ROCK 'N' ROLL HOTEL -- DOOMED FROM THE START
Read how I got kicked out of Hollywood here!
Read my screenplay Global Village Idiot here for free!
New! Follow me on twitter as @RussDvonch.I'll be tweeting and posting every day until the premiere showing ofRock 'n' Roll Hotel on August 30th at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA.
Arghh! Still not finished with the big post, so there’s this, instead…
I believe that Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel, from its inception, was a doomed project. The photo below explains why.
This is one of the few documents I can find from the entire shoot that I’ve still kept after all these years – a roster of pre-production personnel, listing names, their hotels and contact phone numbers (which I’ve redacted).
It names every position on the pre-production team – producers, director, camera, costuming, casting, special effects. Everybody important in pre-production is accounted for…except one:
No writer.
Not even me. I wouldn’t be asked to join the shoot until days later. By then, I’d only have a month to finish the screenplay before shooting started.
The memo is dated 8/31/82 – less than 2 months before the first day of shooting.
Eight weeks before cameras start rolling and not only is there no screenplay, they haven't even hired the writer, yet. [Although, to be fair, the director was probably thinking about the musical sequences by this time...at least I hope he was.]
They don’t even have a name for the movie – all they’ve got is a generic working title: “Rock Fantasy.”
Please consider for a moment what this means.
Imagine a subdivision developer, building single family homes in a new parcel of land...
He's starting his latest home and gathers his construction foreman and all the head contractors – electrical, carpentry, masonry, etc. – to his office. He has them crowd around a drafting table, rolls out a large sheaf of architectural drawings, taps a finger on the pages and announces, “OK, fellas – this is a multi-million dollar construction job and we start building next month. Here what we're going to build...”
And these are the plans that he shows them:
The plans read: House Here.
Each page is the same. No drawings. No structure. Just the concept of “House Here.”
When the construction foreman points out that there’s no actual plans for construction on the papers, the developer waves away his concern.
“Don’t worry…we’ve got the most important part — the financing. It’s all set…as long as we start next month and finish construction the month after that.
When the contractors point out that architectural drawings alone typically require three months to complete, the foreman again dismisses their objections. “C’mon guys – we got the financing! That means we’ve all got jobs! You want jobs for you and your men, don’t you?”
The contractors agree, but continue to worry. “Yes, we want jobs, but…it will still take three months to get a workable set of plans!
“Three months? For a bunch of drawings? I’ll find an architect to tell him to draw it in 4 weeks. He’ll be happy to do it. He wants a job, too. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important around here.”
And so they started the project. They found an architect. As required, the architect rushed the work and completed the drawings in four weeks. And the developer was right…the architect was happy to find work. The plans were completed and construction began on time.
The site was graded and the foundation poured according to the specifications agreed to by the architect and the developer. The trouble began when the carpenters arrived and started framing the house.
The carpenters discovered that the foundation was defective. There was no reinforcement within the concrete – none of the supporting metal wires, rebar and plastic mesh that gives it strength. Just a badly mixed slurry of stones and cement, that chipped and cracked and crumbled the minute anything of weight was placed on top of it. And the layout of the foundation itself made no sense – it was a convoluted maze that didn’t really match up with the specifications of the framing.
The real world demonstrated the truth behind the architectural drawings — the drawings were a rushed job.
After a few days of carpenters building walls that went nowhere and whole sections that refused to stand, even with makeshift supports, the foreman was fired by the developer. The construction was halted and another foreman was hired to oversee the work. He brought in his own architect to re-work the plans. But the foreman and the new architect were given even less time to complete the drawings because everyone was still on salary and waiting around on-site, tools in hand, to start work anew.
Construction began again, but the plans were still faulty – new walls, windows and doors were added, but the foundation remained basically the same. After two months of backbreaking labor, quick fixes and rising tension and house was completed – on time.
On the final day of work, the builders stepped back from the house and took a look at what they had created.
The builders hoped the multi-million home that they had labored so hard on would turn out like this:
Instead it turned out like this:
Doomed.
From the start.
Does this story sound impossible?
Does it seem like no-one in the real world would be crazy enough to build a multi-million dollar project in a rush with such poor planning?
Citizens of Richmond — Welcome to Hollywood!
Next Post: Who Wrote Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel?
Read my screenplay Global Village Idiot here for free!
New! Follow me on twitter as @RussDvonch.I'll be tweeting and posting every day until the premiere showing ofRock 'n' Roll Hotel on August 30th at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, VA.
Arghh! Still not finished with the big post, so there’s this, instead…
I believe that Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel, from its inception, was a doomed project. The photo below explains why.
This is one of the few documents I can find from the entire shoot that I’ve still kept after all these years – a roster of pre-production personnel, listing names, their hotels and contact phone numbers (which I’ve redacted).
It names every position on the pre-production team – producers, director, camera, costuming, casting, special effects. Everybody important in pre-production is accounted for…except one:
No writer.
Not even me. I wouldn’t be asked to join the shoot until days later. By then, I’d only have a month to finish the screenplay before shooting started.
The memo is dated 8/31/82 – less than 2 months before the first day of shooting.
Eight weeks before cameras start rolling and not only is there no screenplay, they haven't even hired the writer, yet. [Although, to be fair, the director was probably thinking about the musical sequences by this time...at least I hope he was.]
They don’t even have a name for the movie – all they’ve got is a generic working title: “Rock Fantasy.”
Please consider for a moment what this means.
Imagine a subdivision developer, building single family homes in a new parcel of land...
He's starting his latest home and gathers his construction foreman and all the head contractors – electrical, carpentry, masonry, etc. – to his office. He has them crowd around a drafting table, rolls out a large sheaf of architectural drawings, taps a finger on the pages and announces, “OK, fellas – this is a multi-million dollar construction job and we start building next month. Here what we're going to build...”
And these are the plans that he shows them:
The plans read: House Here.
Each page is the same. No drawings. No structure. Just the concept of “House Here.”
When the construction foreman points out that there’s no actual plans for construction on the papers, the developer waves away his concern.
“Don’t worry…we’ve got the most important part — the financing. It’s all set…as long as we start next month and finish construction the month after that.
When the contractors point out that architectural drawings alone typically require three months to complete, the foreman again dismisses their objections. “C’mon guys – we got the financing! That means we’ve all got jobs! You want jobs for you and your men, don’t you?”
The contractors agree, but continue to worry. “Yes, we want jobs, but…it will still take three months to get a workable set of plans!
“Three months? For a bunch of drawings? I’ll find an architect to tell him to draw it in 4 weeks. He’ll be happy to do it. He wants a job, too. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important around here.”
And so they started the project. They found an architect. As required, the architect rushed the work and completed the drawings in four weeks. And the developer was right…the architect was happy to find work. The plans were completed and construction began on time.
The site was graded and the foundation poured according to the specifications agreed to by the architect and the developer. The trouble began when the carpenters arrived and started framing the house.
The carpenters discovered that the foundation was defective. There was no reinforcement within the concrete – none of the supporting metal wires, rebar and plastic mesh that gives it strength. Just a badly mixed slurry of stones and cement, that chipped and cracked and crumbled the minute anything of weight was placed on top of it. And the layout of the foundation itself made no sense – it was a convoluted maze that didn’t really match up with the specifications of the framing.
The real world demonstrated the truth behind the architectural drawings — the drawings were a rushed job.
After a few days of carpenters building walls that went nowhere and whole sections that refused to stand, even with makeshift supports, the foreman was fired by the developer. The construction was halted and another foreman was hired to oversee the work. He brought in his own architect to re-work the plans. But the foreman and the new architect were given even less time to complete the drawings because everyone was still on salary and waiting around on-site, tools in hand, to start work anew.
Construction began again, but the plans were still faulty – new walls, windows and doors were added, but the foundation remained basically the same. After two months of backbreaking labor, quick fixes and rising tension and house was completed – on time.
On the final day of work, the builders stepped back from the house and took a look at what they had created.
The builders hoped the multi-million home that they had labored so hard on would turn out like this:
Instead it turned out like this:
Doomed.
From the start.
Does this story sound impossible?
Does it seem like no-one in the real world would be crazy enough to build a multi-million dollar project in a rush with such poor planning?
Citizens of Richmond — Welcome to Hollywood!
Next Post: Who Wrote Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel?
Posted by Henry Halloway at 8/27/2010 6:23 AM 
Categories: Rock 'n' Roll Hotel, Me Myself and I
Tags: Rock 'n' Roll Hotel Colin Quinn Donna Mckechnie rachel sweet Judd Nelson Stella Stevens screenwriting
Categories: Rock 'n' Roll Hotel, Me Myself and I
Tags: Rock 'n' Roll Hotel Colin Quinn Donna Mckechnie rachel sweet Judd Nelson Stella Stevens screenwriting
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