Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I am not M. Night Shyamalan

I am not M. Night Shyamalan but I recently got a glimpse into what his life must be like.

I don't know how anyone could confuse us. There are few similarities. I'm tall. He's tall. He has those dreamy liquid eyes. I have eyes. We're both parents. And we both write.

But I think that's about it for similarities folks and still, there seems to be some confusion.

I know, I know, a lot of my stories start with I met a man in the park ......but I spend a lot of time in the park so a lot of my random conversations take place in the park.

When this gets old for you feel free to substitute in your head the words ice skating rink, boxing match, skeet shooting or white water rafting for "in the park."

So I met this man in the park, we met on several occasions, nothing planned, we just happened to be there at the same time.

We had a bunch of conversations about a bunch of stuff that I won't bore you with, but one day we happened upon what I do for a living.

Well, he got really excited about me being a writer.

He asked what I was working on.

I told him about my current WIP and even showed him my synopsis which I happened to have in my pocket because I'd had lunch with a friend earlier in the day and she wanted to see it.

He asked if I'd ever written a script.

I told him one of my favorite stories about a movie idea that I'd had and about sending it off with a kiss into the land of bottom drawers and garbage pails in agent's offices everywhere.

The twist to my story is that someone famous who shall not be named in this place, but when I tell the story has the adjective "freakin'" in front of his name was mildly interested in my idea.

Which led to me getting a phone call while driving and having to pull over to the side of the road, only to find that I only had a scrap of paper one inch by one inch in size to take notes on.

So I'm telling this story, again it's one of my favorite stories, waving my arms around and doing all the hopping up and down that I do when I'm excited……..

I get to the end of the story,

Wait for the laugh,

Instead, he leans in and says,

"So can I pitch you a movie idea?"

See the title of the piece. Lather, rinse, repeat.





Note: As a follow up to this see "My friend T is a Rotten Stinking Bastard"

11 comments:

mdvelazquez said...

So ... do you want to write the boring story of my life for the big screen? :-)

Karen from Mentor said...

Well, It depends...will there be nudity?
Can Will Smith be in it?
....how many times would you say that you and Will Smith skinny dipped in limpid pools of tranquil water?

Maria, I think we may have a winner here....

Karen from Mentor said...

Hey Laurin.
What? No story idea?
We could probably work your pretty little doggy into the script.

judy said...

Ha! I was so excited. I thought this was going to be your story - like Marilyn Monroe getting discovered in the ice cream parlor. (She was probably actually in a park but didn't want everyone to think that all she did was hang around parks... what kind of a person does that?) Then it turns out you're the receiver of the pitch. Okay! I want to play.

I have this idea that invloves me and Brad Pitt and sex on the beach (to take a page from you and Joe). What do you think? Maybe the sand could turn into lava and we'd have to jump from rock to rock like Luke and Leia (only we won't be siblings so when we kiss, it won't be gross, just dangerous and hot from all that lava)...

Think it needs more work?

Karen from Mentor said...

Judy,
Adding Brad Pitt took foresight, but adding sand and sex together? A bit short sighted I think my dear.

Email me and I'll tell you a GROSS story that starts with I met a man in the park....
lol

jane, candid said...

Was that a frog that turned into a man in the park?

Karen from Mentor said...

I would enjoy a frog in ANY form missy.

:)

Rougeneck said...

Here's my pitch:

Boy meets Girl. Girl hates Boy. Boy finds Other Girl. They fall in love. Girl realizes she *loves* Boy. Girl starts sending Boy dirty txts. Boy and Girl start having torrid affair. But then Other Girl gets knocked up because she forgets to take her birth control/is a stupid slut. Boy is torn. Then Other Girl finds out about Girl. And then they both discover Boy has been cheating on them with Zookeeper Girl. And then Girl and Other Girl plot Boy's demise: they feed him to a Yak. And then Girl and Other Girl fall in love and run off together and raise Baby Girl (and some baby Yaks) and they all live happily ever after. The End.

Whaddya say?

Karen from Mentor said...

Sarah,
I LIKE it, but are you married to the Yak?
Could they be llamas? Cause then we could hook it into the children's book is your mama a llama.

It could be even funnier if the girl gets pregnant from the dirty txts Boy sends back.
(figure out the logistics of that for me will ya?)

I tried to draw this plot as a flow chart...but I got a bit confused at zookeeper girl. (ow my head)

but the baby girl(s) both human & yak(s)...I bet they'd be adorable.

:)

mernitman said...

Yak,yak,yak... Aren't we oversaturated with these girl-meets-yak/llama movies already? When is it going to stop?!

I think you've stumbled upon some cosmic principle re: "never having anything to write on when some Really Important Person calls to talk to you." It hath happened to me, most memorably when I spilled my morning cereal over the New Yorker I was reading (due to excitement at Receiving the Call) and that was the only thing with a writable surface within reach. Your story gets extra points for you being in a car. But why does it always happen like that?

Karen from Mentor said...

Hey! (bill is it?)
Thanks for stopping in. I enjoyed your post yesterday. It feeds into something I'm working on for later in the week.

I liked my comment on your piece so much (ego ego) that I shined it up and put it in my random thoughts here at my place.

Your anecdote left out one detail. What kind of cereal did you spill? I'm picturing alphabits....and some of the letters land in the spaces of the crossword puzzle of the newspaper under the New Yorker and spell out something mysterious and zen that you then spend the remainder of your life trying to decode.
And you're right about the saturation of yak/llamma movies...when will hollywood learn and just give us ONE good movie about a giant flaming cheese????
Karen :)