When I was asked to write a guest post for Lisa’s Writopia, Lisa noted that my graphic novel, José and the Pirate Captain Toledano, is an expansion of a short film. She wanted to know: is there a feature film in the works?
The question got me thinking about the unique journey my story has taken – from the screen to the page – and the future that may be in store for it.
Back in late 2016, I was living and working in Los Angeles as a small-time producer/director, mostly working micro-budget productions and new media gigs. I was ready to tackle a more ambitious project but didn’t know what the project would be.
In September of that year, a thought struck me. Hard. In a quiet moment, the entire concept for a short film about Jewish pirates flooded my mind. I took about 45 minutes to write the idea down – just a few short paragraphs in a Word document. Over the next few days, I wrote the short script, milking the brief lightning bolt of inspiration for all it was worth!
When you’re a scrappy indie filmmaker, one of the biggest pieces of advice you get is to avoid big expensive ideas. Period pieces, filming on water, and filming with animals or children are all cost-prohibitive. My story had neither animals nor children, but it was a period piece that takes place on a pirate ship! I did not expect the ten-minute short would ever get made.
But the story demanded to be told! After a hugely difficult (but ultimately successful) crowdfunding campaign, I was able to film The Pirate Captain Toledano on tall ships in Dana Point, CA, and to eventually premiere the film at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival on May 2, 2017. The film received rave reviews and spent the next year traveling to roughly 50 festivals all over the world.
When I was lucky enough to attend a screening, there would often be a Q&A with the filmmakers, and the first question was invariably “When do we get the rest of the story?” The short film left audiences wanting more!
When that question was asked, I held out my hand and said, “If you pull out your checkbook…” Everyone understood: if it was expensive to pull off a short pirate film with no big naval battles or sword fights, it would cost millions to mount a full-scale feature production!
But the question stuck with me, and I wondered, “What would the story be if someone in the audience were to actually cut that check?”
I took the time to write out a plot synopsis – just a few pages to outline a hypothetical feature film. And there the exploration should have stopped…
…but my restless mind continued to wander in search of ways to tell this story. Could it be a book? A comic book? A graphic novel? I knew a few people who had dabbled in the comics world, and started asking questions. How is a graphic novel written? How is it sold? Truthfully, the whole comics world was still very much a mystery – it seemed so complicated!
I was doomscrolling through Facebook one day and stumbled upon what would become the project’s breakthrough. I had known Joshua Edelglass for many years – but not as an illustrator. He is an assistant director at a big summer camp in Massachusetts, and many years earlier, he had hired me to come teach week-long electives in filmmaking. But what stopped me mid-scroll was an image he had posted – an image that he had illustrated for an anthology of Jewish comics. I had no idea that Josh was an illustrator! I reached out to him, asked if I could pick his brains about comics, and we got to talking.
To make a long story short, Josh was very interested in collaborating with me on something. He read many of my screenplays, looked at many of my films, and gravitated strongly to The Pirate Captain Toledano. So together, we crafted a pitch – my feature film synopsis, coupled with five pages of illustrations based on the short film script. With the pitch materials, we were able to get our agent, Anna Olswanger, to pitch the book to publishers. Once we got our publisher—Kar-Ben Publications—the real work began!
Once again, the story demanded to be told, and I was going to tell it in an entirely new format. Writing the comic book script was one of the most interesting creative challenges I’ve ever faced. There’s a lot that movies and comics have in common, but there are fundamental structural differences between the way movies and books are experienced. I spent a lot of time thinking about those.
One example: When you’re watching a movie, you don’t have to do anything in order for the movie to continue. It keeps playing until it ends or until you stop it. But a book requires you to take action – to reach out, grab a corner and turn the page. I was very conscious of the fact that in a book, I’ve got to earn the page-turn. I found out from the publisher if we’d begin the book on the left or right side page (recto or verso, in publishing lingo) and mapped out the whole story from there. I paid particular attention to the bottom-right panel of each right-side page. That panel always had to pose some sort of question or leave the reader wondering something so that the reader would turn that page!
It took a long time (as these things do) but on 5/1/22—one day shy of the film’s fifth anniversary—the book made its debut.
And yes, even now with “the whole story” told, people like Lisa are asking, “Will there be a movie?”
I’ll ask you once again to pull out your checkbooks…
But this time, I know: this story demands to be told. So I’m not waiting. I’ve already written a script for a limited series pilot based on the book. It expands the story further, adding more characters, more conflict, more drama, more rich detail. I’m working with some Hollywood veterans to get the script into pristine shape and to build out what’s called a “show bible” or “series bible” – another important piece of the pitching package. By the end of this month, I hope to start pitching the series.
Will it get made? It’s a period piece that takes place on the water… executives are likely to see those costs from five miles away! But if the book does well, and if readers like you keep clamoring for it, this story will demand to be told again.
Recommended Article:
José and the Pirate Captain Toledano – a Review
Amazon Links:
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