From December 19th, 2006:
The lawyer looked at the contract. Everything checked out, except for a couple of small details.
(At this point I detailed some points in the contract I wanted changed, Dylan countered with an offer, and I accepted. Can't include the exact e-mail exchange here because I don't want to get in a legal mess... that and I don't want people to know how much I was hosed. Just kidding... maybe).
I’m moving out to Seattle after New Year’s to be closer to Vancouver and get out of Michigan. Lamont found a place that has a swimming pool and a hot tub and a pool table. Yee-haw. I can’t seem to finish Northbridge. Stuck on the ending. I’m frustrated. It’ll come… It’ll come…
December 26th, 2006
Merry Christmas! I signed the new option contract and the check is in the mail.
I bought a used car, a 94 Escort Wagon. I call her the “White Shadow.” She should be able to get me out to Seattle. I’m staying with friends in Chicago and Minneapolis on my way out. Don’t know anyone in Montana or Wyoming so I might have to drive that one straight through.
Time to finish Northbridge. I’m inspired. More later.
2007-03-26
2007-03-23
On the Greyhound from Cincinnati to Detroit...
Before I head out for the night, here's an entry from a bus:
December 9th, 2006
Got the option contract from Collingwood. It looks okay except for this whole “GRANT OF RIGHTS” section. It basically gives them complete and ultimate control of every single character, medium, and brain imagination somewhat related to This is What We Call Home. This stipulation includes radio plays, commercials, sequels, and toothpaste endorsements. I’m having a lawyer look at the contract and plan on telling Collingwood to cut out the “GRANT OF RIGHTS” section.
I turn 24 tomorrow. The big two dozen. Not sure how I feel about that. I’m not bald or grey. I’m in relatively good shape. I’m close to becoming a professional writer. I’m going to take a nap and think about where the next month is going to take me.
Neil met Peter Krause in Whistler and he’s interested in reading Northbridge. I’ll have to check out some episodes of Six Feet Under. I think Northbridge is going to be pretty kick ass once I get done with this next draft. I would love to get Jeff Daniels in on it. I think I’ll send his agent a query letter and see if he’ll read it.
Everyone should listen to Jackson Browne and Tribalistas. At the same time.
December 9th, 2006
Got the option contract from Collingwood. It looks okay except for this whole “GRANT OF RIGHTS” section. It basically gives them complete and ultimate control of every single character, medium, and brain imagination somewhat related to This is What We Call Home. This stipulation includes radio plays, commercials, sequels, and toothpaste endorsements. I’m having a lawyer look at the contract and plan on telling Collingwood to cut out the “GRANT OF RIGHTS” section.
I turn 24 tomorrow. The big two dozen. Not sure how I feel about that. I’m not bald or grey. I’m in relatively good shape. I’m close to becoming a professional writer. I’m going to take a nap and think about where the next month is going to take me.
Neil met Peter Krause in Whistler and he’s interested in reading Northbridge. I’ll have to check out some episodes of Six Feet Under. I think Northbridge is going to be pretty kick ass once I get done with this next draft. I would love to get Jeff Daniels in on it. I think I’ll send his agent a query letter and see if he’ll read it.
Everyone should listen to Jackson Browne and Tribalistas. At the same time.
2007-03-21
A trailer...
Here's a trailer for "Sleepless," a short film I wrote. It's directed by Mike McLaughlin. He's from Edmonton, found funding and filmed it all there. The full short should be available in a couple of weeks. I'll post it when it comes out.
Here's a journal entry from December:
December 3rd, 2006
Collingwood says the contract is being sent tomorrow. At least I’ll get something in the bank and I can move back out west. I need a piece of shit car and a place to live. I’ll probably end up working for a non-profit in Seattle—Greenpeace or Washington Citizen Action—more hippies! Maybe I can get work doing script coverage for somebody in Vancouver. It’s tough being an American working in the Canadian film industry.
I’ve been procrastinating on “The Untitled Project About a Brother and Sister.” I’ve written a treatment for the first act and can’t get myself together to move on. I’ve been watching episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and dodging cats instead.
Here's a journal entry from December:
December 3rd, 2006
Collingwood says the contract is being sent tomorrow. At least I’ll get something in the bank and I can move back out west. I need a piece of shit car and a place to live. I’ll probably end up working for a non-profit in Seattle—Greenpeace or Washington Citizen Action—more hippies! Maybe I can get work doing script coverage for somebody in Vancouver. It’s tough being an American working in the Canadian film industry.
I’ve been procrastinating on “The Untitled Project About a Brother and Sister.” I’ve written a treatment for the first act and can’t get myself together to move on. I’ve been watching episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and dodging cats instead.
2007-03-19
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!!
***
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
***
No worries.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Dylan
***
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
***
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…
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!!
***
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
***
No worries.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Dylan
***
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
***
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…
2007-03-17
On the name...
The reason why I chose "Adventures in Screenwriting" for this blog is simple: I think my dad rented Adventures in Babysitting about 27 times from the local video store when I was kid. He still gets a kick out of the Babysittin' Blues scene. Needless to say, this was the movie I was raised on.
Back to the past:
11/23/06
Today is Thanksgiving. My stomach is full of tryptophan, cheap wine and pumpkin pie.
I talked with Collingwood last Friday on my drive down to Chicago. He mentioned a couple of directors he had in mind. A Brit and a Canadian. I can’t remember their names, but he’s picturing an art house flick. As far as lead actors to play Kenny, a couple of Canadians were mentioned and so was Chad Michael Murray. Yowza. It’s hard for me to picture anyone playing Kenny now. I think I would like it to be an unknown actor surrounded by strong supporting actors. I would love Brian Cox to play Walter, but I’m not sure how realistic that would be. At any rate, Collingwood said the film could be made for anywhere between two million and eight million depending on the actors and the financial backers. I said I’d appreciate it if my purchase fee could slide with the budget—the higher the budget, the higher the purchase price. He finally e-mailed me back today saying that he’d have to stick with the initial option offer. I’m going to send him an e-mail tomorrow asking for some extras—dvd commentary, fair wages on any scene rewrites beyond the one rewrite in the option offer, maybe some Snapple and Krispy Kremes. Hey, throw everything against the wall and see what sticks right?
I go to Cincinnati on Sunday for three weeks for work. I hear they have good chili.
Back to the past:
11/23/06
Today is Thanksgiving. My stomach is full of tryptophan, cheap wine and pumpkin pie.
I talked with Collingwood last Friday on my drive down to Chicago. He mentioned a couple of directors he had in mind. A Brit and a Canadian. I can’t remember their names, but he’s picturing an art house flick. As far as lead actors to play Kenny, a couple of Canadians were mentioned and so was Chad Michael Murray. Yowza. It’s hard for me to picture anyone playing Kenny now. I think I would like it to be an unknown actor surrounded by strong supporting actors. I would love Brian Cox to play Walter, but I’m not sure how realistic that would be. At any rate, Collingwood said the film could be made for anywhere between two million and eight million depending on the actors and the financial backers. I said I’d appreciate it if my purchase fee could slide with the budget—the higher the budget, the higher the purchase price. He finally e-mailed me back today saying that he’d have to stick with the initial option offer. I’m going to send him an e-mail tomorrow asking for some extras—dvd commentary, fair wages on any scene rewrites beyond the one rewrite in the option offer, maybe some Snapple and Krispy Kremes. Hey, throw everything against the wall and see what sticks right?
I go to Cincinnati on Sunday for three weeks for work. I hear they have good chili.
2007-03-16
Like a pair of new socks...
I’m starting this blog from my rented room in Seattle, WA, overlooking Ravenna Park in Seattle’s U-District. Who am I and why am I writing this blog? I am Adam Zang (no, I’m not Asian, although that question does come up once or twice a week) and I am a screenwriter. Actually, a freshman screenwriter whose decided to chronicle the ups and downs of optioning his first script to a Canadian production company.
After graduating Carleton College in the June of 2005, I enrolled in the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for TV & Film program. After spending a year in Vancouver, in August 2006 I went back home to Michigan burnt out and broke. I had written about a thousand script pages while at VFS, and while I had grown as a writer, I felt frustrated with my situation, namely because I was living jobless in my dad’s house and in student loan debt hell.
And then came an e-mail from Dylan Thomas Collingwood of Collingwood Management.
Dylan had read a script I wrote at film school called Northbridge, a murder mystery set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Dylan repped Neil Every, one of my instructors at VFS, and Neil had given him the script because Neil was looking for a film to direct and he liked my script (notice the past tense “repped”—Neil and Dylan have since parted ways).
In his e-mail, Dylan said he was impressed by my writing and requested more writing samples. I sent him off This is What We Call Home, a low-budget coming of age drama, the first feature script I wrote at film school. Three days later, Dylan asked me if I would option him both scripts. He wanted Northbridge more than This is What We Call Home—Northbridge is easily the stronger of the two—but I couldn’t give up the rights to Northbridge because I had told Neil I wanted to work with him on it. Neil had helped me immensely in the early drafts and I felt (and still feel) that I owed him the chance to direct. Dylan didn’t think he could find funding if Neil was attached as a first-time director. And so we began negotiations on This is What We Call Home.
I started a pseudo-journal after I agreed to Dylan’s offer. I will post these entries until we’re caught up to present day. At the time of the first entry, I was working a non-profit job in Ann Arbor, living in a spare room at my dad’s house, and battling through my first full winter in Michigan in five years.
I will keep this blog as closely related to the screenwriting business side of things as I can. Occasionally, personal issues will surface—it is only human that they do—but I pledge not include anything that I would not like to read if I were not writing a blog. I hope that makes sense. I cannot include specific dollar amounts (due to contractual agreements) and will include updates on the state of the Detroit Tigers baseball club—the future 2007 World Series Champions.
On to November 13th, 2006:
I decided that I’m going to option This is What We Call Home to Collingwood. His offer is low. I’m hoping to negotiate a slightly better deal, but I really have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I have no agent and no experience. I’ll probably end up blowing it and getting less than what he originally offered. I at least want to get on the dvd commentary and explain all the deep symbolism and metaphor in the script. Riight. I would love to get this movie made and be paid to write for a living. That’s the ice cream dream, man.
After graduating Carleton College in the June of 2005, I enrolled in the Vancouver Film School’s Writing for TV & Film program. After spending a year in Vancouver, in August 2006 I went back home to Michigan burnt out and broke. I had written about a thousand script pages while at VFS, and while I had grown as a writer, I felt frustrated with my situation, namely because I was living jobless in my dad’s house and in student loan debt hell.
And then came an e-mail from Dylan Thomas Collingwood of Collingwood Management.
Dylan had read a script I wrote at film school called Northbridge, a murder mystery set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Dylan repped Neil Every, one of my instructors at VFS, and Neil had given him the script because Neil was looking for a film to direct and he liked my script (notice the past tense “repped”—Neil and Dylan have since parted ways).
In his e-mail, Dylan said he was impressed by my writing and requested more writing samples. I sent him off This is What We Call Home, a low-budget coming of age drama, the first feature script I wrote at film school. Three days later, Dylan asked me if I would option him both scripts. He wanted Northbridge more than This is What We Call Home—Northbridge is easily the stronger of the two—but I couldn’t give up the rights to Northbridge because I had told Neil I wanted to work with him on it. Neil had helped me immensely in the early drafts and I felt (and still feel) that I owed him the chance to direct. Dylan didn’t think he could find funding if Neil was attached as a first-time director. And so we began negotiations on This is What We Call Home.
I started a pseudo-journal after I agreed to Dylan’s offer. I will post these entries until we’re caught up to present day. At the time of the first entry, I was working a non-profit job in Ann Arbor, living in a spare room at my dad’s house, and battling through my first full winter in Michigan in five years.
I will keep this blog as closely related to the screenwriting business side of things as I can. Occasionally, personal issues will surface—it is only human that they do—but I pledge not include anything that I would not like to read if I were not writing a blog. I hope that makes sense. I cannot include specific dollar amounts (due to contractual agreements) and will include updates on the state of the Detroit Tigers baseball club—the future 2007 World Series Champions.
On to November 13th, 2006:
I decided that I’m going to option This is What We Call Home to Collingwood. His offer is low. I’m hoping to negotiate a slightly better deal, but I really have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I have no agent and no experience. I’ll probably end up blowing it and getting less than what he originally offered. I at least want to get on the dvd commentary and explain all the deep symbolism and metaphor in the script. Riight. I would love to get this movie made and be paid to write for a living. That’s the ice cream dream, man.
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