He thought it would potentially confuse the audience. I said it was there to add texture to the killer’s motives and MO. As we discussed, we both came to the realization that this little detail was fine (great, even) for the story, but it had no payoff in the third act, so its presence in the script felt unfinished, and therefore, felt unnecessary and even confusing. We figured out a wonderfully creepy way to pay off that tidbit in a way that will satisfy the audience’s unasked questions.
We also went through and tacked a few areas for super minor tweaks; in two scenes I had similar dialogue that we realized we could combine, then chop up and move around to give this important character beat between father and son more weight. In another area, I had written a perfectly good scene ending, but Cameron suggested a slight change that expanded on something earlier—and it was a small but powerful way to connect these two moments thematically.
The value of a collaborator who is there to elevate the material (and make it feasible for shooting) is unmatched, in my opinion. This script would not be as good as it is without the input of a couple of people, but Cameron, as director, has had the heaviest hand, but it’s a hand I welcome. And, in true collaboration, it’s not simply a dictatorship. It’s a conversation, resulting in idea flow, pushback, challenges and counter-challenges, and resolution.
Next steps: make those tweaks, then have DeAnna, our line producer, create the new schedule breakdown. There’s one section in the third act that we want to see if it’s going to push us over budget on days. I wrote it not to be, but we’ll see.
In other writing news, I’m about six weeks into my Story Incubator Writing Lab feature script, which I mentioned in my last post. It’s the first non-horror script I’ve written in about four years, which is trippy to say out loud. I am working from an overloaded outline, which I estimate I’ll have to jettison 30-40% of in order to keep the script under 120 pages.
I was a little nervous to start it, but now that I’m back in it, the jitters are out and I’m just grinding through it, scene by scene. Getting to know these characters. Adding little moments, tics, grace notes for hinting at deeper depths.
I’ll need beta readers eventually. Hint hint.
Until next time, be good to yourself. Appreciate you reading, as always.
Good to see you back, and definitely in line as beta reader when the need is there.