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Watching Genius At Work
BY CLIO ROSE STAFF REPORTER
After the recordbreaking box office success of his first film Medic of the Mountains, which was written on a legal pad in a 24-Hour IHOP while high on hallucinogenic mushrooms, Joseph Packer worked to develop a cre- ative routine from scratch. Following a few failed attempts to recreate his process for Medic, Packer now relies on a strict daily schedule to write his screenplays.
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Notably reclusive and protective of his work, Packer refuses to discuss his ongoing projects with anyone other than his grey parrot, Ramses, who serves as his editor and legal counsel. He employs two assistants around the clock, one for even hours and the other for odd, as well as a personal chef. Mealtimes, for Packer, are a critical marker of the day: starting at 11 a.m., every hour on the hour, he has an assistant bring him a glass of port and a single fried egg (that is, of course, until he transitions to poached after 9 p.m. as to not upset his stomach during the night) until his daily carton runs out.
Packer rises at 7:30 a.m. and starts his day with a cup of black coffee. After he shaves, showers, and does three sun saluta- tions, he sits down at his desk and begins his work for the morning. He writes continuously until an hour before sunset, only occasionally pausing to clean yolk stains from his legal pad. Packer drafts all manuscripts in cursive script after learning it in elementary school, as he believes it saves him the time and effort of lifting the pen as well as “look[ing] dope.” In an average sitting, Packer produces up to 300 pages; however, after a postsunset editorial meeting with Ramses, the two typically whittle the day’s work down to a single scene.
He repeats this pattern daily, with the exception of Sundays when, before his nightly bedtime of precisely midnight, Packer’s odd-hours assistant drives him to the nearest IHOP to purchase seven cartons of eggs to sustain him for the next week. Packer refuses to acknowledge that selling raw ingredients is against IHOP’s official policy and has struck up backdoor deals with the local franchise manager.
