Part One of my Progression from Writer to Filmmaker over Five Decades

It seems like I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Early on it was just very short stories, when I was in junior high. Then I moved onto poetry in high school. It wasn’t until I reached college that I ventured into more serious writings of short stories, essays about whatever I felt like writing about, and more involved poetry. I was even lucky enough to get some pieces published.

I am not quite sure what drew me into writing. I think it was just easier for me to express myself that way. I could take my time in feeling out what I needed to communicate at the time. Maybe it was that sense of control? In being able to take the time to make things turn out how I wanted them to, versus how they often didn’t when I attempted to communicate in the spur of the moment. However ineffectually.

Of course, I always had a vivid imagination from as early as I can remember. My mind would and could fly off into the ozone at a moment’s notice. At times, that could cause problems if I happen to be at school in class when a teacher was asking me a question. I was usually the one at the back of the room gazing out the window, dreaming of other things I could be doing, or going to other places I wished I could visit, or having experiences that weren’t so boring as sitting in a classroom learning about people, places, events, calculations, etc. which didn’t spark the type of learning I needed. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a poor student. On the contrary I was usually close to the top of my class, but quite uninspired teaching processes made it difficult for me to keep my focus. So I lived in the world of imagination most of the time. Thus, writing was my sanctuary.

And reading fueled that. I read everything I could get my hands on, and that fueled the growth of that imagination. Reading and writing fueled each other in my ‘other’ life (lives). I could be and do anything I wanted. I had found that freedom inside myself. And no one could interfere there.

Near the end of college I started getting interested in possibly writing for films, even though that seemed like a pipedream. But I lived in pipedreams, so what the hey. I never actually wrote a feature script until after I left college, but I did work on some student films to get a taste of it. It tasted pretty dang good. But I never really had any production type aspirations. I was used to working alone as a writer, and had become pretty used to it. So sitting down behind a typewriter to write my first screenplay felt pretty natural. But learning the ins and outs of screenwriting was a nerve wracking, hair pulling, many years process. It was not a natural type of writing; so technical and left brain. I had to learn how to use both sides of my brain for this type of writing. It was a new progression in my writing growth and in the trajectory of my imagination growth.

By the late 70’s and early 80’s I was taking every type of screenwriting class, seminar, or workshop I could find. However, at that time it was a bit difficult finding them outside of the LA/Hollywood area. Being in Texas at that time meant there were slim pickings. But I do remember the very first screenwriting seminar I ever attended. A weekend seminar put on by Syd Field, I had to travel to Houston. I had already read his book, ‘Screenplay’ which had come out in 1979 and was one of the first of its kind for fledgling screenwriters. It succinctly laid out the three-act structure for screenplays. And it was something I could sink my teeth into.

As I progressed into the 80’s more so-called screenwriting gurus showed up and I tried to learn from all of them. Ones that stick out are Michael Hauge, Linda Seger, Richard Walter, Robert McKee, and John Truby. I like McKee and Truby the best. In fact, I later used many of their underlying tenets in my scriptwriting process. I also was lucky enough to get some personal consultation with every one of these five teachers at one time or another.

I also learned along the way to read as many of the great screenplays around that I could. I pretty much gobbled up many of the best screenplay Oscar nominees over the years, as well as numerous other really good ones. Some of them were real eye openers, because they would often break the rules that all these screenwriting gurus laid out.

So back 1981 I had started writing my first feature screenplay. It took a long time, and gad … it was bad. Did I even have any idea of what the hell I was doing? By 1984 I had completed two more, and I was gradually improving. By early 1986 when I was trying to finish my fourth screenplay, I got a call from a producer in Dallas about possibly getting hired to write a screenplay. Say what?

I was a bit nervous taking the meeting, but I surely didn’t want to miss out on a possible opportunity. He came down from Dallas and met me in Austin at his hotel. I could tell right up front he was quite a bullshitter and was cautious with him. But once he put together a writer’s step agreement and wrote me a check as a down payment to get the deal rolling, I went for it.

Over the course of the next several months I wrote a treatment, a first draft, and a second draft. It was a tough assignment because the subject matter was controversial, about abortion, and he had a specific point of view he wanted to push forward. And I kept trying to modify the premise so it wasn’t so polarizing. He threatened to bring in other writers and I didn’t scare that easy. Yes, I was a bit insecure about it, as it was my first paying screenwriting assignment. However, I modified his position just enough to get by him.

Then he started taking meetings in L.A. to get the production ball rolling, with the stipulation that I still owed him another draft and a polish. At one point he claimed to have Francis Ford Coppola interested in directing and Robert Redford to star in it. I had to be skeptical because that seemed unrealistic. However, I certainly hoped that was the case.

Except, all of a sudden he broke off contact. He was late with my latest payment and I got a bit nervous. He still owed me half of what was contracted. A couple months before I had met the main investor in the project, an oil man from Houston. So I called him up, and he was pretty upset. He also had not heard from him in a while either. He flew in to Austin to meet with me and I got more of the scoop.

The oil man had just hired a private investigator to track down the producer. Apparently, he had just disappeared with a fair-sized chunk of his investment money. And now he’d disconnected his phone and shut down his offices. He was nowhere to be found … disappeared.

For a few years afterward, the oil man would call me once a year to let me know about any progress. Which there was usually very little of. The producer had dropped off the face of the earth. Almost 35 years later I still have no idea what happened to him. Anyway … welcome Jerry, this was your introduction to ‘the biz.’

JAD

(to be continued)