Pair Share Film Project and a Hollywood Dream

Hope springs eternal, version 5,182:

In a small corner office in the heart of Hollywood, Bill Ferguson, a 39-year-old producer, and Alex Nicoll, a 28-year-old director, are making their pitch.

“It’s a teen comedy, geared toward the 18-to-30-year-old male crowd, although there are a couple of things for the women too,” says Nicoll, a slight Brit with dark, spiky hair and short sideburns. “Two guys have a couple of hours to clean up their parents house after a party. They also have a dead body on their hands .... It’s a snowball movie--faster, faster, faster. It’s the kind of stuff that people have been through in their life, except for the dead body, maybe. It’s comedic.” He pauses for a second. “Oh, and it’s a love story too.”

The title of Nicoll and Ferguson’s project? “That Darn Bear.”

Don’t ask.

“I can’t tell you why; it would give the movie away,” says Nicoll.

Ferguson, a former director of direct marketing in Utah, interjects. “The product we’ve got is solid.”

A year ago, Nicoll was an attorney in London. Now he’s emulating his silver-screen idols: Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi and “Hitchcock, obviously, me being English and all.” In a month, he will begin directing his first. He says he’s totally confident.

This Hollywood dream began last October, when 22-year-old Atlanta native Joey Valezquez, gave Nicoll the first 50 pages of a script. Nicoll, on his way to Las Vegas for the weekend, read it three times before the plane touched down at McCarran International Airport. “It was the funniest thing I’ve ever read.”

When Nicoll and Ferguson got together for a beer one evening, they talked about the script, and Ferguson, who had also read it, was equally enthusiastic. Before the week was out, the two had optioned it and decided to make their feature debut. “It’s the way to come out of the gate,” says Ferguson.

“We’re going to make a lot of noise,” says Nicoll.

In their modest corner offices two floors above the Los Angeles Film School on Sunset, where they met as students last year, Ferguson sits behind a blond birch desk, Nicoll on the Cost Plus sofa. The two have a pingpong pitch: When one trails off, the other picks up. The result is the seamless spiel.

Nicoll: “There is not another Alex Nicoll or Bill Ferguson out there.”

Ferguson: “And we’re great to work with.”

Nicoll: “We want to make something we can be proud of.”

Ferguson: “And make some money off [of].”

Nicoll: “You can talk about it for years in a lecture hall, but you have to learn how to load the camera and do it.”

Ferguson: “Between us, we have four features, in running time.”

Actually, that last requires a bit of math. He figures that the 12 short films he produced and the four shorts Nicoll directed as students at the Los Angeles Film School add up to, yes, four features. Their proposed debut project isn’t big (it’s about $1 million), but as Ferguson says, “There’s no reason to come out of the gate to make ‘War and Peace.’ ” And, realistically, “That Darn Bear” is no Tolstoy epic.

“We only had a given amount of money to spend on location,” says Ferguson. “Everywhere we called, people laughed at us. Literally, they laughed at us,” he says, seemingly still a little shaken.

Despite those early setbacks, the project is right on track. “I’d put money in it,” says Ferguson, the money man. “I feel confident,” says Nicoll. “Unless I go blind on the first day of shooting, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

They both agree: It’s not a job, it’s a dream. And they’re having fun. “There are a lot of screamers out there,” says Ferguson. “We want to be making movies, but without having to be like that.”

He looks at Nicoll. “This last year, this was the best year of my life,” he says.

“Every year will be like that from now on,” says Nicoll.

Not for Sale

“The materials in this launch kit are copyrighted and being provided for Fox Broadcasting Company Affiliate for press promotional use only. Not for sale, resale, auction or Internet posting.” This admonition--a tradition on promotional video tapes--appeared recently amid the chocolate, hip flask, wallet and drawings sent out to promote “Firefly,” a sci-fi series that premieres on the network next week.

The warnings, more and more frequently included with the press kits and toys sent out by studios and networks hoping to drum up coverage of new releases, are a response to the plethora of promotional material being auctioned off or resold. On EBay, those interested could find the press kit for WB’s 1998/1999 season, which at press time was going for $51. A press kit for “Xena: Warrior Princess” had six bids, the highest at $40.99.

A Fox spokesman said, “We need to protect our assets....These are not designed for resale.” But he didn’t want to speculate how promotional material ends up on EBay, or point fingers at the kits’ recipients, many of whom are media types operating under guidelines that frown on profiting from press materials. “The materials,” said Fox’s spokesman, “go to a wide range of outlets, some of which are not press.”

Quote/Unquote:

“I dreamed of marrying Prince Andrew. Thank God I didn’t.” Alex Kingston on “When I Was a Girl,” on WE: Women’s Entertainment Sept. 29.

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City of Angles runs Tuesday and Friday. E-mail angles@latimes. com