As most of you may know or not know, my nephew, Brian George and I wrote the script for what was originally titled " Bette Hogan's Freedom Fund". The script is based on a the short story that I mentioned earlier in my blog. We have renamed the title to be "The Freedom Fund" and as you can see below, I have included the information on the characters and hopefully fleshed out their substance so that the actors can draw on a little deeper personality and background. I may turn it into a book, so as you read along with me, share your thoughts.

We are waiting to hear back from several accomplished actors and personalities that we want to be part of the movie. We have a qualified and experienced director, some awesome actors and production talent and we have a distribution deal in place for after the movie is made. After we get our talent signed we can go and raise production money. Patient steps are part of the movie making process.

Enjoy the beginning of the story, I will keep posting until it is all up there.



Chapter One-

The house stood at the end of an empty street with an open lot to the east of it and one neighbor to the west. Built just after World War Two, part of some future new housing development designed to make use of the many dollars available through the Veterans Administration, the house wears a worn expression shared by the inhabitants who call it home.

The unforgiving swamp land that surrounds the two prototypical model homes seeped with mud and water most of the year drying only slightly in the late spring and summer months. The moisture replaced by the fragrance of rotting grass and vegetation remained in the air during those months.

Bette Hogan lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off. In fact, if she had her druthers, she would prefer that it never go off at all. Snoring next to her was her former lover, knight in shining armor and present husband, Ben.

Bette, a middle aged 47 year old woman, thought to herself as she moved towards the light of the bathroom, “How in the world can I be middle aged, that would mean that I would have to live to be 94 years old. There is no way I will…”

Her silent bathroom thoughts were interrupted by the golden voice of Steve Hartman, a nationally syndicated sports talk personality who is the current favorite of her formerly sleeping husband who is now yelling at her to hit the snooze alarm on the squawk box of a radio.

In her head she yelled, “Do it yourself butt head!” And in real life, tiptoed in and silenced Mr. Hartman for another ten minutes. As she moved in silence back to the privacy of the bathroom, her husband threw off the covers and made a beeline to “do his morning business”, grumbling as he shut the door.

Knowing that it would be several minutes for the bathroom to clear out with the help of an open window and a can of air freshener, Bette went to the kitchen to make coffee and avoid hearing the obligatory grunting and griping that came with the franchise known as Ben Hogan. Her mind wandered back to when they were first married and how she would be embarrassed to pass gas or leave a mess of any kind in the bathroom. Those days were gone as her husband would exit with the proclaiming pronouncements of “hang time” and false warnings of “I wouldn’t go in there, if I were you”. All of these things were at one time cute at best but at this stage of their marriage, they were just irritating at least.

With the aroma of brewed coffee in the air, Bette looked at the black and white picture of her father and muttered quietly, “You were right Pop’s, “I should have never…” “Sorry about what, dear wife, as Ben slithered up on her. Lately he had been doing that more and more and she found it to be irritating and the last straw, so to speak.

“Nothing, just thinking of my dad” she answered.’ You seem a little jumpy there sweetness, maybe you ought to go get “checked out” by the doctor again.

Bette turned to go to the bathroom, angry that her husband brought up the doctor visits again. Ever since they went to see the doctor earlier in their marriage and Bette found out that she was unable to have children, Ben used the term “checked out” as a weapon against her.

To be continued...

I remember seeing a movie, in the mid eighties, called "Blood Simple". This was the first big movie made by the Coen Brothers and their "low" budget movie was made for right around a million dollars. Because of the cost of film, the related processing costs along with distribution of those heavy rolls of 35 mm, ate up a majority of the film's budget, not leaving much for actors and production costs.

I am remembering a quote by someone, I can't remember, who said that when technology falls into the hand of the common man, true freedom exists. That is exactly what has happened in regards to movie making. Today, you can rent a camera and equipment for a couple thousand dollars and with a little ingenuity, you can produce your own movie.

In my next post, I will start to tell you my story on how our band of merry film producers are doing just that.

The Big Idea

Several years ago, at a time when the world was having it's way with me, my wife and I went to buy some take out Mexican food. When I got back to the car, I told Susan (my lovely bride) that I had an idea about a story that involved a husband handing his wife a burrito that was poisoned, and then...

About this time, I am coming out of my inspirational fog and in front of me is my wife of thirty five years giving me and our dinner, the "stink eye". Trying to maintain the storyline in my head at the same time assuring her that her food wasn't poisoned,I went home and started to write "Bette Hogan's Freedom Fund".

When I finished the story, I contacted my nephew, Brian George. I knew that Brian was a writer and he always wanted to write a movie script, after a brief conversation, we got started writing.

Now, Brian lives in Long Beach and I live in Redlands and it took us a year but we finished the script. After it was done, we wanted it to be made into a movie so we thought we would go the screenplay contest route and after two disasterous encounters with those knucklehead's I figured that I would make the movie myself.

Coming up next... "Let's Make A Movie"