Spitballing & Shooting the Breeze

Two acts, to use the American vernacular, invaluable to a screenwriter.

Yesterday I was shooting the breeze with writer-director Michael Bond (Passengers, Bad Credit and Aliens) in a restaurant bar in Northbridge for a couple of hours. Engaging tales of his experiences in Hollywood, the upcoming series for SyFy channel, new methods of distribution for independent films and an update on the progress of Hotel Blue. Very entertaining indeed. Even the pizza was good.

Today was a marathon session with director Chris Richards-Scully where we spitballed ideas on brand marketing using social media, the feature version (that Chris is writing) of his short film Kanowna, next steps for The Red Bride and business strategies for 2010. In this case the strawberry smoothie at the local cafe was most refreshing.

(Yes, it is mandatory for these two activities to be accompanied by food and beverages).

Not a bad way to pass the time on the hottest two days in Perth (42 degrees Celsius) since Hades opened a separate annex for followers of Twilight, zombie films and Sarah Palin ...

The Vault - "Hotel Blue", Part 2

At the end of Part 1 we had a 50 minute, interactive "pilot" where each story strand was about 13 minutes long with elements of the supernatural, hallucination and self-delusion. Our hero, on the surface, was a security guard in a 5-star hotel but there was a hell of a lot more going on as the pilot hinted at.

The producer, Tony Eades, then went to Sydney, MIPTV and London where there was interest but no development money as a firm commitment to the concept. Tony was pushing the interactive elements but in 2003 this was still ahead of its time, particularly the way we had structured it.

So Hotel Blue ended up in a drawer. Michael Bond went to Los Angeles, Tony established his printing business and I drifted onto other scripts.

Until an unexpected opportunity arose to revitalise the project. As I recounted in The Red Bride development notes, there was a "script dating" night in 2005 between local writers and producers. My final meeting of the evening was with Sue Taylor from Taylor Media. Sue was in the middle of producing Last Train to Freo, was tired and opened with a volley about how she was over having to beg, borrow, (not quite) steal for a low budget feature!

Okay, so I wasn't going to pitch my low budget feature and you don't pitch shorts to someone like Sue. Impulsively, I pitched Hotel Blue ... and Sue was interested. Interested enough for Tony and I to have at least one meeting and possibly two (my memory is hazy about the details back then).

Out of this I suggested to Tony that we re-engage Michael in LA which was to prove a fateful decision. Why? Because the Americans loved the concept (minus the interactive element)! By this stage Michael had a manager and was doing the hard yards to establish himself in the movie capital of the world. He also had a connection with another ex-pat Australian screenwriter, Michael Petroni who had his own high-powered manager.

To cut to the chase, Michael asked us if it was alright to approach Petroni as our chances of getting a series up in the US would be increased by his involvement. We said yes, but as we did so I also pretty much knew we'd lost control of the project. Phone conferences were held and we workshopped what the series would be about, keeping the key element of the duality of the main character and the world he was in/had created. There is even an outline for a 'proper' pilot that I had written.

During this, a decision was made (that I was never comfortable with) to not advise or include the other three writers of the (Central TAFE) "pilot". This was most problematic for me as I was friends with the other three and most likely to have ongoing interactions. Having to stonewall or lie was not something I appreciated. But it was agreed that Tony, Michael and myself were the key creatives even though there was no formal agreement (not through lack of trying).

Michael always returns to Perth for Christmas and at the start of 2006 things had progressed to the extent that his manager was pushing for an agreement that authorised Michael to act on behalf of the three of us "in the room". The intent was for Michael and Petroni to pitch to (at one stage) HBO and Showtime.

An agreement was finally drafted and signed at Perth Airport as Michael was literally departing for LA. I won't go into the terms of that agreement but suffice to say I probably wouldn't sign it today. It gives Tony and I some coverage but the upshot is that Michael and Petroni have been developing the concept and Tony and I have had no further creative input.

My frustration has been further exacerbated by, from my perception, a general lack of information on progress. I know they were taking meetings and at one stage James Mangold (Walk the Line) was being talked about as director of any pilot with John Cusack in the lead. But nothing came of this with Michael only saying that they were sticking to the original concept and resisting attempts to 'develop' it into something else.

Michael and Petroni are now writing a series for the SyFy channel with Brian Singer as executive producer which will give them much more leverage with the Hotel Blue concept. It's fair to say my relationship with Michael has been strained by all this but I can only hope he does the right thing by Tony and myself if the show ever gets up.

He is an excellent writer and I admire his gumption to up stumps and go to LA ... but a more inclusive approach was certainly warranted. A hard lesson about the nature of the industry.

I don't know what Hotel Blue looks like now (and doubt that would be its title anymore) but, in its original form, it is an archetypal story type for me where reality and fantasy collide. Something that I will reprise in my next project, Trench ...

The Vault - "Hotel Blue", Part 1

A glorious experiment ahead of its time in 2002 that may find new life in the next decade in more traditional form. The original idea from producer Tony Eades: an interactive television drama where the audience could choose how the story progressed.

My involvement - a writing friend had recommended me as someone who "could write fast". To this day I don't know what that meant but meet Tony I did. His pitch - an interactive story about a security guard in a five star hotel ... adventures ensue.

I suggested other writers and Michael Bond was already on board as director. The first task - to demonstrate that an interactive drama could work. Remember, this is 7 years ago and right before shows like Fat Cow Motel (ABC) and TwentyfourSeven (SBS) also dabbled with interactive elements.

But Tony envisaged something far more complicated than audience voting at the end of each episode for next week's storyline. He wanted voting within the episode!

The other writers who came on board were Anna Bennetts, Hellie Turner and Gerry Lyng taking the creative team to six. It was decided to shoot a "pilot" with a simple premise that could generate multiple story strands. Sounds easy but was incredibly complicated when voting choices happened at two separate points. Given this, the brief was for each writer to develop scenes where: it's the security guard's first day, money has been stolen from the hotel safe, he kisses "the girl".

I still remember the afternoon we read out our scenes. I went last and totally bamboozled everyone with a scene where our hero appears at one stage in pyjamas, finds syringes and other strange goings-on as is my want.

Then I uttered the fateful explanation - "because he's not really a security guard in a five star hotel, he's a drug addict in a rehab centre who thinks he's a security guard in a five star hotel". Michael did his best Marty Feldman impersonation and immediately tapped into the Lynchian possibilities. Not everyone else was as enthused though Anna liked the notion and I can't recall Tony's immediate reaction.

But to me it added depth and layers to what could have been merely an interactive version of Las Vegas. It posed a few problems - the writing of the pilot ended up being quite contentious as eventually Tony decided that only Michael and I would complete the shooting draft after some resistance to the direction the project was evolving. The second was around copyright issues given that it was the execution of two distinct ideas that contributed to a greater whole. Both those matters could have been better handled but at the time production deadlines loomed and some of the niceties were lost.

Ultimately a 50 minute pilot was shot using professional actors and Central TAFE students as crew. There is much to like about the results though it's not a true pilot, more a hybrid of what the show could be.

Hotel Blue was accepted into the inaugural X-Media Lab in Sydney, 2003 though, from memory, only Tony attended as ScreenWest did not offer funding support for this initiative ... until the next year!

But this is only the beginning of the Hotel Blue journey and befitting its identity, unexpected twists and turns lie ahead ...

To be continued