Restart with Proper Outlines

My friend finally got back to me about my comedy pilot. He unfortunately confirmed my fears, that it needs some major rewrites and structural changes. But he suggested that I turn it into a mockumentary feature film, which I had not thought to do. Gonna brainstorm that. Maybe instead of jumping straight into writing, I need to start with index cards on a corkboard to plan things out.

In other news, the indie show I am in decided to go forward without the original studio, which means without the director/screenwriter. Today, that director/screenwriter reached out to me to check if I was still interested in working on other projects. I told him that I am. Problem is, do I need to ask what happened? My assumption is that internal issues were related to creative differences, experience levels, general production disagreements, etc. Oh, and he wanted to launch his own indie streaming thing, whereas she had hopes to get us all on major streaming networks I think, so that could have factored into it.

Hopefully he did not get Weinstein'd or something. It had me thinking, "Well, where's my limit?" All the major studios are evil, but I would leap at the opportunity to work for them. And unlike the studios, I know that this guy is a creative. I just told my mom about it, and she was like, "Oh yeah, you should totally work with him." And also, I would go on Fallon in a heartbeat even though he is being sued for very bad and credible things.

Now I am working on outlining that mockumentary, finally getting back to cadaver dissection standup set again, readying myself to revisit the animated superhero concepts, and I think I need to start over that sci fi horror, because it really does not have a strong first act.  Finally trying to outline it and am admittedly relieved at this level of organization. Hated outlining in academics because I always preferred to jump into the writing, and most assignments had a natural progression, but this is big and complex enough that I confess the need for it.

Out of Town Weekend

I visited my friend in Arkansas this weekend. One side effect of visiting his family is that in part because of their young children, they go to bed early. And I was only socially drinking, which led me to dream. Dreams are frequently haunted by my father, but this time I was on a cruise ship.

As often happens on cruise ships, I met new people. Everyone was young, mid-twenties and idealistic. We were laying out on the deck at night, looking up and talking. Everyone else related. I knew these feelings, somewhat hopeless but bolstered by the relentless energy of youth. I kept my mouth shut, because all I could think to say was that being a decade older has robbed me of that force of willpower. I tried a path that seemed fairly clear cut, and it did not work.

I had posted on the social media app Threads about my skillset and voice acting, and someone reached out about an animated comedy pilot and sent me their last draft of it, which is really neat. Ben Schwartz got his role as Sonic just by lending his voice to a demo of it with no promise of going further. At the worst, I will have interacted with this guy who writes for The Onion.

When I asked that company I did street interviews for whether they wanted me to be working on more questions, they said that they were just now going through the footage, and got my info to pay me. So I guess we will see. The insecure actor in me now assumes that they hate all of it and that I blew my one shot.