The Heroin Derivative

We are looking for people.

We are looking for some people that may be interested in playing supporting rolls as well as extras in “The Heroin Derivative”

We will be shooting in and around the bay area tentatively scheduled for early March through the end of April on weekends and perhaps some weekdays if possible. We need a pool of people to look through to cast for friends of the lead characters as well as some other smaller parts. There will only be a few speaking parts, so please if you are interested, let me know if you would be comfortable with a speaking part. We will also need people as fillers and extras as well.

If you will live in or will be in the bay area around those dates and are interested in us looking at you for a roll, please send an email to the address below. If I already know you and you are interested, just shoot me an e-mail and we will go from there.

Thanks so much everyone!

Please send an email to element3media (at) gmail (dotcom) with a recent photo of you, a little about yourself and what you would be interested in playing.

Exhausted

Had a long weekend. Feel like dirt scattered across a lawn or shit on a monkey’s cage.

It’s true that the hungover brain works at half capacity, but usually this is to my advantage. Believe or not, large portions of my book were written with my balls in the squeezing hand of a hangover. Somehow it works.

If I were to guess I’d say it’s because it gives me 3 things. 1) edge — the bitter shitty feeling makes for good writing. 2) focus — my mind, in it’s diminished state, is less readily distracted. 3) pacing — with my brain slowed down I can actually type & think at about the same speed.

While all of this is very interesting (or so I’d like to believe) it doesn’t mean anything today. The hangover was too strong. I had some good conceptual ideas for the film as a whole, but no words came out.

Need sleep.

—CH—

P.S. I think it’s worth noting the films that have come up for some reason or another since this project began.

Fight Club The Usual Suspects Pulp Fiction The Wizard Of Oz Irreversible Old Boy Psycho

Influence

I know the tone I want for this film but it’s not something I can readily explain.  The best way I can say it is buried in filth & filled with beauty.

I’ve been consciously obsessed with this idea since reading Denis Johnson’s brilliant short story collection Jesus’ Son.  I’ve seen people try to go dark & bring out beauty before.  It usually comes off as cheesy middling crap.  And it took me until this moment now to realize why.  It’s because these writers are trying to make a point & the point itself never goes into the darkness.  The writers never goes into the darkness & the audience can tell.   Dishonesty shows through.  No matter how much cocaine, blood & semen you pour on top of a fairy tale, its still a fairy tale.  If you really want to wallow in the pig shit, you can’t just put your hand in, you’ve got to roll around in it.  And you can’t do it expecting to find pearls.

Denis Johnson is so impressive to me because he cannonballs into the darkness & comes out with beauty.  And it’s genuine because he wasn’t looking for it when he dove in.  He finds it on accident.

Two lines from the story Car Crash While Hitchhiking will be inside my head for ever.  And these two lines show his craft for words (which is beauty in & of itself) & they show the contrasts he is capable of.

“The travelling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out.”

And

“The doctor took her into a room with a desk at the end of the hall, and from under the closed door a slab of brilliance radiated as if, by some stupendous process, diamonds were being incinerated in there.”

Fucking amazing!  I hope to write this script with 10% of the skill Johnson has.

I’ve also just finished watching my first Gaspar Noé film, Irreversible.  It too has the same feeling as Jesus’ Son.  I hope to watch more of Gaspar’s films.  Along with gems from Jodorowsky, Lynch & Cronenberg.

—CH—

Joshua Murphy | Chad Hall | The Heroin Derivative | Drinking & Debauchry | element3media

The Creative Process is Developmental

The creative process is developmental.  What I mean by that is it takes time. Much like developing film, it takes a little while for the picture to come thru the haze. Often, I have to wait until the words are ready before I can sit down & have a real writing session.

This waiting period is what I am in now.  I have most of the film worked out in my head, but there are a few snags I need to resolve.  The only way I find to resolve such snags is to stew upon everything for a few days.  Eventual it works itself to resolution.  

Another part of the waiting is knowing when I’m are ready to write something. Sometimes, even after the idea is fully prepared, I am not.  I’m not in the proper mindset.  Writing something when I’m not in it, is a waste of time.  The words come in the wrong order.  The wrong words at that!  I can easily burn out an idea by writing poorly about it.  

So once again I wait, but in this waiting I surround myself with inspiration.  Now I don’t mean inspiration in the flute-air-up-the-ass kind of way, I mean things that will kick my mind into gear.  Movies, Art, Books, Music, atmosphere — anything that will snap me out of begin a human & tranform me back into a writer.

What I do in the mean time is write fragments.  Every little piece that comes to mind I put right into Evernote. Later when I sit down to write, I’ll have a ton of little pieces to work with.

Any asshole who tells you he’s a writer is full of shit unless he’s typing or scribbling in a notebook.  The rest of the time, writers are like everybody else: unmotivated & full of half cocked-ideas.  And that’s what the hardest part about writing is.  Wonder Woman & The Green Lantern can put on jewelry & instantly become superheros, but picking up a pen doesn’t do a damn thing.

—CH—

Joshua Murphy | Chad Hall | The Heroin Derivative | Drinking & Debauchry | element3media

“The Heroin Derivative” goes into production.

Joshua Murphy & Chad Hall in conjunction with element3media and Living Pictures Productions announce that “The Heroin Derivative” a short film based on the short story “Heroin” by Joshua Murphy has begun production and is scheduled to be finished in January of 2012.

The film is currently being written and the synopses and other information will be released soon. The film will also be submitted to multiple film festivals and hopes to get pick ed up for distribution or re-production by a studio.

The Heroin Derivative will be directed & produced by Joshua Murphy and is written by Chad Hall. The duo will be posting production information, behind the scene photos as well as an insight into the creative process on their site. You can also become a fan of the movie on Face Book.

Follow Joshua Murphy, Chad Hall & The Heroin Derivative on Twitter.

Joshua Murphy | Chad Hall | The Heroin Derivative | element3media