The Rough Draft of the Film Memoir by Greg

[Greg]

Wait! What? I've seen my life. i don't think it needs a lot of self-reflection.

[Drunk Monk]

Aren’t memoirs for self-reflection and trying to find the meaning/threads of one’s life?

More for self guided therapy. Or guilt-ridden confession (a Catholic thing - I don't understand it either).

abegnation = good word.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Why would a stranger want to go on this journey with you if there is no map, no transformation? I think the "why" has to be asked and answered, otherwise you just have a series of case-studies.

[Greg]

I get it. I kid.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Ok, sorry for being a pushy yeti

[Greg]

Now, that I've reached out to agents, I find I am getting emails on how to sell my book.

I got one from an author coach named Mark Malatesta. Doesn't that name sound like something the devil would use? Malatesta?

[Drunk Monk]

Wasn't Malatesta a villain in some B-grade Keanu film?

Publishing has gotten weird with the availability of vanity publishing.

[King Bob]

The Malatestas were rulers in Rimini in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. One of them murdered his wife and her lover, and appears in Dante's Inferno. The most famous was Sigismondo, who was a condottiero in the 15th century. He warred against the Montefeltros of Urbino, who had the Pope's backing, and the Pope issued a proclamation that Sigismondo would be sent to hell. (Sigismondo then sodomized the Papal emissary in front of his cheering troops.) He built the Tempio Malatestiano, a church/mausoleum for his family, and the iconography caused some at the time to consider it almost  pagan. Some art historians tell students that he built it as a temple to himself, which is a good story, but not quite true.

Off topic, but if you are interested in the condottieri, there is a very good book about Sir John Hawkwood (maybe the most famous condottiero, whose portrait can be seen in Florence Cathedral) called The Devil's Broker.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Re: Condottieri “Mercenaries & Their Masters” by Michael Mallett

[Greg]

I'm still struggling to edit the book. At this point, I have removed the word 'just' about a million times.

[Drunk Monk]

At this point, I have just removed the word 'just' just about a million times.

I copy edited this for you. It's a reflex.

[Greg]

Now you're just fucking with me.

[Drunk Monk]

...only just...

[Greg]

Happy Friday. I just finished doing another pass at the book. The struggle is real. I'll probably send out query letters again on Monday.

[Greg]

The Query Letter:

If you crossed paths with Eddie Murphy and had an interesting story to tell about him, you would want to share that story with people wouldn’t you? What if you were on set when Jennifer Hudson belted out “I’m going to Love You” to Jamie Foxx? That would be a story worth sharing. But it’s not just stories of Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward being covered in Oreo Cookie die in pursuit of their art, the book mainly covers how motion pictures get made from the viewpoint of the construction department. Few people fully realize the role set construction plays in movie making.

I spent over twenty years building set in Hollywood. I worked on commercials, TV shows and features. Over the course of my career, I rose through the ranks from making small independent features to overseeing construction of sets on some of the biggest films in Hollywood. I built everything from the town of Perfection in Tremors to the Catwoman’s Apartment for Batman Returns to the cathedrals for Angels and Demons. Most of the time it was hard work in a wide variety of places but occasionally I would interact with well known actors and actresses. And I have stories to share about all these situations.

There are hundreds and hundreds of books of people working above the line in Hollywood. You can find plenty of reminisces from Actors, Directors and Producers but if you look at the credits of a movie, it takes a lot more than just those people to make a movie. For any cinephile looking for something beyond the typical fare and wants to know the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, Propmaker offers a great insiders look. You would hard be pressed to find a book like it. Propmaker fills a void in the canon of Hollywood tales that many don’t even know existed.

I look forward to talking to you more about my story.