“Portland-made 'Nick Bradley' might be a TV series - Oregonian” plus 1 more |
| Portland-made 'Nick Bradley' might be a TV series - Oregonian Posted: 15 Dec 2010 10:32 PM PST Like so few success stories, this begins with one of our heroes hurling a beer bottle through a fraternity window. He was drunk at the time. And immediately aghast, even before he sobered up. "I was totally embarrassed," says Jeremiah Adler, with an audible cringe in his voice. "I apologized profusely, saying I'd do anything to make it up." So then came alcohol counseling and an array of questions he's still working through. Did his bouts of partying make him an alcoholic? When do collegiate high jinks devolve into a life-threatening problem? Adler still isn't sure. But he is confident that his post-bottle-hurling decision to focus more intently on writing, and his creative partnership with fellow Willamette University student Brianna Barrett, was a good one. If only because they ended up writing and producing an extra-low-budget TV pilot that has become a hot prospect for broadcast and cable programmers alike. There's no guarantee that all this excitement over Adler and Barrett's pilot episode will result in it becoming a TV series. But it has already landed them a manager, representation at the high-powered ICM Agency and a deal at a top-drawer production company at Universal Studios. Things are happening so quickly, Adler says, that the premiere screening they're mounting at the Bagdad theater Monday night — a favor for all of their local cast members, crew and friends — may include a big announcement about the show's future. Or maybe not. "It's possible!" Adler says. "We've got meetings and .¤.¤. "
Then Barrett shushes him. It's way too soon to say that, she cautions. Their new manager is already telling them to stop talking about possible deals until they actually happen. "We're just learning the nature of the business," Adler says next. "So I guess my speculating on the likelihood of anything is kind of futile." If only because they're already so far beyond the scope of what's likely to happen to a couple of young writers working their first-ever TV pilot. Their eyes are just adjusting to the light.
It may be rainy and dark up in Oregon these days, but it's sunny and warm in Los Angeles, where Barrett and Adler are both talking on the same speakerphone. Kind of a different world, when you think about it. And as anyone in the Industry — as they call the TV/movie business down there — can attest, it all seems sunnier when you've got your hands on a hot project.
No wonder the words coming up the wire from California carry the glow of so much sun, excitement and borderline disbelief. The layers of lawyers, managers, agents and production company executives and celebrity senior partners. A long way from rainy Portland, for sure. Even longer from the halls of the Waldorf School, whose curriculum all but requires students to stay away from modern media. "They figured watching TV and playing video games would hamper your creativity," says Adler, who attended the private school through high school.
There's a lot to be said for avoiding the flash-and-trash of modern culture. But what happens if a boy's natural-born creativity takes a turn for the cinematic? To the Garden Home-raised Adler, that meant getting his hands on a video camera, and recruiting friends to star in action movie scenes staged in parking garages in the dead of night. And though he went on to study post-Civil War American history at Willamette University, Adler also invested time catching up on all the top-drawer TV he'd missed during his media-free childhood.
"The Shield," "The Sopranos," "The Wire," and on and on. "It was like a crash course in what makes a great TV show," he says. Meanwhile the Tigard-raised, partly home-schooled Barrett followed her own quirky path to screenwriting, riding a fascination for the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Shakespeare to stints on the staff of the Southridge High School student newspaper, to founding a school literary magazine to a growing interest in the stage and screen.
"I was passionate about becoming a writer," she says.
Adler and Barrett met as Willamette students and soon formed a creative partnership that propelled them through school and then to the threshold of professional writing. But how can a couple of kids from the mossy shores of the Willamette even get their moccasins in, and beyond, the sleek doors of Hollywood? The first hint came, oddly enough, when Adler spent a collegiate summer working at a summer camp near Big Bear, Calif. There, he met Danielle Alexandra, a writer/producer who had written and/or produced multiple episodes of TV shows before scoring with the 1997 action film, "G.I. Jane." Simply having the opportunity to meet Alexandra and talk for a bit turned into a catalytic moment. "Suddenly Hollywood didn't seem like a big, scary thing," Adler says. "People actually DO this, and make a ton of money doing it! That made it real."
Resolved to follow their ambitions to Hollywood, Barrett and Adler figured they would at least wait until they had a solid spec script to show agents and producers when they got there. Sifting through ideas for characters and situations, Adler kept coming back to his regrettably drunken night on the Willamette campus — the bottle, the window, you remember. Then a character came into focus: Nick Bradley, a feckless rich kid who in the course of a few days is made to take over his dad's business and pay for a drunken driving conviction by joining Alcoholics Anonymous and taking on 3,000 hours of community service. The idea grew into a script, which they might have used as a calling card in Hollywood. But with so many aspiring writers pitching so many scripts for serious-minded comedy-dramas around that town, Adler and Barrett came up with a second, gutsier plan: They'd raise $50,000 and actually turn the script into a 30-minute pilot for the series. And while the fundraising didn't go very well — they eventually settled for a $4,000 budget fronted by Barrett's father — the pair proved remarkably adept at convincing others to provide crucial locations (including a luxurious West Hills house to serve as the main character's house), props (a $250,000 Lamborghini sports car, for instance), technical gear and services. Gavin Bristol, a local actor known for his roles in "Twilight" and "Leverage," took on the lead role.
They shot the show in two weeks during the summer of 2009, then took a rough cut, named "Nick Bradley Might Be an Alcoholic," with them to Los Angeles that fall. It didn't take long for miraculous things to start happening.
An Emmy-winning editor liked it enough to craft a professional cut. Then he passed it to his composer friend, who wrote a score for the episode. A lawyer they met passed a copy to a manager, who introduced them to an agent who signed up to represent them through the mega-agency ICM. Then came the deal with a production company at Universal Studios. "People keep telling us it's a very uncommon chain of events," Adler says. And the wheels keep turning. They've got a full schedule of meetings with cable programmers interested in "Nick Bradley," and more on the way, too. A new comedy script they're almost ready to start pitching, plus visits with producers who have projects that need writing. Including a recent meet-up with the staff at Happy Madison, the production house run by actor Adam Sandler.
Barrett and Adler will be back in Portland for their screening on Monday. But don't expect to see them for very long. "We definitely haven't made it yet," Adler says. "But we're taking some significant steps." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Rollin' on out! AMC greenlights the railroad series 'Hell on Wheels' - Los Angeles Times Posted: 15 Dec 2010 01:57 PM PST December 15, 2010 | 1:50 pm
"We are thrilled to bring 'Hell on Wheels' to series," said Joel Stillerman, AMC's senior vice president of original programming, production and digital content, in a statement. "AMC's commitment to the western is long standing, and the genre is an important part of our brand and history as a channel. This show has some incredibly original twists and turns and a contemporary sensibility that we think will bring a very broad audience to our newest drama series." With "Hell on Wheels," AMC continues to delve into genre fare: the zombie-fest "The Walking Dead" was nominated for a Golden Globe on Tuesday, and "The Killing," a crime drama set in the Northwest, is due early next year. — Melissa Maerz Photo: Common. Credit: EPA / Justin Lane This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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