I’ve been fortunate enough to have had almost 50 TV scripts produced. The bulk of them, I wrote under my own name. But, for a number of years in the early nineties, I wrote under various pseudonyms. (We’ll go into the reasons for that in a future column but, trust me, it has nothing to do with the Witness Protection Program.) In 1993, I had the distinct pleasure of writing for a topnotch coming-of-age show that aired on Showtime, called
Chris Cross. I loved that show. It only lasted for two brief seasons but it was a dream to write for and was filled with terrific characters. And of all the scripts I’ve had produced, I think the episode of
Chris Cross entitled
The Creeper (written under the nom de plum;
Brian Finch) was my favorite.
To start with, I could tell it was working while I was writing it. It’s one of those feelings that writers get from time to time when it’s obvious that the script is going exactly where it’s supposed to go, during the writing process. When it was finished, there were no holes to plug and no plot points to tweak. It all came together exactly as I wanted it to. Also in the plus column was the fact that I wanted to add a bit of dark mystery to this non-genre show and the producers were fine with it. I didn’t write anything supernatural – that would have been too much of a stretch. Instead, I wrote about a practical joker who dressed in black and struck at night. I named this person, The Creeper. It was a fun little script and I was thrilled with the way it looked on paper.
Now, please understand that, for writers, it almost never gets better than the day you send your script off to the producers. More times than not, when you finally see the finished produced TV episode, there are handfuls of things you would have liked to see turn out better. It’s just a part of the process and, if you’re smart, you get used to it as quickly as possible because TV and films are always going to be a collaborative effort. If you can’t handle that, it’s better that you get into book writing. There are certainly less fingers in the pie in the publishing world.
A few weeks after I mailed off my script, the producer called to tell me the good news that Ron Oliver would be directing my episode. I knew that Ron had directed Prom Night III: The Last Kiss and the thought of someone who had helmed a feature film directing my script, made me extremely happy.
When I finally saw the finished episode, I was ecstatic. The key to the episode’s suspense, I felt, was the short montage that covered the setup of the practical jokes. To my delight, Ron directed those snippets as though he had seen them through my mind’s eye. It was exactly as I had envisioned it would be. The short reveal shot of The Creeper, in full costume was great too. The shot actually reminded me a bit of some of the dark killers in those great Italian Giallo films of the early to mid-eighties. Ron also managed to fit in some sort of optical-looking zoom too; a favorite effect of mine from Jaws. But, without a doubt, my favorite “trick” from Ron had to do with a fireplace. In a scene where Deputy Headmaster Rogers is blaming two innocent students for all of the pranks, the fireplace behind him flares up, giving Rogers a decidedly Satanic look. It’s something that I would have never thought of. It takes a good scene that works pretty well and turns it into a brilliant scene. That one idea, alone, kicked my script up a notch and made me look like an absolute genius. Trust me, I’d love to be able to take credit for that one but it was Ron Oliver who put the frosting on that particular cake and I will be forever grateful to him.
That was fourteen years ago. I have done a few writing seminars since then and I use that story as an example of how a great piece of directing or acting can take a writer’s work to another level. But as much as I praised Ron’s work to others, I was never able to thank him myself. You see, unfortunately, writers and directors don’t always get the chance to meet in person. It’s a sad fact that in an age of faxes, emails, uploading and downloading, writers don’t have to be in the same town or even the same country, for that matter, as the production company that they write for.
Because, recently, I converted a lot of the episodes I wrote for various TV series’ from VHS to DVD, The Creeper was fresh in my mind again. I mentioned this story to Al Magliochetti; a friend of over thirty years and a brilliant special effects artist. In fact, Al had worked with Ron on Prom Night III: The Last Kiss. Much to my surprise, Al called a few weeks back to say he was at a signing at Dark Delicacies, in Burbank. The next thing I knew, he handed the phone to Ron Oliver, who was there, meeting fans and talking about his newest project, Blood Angels. I spoke to Ron for a few minutes, thanking him profusely at every turn. He spoke highly of my script; telling me it was a highlight of the series – something a writer never gets tired of – and, after some pleasant chit-chat, handed the phone back to Al.
Now, Al has come through for me quite a few times in over three decades - that's what friends do. But I can’t imagine he’ll ever truly know how much I appreciated the chance to thank a director for making me look like a better writer. Trust me, it’s something that every writer should experience, at least once.
Till next time…
D’Entre les Morts,
Rich
Can a network TV horror anthology series finally bring some good scares to horror fans? Let's hope so. For the most part, horror is at a lull. And although I was largely underwhelmed with Masters Of Horror, I am pretty psyched for Fear Itself; a new series from some of the guys behind Masters Of Horror.
