Film my Novel in Albuquerque! or Art & Artichokes

If anything I write during National Novel Writing Month or any other month, ever gets optioned by Hollywood, there will be a clause guaranteeing that it be filmed in New Mexico.That is not negotiable. They filmed Breaking Bad here, they will break my words here as well!

I went to a farmer's market yesterday where everything was grown locally. You can get artichokes on one table grown in the South Valley, and honey grown in the North Valley. This is an open letter to the New Mexico film and writing community. To my writing friends, let's write something that we can film here. To my film friends, let's look for local projects from local writers. Just imagine that we are growing artichokes that can entertain for two hours. We need a filmer's market

Yesterday as I drove the five blocks from my office to my home, I saw at least one production with massive trailers and a beehive of people dressed in black setting things up and putting them down. Last night, as we smoked cigars at Imbibe, we saw another group of people talking about the day's shoot.

Here's the cool thing, I don't think the film people I saw in the day were the same people I saw at night!

When Rattlesnake Lawyer was optioned by Fox in the Nineties, I talked to a producer on the phone and asked if they could film it here.  "Why would anyone film something in New Mexico?" he replied with a snarl, as if I talked about filming on the dark side of the moon, the side without tax incentives. Rattlesnake Lawyer went into turnaround hell. I wish it had gone to Tohajiillee instead.

Speaking of the outer space, my first novel was based on my experiences in Roswell. While I was living in Roswell, they were filming something called Silent Tongue with the late River Phoenix. The film tanked. When they filmed the TV show Roswell, no one ever thought of filming it in Roswell.   Perhaps we weren't ready for our close up, we are now.

There is something in LA called the American Film Market, where films are bought and sold out in LA. We need something like that here (if there is already something like that here, it needs to be bigger).

Who knows? At next week's farmer's market, I might get a booth of my own and sell screenplays with Hatch grown green chiles!