Seven Years Ago......

Seven years ago I came to LA to “make the movie deal” for SmokeScreen. My first stop was the The William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills. There I was ushered in to meet, for the first time, my agent. When I say “my agent” it’s actually a misnomer. The woman I met handles the motion picture side of the literary agency in LA. Technically Robert Sabbag, the author of SmokeScreen, is the client at William Morris. As I later learned, she was seeing me out of the goodness of her heart, which I now know is as big as all outdoors, putting the lie to the prototypical “Hollywood agent.”

However, my first impression, which I will never forget, was of a diminutive, conservatively dressed businesswoman, wearing a small set of reading glasses which dangled from a tiny gold chain around her neck and a red cardigan style sweater. She was wearing a headset and in the middle of a conversation, pausing to say hello and motioning me to sit on the sofa across from her desk. My impression was of an attractive, sweet natured, soft spoken librarian.

Then she resumed her conversation to the anonymous person on the other end of the line in the harsh and abrupt manner of Michael Douglas explaining life’s bitter ironies to Charlie Sheen in Wall Street, “You tell him that unless I get that check for five hundred thousand on my desk by the end of the week, he will never see that screenplay.”

Carefully removing the headset, she came over and sat down on the couch, smoothed her skirt, cleared her throat a bit, patted me on the knee, and said in a cultured and personal tone, “Allen, honey, I loved your book. I think it could make a great movie. Now what sort of a deal did you have in mind?”

I answered that I wanted to be one of the Producers of the movie, credited as such. She looked down at her lap and smiled. Before she could respond, I added that I wanted “gross points” not “net points”, and active participation, a vote, in the selection of the screenwriter, director and major talents. Gazing at me out of sad, worldly, and slightly bemused eyes, she said, “Look, honey, in this town, people kill to get Producer credit. I’ve had clients choose Producer credit over cash. You’ll never get it. And, as for gross points, you’re not Brad Pitt or Bob Zemeckis. You’ll never get those either. What you get for the rights is what you get. Oh, you’ll get net points, but, you’re right, they hardly ever translate into money. And artistic approval? That’s why they buy the rights. So they can do what they want with the property. You can forget that, too. That’s not to say that I won’t try to get you the best possible deal, but you should know going in what’s possible and what’s probably not. Now, we have a lot of interest from some very important production entities and I’ll relay the offers to you after I’ve checked them out. What do you plan to do while you’re here?”

And with that I was dismissed, my dreams dashed, kicked to the curb without a thought. Or so I thought. Welcome to Hollywood, Tom Sawyer. But I was wrong. She was simply “telling it like it is”. To do anything less would have done me a disservice. And armed with that foreknowledge and her unceasing help, I eventually, albeit many years of swinging at the fences down the road, made a deal that reflected the essence of my dream, born in that apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side so many years ago. And since that day eight years ago, that person has proven to be a true friend through thick and thin and, despite my naiveté and bullheadedness, someone who cares about me, my dream of long ago, and my family and life today. She is the greatest. She asked not to be named so as not to be inundated by calls from people who are convinced that their lives, too, should hit the silver screen.

Belltower Films (www.belltowerfilms.com) is the production company I sold the rights to Smokescreen to and they've recently signed Paul Cuschieri to write the screenplay. Paul is writing the Allen Long part with Chris Pine, star of the latest Star Trek movie and new teen heartthrob, in mind. I spent yesterday with Donnie Bell, the CEO and founder of the company talking about the future of Belltower, SmokeScreen and the company's other film projects. Donnie is promoting Nina Yang, formerly a senior marketing analyst at Warner Bros., to run Belltower operations. Nina just completed production management of the 22 episode TV drama, “Flatland”, starring Dennis Hopper, with Academy Award winning producer, Albert S. Ruddy (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby). Nina received her Masters Degree in Media Policy and Entertainment Management from The Annenberg Cinema School at the University of Southern California. She will be producing SmokeScreen for Belltower, which makes me happy, as she has been my champion through some tough negotiations on the way to making the eventual deal for the rights to my life story.

You've been intimately privy to the process thus far and, after Donnie headed back to Palm Springs, I thought of you last night as it dawned on me that I have many friends who have been supportive of me as I faced nearly insurmountable odds to reach this point.

So, I am starting a weekly newsletter, so to speak. Over the next year, as we attach the cast and director, begin location filming, move to post production (editing and soundtrack, etc.), all the way to the red carpet, I will be sending out a weekly journal entry delineating the triumphs and travails of "Allen in Hollywood" and how two guys with a shared vision go about getting a major motion picture made and distributed. I hope the readers will find it as humorous and entertaining as I have. To make it more interesting, the journey isn’t over. I intend to “cover” my experience as Producer of my own biopic over the next months as we make our way to the premier.

If you want to be included, let me know by responding to this email or calling me at 310.775.5173. If I get enough positive feedback, someone suggested today it should be a, I shudder at the thought, “blog”. I actually have never been to a blog. Is it a dance?

Cheers, see you on the red carpet.

Allen