Business Time

So, I almost forgot abut the blog this week. I know. I know. You feel betrayed and neglected. How could I disregard your feelings in such a manner? I guess I'm simply an insufferable prick.

I want to take the time and squelch two rumors. The first is that I never had sex with a transvestite named Simone in Bali. We just had a few drinks, he/she and I shared a laugh, and maybe made out a little bit. Money might have been exchanged too, but I was too drunk to remember.

The second is the notion that Women's Studies is on it's death bed. In fact, it's still very much alive and well, and the project is slowly but surely moving forward. Between the lack of hard news and my announcement that I was writing the Deadlands 2 screenplay a couple weeks ago, more than one person asked me if the project was a no-go. "Posh," I say. "Pish-posh-pa-doo!"

I know I say, "Things are moving behind the scenes," quite a bit. Those privy to Hollywood-speak may choose to interpret this to be producer bullshit along the lines of "I've a variety of projects in development" or "I'll call you and we'll get things rolling." However, it should be taken into account that I'm a terrible liar. Really, I'm honest to a fault. It's actually cost me friendships. While it's been said that honesty is the best policy, I think Forrest Gump's mama was probably right when she told him that a little white lie wouldn't hurt anybody.

"Things are moving behind the scenes" is me-speak for, "There are various negotiations going on that would be unethical of me to talk about in public," which means they involve money and/or people's reputations or involvement in the project.

Now, I'm not trying to build up any big, sexy secrets here. I'm just saying that there are aspects of the production that I don't talk about publicly because it would be unprofessional to do so. At the stage of development Women's Studies is in right now, we're simply doing a lot of "wheeling and dealing."

For example, while I do a lot of "Filmmaking 101" type articles in this blog, one thing I don't talk about is how I've gone about raising money for the project. I have this policy to protect both our investor's privacy and the integrity of Lady Killers, LLC, the business entity financing the project. (I also have the policy for a shitload of legal reasons.)

Again, there's no dark secret here. Our method of raising funds is no ancient, black, Masonic ritual in the least. It's just our business and no one else's. I would tell anyone interested in learning how feature films can be financed to pick up John W. Cones aptly titled book, 43 Ways to Finance Your Feature Film.

Also, it would be imprudent and unprofessional of me to announce any cast members or locations that we're in talks with before a deal is made. First, the deal could fall through and then I look like an idiot. Secondly, acting like a pretentious dick and telling everyone that "OMG, Britney Spears is going to be in our movie," before Britney has actually agreed to be in our movie could cause Britney to question the professionalism of the people she's considering working with.

(For the record, we HAVE NOT and WILL NOT be talking to Britney Spears about appearing in Women's Studies. It was an outrageous example used in a desperate attempt to be funny.)

If all of this sounds unsexy, welcome to show business. Yeah, I know. I thought it was going to be all cocaine and hookers too, but that's just Hollywood-Speak.