The Making of CAPITAL GAMES the Movie- the sound of post production music

Music? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Music-


Well, more lessons to be learned from attaining music rights for my film. And oh, what amazingly hard lessons they are.

4 songs. One, two, three, four.
Doesn't sound like too big of a deal, does it?

Simple, just email someone and get the rights.

HA!! wrong!

Okay, here we go boys and girls for your first music lesson.

Synch rights, publishing rights...know the difference? Yeah neither did I two days ago.

Who owns what? More fun! Get this, Sony owns 55% Universal? 15% Chrysalis? 30% each wants a piece of the pie.
Then, get this, they have a Most Favored Nations clause. Silly? Sounds like something for the UN? Well, this means whomever charges the most for the song? They want THAT percentage. So you must pay to the highest fee.

Still confused? Keep going.
You have to send completed forms, film clips where the song is used, hope they are wonderful and 'approved' by the powers that be. Well, this is a gay romance, so I have my doubts as to whether I will get the approval. Sometimes I get lucky because the contacts are certainly helpful over the phone, so helpful I got five people emailing me about one song from one company. So it became a musical chairs game of who was going to be stuck with me and my low budget project.

THEN!!! There is one cost for non-profit film festival and hey!! like the song that much? just slap 10 grand on the counter and it's yours for your DVD. One song. 10% of one song.

Okay, so, my conclusions? We like really good songs. So, my answer? We either win the lotto and buy them, or find really less popular music to do the job. Well, that sucks all the way around. So, we shall see with my book sales just how fancy this music for CAPITAL GAMES will be. My choice was low budget and easy, but of course the director wants to get only the best. Though I understand, the budget is just not there.

So, music. Makes or breaks a scene, believe me, I know. Maybe I should sit with my hat held out at the corner of the food stores and beg for change. Seriously. Making the movie with the right songs? Priceless.
Hat in hand for contributions? Necessary-
I'm about 75% into this song attaining mess, and still have more forms, more songs to send, and more questions to ask.

Music? We don't need no stinkin' music.
Errr, got news for you. We do.
Wish me luck. I will soon be the expert you all can contact to get through this rats maze...

Be safe out there.

Play your music, you need to enjoy it while you can.

The Power of Film (and books)

Well!

I am speechless.
No, I'm not really. I'm writing a blog. But it's a cliche expression for someone who has just been knocked silly by an event.

I had my good friend Micheal come by to see my movie DVD as is to date. A real rough cut that is mostly just the scenes in order as they should be. A string of messy cuts, without sound edits, some music, overlapping noise, a project in so much need of work, but still, there it is. The story of CAPITAL GAMES the film.

And guess what?
He cried.
No he didn't cry because it was so horrible to believe. (I know some of you think that, ha!) No. He cried from emotion from the power of the film.

Color me stunned!

As an author, many of us who write for a living or write for fun, get so immersed into our world, we can't see it any longer. That's why many of us have Beta readers, editors, the works, to help an author SEE what we are doing.

I used Michael as my Beta 'viewer'. I didn't know what a Beta reader even was when I first heard about it, but a Beta reader reads an author's draft to give fresh insight. Or at least this is what I've been led to believe. Kind of a first screening of your book. (If I'm wrong, I apologize) I don't use one for writing. I send it to my fab editor and she corrects it and returns it. Job done.

But filming, well, this has become a different animal to me. Being my first feature film based on CAPITAL GAMES my novel, which now is nearly 6 years old, (if you count the first printing) and the beginning of where Steve Miller meets the tantalizing Mark Antonious Richfield. I am so immersed in it, know the book so well, that I was slightly terrified to see what Michael would think of this rough cut.

He knows all my work, and Capital Games the novel, by heart.

Okay, he is a great friend, so I didn't expect him to scowl at me and say, "What a crock of shit." Though he could have. He cried. Oh my Lord, he grabbed a tissue and cried at the end. Wow. The power of film!
He told me I 'nailed' all three leads. Steven Jay Miller, my ex LAPD cop, Mark Richfield, my British snob, and Jack Larsen, Mark's best buddy and gay lawyer roommate.

I had no idea Micheal would feel that way, since the actors didn't fit perfectly to what the novel descriptions were. But, holy crap. He was floored at how well the three characters came across on film, which he felt did the same in my Action! Series.

I fully expect most of the film-goers will not have read my work. But seeing someone like Michael, who knows my men from the Action! Series inside and out (no, really, inside and out) I was very happy indeed.

How did I find three men who were my boys? Well, I did. The three lead actors who played Mark, Steve, and Jack, were my characters come to life for Michael.

Though I could not hold true to every aspect of the novel, I seem to have held onto enough that he was overjoyed and shouting, "I remember that from the book!"

It thrilled me. Because you all know I want both my avid fans and those who have no clue who the heck I am, to really get this film.

Perhaps they will. The fact that Michael cried? Grew so emotional at the ending, got it completely through and through, told ME what I said in the film to get across to the viewer that 'Love is Love is Love is Love' no matter the sex or color.... well.

The power of films. You know and I know, they can make you laugh, cry, or walk out disgusted. Michael laughed and cried, but didn't seem bored or disgusted.

A good friend, you may say, will not tell me the truth.
Well, you don't know Michael. Yes, he would. He'd raise an eyebrow and give me 'a look'. He didn't. He cried!

So, first of all, thank you, Michael, for seeing this rough edit, and reassuring me, all my work is not in vain, and a huge thank you, to the cast and crew of this film, and especially the top three men who made this movie so damn emotional, it made my friend cry.

You are all my heroes.
The power of film.
Who knew??

Be safe out there....

*Capital Games is still in the edit stage. So follow this blog or my Facebook page and you will know when the film is being premiered in LGBT and Indie film festivals.

'WHO' You Are, Not Who You Are.

We live in a world made up of so much diversity and culture; classes are taught about it, research is done to see if we all come from a common ancestry, and individuals spend their lives traveling to seek out exotic locales on this blue marble we call earth.

We come in all different colors, sizes, shapes. Speak different languages, pray to various gods, or goddesses, (or no gods at all). We cook with a variety of spices, some like it hot, others not. Mores of some religions forbid some food choices, while humane concerns limit others. We are teachers, builders, business owners, IT techs, cooks, cleaners, mechanics...

Who are we as individual people? We come from our parents, whatever color, genes, characteristics become the combination of DNA and magic that creates a unique entity- as unique as a fingerprint. That's us.

Some of us have very strong beliefs, enough to kill or die for, others more moderate soft on issues of politics and religion, happy to sit on a couch and be a potato. The span from one end of the spectrum to the other is so extreme it can only be marveled and studied by greater minds than my own.

Coming from a liberal upbringing my becoming a cop shocked my parents. Perhaps police officers have a reputation as slightly leaning to the right of ideals. But there I was, in a blue Seattle Police uniform...the art student from FIT college in NYC toting a big gun and bright badge.

Who on earth was I? On one side of me is the pacifist, the artist, the environmentalist, yet I agree with the death penalty, (especially if you murder a cop) and gun ownership, though limited to things that are not WMDs! I am not an advocate of welfare and unemployment for life, but for help, to get someone on their feet, and I am very much a supporter of the gay community, human rights, and animal rights.
My fellow cops kept waiting for me to spontaneously combust because who I was didn't exactly fit their 'standard'.

But aren't we all gradating shades from right and left in some ways? The person who appears to be into social injustice, wears Birkenstocks and socks and tie-dyed T-shirts, may support far right wing hate groups. We simply can't be categorized by stereo-types and generalizations. And shouldn't be.

But who we are as a combination of ideas and concepts of life as we think it should be or dream it can be, is not WHO we are.

I mean WHO we are when we look into the mirror and decide what kind of human being we have become. Are we the sort of individual that contributes to society, does no harm, stops to help a frail victim, cries for our fallen soldiers? WHO are we as the one on one personal contact you meet in freeway traffic- do you allow someone in your lane? Or do you flip them off and speed up to block their path?

WHO are you in a way that makes you connect with others who are like you, or not like you?
We are all made up of a million variations of culture, concepts of right and wrong ideology, and just plain old 'star stuff', to quote the brilliance of the late genius Carl Sagan.

But remember, there's a difference between who we are as it reveals 'what all of our past experiences have made us into today'- pleasant or bitter- and who we are as that combination of DNA, nature and nurture.

Go on, look in the mirror...ask yourself sometimes, "Who am I?" It's a hard question to answer.

But if you see a good person looking back at you, then you are wonderful and have done just fine. No matter where our journey began or where it has brought us to the present, how has it made you behave to others now? Everyone has a story. Everyone has a journey ahead. Who is the person you will be tomorrow?

Be safe out there.