So while we continue to toil in secret, going about the business of trying to get money, I've decided to blog some stories from our previous adventures.  Yes, this is a long ass entry.  No, you may not find anything of value at the litany of horrors listed below, except for an appreciation of the importance of second and third drafts when writing.  Yes I am a navel-gazing turd. 

hola myspace pals,

So its been a couple of weeks since we put the "final" touches on the new script. I make pretentious air quotes as I type, since we just appended some new changes today to what was supposed to be our final draft, but hey- thats how we work our magic. Very slowly. We are the masters of slow magic, yo.

So today I want to talk about some experiences we here at Team Rice Power have had in the film financing game. I've been keeping up with some of my film pals and reading as they vent some vague frustrations. I know all about it. Thats what you do when you find out someone lied to you about financing. It sucks to admit that you bought someone's line of crap, but you're still too pissed off to let the sin go by without comment. We have a term for that feeling you get when your project's financing falls through and you are sort of dicking around your life, doing what should be a nice recuperative activity, like say, reading a book, watching a great film, masturbating - hey, whatever gets you through the night. The bottom line is that when you get the rug pulled out from under you, you enter a deep dark place in the filmmaker's psyche. We here at Rice Power International call this The Void. Pray you never have to enter it.

So here lies the true tale of the time Phil and I first entered The Void. We've had mini-Voids when things don't work out since, but its never been quite as bad as this. And while I won't be sharing with you the existential miseries of The Void proper (not this time, anyway), I am going to tell you how we were set down the road to despair and loathing.

And it all begins, as does much of the world's misery, in the city of Los Angeles.

By the fall of 1999, I had finally graduated college, thoroughly wrecked my credit, and carried on the screwiest dysfunctional relationship of my young life with a woman that I had no idea was giving me a fake name until about a year after we met. Phil on the other hand, was truly miserable. It involved popcorn. I'm not going to go into it, because the rest of this story is embarrasing enough for him, and I fear I will have to post another 10 Bad High School Haircut photos of myself just to balance the scales again. In short, we needed out. Phil had gone to film school in LA and was itching to get back into the swing of things over there. I had nothing else going on, and since just that year before I discovered the joys of personal grooming care, I felt I was finally ready to tackle the big city. So we packed up our respective cars and hit out for the west coast.

If any of you out in Myspace Land are planning to move to LA anytime soon, here's my advice. Stay for 3 months. Not that there aren't many wonderful things about the city, and yes, it is still the hub of the American film industry, but if you are anything like me (and let's face it, most of you are judgemental, a little pudgy, and dance like epileptic walruses, in short, exactly like me), you are going to get most of your constructive work done in the first 3 months of your stay in the city. Within my first 3 months of hitting LA, I had already managed to talk my way into writing a very terrible lesbian vampire script, that I cooked up the very day I responded to the producer's ad. Of course, experience now tells me that this guy was likely full of shit, but I had still managed to get my very first piece of hackdom nearly finished within just 8 weeks of arriving in the area. But Operation Sellout would have to wait, because soon Phil and I were inspired to write a new script, one roughly based an earlier screenplay we did that managed to make us both 50 bucks in prize money (for years, it was the best money I ever made in the movies). This new version would contain 100% more hookers and mimes. We called this masterpiece The Big Bang.

we wrote The Big Bang pretty quickly and just as quickly we had ourselves a producer with what we thought were solid contact in financing. I won't go into every detail of this time, mostly because the experiences with this team would turn out to be a second film school for your fave filipinos, but we had soon established ourselves with an up and coming project. Things moved quickly at this time. We were meeting with expensive crew people, taking meetings with producers at Universal, getting hit on by a higher class of women. We were this close to making it seemed, and even though we didn't especially like our money guys, we stuck with them. I won't go into last names or physical details, but I can tell you that one of them, Greg, worked out of one of the big studios in tech position and the other guy, Nick, sold electronics. He also, so we were told, knew one of the princes of the royal house of Saud. And yes, we were stupid enough to believe him.

The deal worked like this: Greg was the friend of our producer Andy. Andy would ask Greg to ask Nick to ask the Prince to finance our film. Deposit the check. Make movie. Only Greg never seemed to ask Nick for the money and by the next summer, a full nine months into the process with no progress made, a plan was set into motion where we would all sit down and work it out. It was all supposed to happen on a boat.

Let me say this much: I have never had a good experience on a boat.

Summer 2000, the city of Valencia. We arrived early in the morning. The plan was to meet at Greg's house for breakfast, the five of us: Phil, myself, Nick, Andy and Greg. We'd take the boat clear across the city of Los Angeles and way into the desert, a three hour drive to a lake. Before we even left, however, trouble was already brewing.

The more useless a person is to a project, the harder they will fight for position. By this calculus, Greg, the guy whose entire job was to ask a guy to ask another guy (who didn't exist) for money to shoot our movie, Greg was just about the most useless mutherfucker on the planet. So he fought for position like a dog fights for dominance. Yes, he decided to start humping people. No, seriously. There in the kitchen, Greg decided he would exert control over this project by publicly humping the director, Phil, in his (Greg's) kitchen. For added humilation, Phil had to endure some comments about sharing "nut oil" with Greg, the result of some borrowed swim trunks. It was a sad display, but the misery had only just begun.

Following the ahem, playful, kitchen humping we finally made our way to the desert. Phil and I silently conspired against Greg that once we got our budget, we'd have him mudered in some horribly painful method our forefather learned in the old country. In the meantime, we had no money, so we had to endure the drive past Palmdale. Yes it was 3 hours. Yes there was Collective Soul's Greatest hits on the CD player. Yes it played twice. Yes there was air drumming. How this did not kill us alone was a minor miracle.

So after 3 hours of air drumming and letting heaven let our light shine, we finally made it to the lake and to the rest of our party. No chicks. Just lighting guys. This is only cool if you happen to be a gay guy with a lighting guy fetish. Unfortunately for me, I am no so inclined, so I recoiled with horror. The sausage party had begun.

Here's how it goes: we go on the boat. Greg hops in the water, skis in circles. I put up the flag. Nick skis in circles, falls. I put up the flag. I stare at a mole on Greg's back that is sprouting hair, and perhaps its own head. Some lighting guy skis in circles, falls. And I put up the flag. Repeat for hours.

And then comes the sausage! No literally, Greg unironically brough a foot long summer sausage for us boys to lunch on. So here are nine fucking idiots, maybe one real tan between us (and thats just because Phil was born with one) and we are forming this force field that repels all estrogen based lifeforms for miles. And there was more sausage. And probably more Collective Soul, too. It was satanic.

And then! Back in the water. Raise flag. Ski in circles. Raise flag. Stare at mole.

And what wasn't happening? Nobody was getting us any fucking money.

The sun was going down by the time we left, still locked in a car with Greg, his awful mole, and his awful, awful music. I feel haven't quite done justice to how truly repulsive this knuckle dragging moron was to be around. I'll tell another anecdote on the quick: Greg would often delay his asking for Nick to ask the Prince for money by giving us senseless script notes. One such note required us to have "more catch phrases" in the dialogue. He punctuated the thought by snapping his fingers and grinding his hips. He was douchebaggus maximus.

And Nick was no picnic either! On a trip to Florida to scout production locations, he gave us shit because he felt we needed to change the color of our police uniforms to brown, otherwise "it would make no fucking sense." If Greg didn't exist, Nick would be upset that he still lost the suckiest person on Earth award.

Anyway, we leave the lake. After, no shitting here, Nick and Greg decide to prolong the magic of the day another fucking hour by eating watermelon in the parking lot. Two fat idiots eating watermelon in a parking lot of public park, watermelon juice running down their fat faces, and shouting at nearly every woman that passes their way. I just wanted to disappear.

And no, Greg never did ask Nick the Prince for the money that day, although that would soon work itself out. And on the way home, Greg's truck broke down for another hour. That time we were treated to an hour of watching Greg pour cups of water on his engine whilst talking to Nick about why he thinks Kevin Smith is a repressed homosexual. People, I tell you, it was awesome.

In all, it was 21 hours from the time I woke up to the time I hit the bed. So much humping, so much mole staring, so much air drumming, so much sausage. So little money.

And in the end, the whole thing turned out to be bullshit. Nick didn't know any Princes. Greg took himself off the project. Nobody much argued. Our three million dollar film turned to dust overnight and Phil and I entered The Void, that place all filmmakers go when they realize they have just wasted significant portions of their lives on someone else's delusions.

We did eventually make The Big Bang. As it turns out, we wrote the sheriff uniforms out of the script entirely. We spent 20 grand on our film and we did it our way. In the last credit of the film we gave credit where credit was due.

It reads: "Special thanks to Nick, Greg and The Prince."

So... I feel like I've bungled this tale. So much more misery was involved, but I can't bear to remember it all at this moment. Still, I wake up in the middle of the night, cold sweat on my brow and the insinuating beat of Collective Soul's "Let's Jell" bouncing in my head. I tell this story to hopefully give comfort to my fellow filmmakers who have been lied to also. Chances are your bullshit producers didn't dry hump you. Or rather, dry hump your friend. Apparently, I wasn't hump worthy.

And to you, actor, musician, regular person, let us not talk falsely, now. Is there any lessons for you to take home? Its clear, I think. Let our mistakes be your guide. Never let any one take control of your work, just because they promise money. If they are promising you money, then the money should be forthcoming. If someone is dragging their feet in paying you, its because they have no money to begin with. Move on. Its hard to be at this stage of the production, when nothing is happening and every conversation you have seems to spin you in circles. There are a lot of delusional and bored people and movies are a sexy business. Protect yourselves, myspace friends, and don't let your own impatience get the better of you. If you are smart and strong, you will get what you want eventually.

We find ourselves now back at square zero. Back to the getting the money stage of movie making. Will we be smarter this time around? Will we end up humped and mole-scarred and having nothing but notes on brown uniforms for our trouble? I try to stay optimistic. I intend on getting fucked over on a much grander scale next time. Bring it on bitches!