GODS AND MONSTERS - video pitch excerpt
Welcome to another issue of the R&D Report!
In the last issue I mentioned that I had two feature pitches on the same day that week. I spent the whole week prepping, alternating run-throughs and making notes and changes. True to form, one of them got pushed to next week. It happens. Often. The one I did get to do went okay.
No word on any of the other irons in the fire so I keep pushing forward.
I got a lot of nice messages after the last issue, many from writers and artists in the same boat. I want to be open and honest about the struggle but I don’t want it to just be the same old rehashing of my doubt and fear every couple of weeks. The reality is that I chose a career where coping with doubt and fear may as well be listed in the job description.
I don’t think they tell you that enough in college arts programs and it probably wouldn’t matter if they did. If I’d gone to a lecture where they said,”Only a fraction of you are going to find early success and only a fraction of those cases will last longer than ten years,” I might have sat there thinking, “Wow. Too bad for the rest of you suckers.” Everybody thinks they’re going to be the exception to the rule.
We did a showcase in New York at the end of my senior year at CCM and I had meetings with a handful of agents before I went off to do summer stock in Warsaw, Indiana. A few weeks into the season one of those agents called to tell me he got me an audition for the movie STRIP TEASE, starring Demi Moore. I had become a massive Carl Hiassen fan over the previous couple of years and this was one of my favorites. It was one scene, only two lines, the role was a drunk guy who gets a lap dance from Demi Moore’s character at his bachelor party. I thought, “This is meant to be. This is my big break.” There was just one problem — I had to get to New York in the middle of doing a season of summer stock.
My dad drove six hours from Ohio to Indiana to pick me up after my Sunday matinee. We drove twelve hours straight to New York overnight, I think we maybe spent a few hours sleeping in a hotel in Jersey. The next day we drove in to the city, I went to the casting agent’s office. Two lines, two takes, thank you, bye bye. We went to dinner at Planet Hollywood because what better way to celebrate my impending success than twenty dollar cheeseburgers eaten next to Sylvester Stallone’s ROCKY 3 jock strap, right? Then we got back in the mini-van and my poor dad drove twelve hours back to Indiana (I slept the whole way) and dropped me off just in time for tech. I spent the next few days waiting for the call that was going to change my life. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't get it.
That fall I moved to Chicago because Chicago was the incubator for two of my artistic heroes, John Belushi and David Mamet, before Mamet turned into a fucking loon. One day I spotted a notice for an improv show that was going to be done in Amsterdam, called Boom Chicago! I hadn’t done improv in months but it sounds like the perfect job. Improv, legal weed, Amsterdam. Again, this was meant to be. I went to the audition and choked harder than I’ve ever choked at anything in my life. The first thing they asked us to do was to get up and talk about ourselves for a couple of minutes in front of the group. One by one people were going up and just being naturally hilarious. When it was my turn I got up, said, “Hi, my name is Mickey, I’m from a small town in Ohio called Ironton… I went to school for musical theater… and, uh… well, that’s about all I can think of right now.”
In an improv audition, an art form where you have to be quick on your feet, I said, “WELL, THAT’S ABOUT ALL I CAN THINK OF RIGHT NOW.” The other thing I remember is that at one point I thought it would be funny to be a mime who couldn’t stop narrating his actions during one of the games. The whole thing is a blur of cringe.
Now it makes me laugh to think that maybe the people on the other side of the table, who may have possibly included Boom Chicago members Seth Meyers and Jason Sudeikis, told that story to other improv performers and it took on legendary status. That, to this day, whenever someone bombs in an improv show in Chicago they say, “Man, I really fucking Fishered it out there.”
The early cocksure nature that I had coming out of college is long gone now. But in its place is a sustained ability to ride the ebb and flow of wins and losses that a life in the arts deals out. That’s not to say that deep down, on some cellular level, there’s not still part of me that’s sure it’s all going to work out. In fact, I think I need both. I need the belief that it’s just a matter of time before the next thing hits and I also need the ability to take it on the chin when things don’t go my way.
That goes along with one of the other crazy-making Catch 22’s of this business. In order to land an open writing assignment or sell a pitch you have to LOVE the project. You have to put your whole heart and soul into it, you have to make other people believe that you’re the only person in the world who can knock this out of the park for them. You have to believe, like 21 year old Mickey in his parents’ mini-van, dreaming about doing that scene with Demi Moore, that you're going to get the job. And then you have to be able to let. that. shit. go.
I told you I didn’t want this to be all doubt and fear so I’m going to tell you a few of the great things that immediately come to mind that helped take the sting off of past and future disappointments:
For a number of years I was able to sponsor the children’s theater production at that very same summer stock theater, The Wagon Wheel, in Warsaw, Indiana.
Halle was on the cover of EW for EXTANT and they printed the first page of the pilot script inside.
My hometown of Ironton, Ohio held a red carpet premiere for EXTANT and my parents got dressed up in an evening gown and a tuxedo. My whole family and tons of people from my life there showed up.
Because of EXTANT I made friends who work for NASA, including a number of astronauts. Dr. Mae Jemison invited me to speak on a panel for her 100 Year Starship Convention and at the dinner before the panel I sat next to Louis Friedman who cofounded The Planetary Society with Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. Louis Friedman told me how much he enjoyed the show.
One day in the MARS writer’s room, a writer was telling the rest of us a story about trying to sell a script to Robert Redford, when Robert Redford himself poked his head into the room.
A few months after shooting REVERIE on the Universal Lot I got a message from a friend who had taken the tram tour and texted me to tell me the tour guide mentioned my show had been shot there.
I got to spend a day listening to Ron Howard talk about making APOLLO 13.
I got to hear the story about how Steven Spielberg took the kids from GOONIES to crash Richard Donner’s Hawaiian vacation FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG himself.
I got to go to Budapest for a week when I was helping out on HALO.
On a number of occasions I had the chance to stand inside my own imagination thanks to artists and craftspeople who took ink on a page and turned it into a three-dimensional space. That part will never not be cool.
As I’m typing this, I’m sitting at an outdoor table at The Row DTLA and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” just came on over the outdoor speakers. I don’t necessarily believe in the universe sending messages and whatnot, but even if it’s just a coincidence, it’s a happy one, so I’m passing Mr. Perry’s words on to you.
GODS AND MONSTERS - video pitch excerpt
Early this year I wrote a pitch for a tv series about a war between legendary gods and monsters in modern day New York City. Early attempts to get it off the ground have been unsuccessful so it's just been sitting on the shelf.
My friend Andrew Heaberlin came over to shoot some interview footage for another project recently. I figured I might as well make good use of the time and decided to put part of this pitch on tape on the fly. A lot of writers caution against putting your ideas out on the internet and they've got very good reasons for it. But it means that the majority of my creative work for the past six months is going to go unseen, and hey, maybe it should.
But, this is a research and development newsletter. Maybe it can serve an educational purpose and give me a chance to tell the story to a few more people. Normally, I would talk a bit more about the tone, the world, and set the stage with a logline before jumping into talking about the pilot. Here's what's missing from the first section:
In short, this is a story about how the death of an Egyptian antiquities dealer’s son ends a longstanding truce and draws the most famous monsters in history out of the shadows and into bloody warfare on the streets of modern day New York City. It's a serialized drama in the spirit of the “monster rallies” from the golden age of creature features, infused with the same blend of sci-fi, horror, and noir elements that made them such enduring classics."
This is not a how-to, it's just how I did it for this particular story. Hopefully it shakes something loose for you or gives you some inspiration.
I did this on the spur of the moment for fun. Now that I've seen it I kind of want to do the whole thing with music and concept art added in.
Check out the video below!
GODS AND MONSTERS - series pitch excerpt — www.youtube.com Early this year I wrote a pitch for a tv series about a war between legendary gods and monsters on the blood-soaked streets of modern day New York City. Ear...
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