The Year of Development Hell (Part 2)...

Continued from previous post...

Then, we were told… Keep in mind that all of our notes came through our agent. We never spoke to nor saw an e-mail from anyone else. So, while we take some of what he said with a grain of salt, all of what I am about to speak about we believe to be true, based on substantiating factors.

We were told that the script needed to be “darker” and there had to be “more deaths”. The script was written intentionally to be a small (under $10M) psychological horror film; we had limited the characters and the locations. “More deaths”, I thought, we have 10 speaking rolls and seven were dead by the end. More deaths meant adding people for no particular reason other to kill them. That is not the best reason to add a character to any script, but it could be done.

Making the film “darker” was a completely different challenge. No one could define “darker” to us. Did more deaths help cover it? Were they looking for more gore? Violence? Taking place at night? It was “throw me a frickkin’ bone”. We were willing to discuss, consider and make any changes that made the script better… but give me a clue as to what you mean…

So, I hoped that two more violent deaths and moving toward more of a Wes Craven style from the Alfred Hitchcock style would suffice… “They” liked the changes, but still wanted it to be “darker”. Ugh!!!

As a 1st time director, but previous DP on a few newer horror films became interested, more notes came in. Our script, originally set in a fictional college town was moved to New Orleans. The flair of the city was to be incorporated, as were as many real locations as possible. Days spent online and at the local mega-bookstores gave us a good insight and we went to work.

After we turned in the New Orleans draft, we were told that we had to work in a car. A specific classic car. The director was interested in signing on, but he wanted a specific classic car- and if we could work it into the script AND he could keep it after filming- then he would sign on. Our agent/producer really wanted this director as he had connections to a couple of the mini-majors.

It took some work, but we managed to work the car in and justify why it had to be this specific car.

With the director unofficially attached, they began talking to actors. That began a whole new slew of notes.

(and so it continues...)

to be continued, again...

Don.