Storytellersunplugged

When Joe asked me to contribute a monthly column to Storytellers Unpluggled, I was honored. Surrounding me are some of my favorite authors. To read about their lives as working writers has been a fascinating experience thus far. I think Joe asked me to join because I would bring a different perspective to the table. I’m not a novelist, I’m a filmmaker. I’m currently prepping to direct my first film, Parallel, which I also wrote.

What follows was written several months ago, but seems like a good introduction to the pieces I’ll be writing every month. So the following will give you the background on my film and everything that follows will chart the progress as the film gets made.

With that said…

As a young filmmaker, I have enjoyed reading Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Kevin Smith, and Cameron Crowe’s candid journals that they kept while making their first films. These are invaluable tools for screenwriters and directors. I’m not saying that these monthly columns I write are going to be anywhere near as good as theirs, but I’m going to give it a shot.

Briefly, I’m twenty-six years old. I was born and raised in Virginia Beach, VA. I now live in Los Angeles, CA. I spent my childhood making movies and writing scripts with my best friend, who is also a filmmaker living out here in the LA area. Movies have always been my passion in life.

I wrote Parallel for David Duchovny to star in. I’ve been a fan of his work for many years and had only three goals when I sat down to write the script.

1) To write a script with the intention of directing it. I knew that meant I would have to be budget conscious when writing the film. No one is going to give a first time director twenty million to make his movie. Not happening. But with a talented cast on board and an experienced crew to assist me, I knew getting financing for a film with a reasonable budget was realistic and achievable.

2) To tell a story that truly meant something to me personally.

3) To write an amazing role for David Duchovny that he would be unable to turn down.

In August of 2002, I began writing notes about Parallel. I wrote around 200 pages of notes between August and December of 2002. I started writing the first draft in January of 2003 and completed it in April of 2003.

The script sat around for about a year while I worked on other projects. I returned to it every few months and did a rewrite. I also made a comprehensive shot list for the film and hired a very talented storyboard artist to do some presentation boards for me. We sat down one weekend and I spent a day reading the script aloud to him and describing shots while he drew.

In the fall of 2004, my agent took Parallel out (with me attached to direct) to independent producers to try and find a home for the film. The response to the script was overwhelming and I spent two weeks taking meetings with interested parties.

My agent was also able to get the script to Melanie Greene and Richard Murphy. Melanie is both David Duchovny’s manager and has acted as a producer on a number of his films. By the time they read the script and I was able to sit down with them, I had five or six great indie producers who wanted to make the film with me. I was holding off on committing to anyone because I wanted to meet with David’s managers to see if they would be willing to have David read the script and meet with me.

As fate would have it, his managers loved the script and agreed that this would be a wonderful role for David. They told me they would send the script over to David along with the storyboards and the soundtrack for the film that I had put together.

Music plays a crucial role in the film. If you want to know tonally what Parallel is going to feel like, go pick up Bill Ricchini’s album Ordinary Time at www.billricchini.com. I fell in love with Bill’s album while writing the script and played it on an endless loop every single day while sitting in front of my computer. Not long after finishing the script, I got in touch with Bill, sent him the script, and he agreed to score the film. Several songs from that album, along with new music, will be included in the film.

About a week after meeting with David’s managers, I got to sit down with the man himself. I can’t really convey to you in words what it feels like to sit down with an actor you wrote a role specifically for…

When I was a kid, I would spend the night at my grandmother’s every Friday when the first season of The X-Files was airing on FOX. I didn’t really follow the show after the first few seasons (I was too busy torturing myself over girls) but those nights spent watching the show in the dark in my grandmother’s house were magic. Never in a million years did I think I’d get to sit across from David Duchovny and talk to him about the script I wrote for him to star in. Do you know how many screenwriters pump out scripts with specific actors in mind? Do you know how slim the chances are that the actor in mind will ever read it? The odds were never in my favor.

So sitting down with David to discuss Parallel is certainly, at this time in my life, the high point of my career.

As for David, what can I say? He’s a genuinely nice guy. Looking back on it, the initial meeting is a bit of a blur, although I do remember saying with utter conviction: “I believe Parallel has the potential to be a great film, but I don’t think it’s going to be anywhere near as great if you’re not in it.”I stand by those words.

During the meeting, David invited my wife and I to a private screening of House of D, which we attended a few days later. Less than a week after the screening, Melanie and Richard optioned the script from me with David attached to play the lead role.

In the past few months we have brought on a wonderful casting director, Jory Weitz, who was involved in Napoleon Dynamite, Breakdown, and Blade. He’s a wonderful guy and we are all working very hard to bring the best actors on board to act alongside David. We have also been meeting with production designers, cinematographers, and other key crew members.

I have no doubt that when this film is made and released it will be marketed as a science fiction film. I prefer the term speculative fiction. Parallel doesn’t take place in the future nor does it involve advanced technology. It has much more in common with magic realism, metaphysical questions, C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the books Philip K. Dick wrote at the end of his life, especially Valis and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. It’s about God, parallel universes, dreams, love, rock music, and a door at the bottom of a lake.

And unless I completely fuck it up, it’s going to be a great movie.

So that’s the story of how Parallel came to be.

Making a movie isn’t about one person. It’s about a group of people coming together to tell a great story. I’m just one piece of the puzzle.

A lot has happened since I wrote the above portion of this column several months ago. But you’ll have to wait until next time to find out what!

Next Time: Meeting young starlets (Jaime King, Erika Christensen), Financing, Producers, CAA, Ethan Hawke, and more!

– Josh Boone