A Peek into the Mind of a Movie Producer

Hey, guys--

My friend Dena Hysell, one of the founders of Secret Handshake Entertainment (Drinky Crow, Baxter & MacGuire) is one of the producers on St. Vincent, director Walter Hill's new movie starring Mickey Rourke.

CORRECTION: Okay, it's not actually St. Vincent... it's A Little Help, starring Jenna Fischer and Chris O'Donnell, and written and directed by Michael Weithorn, who created King of Queens. St. Vincent doesn't start till later this year. (Thanks for the correction, Dena!)

She's leaving LA this week to produce the movie in New York for the next 15 weeks... and she's started a blog, www.denanicole.com, to journal the experience of producing her first big feature.

I don't normally promote random blogs on here, because EVERYONE has a blog... and while many of them are fun to read, I'd go crazy if I tried to promote each one.

But I think Dena's blog will be especially interesting to those of us who love movies, want to be in the film business, or wonder what it's like producing your first-ever feature. We've all dreamed of that, and this is a chance to live it through someone else's eyes.

We often look at producers and agents as our enemies... money-grubbing people trying to change writers' creative visions... but the truth is: producers are often passionate, movie-loving people who want to make incredible films-- they simply have jobs that force them to be occasionally be odds with their co-workers and creative partners.

I hope Dena's blog will help us peek into the mind of a producer who loves movies as much as those of us who write them.

Two days ago, for instance, she wrote a nice post about how hard it is to say "no" to everyone... even though that's often her job... and it made me think about how much I would HATE having to do this.

Anyway, I don't know where Dena's blog will go... or how the movie will turn out... but I wanted to pass it along as a fun behind-the-scenes look at an interesting feature...