Intro and gallery / Synopsis / Cast and crew / E-mail exchange / Reviews E-mail exchange between Ate de Jong and Michael Lally From july 1999 to november 2001, screenwriter Michael Lally and director Ate de Jong corresponded by e-mail on the production of Fogbound. Their e-mail exchange now forms a valuable document, wherein a screenwriter and a director share their visions about a film-to-be. In many ways, the correspondence voices the challenges and difficulties the production of Fogbound encountered. On 7/17/99 Michael Lally at Lally@xxx.com wrote: Ate, How are you? Hope your back is okay. Mine is doing fine, thank God. I just got online for the first time and don't know what I'm doing, but wanted to let you know we made it to Jersey and are grateful to be here. We're renting half a two family house near a park and the train station (twenty-five minutes to Manhattan). People ask how we're adjusting to being back here. What's to adjust to? This is the landscape of our souls. The only thing we miss about LA is some friends there. Not to knock LA, enough people do that already. We're just happy to be back among the seasons and attitudes we grew up around. Oh yeah, remember your screenplay set in the fog. What happened to that? On 8/20/99 Ate de Jong at fdutchman@xxx.net wrote: Great to hear you're doing well Michael. My back is a disaster. It's a great victory if I make it to the toilet, -- only five steps away. Being flat in bed gives me lots of time to think though, and I can still make phone calls. These days with computers, one doesn't need much more. I have my laptop on the floor, lay on my belly in bed, reach down and, hey, I'm in touch with the world. Fogbound is the most personal thing I have ever written. Lots of people really liked it when I still lived in LA. But since my bad experience with All Men Are Mortal in 1993 --please don't ask because I'll never stop telling horror stories-- I shied away from directing any feature. I did some TV movies in Germany. The July 1991 draft is the earliest draft I could find. I also enclose the last draft. It might be interesting to have a glance at both just to see how the story set-up has evolved, and the focus has shifted more to the fog, away from the French Revolution story (in the 1991 version it plays during the American Civil War and deals with slavery, but the French Revolution was always the original setting and is -- I think -- better). On 8/27/99 Michael Lally at Lally@xxx.com wrote: I actually thought the one page outline of Fogbound was really good, I mean story wise and suspense etc. If we bring the script a touch more in that direction, I think it could be brilliant. Did I ever tell you how much Jaina and I enjoyed Drop Dead Fred? Saw it on video. I didn't want to see it at first. But Jaina convinced me. I'm happy she did. It's not only a lot of fun, but more importantly, unique, and that's a hell of an accomplishment, and one I'd be proud of. On 8/29/99 Ate de Jong at fdutchman@xxx.net wrote: Thank you so much for your kind words about Drop Dead Fred. The picture is close to my heart. I feel the picture has to do with growing up which is only possible after you abandon your childhood. Which in a way is also one of the themes in Fogbound. After Drop Dead Fred I went into analysis and discovered I had been molested as an infant myself. You'll recognize that theme in Fogbound also. It isn't a trauma (anymore) but it certainly explained why I felt so passionate about Drop Dead Fred as I do even more about Fogbound. Whenever people read Fogbound 3 items of criticism are dominant. 1. As so much plays in the fog, will the picture be visually interesting? 2. There are too many flash backs 3. What does the French Revolution have to do with the main story? Point 1 is easy. I'll make it visual. That's part of the challenge. I'm not worried about it at all. Point 2 - the balance shifts more and more towards the fog, but perhaps has to shift even more. I can't do it anymore. I'm too attached to everything. I don't see the memory scenes as flash backs but as distorted fantasies. I want to stylise them in a forties studio kind of way, background projection, painted backgrounds and the like. Certainly no dogma film this one. More like the anti-dogma. Point 3 is more puzzling to me. Some people find The French Revolution the most interesting (I'm one of them). Others would want to throw it out completely (I'm obviously against that). I think it ties into the main story as it is Leo's allegory about how he experiences relationships, sexuality etc, and explains his rape of Ann. But what I think and what comes across are two different issues. It's all about the essence of existence. The French say it better "Condition Humain," sexuality being an issue of power for Leo, a surrender of individuality for Ann, and a search for identity for Bob. Their night in the fog changes all that. On 9/03/99 Michael Lally at Lally@xxx.com wrote: I like all the elements of the story, especially the French Revolution scenes. I love the clarity and concreteness of the specific reference to that historical period and the resonance of its ramifications. Who knows what an audience would think, but it gets my interest. And I like the idea of tying Ann and Bob in with the boy and Annette, but rather than Ann finishing Annette's lines, what about Ann sounding like Annette in what she is saying which has been cut to from what Annette is saying, if you get what I mean. In other words, cut from the boy to Bob or Annette to Ann without Bob and Ann actually finishing what the boy and Annette were saying, but saying something extremely similar, or from the same emotional place etc. Does that make sense? Like I said on the phone, I think a lot can be cleaned up with more cuts to the fog toward the end instead of from the Revolution to Japan etc. I mean they can even be very short cuts if they're telling enough. How about also having some dialogue in the car before the fog, in the very beginning, to set a light tone and setting their characters, etc. but with an ominous sense of something not quite right with the three of them and their attempts at friendly banter? On 9/04/99 Michael Lally at Lally@xxx.com wrote: I also like that idea of Bob rejecting Leo's version of his French death and defending the boy, etc. Good, for all the reasons you mention. Let me try it with the rest you suggested and some things I was thinking and see what we come up with. next page