George A. Pappy Jr.: Director and screenwriter in Los Angeles, California.

Thanks, Anne! Yes, I was pretty blown away by all the responses, too. It's great to be amongst so many like-minded creative people.

Thanks, Christian. Back in those days before we started appearing on Showtime or even had a DVD deal here in the U.S., it was that occasional positive feedback from you and the other guys at Bigfoot (and a few other places) that carried me through. Much appreciated!

absolutley, a good long shelf-life is a must for a great film. I still watch some things that are repeat broadcast from the 1970s, it's the hallmark of a good successful product.

Thank you, Kate. Same wishes to you!

There's an awful lot to this question! First of all, I RARELY write specific shot direction in my screenplays. In Holywood, they tell you not to do this in spec scripts being submitted - it just pisses off readers and (most importantly) directors - like you, the writer, are telling the director how he/she should shoot the movie. I think it's important to remember that we're writing STORIES to be told visually. There are subtle ways in your scene description to "force" the reader to see what you want them to see (by what you are and aren't describing at any given moment if a particular scene). I know there are some directors who plan out every single shot with storyboards, but I suspect this is much less common than one might think. A lot of it depends on the kind of movie you're trying to make. (Granted, storyboarding and shot selection are very important in action/stunt sequences, where you may only be able to get the building blowing up w/ the stuntman flying out a window ONCE). Same for some special effects scenes where a lot of CGI and green screen is involved. But for scenes where the real world of physics applies (i.e. everyday life), it's not all that uncommon to just "cover" the scene: wide establishing shot, two-shot of actors, close ups on each of them, maybe extreme closeups (playing the scene through completely for each of these shots). This leaves a lot of options for you and the editor (and it's in the editing room where the final sequence of shots is often chosen). Brief aside: I just heard an interview with Wim Wenders last week where he said he never plans his shots out in advance. He gets to the location and sees what he as to work with on the day before deciding how to shoot it. He stated that he can't imagine how else he'd ever do it, since pre-planning all the shots without knowing the subtleties of the location would be unacceptably restrictive (to him - I'm sure other directors would disagree). Back to covering a scene and taking the results to the editing room: With Few Options, I worked with a fantastic editor who told me on day one that he was always going to look for the best performance, which was music to my ears. Again, this is where having a lot of scene coverage really helps because performances vary from take-to-take, especially in an ultra-low budget environment where you're rushing through the scene and there has been little (or no) rehearsal (a few of my actors were actually learning their lines as we shot the scenes - thank God they were such good actors!). If I'd had my hands tied by having a rigid agenda in terms of "This shot HAS to come immediately after that," I would have lost some very special moments that only showed up in one particular take. (In fact, to be honest, I know that at least several times I even stole dialogue from one take and used it with video from another - I guess you'd call that "poor man's ADR," but it worked!) This brings up a final point that I think is very important: I'm a firm believer in having an editor other than you! (And I'm not alone in this opinion.) The problem with the writer/director also being the editor is that you're BLIND to anything other than the way you originally conceived of every single scene and the way the story progresses. A good editor will look at every foot of film (or byte of video) shot and keep it all in the back of his/her mind while working through the cut. The editor will also apply an objective eye in terms of what's working, what's not, and offer truly innovative ideas like "Why don't we put this little scene here in the story instead of there?" or "This scene is redundant" or "I know you intended to use this shot here, but what if we moved it between these other two scenes instead, since it would really bridge the transition nicely?" That doesn't mean you're not there in the editing room, but you do allow the editor the freedom to try different things (and with a non-linear editing system, this just boils down to saving a lot of different file versions of the cut - there's no harm in it, and there's a lot of good that can come out of it). One final thing that came to mind (for some reason) as I was typing the last paragraph. I took a short film class at UCLA Extension taught by Jerry London, who is famous for directing the Shogun mini-series staring Richard Chamberlain many years ago (even cooler to me is the fact that he directed the famous "Johnny Bravo" episode of the The Brady Bunch, as well as a number of early episodes of The Rockford Files). Anyways, we were all to shoot a short film in this class and Jerry told us not to get too pretentious, as he often sees student filmmakers do (he cautioned us against referring to these films as "our art"). He quoted a mentor of his from decades earlier, some veteran Hollywood director he worked under: "Let's not forget, we're just making movies here."

great advice! what do you typically charge for your scripts? and are their writers in LA who will charge nothing for scripts? Does that exist or is it just a pipe dream of mine, being able not to invest any money in a script and making a great film out of it for a low budget.

Ha, ha! Writers everywhere should get a kick out of that! Get used to the idea of writing for free (that's essentially what writing on spec is). And if you're lucky enough to get a low budget script made, you might get offered a little money, but not much (nothing like WGA minimums!). To date, I've never been paid for a script. On movies that are micro-budget, the filmmakers are trying to pay as few people as possible up front (for obvious reasons - virtually everything has to go into getting a picture & sound up there - the script already exists, so as long as the writer agrees to letting it be used for a deferred payment, they'd be crazy to divert precious & scarce money to the script at this point). For slightly better-funded movies, I've heard of rules of thumb like 1% or 2% or 2.5% of the budget. That might sound like a lot, but even on a $1mil budget, that's only $25k (compared to something like $80k or $90k minimum for a WGA signatory film). BTW, when you read that some hotshot new writer just signed a deal w/ a huge studio for something like $1mil for his/her new screenplay, that's just what the piece of paper they signed says. From what I understand, the writer actually sees WAY less money until such time as the script actually goes into production - which often never happens. More than a few people in this town have said "It's a wonder any of these movies ever get made." Scripts go into "development hell" and eventually "turnaround" (the screenplay equivalent of ditching an old car restoration project in the back shed and writing it off as not being worth the effort) quite often. So some of these deals don't end up netting the screenwriter much money at all (maybe thousands or tens of thousands at best). Hollywood (and probably everywhere else) is also notorious for getting writers to work on new projects for free up front. I guess the philosophy is "Hey kid, you're getting to work with me. I can get this made, and if you do a good job, I will get it made and THEN you'll get paid." I'm sure a lot of writers have stories like that (I have a friend who did this for awhile - the guy he was working for abandoned the project, so he never got paid anything - plus, the story idea was the other guy's, so he really didn't even have a free-and-clear script to show for it - the other guy had a legitimate claim to the story). You're young - I'd suggest you just write something and try to shoot it yourself - even if it doesn't come out great, you'll treasure the experience and all that you learn along the way! (At least, that was my experience.)

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Thank you, sir! I'm really glad you got something out of it.

You're welcome, George. I think we humans can't get enough of inspiration, can we? Best of Luck!

Likewise, sir!

Thanks for reading it!

Your story is equally inspirational, Wayne. Thank you for sharing it. I take a lot of comfort from knowing that I'm not the only one walking this path! (i.e. No, we're not crazy. We just didn't want to let life pass us by and always wonder what might have been...)

George - I really couldnt agree more. Many thanks for your kind words

Thats a great way of looking at acting. As a former detective I identify completely with your analogy.

Thanks, Helena!

Thanks for the info. That's good to know. 35 days is kind of long. Is that with a six day work week? And last question, did you go through SAG to get your actors?

Actually, it was 35 crew members (on a big day). We only shot for 19 days (and had a weekend pickup shoot a few months later). Generally, it was a 5-day week (with roughly 10-hour days; had to go longer a few times, but we also had some 8-hour days). We were a SAG Ultra Low Budget production, which meant we could use SAG actors for the major parts and non-SAG actors (paid minimum wage) for the smaller parts.

Cool. I don't have showtime but if it makes it to the redbox I'll be sure to check it out.

Hi George, Just backed your project on Kickstarter -- I grew up with this actress starring in EVERYTHING!!! I had a real Derrrr moment when I saw one of the photos of her and realized who she was, that cute way she talked!!!!! Captain Kirks sweetheart! Good luck!

I get that reaction all the time, Linda! Even my dad (who has no popular cultural compass whatsoever) instantly recognized her when I showed him a picture. That's what's so amazing in terms of the extent to which everyone seems to have just completely forgotten her. Thank you so much for supporting the Kickstarter campaign. As you no doubt saw, we made very significant progress today, thanks to you and a bunch of other people (90% funded with 50 hours to go as of right now). I think we may actually be able to make it! Much appreciated!

So, do you think that paying the sales agent was worth it?

My attorneys have informed me that I have no official comment...

Ha! :)