Topic: Writing
At some point in the past I've mentioned that one of my resolutions for this year was to put some increased efforts into finding movie possibilities for both Deadly Lessons and Last Dance.
Yeah, okay, I also determined that W3.doc would make it through first draft stage this year too. That one's still on but the movie stuff? Let's look at that.
There are a lot of different ways to get a movie made. I'm not an expert in any of them. In fact, search the entire imdb database and the closest reference you'll find to me is much more widely known for movies about detectives solving existential crimes than heroes of the reluctant high school teacher sort.
But I do have to think that one way for a movie to be more likely to be made would be to have someone bankable attached to it, which led me to naturally begin to wonder who I would want to play Winston Patrick. If you've read the books (and if you haven't - what are you waiting for?) you may have developed a picture of what my protagonist looks like. People who know me both as a writer and in person have repeatedly said they hear me when they read Winston's words. Sure they hear me, but Winston surely doesn't look like me. For starters, he's taller.
I suppose on the one hand I would like to think of my protagonist as the Brad Pitt type. But I like to think of at least part of his charm his geekishness, his just 'regular guy' nature. So I need a different kind of actor with different kinds of qualities, two principally: I want him to be famous enough that having him behind the picture would be more likely to get it produced and I want him to be not so famous he's constantly in demand and unattainable.
Not so much to ask, really.
So after much research, largely consisting of reading Deadline during pilot season and I have settled on….
Josh Radnor.
Yes, that Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother fame. Radnor, while not being completely geeky, isn't exactly traditional leading material (please don't share this column with him if he happens to be your second cousin or something). He has charm, likeable warmth that isn't terribly threatening and he fits the age of the character. Radnor has also written, produced and directed, qualities that just upped his appropriateness in my book for my books.
He also doesn't appear to be working on anything right now.
It may seem that my problems are solved: Radnor likes the books, gets on board to play Winston Patrick and maybe even adapts the books for the screen, large or small.
But reaching out to major television stars, you may be surprised to learn, is not as easy as it seems. Even just accurately tracking down who his representation is can be a significant challenge. And when you do find them, they have a pretty large disclaimer on their website proclaiming they do not accept unsolicited materials for consideration by their clients.
Which led me to wonder if the adventure of trying to get Josh Radnor to make the Winston Patrick movies wouldn't make for a good movie in and of itself. Could I find someone who could produce a documentary feature of my efforts to track down Radnor, get my books in his hand and convince him to come aboard with filmed versions?
Sure if the film was going to be interesting I would have to do more than just pick up the phone and repeatedly try to phone people. It would probably need to involve travel to New York and L.A. and at least the possibility of some kind of stalking charges. Maybe even some cross-promotional opportunities on COPS.
I guess the first stop would be crowd-sourcing sites. Even documentary filmmakers need to get paid.
Of course, if Radnor is your second cousin, getting your help might be a whole lot easier.
Next week: writing by committee
