Hard Core Roadshow: A Screenwriter's Diary

by Noel Baker, Bruce McDonald (Introduction)

With engaging, razor-sharp prose, Noel S. Baker vividly chronicles the experience of seeing his first screenplay produced, derived from a diary kept during two years of down-and-dirty filmmaking with Bruce McDonald on the film "Hard Core Logo". "This is the most absorbing account of getting a move made in this country...It's funny, perceptive, and compelling".--Atom Egoyan.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Music, Film, Canada, Biography

246 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[Viridian5 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baker wrote the script for Hard Core Logo, a mockumentary movie about the disastrous reunion tour of a punk band, and this is the diary he kept during the process of adapting the Hard Core Logo book into a screenplay, trying to secure funding for the movie, casting, and filming it. It's a tale of the setbacks, triumphs, insanity, and compromises necessary to getting a movie made, in this instance in Canada.

He says that he saw Hard Core Logo as a love story about Joe Dick and Billy Tallent's twisted-up relationship. He also strongly implies that the actors who played them, Hugh Dillon and Callum Keith Rennie, were having a relationship in real life. Looking at the text, I also think that Baker had a crush on Rennie.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having this on my shelf for years I decided to give it one more re-read before sending it out into the world. It's engaging and well-written; a great book for anyone interested in screenwriting or moviemaking in general. It really drives home the idea that writing is re-writing, and offers a nice mix of the frustrations of multiple drafts and the search for funding with fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes from casting, rehearsals, and filming.

[catechism · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about turning a book into a movie. It's about writing, and making movies, and making music, and art in Canada, and Hugh Dillon, and I couldn't put it down.