(I wrote this last night for my other blog, so even though I'm posting it here in the a.m. I'm keeping the late night title, as these were the thoughts swirling around just before my head hit the pillow....)

We met with one of DE's producers this evening, who was in town for only 21 hours to attend a meeting. She read our new script, CH, and enjoyed it. Although she wasn't on the same page for everything, expressing that she felt some elements might be too broad or confusing. (Yes, there is a lot happening... still, our non-professional readers were able to answer all our tricky questions, showing that they understood detailed aspects to the story without getting lost or confused.) Anyway, her constructive criticism provided some good food for thought, and are worthy of another edit.

Of course, we weren't exactly on board with all her suggestions, but even back when she was producing DE, we probably didn't agree with our producers 60% of the time, and stood firm as best we could. For example, I can recall that in early drafts this particular producer was really pushing to lose the bridge scene, as it rubbed her the wrong way for whatever reason, and she felt it was unnecessary. If you've ever seen our movie, you can understand what a loss that would've been! And if you haven't seen the movie, all I can say is, look! The bridge is on the poster... It was sort of a big moment in the movie.



All that being said, the conversation ended with her offering to attach herself as a producer and send it to Telefilm for development funding. (TF just opened their doors for applications in April for the new fiscal year.) It's a nice offer, but still requires some hefty consideration.

J and I believe that CH is a interesting, unique story. And while we respect some of her suggestions, we are concerned that if we were to go into development together, she'd pressure us to make more changes than we'd like. (Then again, what producer isn't going to try and put their fingerprints all over a project?)

There's also the concern that she'd only be producing it for a pay cheque. It's no secret that BC film is suffering in big ways, and she confessed earlier in the evening that while she's been keeping busy volunteering on smaller budget films, she's really been having a hard time finding work that pays since her last film's financing fell apart. (A very common occurrence. Financing a film is like building a house of cards in a wind storm.)

Anyway, while it's nice that there's already an opportunity for us to start working on CH, the question is, is this the path we want to take? We saw what happens with too much pressure to compromise with DE, as the story started getting away from us at certain points, dumming it down more than we wanted. It'd be nice to team up with someone who is genuinely excited about the project, and not trying to oversimplify it. Someone who immediately 'gets it' just as well as our friends who've read the script and exclaimed, "I want to see this movie!"

On the other hand, I suggested to J that maybe he was taking some of her comments a little too seriously. She has a way of being facetious about things, (she admits this herself), and perhaps he is only hearing her words through an ear that is still cluttered with the unsatisfying baggage leftover from DE. After our dinner, a few times he said to me in protest, "I'm not going to lose that just to appease her!" And I had to keep reminding him that she didn't suggest losing those elements altogether, but rather toning those aspects down a little, or playing them in a different way so there's a more clear through-line from a marketing standpoint. But again, it's the way she says things that trigger his defenses with unfavorable moments of deja vu. All J hears is "make it simple, dumb it down".

Before we decide what we're going to do, we'd both like a detailed second opinion. We have another excellent producer reading it right now, whose opinion we really respect. We'll see if she has the same comments. Not to mention, we're still waiting to hear back from that agent we saw last week. It sounds like he wants the head of the agency to also read it, so he can get his two cents about it's potential in Canada's tough feature filmmaking climate.

I guess we'll just have to wait n' see what happens....