Note: that these articles went out to our print subscribers in 2023. Things are looking brighter and clearer than they did when this article was originally written. Read Part One Here. – Greg
In partial answer to Walter’s question, you can create art all day long but the real question is whether you can get paid for it. In the case of Gregaro McKool’s Socialist Extravaganza, I’m not sure I can.
I’ve been a little down in the dumps lately. I don’t have anything that’s going to be marketable on the horizon for a while. I’m struggling to market Naked Dream, which I suppose isn’t that surprising since I’m trying to do so with a regional fencing publication, and the only other project I’ve got ready to sell, more or less, is Gregaro McKool’s Socialist Extravaganza —or— An Exercise in Over-Confidence. Something so weird and specifically regional I don’t think anyone’s going to bite.
Writing is a bit like gambling. You invest a lot of time into something that might sell in a notoriously overcrowded market with very high walls. If you do sell a feature length screenplay the Writer’s Guild of America minimum payment is about the same as I used to make in a year and it only took me a couple of months to put together Socialist Extravaganza. If you write two to four screenplays a year and only sell one…not bad odds. I’m not looking to make it rich, I’m looking to be a working writer. I just want to be able to make enough cash to pay the bills spinning yarns from an undisclosed location in the forests of Eastern Ontario. It’s my favourite thing to do and I don’t know anyone personally who does it better than me. That’s not to say there aren’t better writers out there, just that I haven’t personally met them. But there is evidence among the professional works out there that I at least deserve a seat at the table. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. In any case, you can spend three months of your life crafting a screenplay that could be excellent and it’ll go nowhere. And I made one about how I’d like this specific region to be different, which is going to make me very popular <eye-roll>.
But, you know, I learned how to write a screenplay from it. I’d never done that before and it turns out to be something that comes naturally, at least that’s what I think. This is literally an article about how I don’t think I’m going to sell it so maybe I’m not so good at it. That’s the problem with writing: you spend all your time alone and you don’t know if the silence is judgement or just the fact that you’re alone in the room.
Anyway, I think this whole project is about making your own way. If you don’t know how to get in then make your own club. Jules made his own club when all his friends were moving to the city. I’m making my own club because I don’t know anyone in the publishing business and they’ve all rightly got “fuck off,” tattooed on their forehead. And the movie is about how well that can pay off, though it’s obviously a fantasy. It’s tricky telling someone you’d like them to be different and there’s about a hundred-thousand people in the Greater Brownlow Catchment Area who have made their whole culture about not liking change. So who knows.
In any case, I actually wonder if this isn’t an end-career picture. Like wouldn’t it be great when you’ve been super successful and people say “hey, we’d like to make a screenplay like A Futile and Stupid Gesture for County Fence,” to be able to tell them I already wrote one before I actually did anything else? I mean brash, yes, but this whole thing was an experiment in brashness. I wanted to see how it felt — and it felt gooood. So maybe when County Fence is in the position to start making films that’ll be how we celebrate it.
The problem is, for that to work, I’ve got to put this thing out there now. The whole premise depends on me finishing it now and putting it out there even if I can’t get it made. So maybe that’s what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll just put it up on the website like a book and you can pay a few bucks to read it if you like.
But that’s given me an idea. The thing I find compelling about theatre is that they work really hard at making old stories that have been done over and over interesting. That’s why Shakespeare is still so popular. They don’t just tell the same old story over and over the same way, they perform it differently or change little things to make it take on a whole new life. Film hasn’t figured that out yet and I think it’s a little sad because they clearly like remakes but they just copy the old one with new technology or techniques. They don’t say anything new. But what if we could?
I don’t know that anything in Socialist Extravaganza is going to come true. That’s the point: it’s a dream. I’ve had a dream and I’m inviting you into my brain: that’s what storytelling is. So wouldn’t it be interesting to be able to contrast it with how things actually play out? The growth of whatever this project is would give it context. Not only that but the sale of the screenplays to individuals could help ultimately fund the film itself, or at least establishing an indie studio that could do that.
But it doesn’t end there. Another thing I can’t figure out is why, when we’ve all got phones rattling around in our pockets with our keys that studio’s in the sixties would have killed for, we’re not engaging in more community theatre. Community theatre isn’t always good and I think that’s because it’s more about the actors than the audience. Yeah they’re putting on a show for you but they’re the ones that get to put on that new persona and swagger about with it. Theatre kids do it all the time, why not A/V club kids? We’ve got movie studios in our pockets and YouTube willing to host our stuff for free. Why not take a run at a big dream?
Not only is Socialist Extravaganza going to be different than it actually plays out but it can be acted out and staged just as differently as any other play. And all we’d need is a common hashtag to be able to enjoy each other’s creativity. Then by the time I’m finally in a position to make it so many people will have done it in creative ways I’m going to have to get really creative. Absurdly, deliciously, creative. But by then, if this all works out, I’ll theoretically have the foundation to be that creative. Let me know what you think in the comments. Would you put scenes up on YouTube of your interpretation of Socialist Extravaganza? I could even make playlists stringing together my favourites.
-Greg
