AN AFECTATION FOR ASSUMPTION

I have an idol. Without a doubt, Alan Shore, the fictional character from The Practice and Boston Legal created by David E. Kelley (married to Michelle Pfeiffer) represents everything I dig. I have been without an idol for a while. It all started last year on the way to Poland when the flight had Video on Demand. I watched THE DEPARTED and then gave an episode of BOSTON LEGAL a shot. I haven’t watched a David E. Kelley show since the first year or two of Ally McBeal. I loved that quirky sense of humor set in a law firm. Knowing that James Spader started this character on the drama THE PRACTICE, I didn’t really give this much of a chance.



When I saw this episode on the plane, I got very interested. It was the perfect blend of comedy and drama. It was reminiscent of the first thing David E. Kelley did which was a feature film FROM THE HIP with Judd Nelson in the 1980’s. I have since rented every season of BOSTON LEGAL on DVD, plus I recently acquired the entire last season of THE PRACTICE to see how this show was spun off from a purely dramatic premise.



I love James Spader’s performance. He plays off his 80’s John Hughes/Brat Pack acting of a kind of ass, but adding the heart of gold. The politics of the character also plays pretty much into my belief structure with precision. Combine that a character with a level of self loathing, arrogance, and a penchant for pissing off people with little to no effort, and let’s just say I relate to the character. All I need is a law degree and a Harvard education, and this might even be me. Also, I’d need my life scripted by David E. Kelley, but basically that’s it.

LOST this year has been consistently paying off. They may not have started with a plan (I highly doubt it), but they have mapped out the rest of the series. So far, I am very happy to see that they are going to stick to a plan. I prefer a storyline to fads. They used to react to fan discussions on their official website. How ridiculous!

Now we’re crewed up and ready to roll for the documentary shoot. I finished the non-fiction autobiography and we’ll be prepared for this. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ has all the ducks in a row, and I hired a cinematographer. We’re driving since SkyBus went out of business. I got my refund already, but that sucked.

Here’s something that happens a lot with online movies that are supposed to be “funny”. I’ve had some experience, albeit not as much as some, but more than others, so my opinion, not really an “expert” opinion is that shorter is better when it comes to funny videos on the Internet.

The empirical data clearly demonstrates this to be true. The videos that get the most views are the short ones. Generally under 2 minutes, rarely ever over 5 minute long clips get any kind of real play. The audience online has the shortest attention span in pop culture history.

What I see a lot of are either 20 minute epics that either aren’t funny, nor well made, and a ton of multi-part series that equate to about 30-40 minutes of material that would have been funny if it was 3-4 minutes of the only funny bits. Everyone thinks they are clever or funny, but only a handful really are. Those are the ones that are famous one way or another. I’m not one of those yet, but maybe I will be some day. I need to keep practicing and getting better.

I’m treading a fine line with my Uncle Pete series. Luckily, they are very short, as in under 2 minutes each or so. Total will be under 20 minutes, and I’m even considering dropping one of them entirely because it might be too similar to one that I already put out there. So far, I am disappointed in the numbers. I had well over 200,000 views for the TELEMARKETERS shorts, and I think the Uncle Pete series is vastly superior in a lot of ways. I may have already said this, but my hope will be that in time, these will catch on in a big way. I just don’t have the time I used to have to market and promote.

Well, another Uncle Pete will be coming out soon. I just have to edit it. I’m going to compile the outtakes into a “making of” and put that out too. In some ways, I’m looking most forward to. I’m still so busy with work. Commercials, industrial videos, documentaries, and other miscellaneous production work has me swamped. Luckily, I took the entire weekend off. I haven’t had a day off in a while. I’m rested and ready to tackle the week.

Peace Kids!
Peter John Ross

THRICE UPON THE DOOR

I have been busy again. I’ve been wrapping up a few projects, and nor Uncle Pete is on way hold for a short time while I finish up the paying work. Not the least of which placed upon hold will be the continuation of work on my next feature. We’re only a few weeks away from the big trip to do the documentary on the weighty subject of the Holocaust and a survivor’s story. I’ve been plugging away finishing off the non-fiction book and I can say I’m floored. I’m gripped and to hear the real life person tell her tale will put my best foot forward.



In the world of UNCLE PETE, the big news is that I got featured on the main page twice in one day on Will Ferrell’s FUNNY OR DIE, and then the next day I got my notice that the first installment will be featured on their Verizon VCAST on the mobile devices. These are big scores and a boon for a comedy short.

One of the stipulations for getting selected for the mobile devices was that there must be no cursing, which lead me to the real meat of this blog entry.



I tend to go against having cursing in most of my movies. Early on, I had a few scripts and then movies that had a lot of cursing, but in the years since, I tend to tone it down to the point of nonexistence. I curse like a horny sailor in New Orleans Parish in real life, but not so much in my scripts. If I allow a curse word, it had better be pretty intense or appropriate. I’m a stickler for making my movies not only accessible, but curse words are a weapon and they have to be used sparingly and to effect.

At the very least use of profanity had better be perfectly in character for the person saying them, or the potency of the language is lost to minutiae. Some people have a character swear up and down and so the power of those words becomes meaningless, and there was no reason for that character to even use the bad words.

How many times have we seen a movie or video online and the people swear… and swear, and then you realize it’s almost every other word? It’s numbing to the point that you wonder if they have any clue how much they are using profanity. If the choice of words doesn’t emphasize anything, then where do you go with the language?

I’m not against the use of profanity in movies, just against their OVERUSE. I cannot emphasize enough the potency of WORDS…



That leads to nudity in film. I have always maintained that at the stage where I’m at, and have been at, that it would be a failure if I had to resort to nudity to sell a movie I’m doing. Again, I’m not against nudity in film, and have no problem with other people using sex to sell their own movies. Anyone else can do whatever they want and my respect level doesn’t raise or lower – I can only put this mandate on myself and my own movies.

It was suggested in my first feature, HORRORS OF WAR in case you didn’t know the name, that we have a nude scene… in a World War II Sci-Fi-Horror-Action movie. Sure, that’s the kind of movie that has a gratuitous sex scene in it. This set my mind ablaze. I was dead set against it, but knew it might effect whether or not we get the money and distribution, so I decided I would give them their nudity and sex scene all right… but I made it a rape scene. The cliché in horror films is a gratuitous and plotless sex scene, so I made it a plot important, and unsexy, unappealing rape scene. No one will watch this and jerk off, and I placated the nudity mandate, and I got to deal with weighty, dramatic fodder. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever directed and the emotional repercussions weighed in on me.

Nudity in film is fine. I have no problems with it when other directors or films have them, but for myself, I can only use it if it’s truly essential to story, character, or plot. In movies like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or hell even PORKY’S, nudity and sex were used eloquently in their respective genres and films, but I’m not ready to make a film like that yet. Maybe, even soon perhaps, I might have a tasteful sex scene, or a shot of a naked person, but I’m still in the learning phase of filmmaking. I don’t want to use something like nudity as a crutch or titillating sellable element until I know it’s something I can control the situation and work very very very comfortably with the actors with a great deal of discretion, maturity, and sensitivity – none of which am I capable of yet.

Am I still raising the bar on myself as a filmmaker?

Both elements, cursing and nudity also relate directly to marketability. In the realm of short films, if I have a single curse word, or even the slightest edge of a nipple, I can kiss several opportunities for distribution or exhibition goodbye. There are several far “better”, or funnier shorts on FUNNYORDIE.COM, but why did Uncle Pete get selected to be on their Verizon VCAST? Because it was “clean”. I was aware of those elements as a producer, and as a director, I found it more challenging to make a dark, intense, very adult series without cursing. No one really wanted to see George nude, except maybe Micah, but still… I am making the choice to sparingly use profanity and not use nudity as artistic decisions, actually challenges to myself, but they have the side benefit for marketability.

I can’t speak for anyone else, nor am I passing judgment on anyone else’s films, choices. Believe me, I could not have made it through puberty without some of the finest Cinemax movies on after 11:00PM. God bless Shannon Tweed and Andrew Stevens!



Something should also be said about filmmakers waiving around Non Disclosure Agreements as if their ideas are sacred and have such value that they are desperate to keep a lid on it.... then have their cast/crew already telling everyone about specifics. It's a waste of time to do NDA's if you don't have any significant money involved in the process. Who will really be scared by a contract if the filmmakers can't afford to pay anyone $5 a day or $10 a day to participate? Then they obviously can't sue anyone and the NDA is worth less than the paper it was ink jet printed on.

Come on kids! If you aren’t investing money in an attorney to draft the specific Non Disclosure Agreement and you’re using the free one from SONNYBOO.COM (your source for free paperwork for filmmakers), then it’s very much the fodder for giggles behind your back. What can you do about it if someone breaches the contract? Write a blog about them? That’s about as intense as the retribution can possibly be when you have NO MONEY.

Seriously, if no one has ever paid you for your ideas or movies, then you can pretty much be assured, they aren’t actually worth anything… YET. That’s not to say that you won’t later need one, but not when making a DV short that has made no money and probably won’t. No reason to get ahead of yourself and pretend to be someone and somewhere you are not. When you have an investment that goes beyond buying people a few pizza’s to be on set, like maybe when you get beyond the tens of dollars and into the tens of thousands of dollars, the Non Disclosure Agreement might be a good idea, and make sure that a real attorney makes revisions specific to your needs. If you can’t afford an attorney, then do NOT waive a NDA in front of an actor with an ounce of experience and expect them to take it or you seriously.

The whole point of the Non Disclosure Agreement is that it represents consequences if the contract gets broken. If you can’t do anything to anyone that breaches the contract, then all you are doing is masturbating to your own ingenuity for having an NDA, but then everyone will blab anyway, long before your epic DV short gets on YouTube.

Who are you protecting the idea from? Other DV wannabes? Stop acting a fool! Get over yourself. Who are these idea thieves wanting the incredibly valuable movie ideas from unknown filmmakers that have never made anyone, anywhere a penny? If you can’t sell anyone the idea for your movie, then no one is stealing the idea and making it themselves. Spend these precious moments on an aspect of the film that might actually mean something… like investors, or a post production workflow, or casting or anything else that might be of more use than a Non Disclosure Agreement that has no teeth.

-=-=-=-=-=-=

Well my droogies, the Boo must rest. He hits the gym early in the A.M. I’m sustaining my 4 times a week at the gym and I haven’t failed to maintain, so I intend to keep at it. I only have 51 pounds to lose till I am happy. That sounds like a lot, but it’s really even more than it sounds. It feels more like 100 pounds, and looks like 150.

Peace and harmony, plus a side order of ham!
Peter John Ross

Things in the Category of “Never Thought THAT would happen”….

I held off on mentioning this before, but since it’s now happened THRICE, I feel comfortable saying so. I went to the gym. Thrice. This is something your narrator has never done before. I have gotten huge, and I’m definitely seeing a lot of weight on my personage. I’m long overdue in taking care of it. My obsessive compulsive disorder has prevented me from being more active physically because I would set goals and in the middle of trying to achieve them, I’d set some other goal thus perpetuating a situation where I never did anything.




I’ve cracked the nut. I found the one physical activity outside of sex that I enjoy and its swimming. Getting in the pool and swimming laps or even just getting under the water and swimming without a care in the world. I can’t stand jogging or even walking because I get bored, so that has never helped me. With swimming I don’t get bored, and even stranger I get a sense-memory flashback to a time when I spent my childhood at the Steiner Youth Recreation Center in Wadsworth Ohio like a fish all year round. Let’s face it; I’m in piss poor shape right now. I get worn out after a few short laps, but 5 nights a week of this I’ll be in better shape in no time.

The new UNCLE PETE short is done and online. It’s the 4th one of 8 and to me they get better as they go. My prediction? It may take 6 months, but these will pick up steam as they sit out there. Someone will discover them and send it to someone; they will send it to 3-4 someone’s; next thing you know it’ll go wide. The audiences are people in the 30’s with kids that hate children’s programming because they have to watch that crap all the time. There’s also the college crowd that appreciate the sarcasm. These are NOT for everyone. So far, the most unique responses were a group of liberals AND conservatives on one site that took the video series way too seriously. The other most unique one was this from AIN’T IT COOL NEWS:

Dude, I clicked on this with my 4 year old daughter standing behind me.

She was with Uncle Petey until he said Sharing was bad,

Then she had this look on her face like I just slapped her momma.

To which I was both horrified and equally amused. I have a few other marketing surprises once I get all 8 completed. I have an “in” with Stephen Colbert, so I’ll do what I can to get these in his hands. I have a few ideas of what that can do. Maybe I should send these to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O. to see if they’ll endorse Uncle Pete’s Play Time…



Someone recently called me a “fag”. I’m just curious, is this supposed to be an insult? Seems more like a lifestyle choice or something you’re born with, not really a tear down. I’m not a homosexual, but if I were, I’d be pretty open about my cocksucking or anal sex adventures with hairy men. I think my blog would have a different timbre, but basically the same. When I was in junior high, being called a “fag” seemed to carry more weight. In the world we live in today, it seems like some prejudice person calling me that says more about their own insecurities than it does insult me. I look at it as such a foreign thing that I liken it to saying “Hey, you like the color orange!” or “Hey you were born with blonde hair.” So I don’t find it to be insulting, just confusing.



Aside from these things, not much else to report. I’m behind on my edits for work. I’m still plugging away on a teaser trailer for ETERNAL, and I’m editing the stuff from Birmingham Alabama. FYI to those readers who want to know, Darell D-Day is a great cameraman. His stuff was exactly what I asked for, plus the other camera op named Hunter came through, so I have a good looking lot of footage.

My brain is fried and the body is taking a punishment it’s never had before. Three times to the gym in 4 days when you’ve never been to the gym before in your life has a pretty interesting set of side effects. I’m way sleepier at an earlier time. Meals seem more like a necessity rather than a fun, tasty thing to do. My arms are sore and it hurts to pick up simple objects like a pencil or a cable, or a Brandy-Weasel.

In the name of Allah, lick the lesbian love spot in the name of Sonnyboo,
Peter John Ross