The Slow Stories Story

This all started in Soho, when Blaine and Steph were plotting to take over Vancouver radio, and I had a back of a sheet of paper, and I wrote "I reflected as I blew off the smoke oozing from the barrel."
 
And thus were born The Slow Stories, which became a pair of movies we later wrote and shot. Here they are.

Me And Slow

"Who was the blonde, fatso?"

The initial story, sets the stage, very short like all of them. I really like Max, even if he's mostly ripped off from Steven Brust. But then he ripped Vlad off from Raymond Chandler, right? Right?

Old Sal's Deal

"It's not your enemies you got to worry about. It's your friends."

I think I wrote most of this over at Blaine and Sal's. THAT Sal wasn't old, which may explain the name. I really like the scene between Sal and his lady. For some reason I can't explain; it just warms my heart.

Cigarette's Gun and Whisky

Don't get a chance to write when she's up, the film starts running too fast.

At first I thought this one wasn't finished, but honestly, I don't think Jameson ever wrote any more in that little journal. Whatever happened on the way into the Big Smoke is going to have to get told some other way.

Slow Alone

"You going to shoot me or what?"

When I wrote this one, it started to become clear to me that this whole thing was really about Slow Charlie. At least I think it is. He's the one who I think really powers everything that's going on. Of course there's Minnie's ambition and Siam's sleaze and Max' brain and Slim's desperation and Sal's wariness but I think it's Charlie's nobility and courage that form the bedrock of the story.

But that's as far as the whole thing went. Steph and I made a movie of Me And Slow, and then made a movie called Cigarette and Whisky. Both were intended to teach us specific things about film-making, and they did (shooting conversations, and working with actors, respectively), but neither exactly succeeds as entertainment, is our feeling.