Mission Accomplished

July 31st, and I completed Draft 2. Clocks in at 84 pages. It'll probably be expanded a bit more. The ending moves a little fast, but at least I can move on to the next phases of preproduction now.

Hopefully this draft is a little more solid, and I won't do like I did on the first draft and start out loving it and then decide to completely start over.

I love how things evolve though and I hope that it means that things are only getting better. It's just interesting to me how new ideas can pop up out of nowhere. Things that seem like threads you would be planting from the start and carry all the way through, but today when reading through Draft 2, a couple new themes popped up to me by the end. And the movie almost became about something completely new.

It's the same plot. But there are new ideas. I know I'm talking in major generalities, but it's exciting to me as a writer. Sometimes it just feels like you're writing whatever appeals to you at the point of time you're writing. Sometimes I write too funny or too melodramatic and I have to go back and tweak it, but it's just weird to get to the end and go back and see that there's a whole story there that can mean all kinds of things now that you see it from start to finish.

I think I'm just carrying on. But I feel like writing can be a little more blind that it probably seems to people. You can always change things, and you never know how it's going to be until you stop. And even then and especially with movies, you still don't know what it is until you shoot it.

You can be a control freak and try and iron everything out completely, but I think even then, you still never really know.

But yeah, I guess it's time to start casting...and get feedback.

The (s)Low Down

Halfway through July.

I'm having a bit of a creative meltdown. I really wish the Scarlett was out so that I could shoot something.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day listening to my new collection of vinyl records and drawing out shots for GOS that I have stuck in my head. But that wasn't enough, so last night I wrote a short film that I want to shoot as soon as the Scarlett comes out.

I'm just getting antsy. I've outlined the script about 5 or 6 times. The latest outline is on my "drawing board" in my office. But the problem with outlining is that when you reach the end you feel done and it's hard to then go and write. I know this movie pretty well now. It's been gestating for some three years now with the feature being in the writing process for about 10 months now...and I only have one and a half drafts to show for it.

But I'm just so ready to make it. The writing keeps feeling less and less important. I feel like I should bring some other people on board to maybe bring a fresh take to it.

In other news, I just bought all the pieces for my editing computer in preparation for the Scarlett which will hopefully be out in the next two months or so. It'll be my first time building a computer from scratch, but I'm excited about it and hopefully it'll work because I'll be doing some very important work on it.

Hopefully, I can bring myself to finish the script before August. As much as I like coming up with stories and figuring them out, I don't think I have the patience or discipline for writing features. I just keep wanting to move on with production and forget about the writing because I have the story long before I have the script. And it's disheartening to get a lot of writing done only to later change your mind about it or decide you don't like it and it you have to do it all over again.

The Big Picture

It's interesting to kind of figure out what people's different expectations are for both a movie in general and for this project specifically.

The more I do this the more I realize just how different everyone's point of view is. I know this is all sort of vague, but everyone seems to just look for something different when reading this script. I'm mostly referencing reactions to the first draft as the second one is still underway. Some people look at the specific "moments" looking for some defining scene, others look at the basic plot, others look at the characters. Certainly all are parts to the whole, but increasingly I realize that it's very difficult for anyone else but me to really get the big picture until it's done. I guess it makes sense, but it's something that's important to be aware of when receiving critical feedback.

For instance, while some elements may not be by the book or what's standard as far as expectations go, sometimes that's the point, or it's there to serve another effect. And so without seeing it all, it can seem like a shortcoming.

It's also tricky because the script really is just a starting point for the movie. While I think writing is extremely important and a good script is necessary, it's still not everything. You can read scripts a lot differently than they'll be carried out. I think a good exercise for GOS might be to read scripts for other ambitious films. Like the script for something like The Life Aquatic or Eternal Sunshine; they're probably misleading, though it'd be hard to tell going backwards.

I guess ultimately there's no way to put the aesthetic of the movie on the page, and my job as the director is to help everyone perceive the pages in the right way. I mean if you have a scene of a guy fixing a bowl of cereal and eating it, done in a traditional movie of the week way can be extremely boring. But done in a certain way can be interesting.

It's important to just note that anything can be done in an interesting way, I think.