WELL?!?!?!!

If you're a regular reader, like me (and odds are you aren't... I'm actually convinced I'm B Movie Writers only regular reader), you're dying to know how things went with Dave's pitch to the SciFi Network.

Every day, as soon as he logs onto IM, I message him.

"WELL?!?!?!"

"Oh, Hi Charlie. How's life in the future?"

See... I live and work in Atlanta. Dave's in LA. Because of the time difference - we're three hours ahead - he insists I live in the future. You know... the usual... "Anything happening today at Noon I should prepare myself for?" "Is it a good day in the future?" "Do you have robots that do your bidding there in the future?"

But I digress.

"WELL?!?!?"

"Well, What?" he always replies.

"Well, have you heard about the SciFi thing!?"

"Oh... that." He tries to play it cool, like it barely registers on his radar. Please. You and I both know that Dave would kill to have one of his scripts produced by SciFi, starring Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig.

"I haven't heard anything... could be any day now. I'm not sweating it."

And that, my friends, is showbiz. That phrase:

"WELL?!"

is involved in roughly 1/3 of the conversations Dave and I have. Its really just a variation on a theme.

--------Common Variation 1----------

"WELL?!?!?!"

"Oh, Hi Charlie. How's life in the future?"

You know the drill here by now.


"WELL?!?!?"

"Well, What?" he always replies.

"Well, have you heard if the financing has closed? Are we getting paid for SIEGE?!?"

"Oh... that." He tries to play it cool, like it barely registers on his radar. Please. You and I both know that Dave would kill to get paid and have SIEGE go into production.


"I haven't heard anything... could be any day now. I'm not sweating it."

--------------Common Variation 2------------

"WELL?!?!?!"

"Oh, Hi Charlie. How's life in the future?"

Having a GroundHog Day feeling yet?

"WELL?!?!?"

"Well, What?" he still replies.

"Well, have you finished writing your scenes!?"

"Oh... that." He tries to play it cool, like it barely registers on his radar. Please. You and I both know that Dave spent the weekend changing diapers, mowing the lawn and... in his spare time... writing non-Charlie scripts for his buddies at SciFi.

"I'm working on it... could be any day now. I'm not sweating it."

-------------

There's a lot of "WELL" time in our relationship. Don't get me wrong... I have no complaints. And it certainly goes both ways. For that last variation, imagine Dave asking *ME* "WELL?!?!" every day since last Tuesday, as I dragged ass in getting back to him with my first scenes from the unnamed Pygmie Ghost Tribe project.

Mind you, that resulted in its own thread every hour, on the hour, yesterday, after I finally got it to him.

-------------Not-So-Alternate-Realtiy----------

"WELL?!?!?!"

"Oh, Hi Charlie. How's life in the future?"

*sigh*


"WELL?!?!?"

"Well, What?" He's like a broken record, huh?

"Well, what did you think about what I wrote???"

"Oh... that." He tries to play it cool, like it barely registers on his radar. Please. You and I both know that Dave would kill to have Charlie Kaufman as his writing partner.

"It was okay. Kinda verbose. And the waterfall of spiders thing... I'm not really feeling it. And the characters suddenly got all flippant and light on us. The tone's wierd. But I like the rest. You know... the line where the character asks what direction they're heading. That works. Let's tweak the rest, though. I'm not sweating it."

Sometimes I regret asking "WELL?!"


Charlie

Keywords: b movie, Siege, screenwriting, screenplay, scriptwriter, movies