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Member-only story
Hollywood Confidential
I’m not the first writer who’s turned to film as another creative outlet. Countless word scribes like Norman Mailer, Sam Fuller, and Sam Shepard, have utilized the motion picture camera as an extension of their typewriters. Much of my work has been considered for film by companies like Dreamworks, George Clooney, and a bunch of others that I can’t remember right now on a Saturday morning, my first steaming cup of coffee set out beside the laptop. Nothing has ever been produced, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be. It also doesn’t mean I can’t dabble in the medium on my own.
This past February, indie film maker Edward Alves asked me to write, direct, produce and star in (if you wanna call it that) a short noir piece that I could use as a promotional author trailer. It took us a few days to actually shoot the film down on Sunset Boulevard and at the close by Avalon Hotel, and many more days and nights in the production room, but here’s what we came up with.
One interesting note: our script called for me to smoke a cigarette. I’d quit the cancer cigs many years earlier and I was a bit wary of it. But I got through about three puffs before I tossed it away and handed the pack over to the cameraman. My throat ached for three days and nights. The things you must do for the camera.
