Guest Blog: Robert Chomiak

Happy Post-Easter and Pre-Passover, Wavers - Spring is glorious, is it not? Okay maybe that's a bit too cheerful for a Monday morning. Nonetheless, today we are lucky to have my friend and Script Department client Robert Chomiak, one of the co-writers of FIDO tell us a little bit about his experience with the project. Read and enjoy.

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You in it for the long haul?
By Robert Chomiak

Everyone knows it. Patience and perseverance are essential in the march from script to silver screen. I can tell you from personal experience this is true with Fido. Some claim our 2007 zom-com was irrefutably inspired by Shaun of the Dead, but it is a sure bet that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright came up with their idea after we banged out an early draft in 1994. You read that right. 1994. It took more than a decade before our film was green lit by Lions Gate in 2005. In the intervening years there was something in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 drafts. Talk about patience and perseverance. However, when I learned the script had attracted talent like Carrie-Anne Moss (the ass-kicking Trinity from The Matrix), Billy Connolly (the Scottish comedian who held his own alongside Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown) and Dylan Baker (who turned in a courageous performance as a pedophile psychiatrist in Happiness), the elephantine gestation period felt worth it.

According to William Goldman, the first day on the movie set is the most exciting day of a screenwriter’s life, and the most boring is every day that follows. The first part certainly held true for me. I got to drive my rental up to a P.A. and hear him radio that the writer was arriving on set. It didn’t register at first that he meant me. In the production warehouse were interior sets of a home, and the moment I walked in, Carrie-Anne Moss was delivering one of the lines I had written, which nearly made me buckle at the knees.

I was like a kid at Disneyland watching hundreds of people hustle and bustle to make our picture. It was dizzying. For years I was used to seeing the film on the page. Now it was all real, all around me. I could barely get a coherent sentence out of my mouth. Especially upon learning that the head of Lions Gate had arrived for a one-day visit to the set. As if I weren’t nervous enough, I had to pretend to be clever while shaking Peter Block’s hand and spluttering my gratitude. He declared that Fido was one of the best scripts he had ever read. I became adept at stealing an unoccupied director’s chair to hang out with the talent. Carrie-Anne I discovered to be quite humble and shy. She insists on checking every picture taken of her, well aware that an unflattering image can affect a career. Though known for his standup, Billy Connolly was unable to utter a word as the titular zombie character. The moment cut was yelled he would launch into some shtick and brag about not having to learn any lines. Dylan Baker always came in completely prepared with some new bit of business or method of delivering an innocuous line to mine even more comedy. These people whom I was used to seeing all my life as three-story projections were sitting right across from me talking about their New York parties and vacation plans and real estate woes. Without a doubt, that first visit to the set was the most exciting day. Well, if you don’t count the red carpet premiere at the Toronto film festival, with us newbies trying to act like it was the most natural thing in the world to climb out of a limo. You probably have to do it 30 to 40 times to get it down pat. Bet it takes patience and perseverance.

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