The Dream Factory

Here's a quick update for all the friends and well-wishers who are following my writing career. As you might know, I've had a lot of difficulty getting my first screenplay into the right hands. Strange to say, there is a singular lack of vision in the motion picture industry these days, and very few individuals seem to be able to recognize quality material when it is presented to them. The person I met with at CAA chose to use such phrases as "profoundly amateurish" and "groundbreakingly asinine" in reference to my work, and the copy of the script that I sent to Focus Films—supposedly one of the more daring and forward-thinking studios—was returned to me with "you are an idiot" written on the cover in black magic marker. Now, what is that all about? Do people in influential positions get some kind of kick out of being hurtful? How do you expect to nurture young talent with an attitude like that? So on top of everything else I had to go to Kinko's and print out a new cover page.

Thankfully, all that is behind me now, as I have found a production company who sees the potential for greatness hidden in my words. I stumbled onto them at the Department of Motor Vehicles when I went to renew my license, and I mean 'stumbled' quite literally, as the sound guy was lying under a chair. They were busy shooting a thriller in which a dangerous new hallucinogen is being smuggled into the country in French laminate material, and naturally we got to talking about the current state of the cinema in between takes. I managed to hand the director a copy of my script just before they were thrown out, and to make a long story short Night of the Lobster has been announced as Flaming Guerilla Studio's next project.

Any worries I might have had about a rogue outfit like FGS not being equal to the task of a horror-musical special effects spectacular were quickly dispelled when Darren Truett, the producer of the project, faxed me some sketches of the lobster prop. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed; by way of some levers and squeeze bulbs the claws will be able to open and close, and the legs should move pretty convincingly as well. On top of that there will also be a large lobster head puppet for close-ups when the lobster has to speak its lines, and these sketches looked pretty cool too. Later that week Darren introduced me to some college students who were auditioning for the roles of Cadge and Mrs. Rample, and I also met the voice artist who would be performing the role of the lobster. Once again, class acts, all the way; I thought the guy who will be doing the lobster's lines was particularly good, as he was able to pull off a kind of throaty warble that was pretty close to what a lobster might sound like if it could talk. He was nice and scary, and he was able to put a lot of feeling into the big pinching speech at the end of the second act. "You weak, soft-handed humans are doomed! Dooooomed!" I swear to god it was like you were listening to a real live lobster.

Stay tuned for further developments.