The Aughts (and The Aught-Not- Haves)

Instant Message conversation with a girlfriend in New York: November 20th, 2000

Eli: So of course the girls I was obsessed with didn’t show up: Tracy Lords and Nicole Eggert.  I was so pissed!And Carmen Electra passed.  I mean, she was totally wrong but I wanted to meet her.  I suppose it’s for the best.

Bunny: Nicole Eggert…what’s she from?

Eli: CIC

Bunny: huh?

Eli: Charles… In…

Bunny: OH, of course!!

Eli: Charge!

Eli: The girl from Big Brother came in.

Bunny: the one everyone hated?: the personal trainer…

Eli: I don’t know.  I never watched it.

Bunny: what did you think?

Eli: She was really good.  Very natural.  And sweet.

Bunny: i see…i cannot believe you’re actually casting..so exciting

Eli: Yeah.  When we are fully financed and in production it will be more exciting, but it’s good to meet people.  Get the ball rolling.

Eli: I like having all these actors read my script and act the lines.  It brings it to life.

January, 2001

Camryn Manheim, my friend Kevin Hench and I pitched a movie to producer Bill Mechanic called “The Extra,” to star Camryn as a demented extra who becomes obsessed with a movie star.  It was my first professional pitch that actually sold, and for the first time in my life I had enough money to buy a new car.  Or at least a used car.  (Which I still drive and Mindy Kaling makes fun of.)  On January 28th, Kevin and I were commenced, and we started writing.  I had occasional “Cabin Fever” casting sessions at the studio, but Evan and I were at the point where agents were asking us if we were going to make offers and we didn’t have the money, so now we had to say that we were looking to shoot “in the summer.”  In the meantime, we had partnered with producer Lauren Moews who had produced a number of small budget films and had an excellent track record.  Lauren also knew a lot of random people with money, so we began taking meetings with anyone who showed interest.  Lauren suggested we bring on a very experienced sales agent named Susan Jackson as our executive producer.  Susan had tremendous experience distributing smaller movies and selling bigger ones to studios, and wanted to get in at the producing stage, so it was a natural fit.  This opened us up to all the companies Susan had relationships with, and we set up meetings with all of them.  Everyone said no.  I just kept writing with Kevin, pushing forward.

Journal Entry:  April 17th, 2001

No money yet for “Cabin Fever” but we keep meeting with people.  I split my days between writing, casting, and taking meetings with anyone Lauren and Susan know who has money.  It’s a big song and dance routine, but I feel confident we’ll get it.  Susan wants us to go to Cannes, she said the market there is a good place to find money.

May 2001

I went to the Cannes film festival with Evan and Susan with a suitcase full of scripts and “Cabin Fever” investment packets while Lauren worked on investors stateside.  Cannes has both the festival and the film market, which run simultaneously. It was my first time at a film marketplace,  and it was an eye-opening experience.  I could not believe the sheer volume of movies with stars that were made that never got distributed in the U.S.  The market is where you sell movies to all the different countries, and people often sell territories just at the script stage.  We took meetings with many international companies, and Susan walked us around the market floor and introduced us to people at booths, and set appointments.  We met with some U.S. distributors, like the guys from Lionsgate, pitching them the script, and showing them a “Rotten Fruit” episode as an example of my directing.  Thankfully there was a story about “The Extra” in the May issue of French Premiere magazine, so when people asked who I was I could just open the magazine and they believed I was a hot writer.  It was a lot of smoke and mirrors.  People seemed to like me, but not enough to put money into the film – it was too bizarre for them.  “There’s no killer we can put on the box” was a big concern.  Coincidentally, David Lynch was there with “Mulholland Drive,” and I attended my first red carpet premiere at the Palais.  I was lucky enough to be seated with David and his crew to witness the roaring standing ovation, and even stayed through the last night to watch David accept best director honors at the closing night ceremony.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Lauren had convinced producer Sam Froelich to invest in “Cabin Fever” and to come on as a producer, provided we shoot it using his production facilities in North Carolina.  So in August, on my own dime, I flew to North Carolina with Lauren and started prepping.  Now, mind you, we did not have the money, but somehow we felt like we had momentum.  Sam was going to put in the first $125,000 and the last $125,000, and we had to act like we were going to start production, so we went scouting.  We found every location and interviewed a lot of crew members.  Now,  we didn’t tell anyone we had no money, we’d just kind of look at each other every night and say “is this going to work?”  Lauren had family in North Carolina and her cousin Mark put us up in his house so we could save on hotels.  We basically scouted the whole shoot and said we’d be back in a few weeks to start production.  All we needed to do now was find the other $1,250,000 and we’d be golden.

September 7^th, 2001 – Journal Entry

I used to dread the weekends, because I knew that there was no chance of “Cabin Fever” moving further along.  No chance of me getting a directing job.  The work week stopped, and that was pretty much all I lived for. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when Lauren visits The Dentists in Wisconsin and attempts to pry $500,000 out of them, and then another $500,000 from The Banker.  I don’t understand what went sour with (company I cannot name).  Was their tactic all along just to fuck us? They said they could get us the money, they just couldn’t get it to us until December.  Well guys, sad to say that doesn’t help our cause any. We’re not going into production in January.  We’re shooting now.  Or are we?

This whole producorial game is exiting, but exhausting.  I don’t quite know what I’m getting myself into, and my guess is if I had a better idea I might not be doing it.   Are we completely humiliating ourselves, professionally?  No.  Unless we don’t make the film, then we’re fucked.

I drove home tonight and just got so angry and crazy I was driving like an asshole. I’m going to leave town to shoot my movie with $250,000 in a bank account and we need $1.5 million.  That’s not smart, but hopefully we’ll be able to transfuse it along while we’re shooting.  I have worked every single day since the scouting trip in North Carolina.  It never ends.  And this traffic ticket is the last fucking thing I need.  Ready to kill….

>>>NEXT: In Search of the Donut (Click here to print.)

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.