Money Problems

It has been interesting thinking about Brad the producer’s email and "the money problem." For me, it was a lovely email with its comments about the writing. Monkey's success with every professional reader allows me to believe in myself as a writer of dialogue and dramatic structure. I valued reading that Brad's “whole team” was enthusiastic about it.

Also, it has been gratifying to discover that Brad is "driving" our development. I thought it was Warren  but yesterday I found out Warren hasn’t been in touch with Brad since the initial meeting. So a lot of what I have been hearing from Warren has been instigated by Brad and that gives me a sense of the strength of his interest.

But the financial problem is a considerable hurdle. We talked about cutting the France scenes, but it is not France that is the problem, it’s the period nature of the early scenes that present the challenge and there is no way to get around the period nature of the piece.

Last night I went to bed thinking about the problem. All my life I have been solving problems, but this is the first one that seems too big for me to solve. My understanding has been that Brad’s company planned on investing $1 million and they would seek another million from a partner. Now they/we face raising more—but how much more is not clear. One million? Two million? (Note: Writers earn $30,000 per million budgeted dollars.)

Our story requires three decades to tell. Ours uses the 50s, 60s and 70s and that is the problem. So this morning I have written to Warren to ask him what he would think if our story was set, instead, in the 90s, 00s and now. Maybe I can solve this money problem with these dialogue writing little fingers after all.