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Scripteach

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Joined: 2007-02-02 00:00

Last Online: JUL 09 2008 06:07PM

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Hello! I'm Bill Pace, a writer/filmmaker/teache who's co-written 4 produced independent films and directed one of those, CHARMING BILLY, winner of LA/AFI Int'l FF Best Actor Award. "A Relaxing Day" is my latest film, a short based on a one-act play by Pulitzer nominated playwright Theresa Rebeck. When not obsessing over my own films, I teach screenwriting and film producing at NYC's New School. I also use my experience as a teacher and produced writer to consult with writers on their writing via my website www.scripteach.com

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Film Maker's Blog

July 19, 2007 -- LIIFE: Long Island Film Expo Oct 19, 2007 08:51AM

This was the first festival we played at and overall had a very good experience. The details are...

GOOD NEWS:
Hil and took a train right to the theater's door on Long Island in less than 45 minutes.

BAD NEWS:
Carmen (the Composer & Sound Designer/Mixer) and a van full of friends took _2.5_ hours in heavy traffic to get there and literally arrived 5 minutes before my film began!

GOOD NEWS:
The festival people were VERY nice and treated filmmakers well.

BAD NEWS:
The "festival" is limited to a one theater in downtown Bellmore, L.I..

GOOD NEWS:
The theater was actually decently full and they responded nicely to my movie.

BAD NEWS:
They were there for one of the worst feature films I have ever seen!! Oh ... my ... god. It was even worse than I had feared. I want those 85 real-time minutes/9999.9 relative hours of my life back!! Pure amateur hackdom with lousy picture, sound and supporting actors. The basic idea of the film was all right -- kind of a indie DEJA VU -- but the execution was horrendous! The director actually bragged that they wrote the screenplay in 5 days. Which come to think of it, is about 3.74 more days than the final product looked like they spent on it.

GOOD NEWS:
Because this feature film was so bad, "A Relaxing Day" came across even BETTER in comparison! It filled the big screen nicely and sounded great.

BAD NEWS:
The picture had a slightly green cast to it. Not terrible, but it did diminish the prettiness of the film. And I know it wasn't their projector because I tested the tape at home right before leaving (their projector, however, wasn't as bright as it could have been). I have since recolor corrected the film to compensate for some strange tendency for Print To Tape to embed a greenish tint.

BAD NEWS:
Despite me writing RIGHT ON THE CASSETTE ITSELF that the film was in 16x9 format, they started screening it in 4:3 (which "squeezes" the image a bit).

GOOD NEWS:
The projectionist quickly noticed, came down to me in the theater, apologized and asked if I wanted him to correct it as the film played even though it would mean a little menu would momentarily pop up in a corner of the screen. I gave my okay and he corrected it quickly and no one really noticed.

VERY GOOD NEWS:
After the screening the festival people felt so bad -- and told me that he liked the film so much -- that they wanted to rescreen it, something they didn't do for any other films. So they played it again, including for a screenwriting seminar because they felt it was so well written. (Well yeah, Theresa wrote it!)

So, while it wasn't the most prestigious festival, the screening went very well and people responded to the film much as I imagined (although there were some laughs I didn't expect, "This is a good soda," for example). The first few minutes after aren't as smooth as I'd like -- I needed to pick up the pacing there and shoot it differently -- but after that things really kick in and the actors have the audience in the palm of their hands. You can really feel the crowd sit very attentively during all the pauses at the end, wondering how this is going to turn out.

I also was invited to speak on a filmmaking panel, which I always enjoy doing (though not so much first thing on a Sunday morning). All-in-all, a great festival experience and now we're ready for more!

Catch-Up Oct 19, 2007 07:23AM

It's been too long since I updated this blog, so I'm going to retroactively do so here. When last I wrote it was about film festival rejections. Well, since that time "A Relaxing Day" has premiered and played at different festivals and is scheduled for even more, so let me backfill you on the experiences.

Rejected But Not Dejected. Feb 21, 2007 07:35AM

Me and \"A RELAXING DAY\" are now up to 9 festival rejections and pretty sure #10 is coming soon. Now that I\'m on this \"roll,\" it\'s getting easier to handle. Still not fun, but the requisite thickening of the skin has begun. For some reason, #6 (MethodFest) was the hardest, probably because I thought we actually had a good shot for that one. And I think what caught me a bit off guard with all the initial rejections was that I directed a feature film (CHARMING BILLY) a few years ago and the producers of that did all the submitting to festivals and dealing with them and I was somewhat shielded from the process. Aside from two big rejections -- Sundance & Toronto -- I was blissfully unaware of all the others. And once it got into AFI/LA and got a great review in VARIETY, we were picked up by many more. But now that I\'m the producer in charge of this film, I get to wallow in ALL the information. And I guess I expected that the relative success of CHARMING BILLY also made me -- obviously naively -- think \"A Relaxing Day\" would fair well (especially since I didn\'t write it, but Theresa Rebeck, a highly respected playwright, did). As my ex-wife said as she was walking out the door, in response to me saying I was disappointed because I expected her to at least try working on our issues before leaving, \"That\'s what you get for having expectations.\" D\'oh! But as another WAB filmmaker posted, I agree that there are DEFINITE parallels to doing the festival dance and to networking, schmoozing, \"marketing\" and \"branding\" yourself. As I plow through the submission and rejection process for this short film, I\'m already planning to shoot my next one later this year and the first thing we will do will create an awareness of the film. I told the writer and fellow producer that we\'re going to put as much effort into publicity and awareness as we are into making the movie. I can\'t see doing all this work and expenditure of time, energy and money without building into the process an effort to make sure people are at least aware of the finished film and interested in seeing it. After that, the film has to do all the work. I just need to make sure I create the best environment for it to do so. But don\'t worry, I\'m not giving up on \"A Relaxing Day\" yet. We\'re still out to about 20 festivals, with more yet to be submitted to. I\'m convinced the film will find an audience somewhere and I will work to find them.

Cracking the Blogosphere! Feb 02, 2007 07:23AM

Well, here is it -- my first ever blog entry! Even though I was one of the first online teachers w-a-y back in the early '90's (which was the Jurassic age of the Internet) and moderated several films forums and such, filling acres and acres of computer screens with words, I have never actually written a blog. Until now. And now that I have launched off the pad and reached the heady air of the blogosphere ... I think it wisest that I focus on a safe, tumbling return to earth so I can creatively organize my thoughts in order to write interesting and entertaining posts. I look forward to reading other filmmakers' blogs and sharing the wonderful, rough but rewarding world of filmmaking.

Film Production Blog "ard"

Rejection Is Not Failure Feb 25, 2007 07:51AM

Reading the boards the other day in a thread about posting festival rejections I found the following: "I've just never seen any good come of people advertising their failures..." I see the poster's point ... except I don't see being rejected by various film festivals as "my failure"; it's part of the process of being involved in a highly competitive industry and just because my film wasn't selected isn't a failure because I didn't do anything wrong. Yes, my film failed to get selected for these particular festivals; could I have done anything different in the process of choosing, directing and finishing the material? Yes, but unless I was a multiple mind reader of film fest programmers, that still doesn't mean the film would have been selected anyway. I did everything I wanted on the film and did the best I could. Did I learn some things that I'll do differently next time? Oh yes! But that's for the next time; each time you can only do the very best you can do at that time. But that doesn't mean the rejection doesn't sting, and coming in here and sharing the pain and frustration of that sting with others helps alleviate it and lets myself and others see that they are not alone. And that makes the process more fun and makes me feel connected to a larger community. Then again, I have to be honest and admit to possessing a certain portion of ... shall we say, less than politically astute behavior. Like the time at IFP a few years ago where I stood up and ... well, "berated" is too strong of word, but I certainly didn't make any fast friends by bascially chiding a panel of programmers for admiting they didn't watch every submitted film all the way through. What can I was say; I was more naive than I realized and assumed that, at the very least, a filmmaker could expect the fest programming process to be the _one_ place where their film would be given a full and complete chance. Oops! Experience and exposure has taught me that with thousands and thousands of films being submitted to festivals, I can understand not watching a true stinker all the way through. I don't envy the job lots of programmers have to do these days and they have my full respect for sitting through all that they do. That doesn't mean, however, that I won't come in here and share the pain of rejection ... but I won't feel that I've failed. As Thomas Edison said, "I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work." Uh, of course, I hope to not find THAT many ways that don't work! Take care, Bill

Rejected But Not Dejected. Feb 21, 2007 09:13AM

Me and \"A RELAXING DAY\" are now up to 9 festival rejections and pretty sure #10 is coming soon. Now that I\'m on this \"roll,\" it\'s getting easier to handle. Still not fun, but the requisite thickening of the skin has begun. For some reason, #6 (MethodFest) was the hardest, probably because I thought we actually had a good shot for that one. And I think what caught me a bit off guard with all the initial rejections was that I directed a feature film (CHARMING BILLY) a few years ago and the producers of that did all the submitting to festivals and dealing with them and I was somewhat shielded from the process. Aside from two big rejections -- Sundance & Toronto -- I was blissfully unaware of all the others. And once it got into AFI/LA and got a great review in VARIETY, we were picked up by many more. But now that I\'m the producer in charge of this film, I get to wallow in ALL the information. And I guess I expected that the relative success of CHARMING BILLY also made me -- obviously naively -- think \"A Relaxing Day\" would fair well (especially since I didn\'t write it, but Theresa Rebeck, a highly respected playwright, did). As my ex-wife said as she was walking out the door, in response to me saying I was disappointed because I expected her to at least try working on our issues before leaving: \"That\'s what you get for having expectations.\" D\'oh! But as another WAB filmmaker posted, I agree that there are DEFINITE parallels to doing the festival dance and to networking, schmoozing, \"marketing\" and \"branding\" yourself. As I plow through the submission and rejection process for this short film, I\'m already planning to shoot my next one later this year and the first thing we will do will create an awareness of the film. I told the writer and fellow producer that we\'re going to put as much effort into publicity and awareness as we are into making the movie. I can\'t see doing all this work and expenditure of time, energy and money without building into the process an effort to make sure people are at least aware of the finished film and interested in seeing it. After that, the film has to do all the work. I just need to make sure I create the best environment for it to do so. But don\'t worry, I\'m not giving up on \"A Relaxing Day\" yet. We\'re still out to about 20 festivals, with more yet to be submitted to. I\'m convinced the film will find an audience somewhere and I will work to find them.

Batting .1000 ... Rejections, That Is! Feb 02, 2007 07:46AM

So far my short "A Relaxing Day" is 6 for 6 in terms of rejections (with Cinequest not even bothering to send me an official rejection communication -- I had to go to their website and read the official list of accepted films to find out). While I'm still out to at least 20 other festivals -- and that only covers up to June -- and still have many chances to be selected for others, I have to say, I'm a little bit surprised at how tough the road to a festival is turning out to be. Of course I've applied to major festivals first, figuring I'd swing for a homerun before just trying to get on base, but still ... I didn't realize how fast the pitches were going to be! But I'm in it for the long haul and retain my belief in the film and the idea that it will ultimately find the right home. Dealing with and overcoming rejection is all part of this film game. I just hope I don't get beaned in the head first!

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Things Scripteach said...

Divergence | posted 2007-02-20 06:08 |

Stars

Beautifully shot and subject matter that is all-too topical today!

I Love You, I'm Sorry, And I'll Never Do It Again | posted 2007-02-02 09:12 |

Stars

Keith, I teach a producing class at the New School in NYC and I've been advising my students to study this page for a fun and very informative view into real creative filmmaking. Keep up the good work and can't wait to see the film!

4 - Director On Set

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iloveyou

4 Comments about Scripteach

francescafini
Mar 19, 2007 08:01PM

Hi! I need your help for a script, will visit your site

keithsnyder
Feb 21, 2007 12:01PM

Hey, Bill--thanks for the kind words over on our page. I hope your students get something out of it.

Congrats on the award, and sorry about the rejections. Hang in there...

orlandoent
Feb 05, 2007 05:39PM

Thank you for the link. I have another script in the early stages of development that I think is really good. Of course I'm biased. How does your script consulting work?

orlandoent
Feb 04, 2007 10:01AM

Ahhhhh, frequent use of the f word. I know it well.

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