The Mystery of the Cape Cod Treatment - The Finale

Thanks for stopping by! Only a couple of more weeks until a new year and all new opportunities. I have been posting now for almost a year and it has all gone by pretty damn fast. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by the site to take a look. A special thanks to a few of the guests who have visited as well. Mark Verheiden, Tadd Galusha, Dwayne Epstein and Pacia Linde, you are all tops in my books! Here’s to a great new year with new posts and maybe a few new writing jobs…for all of us!
 
And now, the thrilling conclusion of The Mystery of the Cape Cod Treatment.
 
The unsigned check appeared to be only a minor setback. All that was needed was a quick call to my agent to get that all settled. I was a bit taken aback when I was basically told to call the producer myself. Well, so much for representation. I sucked it up and called. The producer apologized profusely, and I was assured a new and signed check was now in the mail. I was back in business. The 81/2 by 13 yellow legal pads were thrown into the backpack and I raced off to my writing haunt in downtown Portland, the Coffee Ritz.
 
Since I was not really a typist back then…didn’t even own a typewriter, I contacted a friend who agreed to a $100.00 payment to type my opus up. He kept me waiting a few extra weeks, but eventually finished the job and turned the pages back over to me. 
 
Perhaps it was my enthusiasm that blinded me to my lack of competence. To be honest, I’m not sure. But when I realized that the 60-page treatment I had managed to come up with was completely devoid of tone, theme, characterization and general ability, I knew I was in trouble. Not matter, I assured myself. It will all look much better when I pay someone to type it all us. One hundred dollars in hand, I delivered my masterpiece to a friend and he went to work, taking over two months to deliver the goods. When I finally received the pages, I was relieved to find that indeed, the treatment did look more professional. What it lacked in skill, it more than made for with an excellent looking title page. As you can guess, the body of the work was, eh, how to I put this politely, long, rambling and a mess. Armed with this, eh, manuscript, I stuffed it all in an envelope and sent it off to New York. The arranged deal was that I would receive the 2nd payment upon delivery. All told, a total of two weeks would be sufficient before once again, I would be a thousandaire.
 

​Back in the early eighties, there were precious few resources on how to write a film treatment. The ones you did find, seemed to be of differing opinions on style and substance. Some instructed to go long, while others insisted on keeping it short and brief. All of this did not matter to me as I either did not read them at all or simply didn’t pay any attention. Obviously, what I turned in was not very good and the end result was I never heard from that Producer again. As well as I can recollect, I don’t believe I even reached out to see if the producer received it. In the period of the two weeks, I had come to the realization that I did not have the talent or knowledge to tackle such a project. I guess on the positive side, the production company folded shortly after I submitted my work. I often wonder if I had something to do with sending an already teetering company over the edge. Likewise, Manhattan Artists is no longer an Agency (Literary or otherwise.) I’m only left with a copy of the contract and the notorious unsigned check. I don’t know, but from what was learned, I say it has all been worth it.

We have another very special guest next week. Friend, mentor and an all-around fantastic writer, Dan Sanders will be dropping by with some insights on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” There’s only one writer I could think of to tackle this subject and that’s him. But don’t take my word for it. Check out his bio. 
 
Dan Sanders broke into screenwriting on weekly retainer for a man who was considered, in the late Twentieth Century, the undisputed Sleaziest Producer in Hollywood. This man only shot his films overseas and took the passports of anyone he hired for these foreign shoots – so his employees could not leave until final wrap. Deeply PTSD’d by this foray into white slavery filmmaking, Dan did penance in the following years by writing for the BBC and PBS. In recent years he has written for Lifetime Television on a number of projects, currently on one of their patented Christmas films. In the mid-2000s he took a break from writing to play Michael Jackson’s lawyer for five months on a series that was seen in over 100 countries; he still gets mail from a surprising number of overseas King of Pop fans who think he was really MJ’s lawyer. Other current writing projects include a digital feature that will star young comedy and music influencers, and a limited series based on one of the great pillars of the entire science fiction genre – once the rights-holding studio finally fires that Head of TV Production. (Given that their stock’s current value rating is “Charmin,” it should be any day now.) Dan holds an MFA in drama from the University of California-Irvine because he knew he’d better go for the sure money in this hard-old world. He is a longtime resident of Santa Monica.

Next Week: A review of "The Irishman" by Dan Sanders.