My awesome negotiating skills...

Here's a great example of my fantastic negotiating skills. I found out later how pointless it was to ask for Wirter's Guild of Canada Scale on future rewrites. You'll see why in future posts. So yeah, like the previous two posts, this takes place back in November. I'll continue to post past journal entries until we get caught up to the present.

11/24/06

Here’s the latest e-mail exchange with Collingwood beginning with yesterday morning and ending today:


Hey Adam,

Had a meeting tonight about "This is What We Call Home" and we're still interested in moving forward. Unfortunately we have to stick with our initial offer. It's definitely a good deal for a first time script option. In good faith I can assure you we would like to have a long term relationship with you that spans over several features.

If we are going to do this I'd love to move forward with it immediately. There's a lot of prep we can get done on it before the New Year. Ideally we would start shooting as soon as June.

Let me know your thoughts.

Best,

Dylan

UP.SO.: If thing with "Northbridge" don't work out please let me know as we love that one too!!

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Hi Dylan,

Today is Thanksgiving so I'm a little busy with turkey, relatives and mashed potatoes. I'll get back to you tomorrow for sure.

Thanks,

Adam

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No worries.
Happy Thanksgiving!!

Dylan

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Okay, Dylan. Let's get this done. I just have two requests for the option contract:

1. That you give me the opportunity to do a dvd commentary.

2. That for any additional rewrites and scene rewrites beyond the one rewrite agreed to in the contract, I get paid WGC scale.

That's it. I look forward to hearing back from you. My phone is in working order now so feel free to give me a call. E-mails work too.

Adam

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Excellent!!! We're very excited to be on board.

Your two requests are not a problem. Give me a few days to have my lawyer draw something up and we'll chat next week.

Have a great weekend and let's make a movie!!!

d

So that’s how it works, eh? So now I’m sitting back and relaxing. watching the Pistons game. In other news, Neil sent me 23 pages of notes on Northbridge. Good Jesus. I’m actually looking forward to the rewrite on that one though.

I’ve been re-reading Bukowski recently. Just finished Ham on Rye and want to finish Post Office before I leave for the Nati. I think it will help me with Northbridge. Northbridge is all about hiding, covering up who you really are. Bukowski never hides from who he is, and that’s what I have to have the characters become in the climax. Tracy has to become Chinaski…