Update: Team Cerise, Art Eat Up, and More

February's been an awesome month! And not just because of a wonderful Valentines Day, an awesome Tweet up at Cinekink, my jazzy birthday gathering in NYC, but also because Cerise went from $0 to $2,100 in just 28 days! I'm excited to see how March is going to fare!

Thank You Team Cerise!
Some thanks are in order to all those most recent contributors to Cerise. Thanks so much:

• Nancy Taylor
• Jason Williams
• Kim Garland (@KageyNYC)
• Aziz Mamur
• Ariel Gasperini
• Jose Felix
• Lauren Harris
• Charlene Otero
• Denise Bartone-Pollack
• Rachelle Brown (@Stellar143)
• Lauren Clemente
• Jeanne Vaillette Bowerman (@jeannevb)
• Film Courage (@filmcourage) = David Branin (@davidbranin) & Karen Worden (@KarenWorden)
• Michelle Morel
• Evelyn Ramos
• Rohit Venkat
• Stephanie Faith Scott
• John Paul Rice (@NoRestrictions)
• Sangita Patel
• Michael Gamba
• Alex Wilson
• Sheinder Brun (@cherryBr)
  
• Rich Fuchs (@richiefuchs)
  
• Gabriel Zudeck
• Carol Jimenez
• Ed Melendez
• Slava Rubin (@GoGoSlava)
• Mattson Tomlin (@wackeychan)
• Giselle Del Oro
• Steve Gal
• Andrew Phillips
• Marinell Montales's (@Merrynell) parents, Engracia and Paquito Montales
• Patrice Stercks
• Glenn Ramirez
• Various "Anonymous" contributors (some of whom have proven to be quite generous!)
  

And an extra special thanks goes out to:

• Ryan Ronning, for being our first extremely big-hearted repeat contributor!

Thanks again, everyone! You're all part of Team Cerise, helping make strides that will lead Cerise to a bright and successful future!



The Next Goal for Cerise
Because I'm a literary guy, Cerise's next funding goal will be to reach at least $2.5K (50% funded!) by this Friday, the "Ides of March," when Julius Caesar was murdered on the steps of the Roman Senate. So please keep showing your unbridled support by making a contribution, by retweeting and sharing the IndieGoGo link on Facebook, sending out emails, and simply by spreading the word that haunts Josh Kermes!

Art Eat Up, Jersey City
On Saturday, March 13th from 6pm until 9pm, Pro Arts Jersey City will be hosting an Art Eat Up in which you get to indulge in a delicious meal and then cast a vote for your favorite art proposal of the evening. I will be one of a handful of fine local artists presenting a project; mine is a short film called Café Mnemosyne. The suggested donation for the event is $20, and 100% of the profits made from that night go to the artist to realize his or her vision. If you can, please check it out!



No Bite! A Beautiful Unlife on Hold
With all the work I've been doing on the rewrite for Cerise (which will go under the intense scrutiny of my red pen starting March 1st), I've had no time to even think about my next rewrite of my vamp script A Beautiful Unlife. It stakes me to have to say this, but a final draft of the script that will eventually save us from the Twi-hard nation will have to lay in its coffin until Cerise is a little more packaged and produced.

Coming Soon: Who's In My Manvelope? A #FF List
I've been inspired by people like @grking and @jeannevb who have lists of people they follow on Twitter. It's more practical (you can say why they should be followed in more than 140 characters, if needed) and time-saving (You don't have to type in all the handles after #FF and have fifty tweets all in red!) Because I've been spending so much time online in the last two or three months, I feel a list like this would be beneficial to my writing productivity in between my work schedule.

So, for the next couple of weeks I'll be working on my very own #FollowFriday list for my blog, which I'll update every so often when I discover some new tweeps who have cool and interesting things to tweet. Once it's up and running, I'll let you know!

Alright everyone, thanks for reading the update, and keep on trucking!

Fandependence: An Opinion in Brief

As a poet, by nature I'm a man of few words, so this will be brief.

For me, the term "fandependent" (beautifully coined by @Merrynell) dictates an intrinsic bond between filmmaker and film fan. A collaboration. A symbiotic relationship.

I applaud Ben Hicks for having the stones to propose a novel (though impractical for some) solution in this ever-shifting distribution landscape that's all a-quake with new possibilities for allowing truly independent filmmakers the same opportunities as studio independents who've made a monopoly of such capstones as Sundance and Tribeca.

Am I ready to join in on this Fandependent Movement? No. I think the manifesto itself needs a rewrite, much like all the great manifestos in the world. I think Sheri Candler didn't poke any holes into Ben's idea, but simply pointed them out, specifically regarding marketing. The good thing is that now he's got something to think about. This is collaboration. If the manifesto has inspired some and enraged others, then it's done its job.

Update: The Rewrite and One More Bite

Man, it's been quite a week!

First, I want to once more offer my deepest gratitude to all those who contributed to Cerise, my next short film project about a former spelling bee champion who, 24 years later, is still haunted by the word that took him down.

Thank you once more:

• Larry (Dean) Wilson
• David L. Ulery (@davidlulery)
• Alain Aguilar (@Alain_Aguilar)
• Gary King (@grking)
• Cielito Pascual (@cielitopascual)
• Sheri Candler (@Shericand)
• Walter Enders
• Lucy Ann Philips
• Larry Goodman
• Frank Guzman Jr.
• Jessica King &
  
• Julie Keck (@kingisafink)
• Chrissy Zurawski
• Jon Crefeld
• Daniel Arol Jahns
• Pamela Craig
• Ray Addas
• Mohamed Elmaksoud
• CineKink (@Cinekink)

Your support and contributions are going to make Cerise the best it can be!

Cerise Pitch from John Trigonis on Vimeo.

Cerise Sees Red: The Rewrite
Regarding my rewrite for Cerise, I've been working on tweaking the first act so that I know how to play my second act to its utmost potential. Today I made some excellent progress, and I should be moving on to finish up the polishing of acts two and three sometime next week. I'll keep you posted.

A Beautiful Unlife: One More Bite!
I got my feature-length script A Beautiful Unlife back from my script analyst Michael Ray Brown (@MichaelRayBrown) and it looks like my timeless vampire movie is one last polish away from being ready to hit the studios one more time.

More Ideas, But Where Does the Time Go?
Time is always the thing there never seems to be enough of in a single day. I've got so many ideas, some stashed away in the leather folds of my manvelope, others plugged not-so-neatly into the Notes of my iPhone, and still others that I've lost touch with; they live in the lines of retired writing tablets, journals that are overstuffed, and random Dunkin' Donuts napkins that have managed to avoid the trash can.

I've managed to pull one short film idea out of my phone this past weekend and I started brainstorming. I've got a very loose storyline, but one with lots of promise. There are some interesting characters, too, and soon I'll write up a basic screenplay for this intriguing little Twilight Zonish tale about a small place called the Mnemosyne Café.

That's it for now. Check back next time for another peek inside my manvelope! In the meantime, please check out Cerise on IndieGoGo and show your support.

So Just What IS in My Manvelope?

The question is frequently asked:

"What's in the bag?" (it's so not a bag) or "...folder?" (it folds but it's not a folder) or "...manpurse?" (really?)

I prefer the term "manvelope" and yes, there are tons of things squirming about inside my manvelope just aching for release (so much, in fact, that it warranted the title of this blog.)

This particular manvelope started out as a caravan for fresh photocopies of my poetry which would be recited at spoken word and open mic events back in my Bukowski days when you could find me curled up on the #2 piecing together my master's thesis. Now it's home to ideas inked out on Starbucks napkins, script pages reddened by the scars of revision, film reviews still in the fetal stage, random copies of CREATIVE SCREENWRITING or THE NEW YORKER, a Moleskine notebook (of course), and a surfeit of other concepts fresher than most of the food in my fridge, from short film blurbs and one-minute sketches to feature-length script ideas.

The latest projects to emerge from the innards of my manvelope are CERISE, a short film about a former spelling bee champ haunted by the word that took him down, and A BEAUTIFUL UNLIFE, a feature about a vampire from the future who travels back in time to 2010 hoping to find a cure for his ills and during his stay gets a job answering a suicide prevention hotline (all the better to find fresh blood) and falls in love with a cynical young actress whom he eventually learns is his own mother.

CERISE now has a project profile on IndieGoGo where I'm hoping to raise an extra $5,000 from fans like you to add to the $10,000 I've saved up myself so that I can make CERISE the best it can be.

A BEAUTIFUL UNLIFE (currently in its sixth draft) is currently on the desk of noted script analyst Michael Ray Brown. Once I receive the new coverage, it'll be time to begin the resubmission process and hopefully snag a nice one-step deal and save the world from the shimmery of the Twi-Hards!

As my days change, so do the contents of my manvelope, so be sure to subscribe and keep up with what white rabbits and sacred dragons I pull from my magic hat!

Star-struck a Second Time: Denys Arcand's STARDOM

I just watched the film Stardom for the second time last night and man, what an honest work of art. Director Denys Arcand shows us that he is a true master of visual storytelling. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

In brief, Stardom tells the rags-to-riches story of a young girl who skyrockets to the top tier of the modeling industry with the aid of prominent individuals (mostly men with whom she intimately involves herself) throughout her climb. For me, the most interesting aspect of the film has to be the way the story is told through various camera lenses, from TV sitcoms and talk shows, which range from a Canadian Jerry Springer to a more traditional Late Late Show host, to the black and white voyeuristic docudrama of Bruce Taylor (wonderfully portrayed by Robert LePage, who also directed an excellent film called Far Side of the Moon back in 2003.) The diversity of color footage, which illustrates Tina Menzhal's (Jessica Paré) life as a model as glamorous, idyllic and lush with color sharply contrasts with the darker, almost hidden truth that her life is only filled in by dominant blacks, shades of gray and the slightest hope of white. That is absolutely brilliant filmmaking.

And if you enjoy Stardom, be sure to check out Arcand's other films of note, namely The Decline of the American Empire (1986) and its sequel The Barbarian Invasions (2003). Oldies but goodies, guaranteed!

What Being a Writer Really Means

It's the same every semester. I teach college writing across NJ, and every semester without fail, a student will come up to me after I've just finished a discussion on rhetorical principles like narration or description and ask something like "How can I get a book published?" or the even more nebulous "How do I become a Writer."

So I give the student the Spark Notes version of my spiel, about how the Writer's life is a lonely, oftentimes empty one; how a Writer must be dedicated and faithful to the written words he or she presses down on the page, clicks onto the computer screen; how in times of even the thickest "Writer's Block" the Writer will hammer the heaviest of leaden words into the wall until it cracks enough so this Writer-Warrior can crash through it with the power of a freight train hauling "boxcars, boxcars, boxcars" of new and fresh messages that must reach the destination of a published book, newspaper headline, or movie theater's marquis.

For any student who hasn't thrown on his or her coat by now and left tracks leading to the classroom door, I belt out a harangue about how arduous a task it is to find a publisher who'll look at his or her foot any differently than the 12 other pairs of feet keeping the door ajar with late night manuscripts; how a Writer's shoes can't be fitted like Bobo's or Bill Gates', but must glow like an alien from the 11th dimension, its foot colored by shoes that show off all the individuality in each of its seventeen toes, plus the rhyme and reason behind each and every toenail; how there's the possibility of self-publication through myriad websites like CreateSpace, and how that's all fine and good, but how that option also comes with it own set of perils. "Nice book, John," critics and colleagues will snicker and sip their cocktails, "but it's not a real book!"

Being a Writer is hard. Writers know this. People who want to be Writers don't. The problem is that the students who want to be writers are the same students whose pages I slash up with scratches of blue ink because despite the quality of the content, they are a toxic ocean of textspeak, a wasteland of grammatical errors and sentence fragments where modifiers dangle around like half-chopped heads in a Rob Zombie picture. Don't even get me started on the amount of comma traffic. And apostrophes? They seem to being going the way of dodo.

These are the ones who want to publish a book. Who want to be Writers. But in all sincerity, they probably won't. Why? It's pretty simple: They don't enjoy writing enough to learn the craft of writing. Most of these students may dabble in poetry or have written a short story once; some even maintain blogs which many times have as many grammatical problems as they do subscribers. A Writer is a different species altogether. Whether it's a single poem or a ten page essay on global warming from a Neo-Marxist standpoint, a Writer must immerse him- or herself in the work; he or she must enjoy jotting down those first words that will be replaced later by two even more accurate words that say the same thing more effectively or poetically, and perhaps in fewer words. This is the Writer's life.

Case in point: My creative writing courses teem with some similar students, those who want to be Writers. But then there are those in class who actually are Writers. Here's the difference: The Writers realize that to be Writers, they have to constantly practice. They have to write. They accept the fact that they have to make writing a habit and nurture it. They see truth in my analogy "Writing is to the Writer as junk is to William S. Burroughs" (who, coincidentally, was also addicted to writing.) Writing is a drug, so that when Writers don't do it, they can't function properly, go through withdrawals, even start doubting themselves. Without pen pressed to page, the Writer falls to pieces bit by bit. None of these students ever ask me "How do I publish a book" or "How do I become a Writer?" They're already on the path. They walk into the classroom and I teach them about craft, and they use that honed skill to mold their content more effectively and make it sing. They already carry journals where ever they go, unafraid to fire off a few rounds of verbal ammunition into it or explode a few thought-bombs here and there; they know it's target practice. They know the more they get, the better their aim will become so that when they're face to face with a publisher, their manuscript will shine. They are the ones who will be published, guaranteed.

And when the publishers ask the Writer to rewrite or polish up the draft he or she had submitted, or suggests they add this or take out that, the Writer will smirk, go home, and continue where they left off, already halfway through the rewrite. The Writer never stops writing.

So if you want to publish a book or be a Writer, my advice to you is simple and straightforward: Just Write.

Dark Fantasies Brought to Light

ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL journeys into a different corner of the dark basement world of prostitution, the sexless realm of fantasy fulfillment. It is stunningly shot with a beautiful mélange of color that externalize the inner conflicts Brandi/Becky battles with throughout the film. It’s a raw and oftentimes sweetly disturbing picture; at one moment we witness Brandi fulfilling the overtly Freudian desires of Roger; at other times we fall at ease when she spends time with Bobby, her seeming savior. The twist in the film is unpredictable, and was probably what I enjoyed most about the film.

Although ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL was superbly shot by cinematographer Rush Hamden, the film fell somewhat flat for me where the overlapping storylines are concerned. Some elements just didn't add up, specifically the very loose subplot which takes place in a diner. I get what those scenes are trying to accomplish, but I don't see how it fits seamlessly with the context of the story’s main plot. The ending, I thought, could have come much sooner than it did, and I feel that more could have been done to expound on Becky’s desire to work a job in real estate so that the ending wouldn’t have appeared so arbitrary.

I saw many similarities between ONE HOUR FANTASY GIRL and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (and while I appreciate the premise in the former much more than in Soderbergh’s film, I did feel more empathy for Sasha Grey’s Chelsea than I did for Kelly-Ann Tursi’s Brandi), but writer/director Edgar Michael Bravo offers up an intriguing alternate take on the “dark damsel in distress” motif and gives the audience a worthwhile ride.