Posted on

David Boles’ Personal History: December 13, 1994

A career is an interesting thing in comparison with a life. The career is temporary, but the life is both temporal, and temporary. The other day, for some reason, Ezra Stone was bothering my mind, as I tried to remember why he had contacted me so many years ago. I did a quick search of my Google Docs and his name popped up in a document titled — “David Boles’ Personal History” — dated December 13, 1994. That file turned out to be a wowser!

I am not sure why that document was originally written. I was three years out of my MFA at Columbia University in the City of New York. Oftentimes, these personal histories are written for grants, but this file was too personal, and specific for a grant committee — the file reads as if I were forcing myself to remember what happened for some existential reason.

One thing I noticed about the file is that it is filled with names — and that still astonishes me, that so much effort and time for what I was trying to do was not really ever about the actual work, but it was more about the personalities involved. I’m an INTJ, not really a people person, so it makes sense I had more ongoing success working alone in Nebraska than I ever did working with the creative gangs in New York City. On your own, you’re on your own to live or die; I always thrived. In the City, you a play a limited role by design, and you have to hope others are as dedicated to you, and to your idea, as you are — but it never turns out that way.

Nobody wants to pay for anything; they want every idea for free; and you always hope it’s about the work — but as you’ll see — it’s never about the work. It’s only about — the money!

This document may have been a tipping point or a turning point — two years later I started Go Inside Magazine — and began writing and publishing on my own. I could serve only the Master I knew, and no longer the talents I did not understand.

Continue reading → David Boles’ Personal History: December 13, 1994

Posted on

The Nature of the Director

The nature of the director in any form — movies, television, stage, radio — is to serve the spirit of the script. 

A director is not the master of the script — the director must be a slave to the written word in order to understand the greater purpose of the writing.

Many directors believe they are co-authors of a work and that is wrong. 

Weak authors create strong directors and that wrongful power dyad is always terrible for the script.

A script is not a blueprint or an architectural dream.

A script is the bones, sinew, muscle, heart and being of any project.

For anyone other than the author to change the work in situ or to re-arrange established ideas on the page is to threaten the very core of the project that risks creating the common and the ordinary failure that reeks in the marketplace and is immediately forgotten by those in the audience who writhe and yearn for meaning in their escape into entertainment.

Posted on

The Lesson of the UCLA Screenwriting Gnome

Many years ago I was considering getting an advanced degree in screenwriting at UCLA.

I was invited to sit in on a class and I was glad I did because it was during that visit I realized UCLA was not the right place for me.

Continue reading → The Lesson of the UCLA Screenwriting Gnome

Posted on

Slumming at the Westwood Marquis Hotel and Gardens for $150 a Night

[Update – June 17, 1998: I get weekly messages about this article from GO INSIDE Magazine readers who continue to confirm my experience with the Westwood Marquis Hotel & Gardens despite what, I am told, is the hotel’s occasional claim over the phone that the “UCLA suites” have been remodeled and that my article is “out of date.” However, other readers report that the hotel confesses the “UCLA suites” have “not yet been remodeled” when confronted with the experiences I report in this article when they attempt to make a room reservation. I recently called the hotel and posed as a prospective guest. Without identifying myself, I casually mentioned this article and I asked if the “UCLA suites” description was accurate? I was told that those rooms have “yet to be remodeled.” All I can say is “Buyer Beware!” since the veracity of the situation appears to spin on who answers the phone at the hotel’s reception desk. I’ll continue to update this article as necessary.]

Continue reading → Slumming at the Westwood Marquis Hotel and Gardens for $150 a Night