The following feeler was sent to Jim Romenesko at Poynter.org:
Which reminds me of my dear friend Michael Allen Cornelison, who took his final curtain call earlier this month at age 59.
Bear with me here.
Mike was a wonderful actor and director, who appeared on television as a Los Angeles policeman so often, he said, that he qualified for an LAPD pension. He appeared in minor roles in lots of movies, including “Lost in America” with Albert Brooks, “Where The Buffalo Roam” with Bill Murray and Peter Boyle, and “Die Sieben Kreuze,” with me. But that’s another story.
One time, when Mike was working the dinner theater circuit, an actress heard about a low-budget horror movie being cast in Kansas City and asked if Mike, a veteran actor of stage and screen, would accompany her to the audition. A keen admirer of ingenue talent, Mike said yes.
As Mike tells it, the director recognizes Mike in the back of the room and says, “You! You’re my new leading man!” So Mike unexpectedly finds himself acting in the movie.
A day or two later, Mike says, the director gets in a fight with the producer over “artistic differences” and is fired on the spot. It turns out that the producer wants to send this movie straight to the video and drive-in circuit, not even bothering for movie theaters. In other words, he wants it done fast and cheap. The producer asks the cast members if anyone has experience as a director. Mike raises his hand. “You!” the producer says. “You’re my new director.”
“Here’s what you gotta know, as director,” the producer says. “There are four rules:
- It’s gotta be in color.
- It’s gotta be in focus.
- It’s gotta be in English.
- And four, it’s gotta have tits. Lots of tits.”
There was a fifth rule, he learned: You don’t get paid extra.
Which brings us back to Food & Drink Digital and its “Guidelines for Contributors.”
- It’s gotta have some focus.
- But it has to be 500 words or less, so don’t add color.
- It’s gotta be in English.
- You may expose yourself.
And, of course, you don’t get paid.
In the movie business they call this schlock. In the journalism business they call it … well, what an amazing coincidence … schlock journalism.
P.S.: The movie was “Timesweep.” (That’s Time Sweep, not Times Weep, although one can be excused for suspecting the latter.) It went straight to video and garnered such reviews as:
It’s all here – bugs, boobs, blood, and every monster in every pizza nightmare you’ve ever had …
The fog is thicker than the plot …
There’s aliens, Roman soldiers, a seriously cheesy dinosaur-like-thing along with petty infighting and lots of gore, in jokes and girls getting their clothes torn off …
