Crimson – Coming soon to DVD

The Vampire Project with Poche Pictures now has a name – Crimson. It is in the final stages of post-production and will be hitting the market soon, with ads and reviews in the horror press like Fangoria and Rue Morgue within a few months.

It looks like the script I did had some changes made at the last minute. Evidentally one of the actresses, who was signed to play one of the parts, was an awful person to work with. She was driving all the crew, and especially the director, absolutely nuts. It got so bad that they decided to kill her off right away, damn the script. So they had to throw out my third act and revert back to the original third act to cover her death.

So the reckoning turned out to be there was an original script from which I did a page one rewrite. The original writer then came back to do some additional revisioning. Then on set the producer and director decided to do a last second melding of the various scripts to settle the bitch-of-an-actress issue. So now I’m one of the writers, but I have no idea what the final product will look like.

Of course, this is the type of thing that happens when you write scripts. Ever wonder why there are sometimes 8-12 writers’ names credited to a film? You know what I mean… Story by George Jones, Peter Peters, and Sandy Smith, Screenplay by Tiny Topper, Loopy Lindy and Roger Wingbat, etc, etc, etc.

Accordong to WGAw rules, there are up to three writers who get a Story By credit, up to three get a Screenplay By credit, up to three get a Written By credit (and what the difference is between a Screenplay By and a Written By is I’ll never know). So if you have lots of writers, one or more are often left out to dry. Of course, on the infamous Waterworld up to 19 writers had a hand in at one time or another. And of course, that is under WGAw Contract Rules. Independent films can be a completely different kettle of fish, but it looks like Rich Poche is going to do right by me.

Of course, in the past, when I’ve been involved in such silliness I was always the guy edged out without a screen credit. This time, I’ll get a minor one. Huzzah!