The Countdown's On

So, it had been a little while since I'd hung out with the Amazon Studios (now called The People's Production Company) crew. Months in fact. They've had some stuff going on, apparently, at the corporate level, and I haven't really been tapping my foot impatiently saying "I'm ready when you are," because I've had a few things going on too. But on Tuesday I got a set of notes, along with an email saying "let's meet on Friday."

I immediately freaked out. I've been quite busy for the last three months, but now, looking back, I could not for the life of me, remember why. What had I been doing? Certainly not watching the half dozen reference movies, analyzing and breaking them down--which suddenly seemed like a no-brainer. It wasn't re-breaking the story and writing up a little treatment, or visiting art museums for visual references.

"I am not prepared!" I said to myself. "I am doomed!"

But as I went through the notes, I remember there had been one day, or maybe two, that I had spent some hours reworking a couple of characters, and reworking their backstories, and reorganizing the mythology a little bit to fit with both of these things. There had been a week over the holidays where I'd done something all day that had had something to do with this script. I guesses I had been thinking about solutions to certain problems for three months, even if it was only in the back of my mind while making photocopies.

So I went to the meeting today and it was...okay, I think. I think it wasn't too bad. I mean, you can't be sure. We talked for awhile, and then the producer went to the bathroom, and then the creative exec went to the bathroom too, and so I thought it must be the going-to-the-bathroom-break time, and this was going to be a long meeting, so I went to the bathroom too. But maybe it was going-to-the-bathroom-quick-conference time, because as soon as I came back the exec said, "Well, I think we've worked out what we need to, and we're pretty much on the same page...so maybe we'll just see a rewrite in ten weeks."

I nodded, like a rewrite in ten weeks was this completely reasonable, doable thing. "Ten weeks," I confirmed.

"Ten weeks," said another guy, "is about standard, right? Or eight weeks?"

"Ten weeks," I said, "sounds good." Which it did, in comparison to eight weeks.