Dick (June 24)

I had met Dick a couple of times while I was David's "intern". I give it quotes because the school had a very different idea of what I was doing and how often I was there. I didn't really deserve the credit I got but whatever. I met Danilo and Dick at Dick's office and they began to tell me about some projects they were working on. They run a streaming video website which primarily offers "urban" content and does ok as far as bringing in traffic. They both had previous careers and many connections. They both seemed much more on point than David. They wanted to make a webshow and they wanted me to write it. They also cast me as Allan, a socially inept egotistical blogger.

Now it was September and I had nothing else going on, so I decided to go with it. There was another writer in Florida. He had written a script. Now the original concept was about people meeting on a video social networking site. The script had about 10 people at a party, mostly all meeting for the first time. None of them had personalities even though we had been given character descriptions. The dialogue was nothing short of horrible. I sat down and rewrote the entire thing in three hours. Dick and Danilo LOVED it. They set up a shoot date and I was actually excited.

Danilo's house was in Jamaica, Queens. It took forever to get there. The cast was nice, all very young New York actors and it was my first exposure to a group like this so I enjoyed meeting them. At the house we went in and Dick ordered us pizza and gave us all beer. Danilo was not there which was not good as he was the director and camera operator. I asked him for a shot list but one did not exist. The actors started to get uncomfortable. It was a friday night and we were already an hour behind schedule. The house had small entryways and poor lighting, the angles were nearly impossible to hit. Dick and I used two camcorders to shoot it. Danilo arrived with a camera man and continued where we had left off. People were drinking. Actors were getting restless, the whole thing was a nightmare. The last train back to NJ was gone and I was unsure how I would get home. At least it was shot and we had signed contracts stating we would get paid if the thing made any money. I had also started my characters blog.

A couple weeks later the video was posted. The lighting was poor, the framing was bad, there were odd random cuts. My girlfriend at the time was watching it with me and just said she was sorry. It was appalling. Somehow though, it got something like half a million hits and Dick proclaimed it a victory. I tried to discuss it with Danilo but he just said he had only been able to edit what he had and I dropped it there.

I half heartedly wrote a script for the second episode which was to be much shorter in length. I wrote a really great scene between my character and his sister, and set up plot threads that would advance the show and the character arcs. I was told to cut a lot of things out and what was left had absolutely no soul. It was a standard murder mystery about characters nobody could possibly care about. It was done in the wrong format, and Dick refused to listen to me about how the story needed to be told. Suddenly "Revelation" was "I'm not Black" all over again. I would link you all to it, but I don't want the hits being traced back to my blog. If you must see the horror please ask me.

Soon I was asked to have a conference with the other writer. His name, of course, was David.

PART 5 will be posted later, I promise it will end this saga once and for all.