Reel Suite: February 24, 2009

Good morning my Blog-o-holics.  I have just now emerged from what was perhaps the most exciting 48 hours of my professional career.  As many of my co-workers have been let go in the last several weeks and my Profits & Participations department is frighteningly threadbare, I was assigned the task of escorting one of our newly signed filmmakers to the 81st Annual Academy Awards ceremony, an experience I will share with you soon enough, but first, a little background on Manka Bros.' latest strategy to develop a stable of short-film talent.
 
It is common knowledge that no feature film released in 2008 has turned a profit.  Between soaring budgets, co-fi deals, star backend participation and just plain shoddy accounting, the smart production entities are focused more and more on short-form content, which can garner notoriety on the festival circuit and at year-end awards time, not to mention the popularity it can achieve on the internet.  67% of short films in 2008 turned a profit for their investors, as opposed to 31% of feature films.  Profit margins were 16% greater for short films, as well.  Our "Lil' Diamonds" shingle within our Manka Shorts division, with its dedicated staff of three, has been given $26,423 and ordered to produce 136 short films in 2009, with the mandate to "push the envelope, think outside the box and go viral, baby, viral".
 
With that in mind, Manka Bros. last week signed director Kunio Kato, who at the time was merely an Oscar nominee for his animated short, "La Maison en Petits Cubes".  He is contractually obligated to craft 10 films featuring hangdog characters and squiggly animation.  Since Mr. Kato knew no one else in town, he asked the Manka Bros. execs if one of them could accompany him to the ceremony, to "help with his English and to locate bathroom".  Many of our senior execs were not available due to Mr. Manka's insistence that they remain in the office during the Oscars to "reflect on the missteps which caused Manka Bros. to not receive one single nomination".  So my boss, Mark Devere, asked me if I'd be willing to step in, and I told him I was more than up for the challenge, as long as my dry cleaners could do a rush job on my one funeral suit.
 
On Saturday around 11 pm, Kunio called me at home.  I could tell he'd been drinking.  He lowered his voice and said very seriously, "Cheeseburger... I remember eat cheeseburger".  Sensing my confusion, he howled with laughter and cried, "I am not a crook!"  Turns out, he got hammered at a DGA screening of "Frost/Nixon".  He couldn't remember which hotel he had checked into, so he asked me if he could stay the night at my townhouse in Tarzana.  I agreed and picked him up in an alley behind the Laugh Factory, where he was sharing a joint with Bob Sarlatte. 

On the ride back, he found my cassette tape of Kilroy Was Here by Styx and popped it in.  When "Mr. Roboto" came on, he cranked it and listened in reverential silence.  He played it over and over, and by the 4th time, he was singing along with it. 

He was still uttering the lyrics as I tucked him into bed, a huge grin on his face.  Tomorrow would be one of the biggest days of his life.
 
Next entry, Oscar day and night.  Stay tuned...