Meeting With FOX...?

I never blogged about this when it was actually happening because I was just too busy to think about blogging...

Back in June I was contacted by a production company in Toronto that wanted to use my Silver Eagle Coach for a movie being shot there. Excited at the prospect of making some real cash on it for a change and at the prospect of getting to see a _real_ movie being made I leapt at the opportunity.

It turns out that the producers needed to make shall we say, an extensive makeover of my bus in order to get her (they named her "Gertrude" in the film) into her role. For those not familiar with the lingo, cars or vehicles that are in the film are referred to as "picture cars" and the person on the production staff responsible for securing all the picture cars needed for the film is referred to as the "picture car captain". Evan, the picture car captain on this film, was great to work with. He took really great care of the coach, and did everything he could to ensure that I got a fair deal.

While I didn't mention it right away, once the deal was done, I managed to work into one conversation with Evan that I was a filmmaker and would be interested in maybe going on location for a few days to watch the production. While I never did make it to the Toronto location, I did manage to get to Cleveland for the last two days of shooting on the film.

At one point, Evan mentioned the overall budget for the coach and how it was ballooning a bit. The budget issues were not on my end, but more with the cost of "distressing" the coach and giving it a more "retro" look. During the course of the conversation, I said to him at one point (half joking) "You know Ev, I told you at the start of this thing that I'd cut you a break on the coach in return for a meeting at FOX.". To which he replied "I thought you were kidding". I told him no, I wasn't and he said that he'd talk to the producers and see what he could do.

About an hour after our conversation, he sent an email saying that the producers were cool with the idea and that they'd give me a meeting in return for me knocking some cash off the rental of the coach. Cool.

So what did I mean by a "meeting" with FOX? Well, quite honestly, I tried to think of it not in terms of trying to pitch them something they might buy. This was due to the fact that after visiting the FOX Atomic site, it seemed there was little that I had (either completed or in development) that they'd be interested in. I felt that the best way to position the meeting with them was a sort of "mentor session" in which they'd review my stuff (a reel and a writing sample), offer feedback, and if they deemed me and my talent worthy, hook me up with someone - an agent perhaps - who could move things along for me career wise.

Everyone involved seemed to think it was reasonable, and when I met one of the film's producers on location in Cleveland, he was very supportive of the idea and was all for it.

That was late July.

So it was really a pretty cool development for me and I was really excited about it. I began to think however, that there might be an issue when I heard back from Evan that the exec that drew the short straw back at the studio thought he was being Punk'd when the other producers told him about the deal and what he had to do...

To their credit, they have been _most_ kind and responsive to my inquiries, but I think that in the list of studio executive priorities I was pretty much at the bottom of the stack.

This put me in something of an awkward position though... I mean, it's not like I'm some guy off the street sending in a submission. This was part of my compensation for services rendered. Still, you don't want to be too demanding and piss them off. Then there's the part about it being a really unique opportunity so you don't want to let it fall through the cracks... So it's been a bit of a balancing act trying to get them to respond.

The truth of it is that everyone I've dealt with has been great and I'm sure they all just have much bigger fish to fry.

Yet I decided to persist.

From the start, I knew that calling every week was probably a bad idea, so I went with an every other week strategy. I did that twice then completely backed off for four or five weeks and I heard (to quote that WGA ad) not a word...

Then about three weeks ago, the call came from Evan about the possibility of reshoots in Toronto with the coach. I felt this was an opportunity to try and prod the exec's assistant. Still no luck...

Enter the WGA strike...

My thought here was that once the strike settled in, things would quiet down pretty much all over town leaving even the busiest execs time to follow up on stuff at the bottom of their todo list (such as responding to nobodies like me).

I just want to be clear and state that while I do view the strike as an opportunity to get my (promised) meeting with the studio, I WOULD NEVER exploit the strike as an opportunity to cross the line and try to find work. While I'm not a WGA member, I hope to be at some point, and crossing the line would be suicide in that regard. I support the strike 100%.

I do have to say that the exec's assistant has been completely supportive and sympathetic to my cause. Today he suggested that I email the exec directly and explain the situation, which I did. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.