Tuesday, Jun 17, 2008 12:25PM /
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Ok, for those of you who are new to this blog go back and read Road to Rooks 1 and 2 then come back… Thanks! Now where was I? Oh, we finished the first draft and registered the scrīpt with WGA. I was now armed with a decent scrīpt and a rising star (DY Sao). I decided to approach the financers who were in involved with the “Everlast” project to see if they would fund the project. It was a very hard sell because we both had a bad taste in our mouths from the previous project, which is yet to be done! I put my game face on and basically talked my way into the heart of the VP of the bank… bless you Mrs. Ballard (Broadway Federal Bank). She worked her magic and the bank agreed to fund my project but not without certain terms (Distribution). Remember, at this point of my journey it was just D.Y. Sao and I… no producer, no staff, no crew! I didn’t want to involve anyone from the Everlast project, plus I was out to prove a point to Mr. [No name] and Mr. Phat-Pockets. I was going straight Guerilla style with nothing but hopes and dreams… and the best friend a guy can have in his corner that has the potential to be great! I began a long and frustrating task of trying to find a foreign sales agent and a veteran producer to package my project. Hollywood has a funny way of doing business and I know you’ve all heard the saying; it’s not what you know it’s who you know. That statement is so true because none of the so-called Hollywood producers would give me the time of day! My ass was so sore from all of the doors closing that I couldn’t sit for days! Things were looking very dim and to make matters worst I was having problems at home, which is another story for another time… I honestly felt like giving up for about ten minutes after a heated argument with my better half! Lucky for me I was filming D.Y. Sao that night at South Coast Martial Arts center (plug). We were rehearsing fight scenes from the project and that got the juices flowing again! I couldn’t sleep that night so I spent the next seven hours searching IMDB, Hollywood Reporter and LA411 for a sales agent and producer with connections. I sent out 26 emails… yes, 26 emails to individuals and companies looking for representation. I thought I was on the right track but I got no response for weeks! I could almost here the words “I told you so” in my head and started to fall into that familiar pit of despair. To be continued…
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Tuesday, Jun 3, 2008 12:04PM /
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Gemini, the sign of the Twins, is dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory. The sign is linked with Mercury, the planet of childhood and youth, and its subjects tend to have the graces and faults of the young. When they are good, they are very attractive; when they are bad they are more the worse for being the charmers they are. Like children they are lively, and happy, if circumstances are right for them, or egocentric, imaginative and restless. They take up new activities enthusiastically but lack application, constantly needing new interests, flitting from project to project as apparently purposelessly as a butterfly dancing from flower to flower. Their good qualities are attractive and come easily to them. They are affectionate, courteous, kind, generous, and thoughtful towards the poor and suffering - provided none of the activities resulting from expressing these traits interferes too greatly with their own lives and comforts. Their intellect is strongly analytical and sometimes gives them so great an ability to see both sides of a question that they vacillate and find it hard to make decisions. Man it feels good to be a Gemini…
Happy Birthday to all the Geminis! 
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Friday, May 30, 2008 4:25PM /
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Ok, we’re back with The Road to Rooks part deuce. For the recap please read the original road to rooks blog. So D.Y. and I ended up at either Denny’s or Pho America, I’m still not clear on that part. We were tossing ideas back and forth when D.Y. came up with the premise to a story. We continued to play around with the story and ate till our bellies were nice and round (mine more than his). Later that night I had an epiphany and went nuts on my computer. Four hours later I had ten full pages of beats to the story. D.Y. made his usual stop by mi casa and I started rambling off like a kid who just discovered the cheat codes to God of War (awesome game). I told D.Y. that I could have a first draft within a week and things were starting to take sharp. Several weeks later I was a victim to writer’s block because the scrīpt lacked a voice and I was spent. D.Y. suggested that we go to LA and meet a friend of his name Nathan Kitada. I was game for a breath of fresh air so we jumped into the truck and headed to the car-chase capital of the world. I don’t know what was more exciting, meeting Nathan was or eating spicy ramen noodles at Orochon for the first time. Although, Nathan is a great guy and we hit it off from the start the spicy ramen noodles was the best! Hey D.Y. if you are reading this you owe me lunch at Orochon and I want to go next week! Sorry for the side-bar dialogue with my main man. Ok, to avoid the boring meetings and lunches Nathan and I had to iron out the story, I’ll skip to the good part. After countless days, weeks and a month we finally hammered out a first draft. It felt like I was giving birth. I apologize to all the real mothers who have experienced child birth but I was having contractions that made my teeth hurt. I took a well needed rest and the next day Nathan and I were revising the scrīpt. After 4, 5, 6 revisions we were satisfied with the scrīpt and registered and named our baby with WGA.
To be continued…
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:31PM /
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Today is my 100th day on AnD… I’ve met so many interesting people from Beijing to Brooklyn and I’m just getting started. First off, I would like to thank D.Y. Sao for referring me to site. I had no idea it was going to be this much fun networking with people from all over the globe. I look forward to networking with many, many more and hopefully working with a few. I won’t say bye… only that I’ll see ya later!
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Friday, May 23, 2008 5:05AM /
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In the coming days and weeks I will be updating my AnD blog with my production journal called “The road to Rooks.” I will take you through the various stages of trying to make a film the D. Miles way! Caution: I like to do things the unconventional way and fight the system. You will see first hand the ups and downs of trying to do everything in order to keep creative control of a dream.
First off, Rooks wasn’t the dream I was referring to earlier. My dream was a project called “Everlast” that I’ve been working on since 2004. I’m telling you this because that dream was crushed in a sense, which led me to Rooks.
It all started one dreadful day in the office of [blank] in Beverly Hills, CA. I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair listening to Mr. [no-name], who I regard as a really good friend; give D.Y. and I his honest opinion about the Everlast project. He wasn’t feeling the scrīpt and he definitely wasn’t sold on D.Y. playing the lead. This brought back bad memories of a similar situation I had in a really nice office sitting in a plush leather chair 26 floors high overlooking Universal Studios (hint), in which I was offered a large sum of money to, sell the rights to my dream.
I couldn’t believe I was hearing the same thing coming from Mr. [no-name] that I’ve been hearing from Mr. Phat-Pockets. There are very few things that I believe in whole hardily and one of them is the potential of D.Y. Sao. I was determined to prove both Mr. [no-name] and Mr. Phat-Pockets wrong. D.Y. and I left the office of [blank] in Beverly Hills and went to Denny’s or Pho America, I can’t remember which one. I was more upset than D.Y. but I never let him know (until he reads this!). I had several other projects that were semi-complete and proposed to D.Y. that we do our own project to prove to the masses that you are ready for the big screen. We sat there tossing ideas around and D.Y. came up with the premise and I ran with it (literally).
To be continued…
Giving D.Y. the bad news...
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