PHWNED!!11!1!

My phone was broken. Mistakes were made.

On a completely unrelated note, the passive voice is often used when the agent of an action is to be hidden.

My phone was liked. It will be missed.

Unexpected Connections

Haven't posted in a while. Not completely out of laziness, though that's a big part of it. The entire month has been full and progressed rapidly. No sooner had I finished the two-week stint on the Universal lot that my current write-for-hire project kicked into high gear. I've spent the last week rewriting an animated pilot and blitzing through page after page of episode synopses. And every evening I'm packing up the apartment, to the increasing panic of the cats. So things have been busy. And exciting.

There's been an odd convergence of opportunity in the last couple weeks. In my final days at Zoom Entertainment, I spoke to a manager at the William Morris Agency. That in itself was not surprising--my boss is in constant contact with them on a number of projects. What was surprising is that the manager called me on my cell.

The logo is composed of a merged W and M, not four X's. Common mistake.

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"Hi," said the manager, "this is [redacted] from William Morris."

"Hi there." I wondered why he was calling the assistant on his personal line.

Just then I got an IM from Camille. It went something like: "OMG, an agent just called! I gave him your number! WHOOOOO!" I don't recall it word for word.

"I just spoke to your girlfriend," said [redacted], "and she gave me your cell."
"Oh, great," I managed.
"Tell me what's going on!" Camille IM'd.
"So one of your classmates from AFI made the Black List. Brian Kistler." The Black List isn't as ominous as it sounds. It's a list put out every year of the most-liked screenplays that did not get produced. Brian, the most talented writer from our year, made it. In his first year out of school. Talented bastard.

"Yeah, Brian's great. Talented bastard."
"WHAT'S GOING ON?!?!" demanded Camille.
"And so we've been reading material from your year. Scott Cunningham--" (talented comedic bastard) "--said I should check you out. I just got off the phone with him, and called you."
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By now, I knew who the manager was. A lit manager from WMA, a guy who reads an amazing amount of material and then redirects the right projects to the right agents. I'd rolled calls between him and my boss a half-dozen times. In fact, his was the first call I dropped on my first days behind the desk. He'd been polite and accommodating about the mistake.

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"Um," I interjected, "I was a bit thrown when you called. You see, I work for Michael Zoumas."
"Shut up! You're kidding!"
"No, I'm looking at him right now." Not really. A wall was blocking my line of sight. But his door was open, and it sounded more dramatic that way.
"So you're the new guy who dropped my call?"
"Uh... yes."
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He waxed on about what a small world it was, and then springboarded into stories from twenty years ago of when he and Zoumas and Jon Singleton were all students at USC together. It's one thing to be told that at a certain level in this industry, everyone knows everyone. It's another thing to have it demonstrated. And to think (and hope) that twenty years from now, I'll be similarly connected. If I can last that long.
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[Redacted] asked to see Pwned. I had to tell him it was already under option. He said that confirmed his interest in the project. So then he asked for Red Shirts, a sci-fi comedy I wrote in my first year at AFI. I cringed a bit--it's not my best work, and badly needs a rewrite. But I sent it to him. It turned out not to be what his client was looking for, but he said my writing was sharp and accessible, and invited me to call in the next week to discuss ideas for what I'd like to write next.

I did call in, and he very patiently listened to my laundry list of ideas, and told me which he thought were best. When I have a draft done, he told me to send it his way and he'd read it ASAP. So the whole uncertainty of what project to write next is gone. I know what specs I'm writing next: Belly of the Beast and Greek Fightnin'! (not the actual title).

So, with time and luck, that call just might lead to representation, that oft-sought but seldom-found Grail of Writer Validation. Odd thing is, that may not be my only route there.

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Also while working this temp job, I started an email friendship with a woman who wrote to tell us she enjoyed Dorkness Rising. She spoke knowledgeably about production, and with good reason: "I have worked in the film industry, and I know good from bad, and I was so impressed with your production." Curious, Don and I did an IMDb search for her. Turns out "have worked in the industry" was a bit of an understatement--she worked on dozens of classic horror and cult movies from the 80s, including From Beyond, Creepozoids, and Puppetmaster I and II. The more we emailed, the more she asked about us. She said we should get together if we're ever in LA. I pointed out that we live here. So when we're settled in the Glendale apartment, we have a standing date to get together and talk shop: future projects, representation, and the like.

There was one line from her email that made me sit up and roar "I HAVE THE POWER!!" at the universe: "If I was still producing, I definitely would be willing to produce a film directed by Matt Vancil. You did a better job than many of the directors I’ve worked with." Praise from Caesar. Praise from a person who's made a career of exactly what I'm trying to do. There is no greater intoxicant than recognition from an industry player, especially one whose movies you grew up watching. It's the same way I felt when I discovered John Frank Rosenblum had written my favorite episodes of Red Dwarf.

So... yeah. Good stuff brewing all around.

Packing Haiku

Tired but not sleepy,
Diversions sealed in cardboard.
All my books are packed.

New Year Changes

The new year's only been new for a few hundred hours, and already big changes have knocked us onto an interesting new course. The part-time job at Epic Level dissolved, which is bad. But I got a two-week stint on the Universal lot as a producer's assistant, which is good. With the economy corpsing it up, we can't afford our apartment anymore, which is bad. But we just got approved for an apartment in Glendale that will save us $500 a month, which is good. The new place doesn't come with a fridge or dishwasher, which is annoying. And I have to pack up the apartment in the next couple of weeks, which is also mildly annoying. We thought we might move sometime this year, but not right away. As my mother likes to say, life is what happens when you're making plans.

On making plans: Interesting things are afoot at Dead Gentlemen. Every year, when the new year dawns, we declare "This will be the year of DG!" and outline overly ambitious plans that ultimately never happen. We're continuing that trend. But this year feels different. There's a concentration of purpose -- as well as talent -- such as we haven't had before. We'll have a new website up in the next couple of months, a site built to host a constant stream of new material. Producing that constant stream is the challenge. The desire is there. And morale is high. From the feelers we've put out through our collective network of contacts, we're not the only out-of-work filmmakers in this town jonesing to do something. With luck, we'll be shooting another Gamers movie by summer. If that doesn't happen, though, at least we'll finish this year with a few new projects to show.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the Glendale move. Most of our friends live north of the park, and we'll actually be closer to them. And the neighborhood definitely does not feel like Los Angeles. The air was too clear, the streets were too quiet. There were actual leafy trees lining the walks. An oasis in the vast cultural desert. On Sunday, Camille and I went to a farmers market in Encino, which is a straight shot from our new place. We took our purchases to Lake Balboa to picnic with our friends on what was beyond a doubt our windiest day in LA; the ducks looked to be surfing on the swells.

Tuppence a bag

I've said before that 2008 felt more like a year we escaped than enjoyed. It was the Year of the Rat, Jeremy told me, the year you plant seeds and wait for harvest. Now it's the Year of the Ox (or will be in February), the year you supposedly reap the benefits of your hard work. Sounds good to me. Hard work is a lot easier to continue when you can see the fruits of your labor.

Blah blah blah. Back to packing.

2008 Holiday Letter

Our holiday letter, for those of you whose addresses we do not have. Or who we just plain forgot.

~ Camille & Matt's 2008 Holiday Update ~

2008 was a year of minor triumphs and enduring frustrations. It was a year of pulling weeds and planting seeds. A year of too much travel, more separately than together, that left us craving our cat-infested apartment. A year we escaped as much as enjoyed. We celebrated cousin Leah’s wedding in Fairfield in the summer. In the autumn, we celebrated our seventh anniversary in Cambria on the central California coast. And more than once we snuck away to the Edna Valley to replenish our wine rack and leave the flashy noise machine that is Los Angeles in the rearview.

In June, Camille left Ajilon to work full-time for Northwest Art Glass. She oversees the creation of the product catalogs from the home office. In August, she entered her 4th decade by celebrating her 30th birthday at a Venice Beach barbeque. Her paternal grandfather sadly passed away in November. In December, following her father’s knee surgery, Camille flew to Seattle to play nurse and cook him two weeks worth of leftovers. As usual, she’s made many new friends this year and continues to ponder when she’ll return to the world of cmmunity theater.

Despite the WGA strike that began the year, Matt maintained steady if not glamorous work in Hollywood. In April, he traveled to Las Vegas to attend the GAMA Trade Show where he and a couple other Dead Gentlemen promoted the Demon Hunters Role-Playing Game, released by Margaret Weis Productions. In August, Matt’s feature debut as a writer/director, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, was released on DVD by Anthem Pictures. Dorkness quickly became Anthem’s fastest and best-selling DVD. The film screened at several conventions, including the world-renowned Comic Con in San Diego.

With a team that included an Emmy-award winning producer and an agent from Paradigm, Matt pitched his sci-fi TV show Hopjockey at four networks: ABC Family, the Sci-Fi Channel, the CW, and the Cartoon Network (oddly enough). Matt’s zombie horror TV show ALIVE, which he co-created with Star Trek veterans Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, came within a meeting of being picked up by AMC. The producers on both teams are confident their shows will find a home, in some form.

In September, Matt joined the staff at Epic Level Entertainment in Studio City, where he works part-time. The end of the year finds him writing another animated sitcom pilot for Israeli producers. In December, under increasing pressure from Camille, Matt wrote this letter. He hopes nothing significant happens next year so he won’t have to write another. Camille just slapped him in the back of the head.

2009 promises more trips to the Pacific Northwest, a venture to Hawaii in May to celebrate Julia’s graduation, and a possible trek to visit family in Santa Rosa and San Francisco in the summer or fall (or whenever Matt wants a free meal).

We wish you many happy celebrations this holiday season, and good tidings in the New Year!

Much love,
Camille & Matt

Unintentional L.A. Christmas

The plan was to fly to SeaTac on the 22nd and spend Christmas with our families in the northwest. That didn't quite happen. If you've been paying attention to the national weather, you'll know why. Seattle -- and pretty much all of the northwest -- disappeared behind a curtain of freezing weather and record snowfall. For a city that essentially shuts down when a half-inch of powder hits the pavement (built on hills as it is), over a foot of snow makes any form of travel impossible. Our flight was cancelled, as was every other flight from Burbank to Seattle before Christmas.

We looked for other ways to make it home, and found none. No busses were running. No trains, even. The only reliable route to Seattle was by car, and that would mean crossing the Siskiyous in teh dead of winter. Considering the heater in our Taurus hasn't been working, that route was out. A few intrepid and/or insane souls made it -- my sister drove up the 101 from San Francisco, proving in the process that we could have simply gon around the Siskiyous (Maginot Line, anyone?), but her heater was working. We resigned ourselves to being marooned in L.A.

BELOW: Bean scopes out another ornament to kill
Now, part of my holiday routine is doing the majority of my Christmas shopping online. I have the gifts shipped to my parents' house in Puyallup. That way, I don't have to worry about overloading my luggage or anything breaking -- I just do the wrapping once I'm up north. I did that again this year. And realized, at about the same time that I realized we'd be in Los Angeles on Christmas, that all my wife's gifts were in boxes at my folks'. Not good. Gotta have something for the wife to open the morning of. So I bought her an Italian leather jacket that she absolutely loves. I done good.

And the holiday itself, cut off from family as we were, was lovely. Much easier and more relaxing than we thought, without the constant stresses of bouncing between families and trying to cram every friend from college or high school into too few days. Several of our friends were similarly stranded here, either unable to book or afford travel back home. So we sought out our displaced friends, northwesterners or not, and made for a memorable holiday with our surrogate L.A. family. Much good food was consumed, mostly soup . Many terrible movies were viewed, mostly widescreen. We spent Christmas morning with our kitties and a soup-filled afternoon with Matt and Jessica from down the hall and Nathan Rice, the most recent northwest transplant. We spent a non soup-centered evening with Gayvin and Erik and their four-year-old living tornado, Jack, in Pasadena. Yesterday we went nowhere, which was wonderful, as was the soup. There are leftovers.

My Mommy made these =)

In the northwest, the snow has been melting, so tomorrow we theoretically board a plane for Seattle. That's assuming there's not another cold snap or freak winter storm. So we'll get our family Christmas a few days late. And we'll be able to make Stevie's wedding and Emily and Michael's New Year's party. So, in the end, it seems likely the holiday will work out. And, oddly enough, our unexpected L.A. Christmas was so unexpectedly pleasant, it has us thinking that maybe we'll take an expected L.A. Christmas next year.

Frigid Haiku

A thousand needles
Dance on my fingers and toes.
Fuh-fuh-fuh-reezing.