Rescue Dawn

In the summer of 2001, I helped write an early draft of the film Rescue Dawn for German director Werner Herzog. At first I was just supposed to help with grammar and sentence structure, since this was his first English only screenplay (and also because the story was about the Vietnam War, so he needed a young person who could assist with the soldier's lingo), but after meeting with him at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, I was given free reign to make any changes deemed fit, including the reworking of major scenes. I had a few days to complete this, and we then spent a week going line by line through the changes. During these sessions we collaborated on several new scenes, where he would sometimes transcribe verbatim everything I said - just off the top of my head - the whole time smiling in this perverse way (he seemed to get a kick out of me for some reason). The experience of working with a genius like Herzog was amazing. I mean, to see how passionate he was about his work, and the child-like exuberance when discussing a passage he found funny - or a new scene he had written the night before, well, it was nothing short of inspiring. He also was so un-pretentious, which is always refreshing, especially with someone so acclaimed. He lived in a humble apartment, his most prized possession was a new Encyclopedia set (I don't recall seeing a television in his place), and for lunch, we went to the corner liquor store for turkey sandwiches and a Sobe.

At the time I was thrilled just to work with him, but later I became curious about what happened to our script, especially after he moved from San Francisco to LA and we lost contact. Then, five months ago, after watching Grizzley Man - Herzog's most recent film - I researched things on-line, and found the trailer below, with the movie scheduled for a summer 2006 release (the film was previously called Little Dieter Learns to Fly, based on Herzog's documentary of the same name). It was intriguing to see that Christian Bale was saying lines I helped write (in my opinion he was great in Amercan Pyscho), and it was also just cool to see how our ideas became a reality. I agreed to waive all screenplay credit (it was, of course, his story) but he did promise to list me as a consultant. Regardless, it's something I'm quite proud of, and hopefully you'll have a chance to check it out either in theatres, or when it's released on DVD a few months later.

Trailer
Werner Herzog's site
IMDB page for Rescue Dawn
IMDB page for Werner Herzog