- So, once again, Steve gets to have all the fun. He's updated you on the interview he did yesterday, being in front of the camera, etc....although, I think he probably belongs behind it from what I saw. (...I'll pay for that one later, I'm sure. I'll just have to write some very crazy scenes to keep him busy...)

We had our first 'face-to-face'* with the guys at Stun Creative today, and it went over pretty well, I thought. We're both being followed by cameras now during the creative process, so for the first time, I have an idea of what it must be like to be on a reality show. It's...interesting. Let's just say I won't be auditioning for Tila Tequila anytime soon.

We went around, did introductions - Brad and Mark are the two heads of Stun, Christian is heading up financial, and Paul is kind of the renaissance man who we'll be working with most frequently. Then we moved on to the breakdown we'd talked about during that first conference call, and just started looking at it logistically - some basic notes about making sure that everything will be feasible within our budget and within our production timeline.

It's exciting...I've been working for the past few years on documentary series for the History Channel, so I've sat in on production meetings before, but now we were meeting about something that was purely dependent on what I was going to write. Non-fiction provides a really incredible working environment, a great basis for learning to tell stories...but there's always something really compelling about being able to do whatever you want...okay, not 'whatever' you want, but you get the idea.

Things are starting to get more concrete...and the meeting has really gotten my imagination jump-started. It's going to be a really incredible summer...

(*note to self: try not to sound so LA in future entries)

By Stuart Chait in Red Bull, Stu Chait | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (0)

Tags: Red Bull, Stu Chait

- Hello all, this is Stuart Chait, and I'm the writer of 'Pushing Twilight'. Steve (the director) has already updated you on how we heard the amazing news of being selected as the winners of this challenge, so now it falls on me to get to the business side of things. (All you writers out there, get used to this - the director always gets to have all the fun.)

Today we started the real work, bright and early at 9 AM, with our 'kick-off' conference call. We spoke with all the creative minds behind this 'After Hours' project - representatives from IFC, Red Bull, and Stun Creative, the production company who's going to help Steve and I bring this whole thing to fruition.

I have to admit, I started off pretty nervous, and let Steve do most of the talking. After all, he'd already been in contact with IFC, and I was hearing a lot of new voices for the first time. But slowly I think I started to get into things, as we both got to talk up our backgrounds and what we thought of winning this amazing opportunity (did I use that description already?...I may have to start using a thesaurus while writing these entries...)

Soon, we were launching into our proposed episode breakdown for the series, which Steve and I had gone over the previous night till around 1:30 AM (the first, I'm sure, of many long nights to come). I think I did most of the talking from here, probably in a rambling fashion. But everyone managed to stay awake (always a positive sign) and seemed happy with the breakdown, even if it was a little...let's say...'ambitious'.

We closed the call with how the process will work from here (all that logistical stuff about who calls who, etc.) There'll be notes on our breakdown coming soon, especially on how to shoot this thing on a realistic timeline and budget...but that's the fun part.

Right now, I'm still a little in awe...and I can't wait to get started.

By Stuart Chait in Red Bull, Stu Chait | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Red Bull, Stu Chait