When I went Freelance I had all these grand visions of huge writing output.  All the scripts I’d crank out and the novel I’d finish and the short story compilation I’d finally get around to wrapping up and…

Yeah.

With editing, and Everyday Driver, I quickly found myself writing less than I did when I had a full time studio job!  Over time I realized that editing actually uses many of the same skills and part of my brain as my writing, so I was getting that need fed.

But I also realized I’d become as soured to that part of the business as everything else.  I just didn’t want to write and do the little “writer with a new script dance”.  It felt like going through the motions.

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So I’m making a movie. At least, that’s what they tell me.

You know, “they”… the folks that run everything, especially Hollywood.

In the case of “Fight or Flight”, “they” are the folks getting the money together (my producers) and the folks actually writing the checks for said money (Magical elves, I believe). I dunno, actually… I just work here.

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When I left New Line Cinema in June of ’07, and I was seriously considering writing a book about the idiocy I saw everyday in the way the studio was run.

A year later, June ’08, New Line was officially closed and folded into Warner Bros, leaving nearly 600 people without a job.  Suddenly my book idea seemed like sour grapes.

I did learn a lot at New Line.  And I lived and breathed feature post production for a long time.  So now that I’m working Freelance I’ve come across a consistently strange misunderstanding.

There’s a term in Post Production called “Picture Lock”.  And as a writer I’m a guy that thinks words mean something…. Picture (the film, the edit choices, the way things go together)…. Lock (Final, decided, no longer up for debate or open for changes).

Elementary?  I thought so – but the logic vacuum which seemed a plague of the studio system is sucking it’s way through indie films as well… Just in different ways.

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