Open Hatch

[I have posted a highly abridged version of this in a Reader Document, which makes all the important points I have to make.]

So, these rumors ([-1-] and this other one [-2-]) have had me in agony. What if Dutcher has turned EVIL? After a few days I’ve started listening to my gut feeling that the rumors really sound very ridiculous, and not in line with the Dutcher I’ve met and also know through his films.

Today I called up Main Street Movie Co. and spoke with Dutcher’s assistant. I introduced myself and asked if the rumors going around about Dutcher’s next film are overblown and ridiculous. She expressed puzzlement and I explained where I’d heard them, and then I out and asked: “Did Dutcher hold a nude audition yesterday?” She replied “Uh, no..” - this was somewhat emphatic, in that tone that says, “Gee, that’s really out there” or “Where did you hear that one?” I laughed and said “Okay then”, then asked, “Is his next film a ‘nudie slasher flick?’” Again she replied no, and seemed very surprised at the idea.

So hearing it from Dutcher’s assistant who would know, the questions are so absurd that they halted and flabbergasted her. They should be blown off as mindless, thoughtless, careless rumors. And look at the format of the source of the rumor - “My brother in law” - yeah, right, and my brother-in-law is MARVIN PAYNE. Um.. so anyway (Marvin actually is, and lately this is reason for me to feel even more regal, or something - visit his web site!), the format of the rumor is second-hand and the “source” doesn’t site his source. And even if he did, in contrast to one who would know, he’s either making it all up or distorting things so extremely as to be totally disreputable (no, the source of the rumor, not Marvin Payne!) Which I knew before I called Dutcher’s production company, and didn’t really need to have that confirmed, though it was nice to have it confirmed.

Maybe Dutcher lost his cool criticizing the LDS film genre as a whole recently (I think his criticisms are appropriate, and only philosophical, not personal), but the blathering nonsense that has been increasingly brought against him personally has been excessively uncool, and that these rumors can now be seriously entertained shows just that. By their fruit ye shall know them. Please don’t think I mean to personally judge or condemn anyone. It’s only about what people say - rubbish! People say rubbish! And it has been getting worse and now it has grown to this!

No, I trust Dutcher to continue to create very artful, skillful, morally responsible films.

I know that Dutcher’s next film FALLING is either in post or finished, and the secretary at Main Street Movie Co. said he’s starting production on a new one (that’s what these fabricated rumors are about). I don’t know the title of this new production, and don’t care - I’ll just wait.

[Update 09/28:]

The one who first posted on the web what I am reacting to contacted me and informed me that his brother-in-law is a real person. Sorry - I didn’t mean to imply he’s not real. Just that he’s spouting rubbish! Frankly.

I made a very strange (and hasty) error, but the gist of this holds true. I mistook the receptionist at Main Street Movie Co. for Dutcher’s assistant of the same first name! The receptionist emailed and informed me of this. She invited me to call back and talk to Dutcher’s actual assistant. I called back and the assistant wasn’t there (Dutcher is unavailable as he is very busy prepping his new production), but I got hold of Chris Macey, the Public Relations guy, who knows what’s going on with Dutcher’s projects.

Macey confirmed that these rumors are as ridiculous as I’ve thought they are; totally made up. Good. Like I thought.

I asked him if he could disclose the nature of the now developing project - this will be Dutcher’s film after FALLING comes out, which Dutcher described to me at the LDS Film Festival as “..an artsy suspense film”. He said the next project is a “supernatural thriller”. Macey also said that when it all comes down to it we can expect it to have a P-13 rating. I don’t even care about ratings, and he said Dutcher doesn’t pay attention to them, noted that initially STATES OF GRACE had an R-rating and a violent scene was toned back, and he cited this essay by Orson Scott Card as an excellent article on the topic of ratings. I agree. I’ve linked to that one many times from here.

I asked him if I could ask a loaded question that people actually wonder. I hate this. This is vile reporting. I wouldn’t even wonder about this but for the pressing and depressing rumors. Macey said he thought I was out to be a Mormon National Enquirer. Uugh. No. By the way, I want to mention that the rumors against Dutcher that went through a BYU film class cannot in any way represent any institutional standing about Dutcher. And note that Eric Sameulsen, who recently defended Dutcher in writing (and hit just the right notes I thought) is a playwriting professor at BYU (I thought he now headed the Drama Department?) BYU is full of people with differing opinions just like any institution. Another note (sorry to drag), I took down a joke in this entry which might have come accross wrong; you never now.

So this is the loaded question which it is shaming even to ask (because it has suspicion behind it): Does Dutcher intend to continue holding his films to his LDS audience’s standards? Macey’s reply was that when God’s Army came out, people were calling for Dutcher’s excommunication over the shot of a missionary from the side on a toilet (me: that showed, like, almost nothing and was brief). And that when States of Grace came out people were saying he’d strayed, left the Church. To contemplate that, I say within myself: Wow. How off the target is that? Watch States of Grace and then argue that to me. So that was that, no more questions for him.

Back to my opinions. So people were saying that then, people are saying that now. That implies that people who now ask the question for any reason are really off target. Okay, though I think wondering about the morals of artists is important in a culture desperate for heroes.

(Many of us only read the Book of Mormon for the first time in many years last year, after all)

Looking back I can see the things, some of them absurd, that I think lead to such rumors. I can understand questions when Dutcher sits on a panel at Sunstone with two people who have openly left the Church, but those questions surmise. What if he is simply exploring points of view he might not agree with, for the sake of understanding people? And you know what? Ultimately I don’t give a hoot. I’ll entertain Dutcher’s point of view even if I wouldn’t agree with it, but meanwhile everything this man makes and says sticks with my own LDS core.

I’ve been meaning to respond to Heimerdinger’s article on Dutcher. At first I blew it off as harmless. Then I went back and thought on words that stuck. No, that is a really innapropriate essay. Here’s why.

Heimerdinger says that Dutcher is about “spurning”. That’s too far. I can almost hear the words “challenges”, “ruins”, “destroys” etc. or even the adjective “sinful”; which is itself directly implied in his utterance of “inherently offensive.” So he’s taking a moral stance against Dutcher. Look at this. This makes Heimerdinger a saint and Dutcher a sinner. And the closing lines about “celebrating doctrine” dig in deeper, implying, along with “spurning”, that Dutcher either doesn’t explore religious ideas at all or does sacrelige to them. And Heimerdinger says all this without having even seen STATES OF GRACE. Because, you know, it’s just so dang evil you should dismiss it on moral ground without second notice. Which is all encompassed in the opening of his critique of a film he hasn’t seen: “Like most Latter-day Saints, I haven’t seen this film.” That directly infers that the moral, mainstream, LDS thing to do is to avoid Dutcher’s film. It says that to watch Dutcher’s film is an immoral act. That is low, low slander - and utterly uninformed. Not only has he not watched the film, he hasn’t even mentioned anything he has heard about its contents. At. All.

There is nothing of the sort in the film on which his arguments can be founded. There is everything to the contrary.

If we can surmise that Dutcher is immoral without even batting an eyelash, without even mentioning any questions or principles at stake, the worse rumors are easy. More disturbing to me is that these rumors have surfaced as accepted fact in fairly mainstream internet forums. Utter rubbish about Richard Dutcher has become commonplace, not fringe.

Not on my watch.

Mark me a fan. I think STATES OF GRACE has done more to show God’s individual influence on people than any film in the genre yet made. Macey says their production company recieves hundreds of praising emails daily. In my experience most anyone who sees this latest of Dutcher’s has such sentiments. Watch the film. With these official dismissals of ungodly rumors, and looking at Dutcher’s previous work, I repeat that I continue to trust him to be morally responsible with his films.

[Update 10/01:]

I had an email debate with the fellow who posted the rumor. He holds that his twice-removed source at an entertainment company over which Dutcher is not President (which source he will not disclose) could be just as reliable as the source I directly and openly contacted: the Public Relations guy at the company where Dutcher is President. I commented that he must think the folks at Main Street Movie company just must be lying. He didn’t appreciate that. Okay, maybe it isn’t fair to suggest that, but it is fair to say it’s one of two logical choices. Either 1) Dutcher’s PR guy is outright lying or 2) He’s not really informed about what is going on even though his job is Public Relations for Richard Dutcher and he works day in and day out in the same offices as Dutcher. Look at it logically. I invited him to call up Main Street and ask the PR guy if he knows what’s going on. He declined. Naturally. If there is some logical explanation as to why my info isn’t right, fire away with that explanation (but he has, and he offers nothing logical). I don’t doubt he actually heard what he did, and that the guy that guy heard it from did too, and that person also. But I know he’s got wrong information. I’ve got the facts direct from the offices most “in the know”; Dutcher’s offices.

I got a one-line email from Dutcher’s PR guy:

SAG rules prohibit any type of nude audition. You should feel “silly” and “ashamed” for even asking. Chris

Ha ha! He’s making fun of my fretting questions. He’s also saying the concern is so unnecessary the questions don’t even need to be asked. The logic of the whole situation is against it.

Marketing newsletters from Dutcher’s company say that the first 22 minutes of STATES OF GRACE will be made available online, and that it will be selling at Deseret Book. Halleluhah!

Also, he told me official statements about FALLING and the next film would soon appear at richarddutcher.com, and those are up now. Confirmed title: EVIL ANGEL.

However I originally erred in reporting the word “spiritual” in the discription. But if it’s about a dark angel, and Dutcher is writing and directiong, there could easily be a spiritual aspect.

The reason I confused that term is because this IMDB bio on Dutcher contains the term “supernatural/spritual thriller” for a future project entitled RESURRECTION. Same thing renamed? Who knows.

I’ve got to say the whole situation disheartens me; not because I believe Dutcher’s films will be, like, evil, but because I fear that too many Mormons who don’t already think they are will. I like Gwen’s words in the statement about a variety of interests. Also, read the Bible. It is chock full of glory and horror. It’s only a matter of how you approach the material.

But I like best what Eric Snider said at the AML-list. He mocks all of these worries that a lot of people have:

I thought we’d reached the pinnacle when people were despairing over movies they haven’t seen. Now we’re wringing our hands over movies that haven’t even been MADE yet?!

[I suggest you skip the next paragraph if you are very young and/or you are sick of content debates.]

With “movies they haven’t seen”, he’s referring to people avoiding films based on content descriptions. There have been raucus debates about that this year in Utah-related message boards. Personally, I will sometimes avoid a film for just those reasons. My personal thinking on it (re the comments in this post after my last update): If I know a film too closely portrays Mommy and Daddy, or people who ought to be mommy and daddy, making babies (or doing things that ordinarily would make babies but with no such intent), I will avoid it (I know a content descriptor that would save some people a lot of time searching: “R - RESTRICTED - baby making”). It induces a wish to make babies with actresses to whom I am not wed (and not a polygamist either, since we’re talking in the plural). No, thank you. To people who aren’t bothered by it I suggest some redifining, but I also respect their view.

Anyway, comparing Dutcher’s work to anything even near anything of the sort is laughable. His work has very notably taken exactly the opposite approach (and I am NOT saying that Richard Dutcher doesn’t like babies). Nothing of the sort as would make you sympathetic to, like, evil.

Double anyway, on Snider’s main point, I agree. However, hand-wringing is itself strangely compelling..

I’m turning this one in.

I went to look for Movie Magic Screenwriter and typed in the wrong URL. I found this page. Something it says is so good I’m going to reference it in Google’s cache in case the page changes.

They’ve got these blurbs from guest speakers who are very successful screenwriters. I believe the one, Paul Haggis, is the type that a certain book I’m reading sneeringly refers to as a “Creative Protectionist” type; one who makes art for art’s sake, and who happened to be one of the one in fifty thousand who made it big doing so. Because such successes are rare (or are they just a matter of lining up the right business plan behind the art?), folks on the purely business, pragmatic side of the spectrum (who are in the habit of deluding themselves that they can “eliminate” risk) advocate going with what is tried and true - in other words, what has been done before and made money. That approach by definition demands formulaic, unoriginal, and therefore to the audience, drab films.

Which is what Haggis’ comments get at. And whatever else I might be - I think my film ambition may demand more pragmatic people at my side - I think I’m a “Creative Protectionist”. Now mind, though I counter-sneer at that term, the book from which it comes (THE PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK) has some absolutely indespensable loads of details on the actual operational and organizational procedures of the most successful independent film production businesses. I will not ignore the loads of wisdom and business know-how in that book. It’s just a matter of deciding what of it to take for granted and what to question, if your insticts ever tell you otherwise on anything. Because film is a business of risk, and I would think that sometimes you have to know when to knowingly take a risk, do something “untried” and “unproven”. The same kind of thing goes for listening to what folks on the fiercely independent creative artist side of things have to say; decide what to take for granted and decide what to challenge. And I don’t mean to say make rules out of any of your conclusions; I mean feel it out for every work of art you want to put forward.

To get back to where I was going, I find myself more inclined to first listen to the “creative protectionists” for creating stories, and then use the business side of things to decide what to do with my art.

So here are three excellent answers to questions by Paul Haggiss via screenwriter.com, referenced in google’s cache:

QUESTION:
Sometimes I go to sleep at night and say to myself that this isn’t working and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not going to write anymore. The next morning I get up and my characters are yapping again. At this point in your career, do you ever have such insecure thoughts?
ANSWER:
Every single day. You deal with it by writing. You just sit your ass in the chair and write through it. It’s the only way to solve your problems. When you come upon a problem, write directly into it. Embracing the problem is often the way to find a really interesting scene. My other trick is to say, ‘What awful thing could happen to them right now?’ Because sometimes, things are going too well for your characters and you have to give them the worst possible thing that could happen to them. [Ah ha ha! This sounds like God meddling with his lazy children who are too comfortable. “Let’s give them a trial!” - RAH]

–

QUESTION:
What type of scripts are hot in Hollywood right now?
ANSWER:
Never ever ever ever ever ever think that way. That is the road to failure and hackdom. I just met with Linda Obst this afternoon, and she bemoaned the fact that all young writers are looking for a payday and therefore are writing what they think she wants to see rather than writing what is in their gut, something they have to say. I cannot stress this enough.

I wrote two spec scripts that I was absolutely sure no one would ever buy: Million Dollar Baby and Crash. They both sold within a couple of years of me writing them, which is very fast.

If you try and second guess what people want and then provide it, YOU WILL FAIL.
Guaranteed.
And never listen to any agent who tells you any different.
You want to write something unique, something only you know.

–

QUESTION:
How does an unknown make it to Hollywood?
ANSWER:
You have to understand that for all intents and purposes, I was “unknown” to the film business four years ago. I had no more advantage or disadvantage than you have. You may not think that truth, but it absolutely is because I had no “heat” coming off any great television show. It was all about the script. If you write a great script and put it in your drawer at your cottage in Muskoka Lake, someone will track it down and find it. If you write a bad script and send 100,000 copies out, it still ain’t gonna sell. The trick is really simple: write a great script. And I don’t mean to be flip. That’s just the truth. Write something that’s in your heart, and if you have your craft down and if you’re really honest with the characters, it will sell. It just may take some time. I guess that’s what you should ask yourself. Not how to sell or market something, but have I written enough and experienced enough to write a good screenplay? You write, you research, you write, you research… What makes a good writer is thousands of pages written.

Where I am dubious of these comments: excuse me Haggis, but at some point someone picked up your work and put a lot of money behind it. And then audiences loved it and got more money behind it. Don’t discount that. Your success was not all pure art. It was pure art with filthy money behind it.

Other than that, he sounds just like the writers in this “ZEN” book I constantly refer to, which Richard Dutcher recommended to me - and I like what I hear. Haggis doesn’t say it’s easy, he says it’s a lot of work, but he says to go with your gut. I should also say, though, that the whole premise of sharing ideas before they are even written in first draft form - sharing them in schools and for example this online-organized writer’s workshop - that goes against what I read in ZEN. There are ideas I’d share with others, and there are ideas I won’t until I’ve got a first draft written.

One more against “doing what has been done before” - what is one of the major complaints about films? That too many of them are FORMULAIC. What does this imdb reviewer of Napolean Dynamite have to say positively about it?

I think where the film ultimately succeeds, aside from the casting of Heder, is that it doesn’t fall into the traps of predictability and stereotyping.

Whatever the writer’s gut tells them to do will be original. Actually, that could mean doing something that has been done before. Maybe in a different way, but still.

Oy. So, a first draft.. oh yeah. That’s why I went to get a program that will output screenwriting format (right now there’s Haggis again at that page: he’s hot, he’s everywhere, he’s the Indie Hero); ZEN recommended writing 120-ish pages of pure rubbish in screenwriting format to defeat the fear of the written page. That’s what I need to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.

I am also reading another indespensable book on independent film marketing: THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENT MOVIE MARKETING HANDBOOK. Though I have the same singular criticism for it that I have for the (afore-linked) PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK - it takes formula way too seriously - I emphasise that it is indespensable.

Lastly, I haven’t forgotten the other two books I mention here (though I haven’t finished reading them), one of which an anonymous commenter mentioned helped him get his first film off the ground, picked up by Fox Searchlight. Who left that comment? One of the folks who made Napolean Dynamite?

Look at this! Look at this entry! LONG! This is my contract with the world.

Some time ago in my sometimes Internet perusings, I ran across the web site of the Church of Satan. Okay, that kind of searching isn’t on my normal surfing schedule. And no, I’m not “investigating” said church in a formal sense, and it is really just a ridiculously secular, pop-philosophy church - of course, I suppose - despite its claim to having a penchant for “iconoclasm”. One amusing page at their web site details an ad they made in praise of Apple Computer, which ad Apple successfully sued to have taken down. The ad was of the Church of Satan’s founder superimposed with the Apple logo and “Think Different” slogan.

The closing counterpoint of the Church of Satan, against Apple for closing down the ad, is essentially “We thought these guys thought differently. Apparently not.” My counterpoint to that would be, no, their slogan is not “Think Evil.” It’s “Think Different”. And one of the founding tenets of Satanism, apparently, is to point out hypocrisy wherever it dwells. So examine this: they also advocate revenge (well - how righteous).

Here’s an idea for Apple. Supposing Apple created a “praise” campaign for the Church of Satan co-branding Apple with said Church, only changing the slogan for these ads to “Think Evil.” How would the Church of Satan respond? I doubt they’d be happy, though they might veil this with some relativist statements such as “We are not bothered - there is no evil.” Yeah right. They need the coexistence of evil and good; otherwise they can’t feign to declare being for what is “wise” (not good), or whetever. However the Church of Satan responded, I predict that it would reveal internal inconsistencies between their philosophy and their behavior. Either that, or it would be outright good - hey, good PR, right? - and lure more denizens into a world that will surely grow murkier the closer you get toward becoming a “Magister” or “Magistra”.

Or then again, here’s an idea for the Church of Satan to get a leg up in the world (if only Satan had a corporeal leg). Google’s motto is “Don’t be Evil”, right? But what is evil in this world? How about Communism? Fair target for the label? Maybe not - I understand the only reason some people dislike Hitler was because he turned against the Soviets. But on the whole in the Western world, it’s agreed. Communism = Evil. And what about that Communist government over there oppressing the people of China? Huge emerging international high technology market there, with that nation becoming more industrialized - one fourth of the world’s population in one nation. HUGE.

(This will be old news to a lot of nerds, and laypeople, but still..)

So try this. Try a Google Image Search, through the English Language Google portal, for “Tiananmen Square” - here is a link.

The first return at this writing is the internationally famous image of a Chinese student standing down a column of tanks in resistence.

Try the same thing through Google’s China portal - here is that link.

There, images of students in front of tanks are conspicuously absent. My search returns mostly downright cheery parade images.

Google has complied to the censorship wishes of China. Internet users in China, on government operated (and monitored) internetworks, will not find, via Google Image search, any images of Chinese students standing down tanks in Tiananmen Square. And so similarly is filtered out everything through the Google China portal that contains anything which could engender unhappy feelings toward the government.

Isn’t free speech the right which American cyberculture and pop culture sqaubbles THE MOST about and treasures ABOVE ALL? Wouldn’t we wish for the entire world to share in that right? Wouldn’t it be incumbent upon us to encourage it wherever possible?

Not according to Google. They report that the decision to comply with China’s censorship was “..agonizing.” Yeah right. Comply with our censorship and you’ll probably make billions and billions of dollars (hey - that goes full circle to this article about Apple and Carl Sagan). What an agonizing decision.

(I secretly wonder if I would be courageous enough to say to China, in the face of potential billions of dollars, “No, I value free speech, thank you. And by the way, Communism is evil.”)

So, finally coming to where you probably saw this was going, I propose that the Church of Satan begin a campaign “praising” Google, co-branding said Church with Google under the slogan “Be Evil.”

This is something that circulated that I’ve repackaged as an animated .gif, adding something of my own. If you’re not seeing the .gif (it’s a large download), you could try the Power Point version.

After seeing this baby, how could anyone think the book of Job is true?

It’s worth it.

I think.