May 13, 2005
I stayed up a little late last night to watch the last installment of Project Greenlight. I haven't watched this reality show from the beginning, but dropped in now and then to see what was up, and found myself getting more involved toward the end. And John Gulager, who was the director of their project, "Feast," seemed like such a twit at the beginning and you end up really liking him by the end, or, well, rooting for him at the end. John seems like a pretty odd guy.

For anyone who doesn't know, Project Greenlight, set up by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Cooper, is a contest for screenwriters and directors. They find a director they like, and a script they like, then get the movie made. In this case, what would seem to be a pretty schlocky horror movie called "Feast" about a monster(s) that attacks a bunch of people holed up in a diner.

A couple things struck me about this. One is, it's amazing movies get made at all. I'm sure a lot of it is the "committee" problem. It was clear from watching this that there were too many people throwing in their 2 cents worth, and too many of those people had too much power. Of course, that's understandable. Even for a low-budget movie there's a lot of money at stake, and everybody who's thrown in a buck or two (or thousands) thinks they should have some say in the process. And clearly there were issues of power politics and ambition. Some of these people, execs, etc., want to succeed so they can move up and be moguls or whatever it is that these people want, and they really start pushing their agendas on the film.

There was a telling moment when the casting director went behind everybody's back to get her choice for lead actress picked, someone that the director and the producer didn't like. The producer threw it in her face at the end, which I thought managed to be rather petty, but hey, I work by myself with a dog and a computer--when I worked in an "office" every damn day was spent on that kind of bullshit. It's not pretty to watch on TV, either. Chris Cooper cussing out some poor assistant on the phone over not being invited to a screening that Ben Affleck was seeing was chilling in terms of "bosses from hell."

And by the end you kind of felt, well, Gulager, geeky as he was, just sort of put his head down and concentrated on getting the film made in the way he thought it should be made, quietly dealt with the personnel issues he could, seemed to ignore the ones he couldn't, and in the end everybody recognized him for accomplishing something. I mean, at the beginning I thought Gulager was a trainwreck. He didn't seem concerned about managing his time, about making up his mind on things, but in retrospect you can see that he was picking his battles and being very diplomatic among a sea of egos. They could have fired his ass at any time, and he knew it. Ultimately kind of impressive.

Oh well. This may just be my way of saying I don't want to work today, though I've written drafts of 2 shorts articles, started re-writing Pitchfork (pre-contract, but I don't want to be rushed) and dealt with some other issues. Friday the 13th, you know.

Best,
Mark Terry