Posted by eliza gale on September 25, 2011 - 10:58pm
Rob Neighbors is a Los Angeles based screenwriter. He has a new screenplay called "Country Club". He has a film in Pre production called "Room and Board.".
1.What do you hope to express through your writing?
Well, I tend to write stories based in reality – I am not a big fan of fantasy or science fiction. I think there are so many stories worth telling about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Foreign films seem to do that a lot, and I have seen so many of them that were incredible. I recently saw a Mexican film, “Sin Nombre” about a family from Guatemala immigrating through Mexico on their way to the United States and they get into this drama with Mexican gang members. It was so compelling! What I liked about that film was that it took a very real situation and dramatized in a way that was both entertaining and informative because it showed us a world we wouldn't otherwise know or care about. It also helps us to empathize with the immigrants and realize the heavy price they have to pay to get here.
I have been pissed off ever since my mom dropped me off at nursery school, and writing is one way that I vent my frustration about my perceived injustices of the world. I like to skewer people who misuse their power, or are petty, corrupt, or hypocrites. Of course to some degree I share all of those character defects. Overall, I like to write about the human condition and all of the conflict and drama that entails.
2. What do you like about working in Hollywood?
Working in Hollywood, doing what? Bartending? Driving a limo? Telemarketing? I have done so many different survival gigs since I've been in Hollywood I have lost track of them all. Of course, I have funny stories from almost all of them. A production executive told me a long time ago that I would need to “pay my dues” in Hollywood. Well, I've been paying them for 19 years. Is that enough?
I had some success as screenwriter when I first got here and I was really naïve and didn't really know what I was doing. I think people saw me as this raw talent that they could groom and exploit. I was glad to be “exploited” because so many don't even get to that point. What a great feeling it was to receive my first check for writing! I have also met and worked with so many interesting characters! There are so many talented people here, from actors, to musicians, editors, all the way down the line. Everyone contributes something to a film.
3. What don't you like about it?
There has been so much disappointment over the years. Movies that didn't get made, lawsuits. Scripts that did get made and were then butchered. Money that didn't get paid. I once told a small time producer I was working for, “From now on we're going to do this like a coke deal – I'll hand you the finished pages in one hand, and you hand me the money in the other.” This is is what it is like at the lower levels of the film business. Once you are in the Writer's Guild and with one of the big agencies then you are somewhat protected.
There were times when “Hollywood” almost broke me -physically, mentally, spiritually. I basically gave up for ten years. The turning point for me was when I took Jeff Cohen's class – Dramatic Writing for Actors. In it, we improvised scenes from our own lives and wrote developed written material that way. I wrote my newest script, “Country Club,” in that class, and feel it is the best thing I have ever written. I feel like I am ready to get back in the game.
4. How did you get your screenplay "Room and Board" into pre production.
That film is fifteen years in the making. The people who originally hired me to write that were a couple and they had this cool house with a pool up in Sylmar. They would have crazy pool parties and we would sit around and come up with scenes with the actors. At one time Tiny Lister was going to be in it, at another time we had Linda Blair. It was a lot of fun meeting and working with all of these people during the development of the script. I don't think that happens very often.
Anyway, they were originally going to make the movie for $100,000 because it all takes place in one location.
The couple started fighting with each other and broke up and then the whole thing was shelved for over ten years. Now, they are trying to get it made again with a much bigger budget. We had Burt Reynolds attached for awhile, but I see he dropped out. We have Charles Durning. Maybe Ernest Borgnine is available?
5.What is your craziest Hollywood story?
I have a lot of them, but probably the most surreal as it relates to screenwriting was the time I was hired to write a Menahem Golan film. In case you don't know, Menahem Golan is an Israeli producer who was very prolific in the 80's during the whole VHS rental boom. His company, Cannon Films made all of the Death Wish movies with Charles Bronson, and gave people like Jean Claude Van damme and Chuck Norris their starts. Golan is notorious for playing fast and loose with money, cast and crew.
A friend of mine told me to meet him at AFM (American Film Market), where we went Menahem's company suite.
There were several Israeli guys in there wearing suits, smoking cigarettes, and speaking Hebrew. Golan sat behind a big desk and looked like a character out of a James Bond movie. He speaks in a thick high pitched Israeli accent. Anyway, they were planning on shooting a movie in the Philippines called “Stickfighter.” They wanted to make some new martial arts guy into a star. Golan tells me, “You will go to the Philippines and look at location, then write a script based on the location.” All this before any deal or money was mentioned. “Are you an actor too? Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.” Golan said with a twinkle in his eye. I ended up agreeing to write the movie for very low money because I was desperate and the rent was due.
I started writing the movie and preparing to go to the Philippines. Golan wanted to see daily pages. I handed some in and got a phone call - “Menahem wants to see you – emergency script meeting.” I went down to his office on Wilshire Boulevard. “You're writing me a Cadillac – I want a Volkswagen,” Menahem screamed. “I want lots of booms! Explosions every ten pages.” I went back to the drawing board and shortly after was informed that the movie would be shot in LA instead, which changed everything. I was fired and replaced shortly after.
I still got a credit on the film, though I have never seen it. I heard Menahem had to leave LA and go back to Israel after they filmed it – that he had lost everything making it. Crazy, the guy has produced literally hundreds of films and it was that one that broke him.
6. What advice would you give to an aspiring screenwriter?
Think of anything, ANYTHING, else you might want to do with your life. I walked away from a family business opportunity to do this. I could have been sitting very comfortable right now, but I HAD to do this. I read in a book before ever coming here that being a screenwriter is the most masochistic thing you can do, and that has been MY experience. I'm sure that there are plenty others that have had a much better experience and have been way more successful and made a lot more money. They are always going to need screenwriters, it's just they aren't going to need near as many that are trying to do it. Everyone is writing a script. Most give up after the first rejection. You have to be tough to be a screenwriter, you have to face rejection and criticism from both people you respect and absolute morons. You have to see your material get rewritten and totally ruined. You sometimes have to do the rewriting and ruining yourself.
If you absolutely have to be a screenwriter then do it, but know what you are getting into, because you might not really like it once you get here. I went to film school and had a great experience there, but wouldn't recommend it. It is too expensive and you can learn screenwriting through an extension course and by actually doing it. No degree is going to help you get a job – what is on the page is what really counts. I also think that some people just have a natural flair for screen writing. Not many can do it well. One hundred screenwriting courses will not give someone talent if they don't have it.
7. What is your new screenplay "Country Club" about?
As I mentioned before, I developed that script in a class that was designed to get actors to write. We improvised stories from our own lives in front of the other members of the class. During the exercise we play all of the characters in the story, the mom, the dad, ourselves, etc. I did a story from my own life that took place during my adolescence. After I did the exercise, the instructor, Jeff Cohen, and the others encouraged me to write the screenplay. I was reluctant and wondered who would want to see a story about a boy growing up in Wyoming?
I sat down and wrote the script and finished it in two weeks. It basically wrote itself and I feel it is my finest screenplay to date.
“Country Club” is a coming of age story based on events in my life. It's about my painful transition into adulthood
during the summer of my 15th year when I went to work away from home on a rough and tumble construction crew. At the same time, my parents marriage breaks apart, changing my life forever.
An A list director just read the script and liked it but said that is would be a “tough sell.” I already knew that. I'm sure people weren't beating down the doors trying to get “Winter's Bone,” when it was only a screenplay. I know that if I want to get “Country Club,” made I will have to fight tooth and nail for it. I am willing to do that, because I believe in it, more so than any other script I have written.
8. What famous movie character are you and why?
Uh, Travis Bickle comes to mind.....no forget that....how about, Ben Sanderson...no, maybe, Miles in “Sideways”
No maybe Kurtz in “Apocolypse Now”...No, I've got it, by George – Joe Gillis!
9. Who are some of your literary influences and why?
Hemingway was my hero when I was younger – not so much for his writing, but the way he lived his life. I really do love his short stories - “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” is one of my favorites. His novels tend to be a bit tedious. Jack London is another of my favorites, probably because he, like Hemingway, went out into the world and experienced a lot of different things and then wrote about them. They didn't just pull stories out of their ass. I am a big Bukowski fan because I identify with his self deprecation and life style, though I think many Bukowski fans are complete jackasses. They quote him and say they love him, but I don't think they realIy get it. I hear that they go to his grave site in Palos Verdes and pour booze into the ground.
Joe Eszterhas is my screenwriter hero, again not so much because what he has written, but because the way he has handled himself in the business. He has demanded respect as a screenwriter and gotten it. Not too many of us can say that.
10. What do you consider to be the best screenplay ever written and why?
The best screenplay ever written? That is tough. It is impossible for me to narrow it down to one. I think all of the greatest films had great screenplays, but the screenplays alone didn't make the films great. There are so many other factors: the music, the cinematography, the acting, the direction, the editing. “Citizen Kane,” had a great script, but all of the other aspects of the movie where incredible as well. The Cohen Brothers come up with some great material, but do you notice how much music plays into their films? Did you notice that they used no music in “No Country for Old Men.” “Glen Garry Glen Ross,” was fantastic, but that was based on play. “Raging Bull,” was incredible. “There Will be Blood,” comes to mind. “Sideways,” is one of my favorites and that was adapted from a book. I love and appreciate good films so much, but I don't see many out right now that I want to see. That depresses me, and why are they doing all of these remakes? Aren't there any good original scripts out there? I HAVE ONE!
Please note; Eliza's interviews are done by email. All answers are unedited and come right from the lovely fingertips of her subjects:)
1.What do you hope to express through your writing?
Well, I tend to write stories based in reality – I am not a big fan of fantasy or science fiction. I think there are so many stories worth telling about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Foreign films seem to do that a lot, and I have seen so many of them that were incredible. I recently saw a Mexican film, “Sin Nombre” about a family from Guatemala immigrating through Mexico on their way to the United States and they get into this drama with Mexican gang members. It was so compelling! What I liked about that film was that it took a very real situation and dramatized in a way that was both entertaining and informative because it showed us a world we wouldn't otherwise know or care about. It also helps us to empathize with the immigrants and realize the heavy price they have to pay to get here.
I have been pissed off ever since my mom dropped me off at nursery school, and writing is one way that I vent my frustration about my perceived injustices of the world. I like to skewer people who misuse their power, or are petty, corrupt, or hypocrites. Of course to some degree I share all of those character defects. Overall, I like to write about the human condition and all of the conflict and drama that entails.
2. What do you like about working in Hollywood?
Working in Hollywood, doing what? Bartending? Driving a limo? Telemarketing? I have done so many different survival gigs since I've been in Hollywood I have lost track of them all. Of course, I have funny stories from almost all of them. A production executive told me a long time ago that I would need to “pay my dues” in Hollywood. Well, I've been paying them for 19 years. Is that enough?
I had some success as screenwriter when I first got here and I was really naïve and didn't really know what I was doing. I think people saw me as this raw talent that they could groom and exploit. I was glad to be “exploited” because so many don't even get to that point. What a great feeling it was to receive my first check for writing! I have also met and worked with so many interesting characters! There are so many talented people here, from actors, to musicians, editors, all the way down the line. Everyone contributes something to a film.
3. What don't you like about it?
There has been so much disappointment over the years. Movies that didn't get made, lawsuits. Scripts that did get made and were then butchered. Money that didn't get paid. I once told a small time producer I was working for, “From now on we're going to do this like a coke deal – I'll hand you the finished pages in one hand, and you hand me the money in the other.” This is is what it is like at the lower levels of the film business. Once you are in the Writer's Guild and with one of the big agencies then you are somewhat protected.
There were times when “Hollywood” almost broke me -physically, mentally, spiritually. I basically gave up for ten years. The turning point for me was when I took Jeff Cohen's class – Dramatic Writing for Actors. In it, we improvised scenes from our own lives and wrote developed written material that way. I wrote my newest script, “Country Club,” in that class, and feel it is the best thing I have ever written. I feel like I am ready to get back in the game.
4. How did you get your screenplay "Room and Board" into pre production.
That film is fifteen years in the making. The people who originally hired me to write that were a couple and they had this cool house with a pool up in Sylmar. They would have crazy pool parties and we would sit around and come up with scenes with the actors. At one time Tiny Lister was going to be in it, at another time we had Linda Blair. It was a lot of fun meeting and working with all of these people during the development of the script. I don't think that happens very often.
Anyway, they were originally going to make the movie for $100,000 because it all takes place in one location.
The couple started fighting with each other and broke up and then the whole thing was shelved for over ten years. Now, they are trying to get it made again with a much bigger budget. We had Burt Reynolds attached for awhile, but I see he dropped out. We have Charles Durning. Maybe Ernest Borgnine is available?
5.What is your craziest Hollywood story?
I have a lot of them, but probably the most surreal as it relates to screenwriting was the time I was hired to write a Menahem Golan film. In case you don't know, Menahem Golan is an Israeli producer who was very prolific in the 80's during the whole VHS rental boom. His company, Cannon Films made all of the Death Wish movies with Charles Bronson, and gave people like Jean Claude Van damme and Chuck Norris their starts. Golan is notorious for playing fast and loose with money, cast and crew.
A friend of mine told me to meet him at AFM (American Film Market), where we went Menahem's company suite.
There were several Israeli guys in there wearing suits, smoking cigarettes, and speaking Hebrew. Golan sat behind a big desk and looked like a character out of a James Bond movie. He speaks in a thick high pitched Israeli accent. Anyway, they were planning on shooting a movie in the Philippines called “Stickfighter.” They wanted to make some new martial arts guy into a star. Golan tells me, “You will go to the Philippines and look at location, then write a script based on the location.” All this before any deal or money was mentioned. “Are you an actor too? Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.” Golan said with a twinkle in his eye. I ended up agreeing to write the movie for very low money because I was desperate and the rent was due.
I started writing the movie and preparing to go to the Philippines. Golan wanted to see daily pages. I handed some in and got a phone call - “Menahem wants to see you – emergency script meeting.” I went down to his office on Wilshire Boulevard. “You're writing me a Cadillac – I want a Volkswagen,” Menahem screamed. “I want lots of booms! Explosions every ten pages.” I went back to the drawing board and shortly after was informed that the movie would be shot in LA instead, which changed everything. I was fired and replaced shortly after.
I still got a credit on the film, though I have never seen it. I heard Menahem had to leave LA and go back to Israel after they filmed it – that he had lost everything making it. Crazy, the guy has produced literally hundreds of films and it was that one that broke him.
6. What advice would you give to an aspiring screenwriter?
Think of anything, ANYTHING, else you might want to do with your life. I walked away from a family business opportunity to do this. I could have been sitting very comfortable right now, but I HAD to do this. I read in a book before ever coming here that being a screenwriter is the most masochistic thing you can do, and that has been MY experience. I'm sure that there are plenty others that have had a much better experience and have been way more successful and made a lot more money. They are always going to need screenwriters, it's just they aren't going to need near as many that are trying to do it. Everyone is writing a script. Most give up after the first rejection. You have to be tough to be a screenwriter, you have to face rejection and criticism from both people you respect and absolute morons. You have to see your material get rewritten and totally ruined. You sometimes have to do the rewriting and ruining yourself.
If you absolutely have to be a screenwriter then do it, but know what you are getting into, because you might not really like it once you get here. I went to film school and had a great experience there, but wouldn't recommend it. It is too expensive and you can learn screenwriting through an extension course and by actually doing it. No degree is going to help you get a job – what is on the page is what really counts. I also think that some people just have a natural flair for screen writing. Not many can do it well. One hundred screenwriting courses will not give someone talent if they don't have it.
7. What is your new screenplay "Country Club" about?
As I mentioned before, I developed that script in a class that was designed to get actors to write. We improvised stories from our own lives in front of the other members of the class. During the exercise we play all of the characters in the story, the mom, the dad, ourselves, etc. I did a story from my own life that took place during my adolescence. After I did the exercise, the instructor, Jeff Cohen, and the others encouraged me to write the screenplay. I was reluctant and wondered who would want to see a story about a boy growing up in Wyoming?
I sat down and wrote the script and finished it in two weeks. It basically wrote itself and I feel it is my finest screenplay to date.
“Country Club” is a coming of age story based on events in my life. It's about my painful transition into adulthood
during the summer of my 15th year when I went to work away from home on a rough and tumble construction crew. At the same time, my parents marriage breaks apart, changing my life forever.
An A list director just read the script and liked it but said that is would be a “tough sell.” I already knew that. I'm sure people weren't beating down the doors trying to get “Winter's Bone,” when it was only a screenplay. I know that if I want to get “Country Club,” made I will have to fight tooth and nail for it. I am willing to do that, because I believe in it, more so than any other script I have written.
8. What famous movie character are you and why?
Uh, Travis Bickle comes to mind.....no forget that....how about, Ben Sanderson...no, maybe, Miles in “Sideways”
No maybe Kurtz in “Apocolypse Now”...No, I've got it, by George – Joe Gillis!
9. Who are some of your literary influences and why?
Hemingway was my hero when I was younger – not so much for his writing, but the way he lived his life. I really do love his short stories - “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” is one of my favorites. His novels tend to be a bit tedious. Jack London is another of my favorites, probably because he, like Hemingway, went out into the world and experienced a lot of different things and then wrote about them. They didn't just pull stories out of their ass. I am a big Bukowski fan because I identify with his self deprecation and life style, though I think many Bukowski fans are complete jackasses. They quote him and say they love him, but I don't think they realIy get it. I hear that they go to his grave site in Palos Verdes and pour booze into the ground.
Joe Eszterhas is my screenwriter hero, again not so much because what he has written, but because the way he has handled himself in the business. He has demanded respect as a screenwriter and gotten it. Not too many of us can say that.
10. What do you consider to be the best screenplay ever written and why?
The best screenplay ever written? That is tough. It is impossible for me to narrow it down to one. I think all of the greatest films had great screenplays, but the screenplays alone didn't make the films great. There are so many other factors: the music, the cinematography, the acting, the direction, the editing. “Citizen Kane,” had a great script, but all of the other aspects of the movie where incredible as well. The Cohen Brothers come up with some great material, but do you notice how much music plays into their films? Did you notice that they used no music in “No Country for Old Men.” “Glen Garry Glen Ross,” was fantastic, but that was based on play. “Raging Bull,” was incredible. “There Will be Blood,” comes to mind. “Sideways,” is one of my favorites and that was adapted from a book. I love and appreciate good films so much, but I don't see many out right now that I want to see. That depresses me, and why are they doing all of these remakes? Aren't there any good original scripts out there? I HAVE ONE!
Please note; Eliza's interviews are done by email. All answers are unedited and come right from the lovely fingertips of her subjects:)
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