It still baffles me that the uni was willing to fight so hard for my film when they've never really supported me, and mostly told me my music wasn't sophisticated enough.
Their financial situation must be really bad, or they deliberately messed with my head because they didn't feel like I should get paid.
I felt personally insulted that they wouldn't consider buying the script. That was my compromise: I'd lost interest in being Tina; I figured if I sold it that I'd make a small amount which could've supported more Dakumentary films or more travel.
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As for my belief that they might have written a second draft without my permission: well, I can't prove that, but as I say, there was something in Dave's stack of papers that made me suspicious that they might have. Their notes were certainly very clear: add EP songs, rewrite it to suit the people we like, and make it more like Pose.
On the plus side, I won. On the minus side, I lost a number of friends and my sanity.
Untitled is something that they reference when they want to push me around... I'd say that the satire in that film was far more intense than in Weeded Out, and you guys were a bunch of crybabies over the fairly gentle criticism in my first draft.
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In Just Like Yesterday, I've cracked a few jokes about the tourist brochure vibes that Wellington wanted me to create for them. I'm very happy writing the book, and I'd write more if I wasn't convinced that the uni simply sees it as extra material for the actors and crew that they're convinced I'm going to have to hire.
Plus the general vulnerability of talking about my teens or my early twenties. I'd rather not vomit on the page with a bunch of people watching when it comes to those topics.
Like, this is the situation: the script isn't for sale now, but it might be if my book is published (self-published is fine). In general, this whole situation reeks of punching down: they see themselves as being the rational actors after 2020, when I bitched that I should probably have been awarded a Masters or a PhD if VUW wanted to claim that Portrait of a Knight was somehow 'their' film.
And then, the second I wrote something they wanted, they kept on saying that I had to get a Masters to earn their respect. The real goal was to acquire my IP for free, and I wish they'd have the balls to admit that was the intention. Plus the whole attitude about my politics, which was essentially that they disagreed, but wanted to keep some of that in there so that they'd seem edgy and hip. Perhaps they missed the point that I'd been doing street theatre for a while, even though it wasn't filmed for the news.
So, yeah, I'd had enough and I told them to leave me be. Seems like they're finally getting that message, but they've wasted an extra six months annoying me, and it's definitely making it awkward that so many people I know are either working for the uni, or taking their side because they smell a paying gig. -
I've gotten really sick of the argument that I'm preventing the gravy train. No, they are by refusing to do their own rewrite and investing in the multi-million project that they wish to produce by paying for the source material.
It's probably annoying Dave that I mentioned a second draft, but it's one of those things where I'm fairly confident that VUW is unscrupulous enough to have done so. Either way, they can't use it. As I said, that would result in an injunction.
If they paid me the $50,000, then they could use their draft.
They've wasted 18-20 months of my life, so I feel like wasting some of their time, and that's why I'm not willing to sell or - and I can't believe they said this - donate it for free.
They pissed me off, I decided to begin a prose adaptation.
That = a pause. Negotiations can come after I'm finished with my novella.
I hope that satisfies my allies that are working for VUW.
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