When You're 18: Transformers vs. Gobots When you’re 18, you have no idea how difficult it is to contribute to popular culture. You are simply a consumer – that’s all you’ve been your entire life (your summer working at Baskin Robbins notwithstanding). I remember in college mustering healthy amounts of disdain for my writing teachers who had ‘failed to make it’ and who were making their livings by teaching instead of going on book tours and selling book rights to their novels for gobs of money. Oh no. Not me. Not gonna happen to me. I wasn’t going to settle for mediocrity like they had. At the time, my goal was to write a book a year, and I did, more or less, during my college years – I finished my third novel in the winter of 95.

I went to grad school right after college and my disdain for my superiors grew. When they didn’t like my writing they ‘didn’t get it’ and I quickly decided it was difficult being the smartest one in the room. I had heard that geniuses were often misunderstood, but here was proof. I was used to it, sure – I had been a highly successful student, all A’s in my creative writing classes and the fact that I put stock in those grades was proof that I was woefully ill-prepared for a life in the arts.

When you are 18, you are consuming more popular culture than you will ever have time to again. I bought hundreds of CDs with my paychecks working at the golf course, I was reading 50+ books a year, I was watching movies every weekend, every night during the summer, and endlessly I would discuss with my friends what song/band/movie/TV show was cool and what wasn’t. In fact, we were so convinced of our 18 year-old opinions that I wouldn’t even call them discussions, since most them sounded something like this.

ME: Transformers are awesome.
DANNY: Yeah, dude. So are Gobots.
ME: Oh my God. You like Gobots? You’re a fag.

‘You’re a fag,’ or ‘you’re a retard’ were phrases that often ended our artistic conversations.

I think about Transformers vs. Gobots now, in the wake of the release of the Transformers movie. Transformers were then, as now, the superior of the two products – they had better characters, better toys, better cartoons and we happily made fun of anybody (see above) who took the position that Gobots were the superior race of shape-changing automatons. I think about it now, and all I know is that both franchises made lots of money. Gobots weren’t as popular, but they were popular enough to keep thousands of people employed to manufacture, market, produce and sell a line of cheap Hasbro toysand a weekly television show. What I would give to be Executive Producer on one of the shittiest cartoons in the history of Saturday morning.

At least it got made. At least it saw the light of day.  ¶ 9:09 PM 0 comments links to this post

  ITVF RED CARPET
(l-r) Annah Boyer, David Stott, Shannon Chirone, Michael Schreiber, Brooke Chirone, Katie Schneller, Bob Schreiber.  ¶ 10:23 PM 0 comments links to this post

  THE MATCH TEAM GOES TO HOLLYWOOD So, everything you’ve heard about LA is true. All the girls are skinny and ‘beautiful’, the sun is always shining, most of the people are fake. Well, I don’t know if fake is the right word, but in LA you will be rewarded more for the appearance of success than anything resembling, I don’t know, loyalty? Once in a while you will be required to back up the appearance of success with tangible results, but since nobody knows anything, everybody gravitates towards the people who look like they have it all figured out. Make sense?

Last Wednesday, with great trepidation I prepared for my first LA meeting at The Orlando Hotel. I sweated everything, what to wear, how early to get there, what I would drive... And once I got there, what was my strategy? Would I hang back and listen until I was up to speed on the game, or would I charge into the fray, spitting business cards and HOT4TEACHER postcards?

I Google-mapped The Orlando, left twenty minutes early, drove across town, my mind racing. I arrived, found parking near the hotel, stepped up to the doorman wondering if I should have rented a Ferrarri to make my grand entrance. Yeah, that actually crossed my mind.

The doorman opened the door for me. I made my way to the reception desk. I was smooth. “Hi. I’m here for ITVF.”
“Who?” the lady at reception said.
“ITVF.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“The Independent Television Festival,” I said. “The PilotMaker Luncheon?”
“Oh, that,” she said. “It was cancelled. Like an hour ago.”
“Oh,” I said.
She paused. “Welcome to LA.”

My friend Shane (who very generously let us crash on his floor for the week) put it this way: it’s a sunny town for lots of shady people.

Which is not to say we didn’t meet a lot of stand up folks. It’s just that EVERYONE is in the film/tv biz. If you go to a party, eight out of ten of us are writer/directors. The ninth is a producer who just got into writing/directing, and the tenth is stoned.

TOP 5 TRIP HIGHLIGHTS:

#5 At the UNC-Hollywood cocktail party we saw Eva Marie Saint and met the director of The Break Up and the Chairman of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
#4 At Friday’s red carpet we saw Nicholas Cage’s son and wife (ex-wife)? Rumor has it the red carpet was for Nick, but he didn’t show. (We asked the photographers to get some pictures of the Hot for Teacher cast. They kindly obliged.)
#3 Saturday we got a pitch meeting with one of the execs at Current TV (Al Gore’s TV channel). We pitched them a show about the NYC off-off Broadway scene which they liked (and may buy.)
#2 We learned how to be TV executives: Take lots of meetings. If Steven Spielberg comes in and pitches you a show about mud, you say yes. Because if you don’t, and it’s a hit, your boss says, ‘Steven Spielberg brings you mud, and you say “no”?’
And if you say ‘yes’, and it’s not a hit, you can always say, ‘what, I’m gonna say no to Steven Spielberg?’

And our number one trip highlight:

HOT FOR TEACHER star Michael Schreiber arrives at the Saturday night screening whacked out on Pseudophed. Michael borrows my festival pass (retail value $150) to grab a drink at the bar. On his way back ‘a cute girl who looked like Penelope Cruz’ asks if she can borrow his pass for a second. He says yes. He hands it to her. She puts it around her neck. We never see her again.

Welcome to LA.

We had a great trip, did lots of networking, and we’re glad to be home. HOT FOR TEACHER will be screening in New York City on Thursday, August 30, at 8 p.m. And in Richmond, VA either on September 15 or 22 at The Byrd Theatre, late afternoon. Hope to see you soon.  ¶ 10:18 PM 0 comments links to this post

  GOOD NEWS - ITVF Dear Friends of The Match,

Hello, hello! It's been awhile! A number of you have been asking for news about the Match, the Match premiere, life in general. We must confess we've been waiting for a bit of good news. After some dark winter months (more on that later) we do have some exciting news to share. The pilot we shot in Richmond last summer has been chosen as an official selection of the 2nd annual Independent Television Festival presented by Comcast (www.itvfest.org). The festival will take place in Los Angeles at Raleigh Studios July 27-29th. The Match Team is going to LA!

We had over 100 people contribute time, energy and hard-earned cash to the production and we'd like to thank you all again for your support.

We are hard at work nailing down the time and place for the Richmond and New York screenings (really!). It's looking like September will be a good month - people will be back from out of town trips and the smell of school supplies, back to school sales and number 2 pencils will be in the air.

We'll have a new and improved website in July - check out www.matchproductions.com after July 15.

Thanks for your patience! Go Match!

Warm Regards,

The Match Team
Brooke, Katie, David, Gladys and Karen

www.matchproductions.com  ¶ 10:17 PM 0 comments links to this post