Carte Blanche - A Feature Film Written & Directed by Matt Kieley

Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim

Stye in my eye
Watch the full film on vimeo for free NOW!

Check out the video introduction as well, if you don't feel like reading through this entire thread.

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www.carteblanchefilm.com

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Synopsis: After being dumped by her boyfriend, Helena finds herself desperately trying to connect to new people, as she struggles between getting over her ex, and winning him back, while maintaining her friendship with a shy, lonely filmmaker, Elliott, who is in love with her.

Cast:

Coryn McBride as Helena
Brandon Nebitt as Elliott
Chris DeBondt as Peter
Rickey Bird as Xander

With:

Katie Metz as Gretchen
Fred as Stella

and
Julie Jordan Scott as Beulah

Help spread the word, if you'll be so kind.
 
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I'm about 52 pages into what is, technically, the 9th draft. I want to try and keep the film simple and concise, hopefully 80 minutes or less, but it could be over 90. Older drafts have ranged in length (the longest being about 108 pages, the shortest being 88). I tend to write long, then I trim it down. But I really want to try and make a 75-80 minute film. It could be a lot longer, but that means more days of filming, and the more time spent, the more money is spent. I don't want to make it too short. If the shortest I can get it is 100 pages, then I'll just bite the bullet and try and shoot it all, but I really want to keep it short and to the point. Films like The Squid and the Whale, Shadows, and Before Sunset are all examples of films with running times of 80 minutes or less that tell effective, involved emotional stories. And those films all feel complete. It doesn't feel like they come up short.
 
And the new draft is done, at 83 pages. I finished at 88, but cut it down a bit. I think that's about as far as I can go.
 
Been a while since I updated this thread. I've actually been posting updates at a different message board. Here's some entries from the past few weeks:

JANUARY 7

I'm getting the script to everyone and trying to get things rolling. After four failed attempts at making this film in the past two years, after 9 drafts, hopefully this time will be it. I want to just jump into it before I have the chance to second-guess the material. I want to just get it going while it's fresh in everyone's mind. I have a good feeling about my prospected cast. I'm going to work with friends on this, who are all talented, and have different backgrounds as actors.

JANUARY 8

I met with Coryn McBride (Helena) today. We hung out, I showed some of my short films (she had actually already seen a few of them at a local film festival a few years ago) we discussed the character and the film. She broke down her daily schedule with me. We're going to be shooting mostly nights, and fortunately, she's a night owl too. There's a couple of parts in the film where characters pick up an old photograph of her character in her apartment, and there's some dialogue about it. We went through all her old photographs and found the one. She's about eight or nine, with big curly hair, smiling with her eyes closed. It has a wonderful innocence to it, and is funny at the same time. We also raided her closet to figure out her wardrobe, and talked about the poems and paintings she's going to create. It was a great afternoon.

JANUARY 9

My beard is growing back, and as a result, so is my credibility.

JANUARY 10

The score for Carte Blanche will be done by Herman Witkam.

JANUARY 14

People are starting to read the script and get into the project. I guess there's other advantages to having a shorter script. When older drafts were over 100 pages long, it seemed to be harder to get people to read it. Myron Ward called me earlier after he finished reading it and told me he dug it, and noticed how it doesn't meander anymore and gets straight to the point. He's excited for the project.

JANUARY 18

Earlier this week Herman Witkam and I emailed each other back and forth about the musical direction. I wanted to send him some music that had the kind of feel I was aiming at, so he gave me the password to his server and I uploaded some songs for him. I sent him some TV on the Radio, Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pyramid, and Interpol. Not as an indication of any specific style of music, but more based on mood. I definitely don't want a conventional, sentimental dramatic score, and I encouraged him to be more experimental and different. He said "I think we're on the same page". It's great having a composer who's into the kind of films that influenced this film.

JANUARY 20

Saturday a friend of mine--the "real" Helena--called me out of the blue. I haven't spoken to her in two months. It was kind of awkward, yet kind of comforting hearing her voice again. It's strange--I realized during the conversation that the dramatic/comic dynamic of the film is very much present in our friendship, and the way we speak to each other. One minute we were laughing, the next she was apologizing for being a bad friend. "I basically treated you like shi*, and I'm sorry" is what she said to me. It was a very strange conversation that concluded with her suggesting we hang out before she moves to LA for Art School (possibly as soon as June). I really miss her friendship. I think I will try to hang out with her one last time.

I've grown apart from a lot of friends after they move away. I was talking to my mom and she told me about her old best friend who had a son named Matt the same day I was born, and how she was her maid of honor at her wedding, and now she hasn't talked to her in over 20 years. It's a part of life, I guess. She's going to move to LA and have a whole new life with her new boyfriend, and I know there's a good chance we'll drift apart completely. Part of me still wishes she could be starting that new life with me, but that's now it worked out. And that's why I haven't really been talking to her. I always come close to getting over her completely, or at least I distract myself enough, and just at that moment, the phone rings, and it's her. When I see her name on my phone, the damage is already done, and I have to answer. Maybe it's for the best that she's moving away, otherwise I'll never completely move on. But I'm going to miss hanging out with her. I'm going to miss listening to Lou Reed and talking about life and art as she paints a portrait of me. I'm going to miss out two-hour phone conversations. I'm going to miss her sense of humor, her thoughts, and her nearly-excessive cursing.

In our conversation, I marveled in the fact that a few days from now, we'll have met each other a year ago. She just said "mm-hm" as if it was already on her mind. We talked about how, if we had never met, I would have never met Roscoe, or Caroline, another close friend of mine. The three of them have become my best friends in the last year, but I've gone through the most with her. I remember when I first met her, and the little crush I had on her. I would have never thought back then that year later things would be this way. I feel like we've known each other for ages. Her 20th birthday is in a few weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do for her.
 
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I'm revising the script slightly. I've added another layer to the story, cut a couple scenes, extended others, and combined a couple of characters. I've got it down to 76 pages so far. I like that number. It's long enough, but also short enough at the same time. I think it's a good length for a first no-budget feature.
 
Hey Billy. I love how your mind works.

I watched your practice scene and I have a few things to say to you.

I think if you're gonna keep the audience's attention you gotta cut out the whole "I'm gonna interview you.." and the rest of the part where he's struggling to figure out his first question...

And I think he should ask some more interesting questions. Instead of what's your name and what's your favorite color, why not ask her, "If her breasts are real" or "If the drapes match the carpet" to which she responds, "I don't know about carpet, but they sure don't match the tile"

Give her or him something to squirm with. Create some sort of conflict in the scene where WE stay interested. Sure it might be fun for two people to get all giggly when they first interact with each other, but this is a movie.

It's much more interesting than having them say all that favorite color, what's your middle name stuff. I mean if you go out on a date, being a dude, do you really care what the chicks favorite color is? No, you want the details. In my experience if you ask a girl her favorite color or her middle name or try to get sensitive with her, she's not going on another date with you. Cause she's gonna find some guy who's gonna push her buttons.

As you know, this is what's running through a guys head....
1. How long is it gonna take to get in this girls pants? 2. How much money will it cost me to get in this girls pants? 3. Does she have diseases? 4. Do I just want a one time thing or a long term deal? 5. Does she have a house full of cats? 7. I hope she goes to the bathroom so I can get a look at her ass. 8. Is she an actress? If so then tell her you want to cast her in a movie. (this gets her in bed faster)

Also too... faster forward through all that introductory stuff, names, where they're from, etc.... get to the meat and potatoes. When do these people screw?

Just some ideas.

I thought it was funny that your actor asked you to "cut down the dialogue." Never ever have I heard of that request. Usually actors want the most they can get.
 
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I'm not mocking you.

I'm interested in what you're doing so I commented.

Which part do you feel like I was mocking you with? I'll try to clarify.
 
aurantaurant said:
And I think he should ask some more interesting questions. Instead of what's your name and what's your favorite color, why not ask her, "If her breasts are real" or "If the drapes match the carpet" to which she responds, "I don't know about carpet, but they sure don't match the tile"


As you know, this is what's running through a guys head....
1. How long is it gonna take to get in this girls pants? 2. How much money will it cost me to get in this girls pants? 3. Does she have diseases? 4. Do I just want a one time thing or a long term deal? 5. Does she have a house full of cats? 7. I hope she goes to the bathroom so I can get a look at her ass. 8. Is she an actress? If so then tell her you want to cast her in a movie. (this gets her in bed faster)
Click to expand...

Just those parts. It came off kind of silly to me, so I thought you might have been mocking me and the material. I couldn't tell if you were serious or not.
 
Annie Hall. This scene was actually cut from the recent revisions I did, but since I didn't have any copies handy of the revisions, we used the older script.

NOTE ADDED 4-11-09: I had uploaded a video of a scene being rehearsed between two actors. I added the scene back into the film, but also re-cast the actor who was in the video, so I removed it.
 
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I might work on the script a little bit more before filming. I have more new, even better ideas, and I've written about 10 pages of new scenes. I've been kind of struggling with revisions and my actor. He's not really being difficult, and he likes the material, but I think he's looking at it upside down. He's just of the opinion that by making a person film, I'm only making a film personal to me, that the audience may not connect to. And he could be right, however, I'm working with a theme that I feel is very universal: that as painful and sometimes illogical the pursuit of relationships can be, it's something we as humans do. Roscoe is a very philosophically-minded person, so he wants to get to the root of everything. And I think that he doesn't really see the point, and is trying to challenge me to add that in, or at least communicate it more thoroughly.

But I feel that the characters are lost in a dense fog, without any idea of what direction to go in. The logical solution is to just stand still, wait for the fog to pass, and allow some direction to present itself. It could also be the wrong direction, but at least it's a direction. But instead the characters just keep going, and they aren't really sure why. And I don't want them to find the answer in the end. I don't want to present an overall point, or a moral. Most people feel that this is the essence of storytelling, but it's not the essence of the stories I'm trying to tell. I think once you present the "point" you're presenting is an absolute, whether you realize it or not. And I don't want to do that. Instead of presenting a point, I want to present questions. Why do people continue to pursue romantic relationships? Why do we feel like it's necessary to our existence? I don't have the answer to these questions, and even if I did, I wouldn't include it in the story.

I want the audience to ask themselves these questions. I want them to take away a question that they have to answer by looking into themselves, not a force-fed point. And I want to present this ambiguously, even cryptically, within the story. That's my idea of subtlety. People will think what they will about a film, or any work of art. I can't really control that, even if I do have a point to shove down their throats. Some will think the film is pointless and feel nothing for the characters, and others will connect to it on a personal level. I don't want to make an intellectual film either that analyzes the "why?" I just want to present a simple story with, what I feel, is an important question. That will keep people thinking. I think there's more to take away after the experience of watching the film, beyond the experience itself.

Or maybe I don't even know what I'm talking about and I'm not making any sense.
 
It makes sense. You gotta do what you're passionate about.

Relationship movies are hard to do, especially if it's about getting people to understand why they seek relationships. That will be difficult because it's an instinctual thing and the answer may be really simple. I'm lonely so I want a relationship. -- I'm hungry so I eat...

If you ever post the script I'd be interested in reading it.
 
Ah, that's quite a lot to read. I was watching the two videos and they seem interesting. I'd like to wish you all the best!

Roscoe Myrick looks very much like Sean Astin (more commonly known as Sam, from The Lord of the Rings) in the first video. I actually thought it was him!
 
I finished the new draft, at 62 pages. I don't really know how long the movie is going to be now, but I'd rather make the film the right way, rather than putting in filler to make it feature-length, or shortening it to be a...short. I think it could come out to about 70 minutes or so. I already imagine the film and the dialogue to be kind of slow-paced, with a lot of awkward silences. And there's a couple of parts that are written in the descriptions, but not written out.

For example: There's a scene where a character plays a song for Helena. I'm going to show them play the whole song, and the song we're going to use is about 4 minutes long, and we hear it twice all the way through (Helena listens to it again on a tape, alone, and we have a sort of flashback montage of the couple before they broke up)

Also, there's a scene when Helena reads a poem, and since I didn't write the poem itself (Coryn McBride is actually going to write it herself) I don't know how long it'll be, but it will definitely add a little time.

There's also a scene toward the end when Elliott and Helena watch a little documentary he made about themselves out of footage he shot when they're together, and we're going to see some shots/clips of that.

So there's quite a bit of stuff that's only a line or two long in the script that will end up being longer.

The dialogue is very loose and open to improv anyway.

I also shifted the focus more on Helena's character. Elliott is still a very important character, but not quite a co-lead anymore.
 
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Aurant wasn't mocking you, but your concept definitely needs focusing. Aurant gave you the best direction to follow in focusing the movie. But I have a feeling you won't follow his advice. Too bad :-)

Billy wrote: Saturday a friend of mine--the "real" Helena--called me out of the blue. I haven't spoken to her in two months. It was kind of awkward, yet kind of comforting hearing her voice again. It's strange--I realized during the conversation that the dramatic/comic dynamic of the film is very much present in our friendship, and the way we speak to each other. One minute we were laughing, the next she was apologizing for being a bad friend. "I basically treated you like shi*, and I'm sorry" is what she said to me. It was a very strange conversation that concluded with her suggesting we hang out before she moves to LA for Art School (possibly as soon as June). I really miss her friendship. I think I will try to hang out with her one last time.
Click to expand...
I believe there's your whole movie.

We don't follow our heart because we don't want to achieve that which we know won't fulfill us in the long run.

We're looking for something else, something we don't know what it is, and that is what life is about -- that's what the lost generation was about, that's what everybody goes through ... to avoid getting trapped.

Like you I don't know what I'm talking about, and like you I don't want to know.

But you want to make a movie about it, so you better listen to Luarant ... or somebody like that, somebody who has made movies before -- not to copy them, but to focus the story, so an audience can follow it.

What you want to do cannot be done ... in a movie. Although in life, many of us do just that: we are afraid of relationships, because we have rarely seen any that work in the long run, so we avoid them ... but we still want to enjoy them.

So, yeah, maybe you should hang out with Helena ... and maybe you shouldn't.LOL

Just shoot the movie, Billy -- you ain't getting younger. And neither are we. :-)
 
Been doing some set-dressing for the past few days. I'm going to take some pictures when we finish up tomorrow. When I dropped a copy of the new draft off at Coryn's place, I picked up the perfectly awkward picture of her as a kid (which is featured prominently in two scenes) as well as a collection of photos of friends, family, and herself as a teenager, which will be taped to the walls (some I already stuck on the mirror in the room). Things are shaping up. We're starting Monday night. My friend Zoey is going to be one of our still photographers, since she's, well, a good photographer, and lives a block away from the main location, as well as in one of the other locations. There's just a few more small items I need to pick up, and we'll be set.
 
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