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.

The Juices Are Flowing

I spent another night the other night keeping myself up thinking about GOS. It seems that nights when I'm not quite ready to sleep, I lie in bed and just think about all of the little pieces that make up this project. It's weird because it almost seems to be the clearest to me then...right "between dreaming and awake." Cheesy, I know. But it's strange how late knight thoughts tend to seem so different and surreal maybe. It sucks in the case of a movie project because it basically just gets me excited and it makes it harder to sleep.

It seems to have paid of these last few days as I've been really productive. I took myself to lunch at Superior today as I seem to be the only person I know that still loves that place. I brought my notepad and did some outlining of the new plot.

I've come to realize that writing has nothing to do with planning. Brainstorming sessions, plot oulines, character outlines, they don't work like writing professors tell you they do. You don't literally take from that material when you finally sit down and write. For me, at least, I don't put all my notes in front of me and try and figure out the scenes like math problems. All the "pre-writing" I do or even the real writing I do in early drafts, it all just serves to get me thinking about it. I don't write down ideas for records or to refer to later. Most sheets of ideas I have I never look back on. They're just a way to get my mind focused on thinking about the story so when I do sit down and type up the script I have a database of ideas that have been worked through in my head that I uncontiously reference or build from. It's like anything else where you just need practice. The more I write GOS the better it'll be...that doesn't mean the more I edit it. Because I'm not editing. I'm just writing it again and it's different and better.

I'm happy where the story is going right now. Though I was happy when I was writing the first draft which I don't like anymore. And it's overwhelming to think about how many more times I may do this before shooting. I don't want to make myself stop at any point, but given how much I've changed the story between Draft 1 and 2, if I start really planning a production based on any draft I may be wasting effort.

So at some point I'm going to have to pin myself to one draft and work it out so I can start pre-production for it.

I also listened to the "Making Of" commentaries last night as well as Ben's soundtrack. It all got me really excited about making a movie again. I don't know if it's just hearing about making a movie in general that got me excited or if it's more about hearing about me making a movie about my experiences making movies that got me excited about what I do. But I love Ben's score and how I will always associate it with my love for making movies and it just gets me pumped for production when I listen to it.

I really can't wait to see this project through.

Slowly, but Surely

Draft 2, is coming along well. I'm only 20 pages in, but I decided to start over from scratch rather than reworking what I had already commited to in Draft 1. So hopefully by just having the exercise of Draft 1 under my belt, I bring the best of it over while creating new material that better caters to the story I'm trying to craft.

But I really like how it's going so far. It's more confident than the first draft. I think I'm starting to get comfortable with the characters and their environment and it's making it easier to write.

I'm keeping busy too. At any given time I'm working on at least 2 websites if not 3 or 4. And Paranormalz is really about to take off and I'm devoting a lot of time to it.

Oh, and Shane has started engineering the spaceship, which is a fun process to go through this time around because I have a much more specific and sensical design and I have someone who knows what he's doing figure out the logistics of building it. We'll apparently be able to build it in 5 different sections so that we show it's progression throughout the movie.

Settling In

I now have my own place in Shreveport for the next two years. I've moved into my "office" complete with a dry erase "idea" board to make it seem professional, though right now it has a big sketch of Humpty Dumpty on it.

This week will mark the first time I feel like I have all the time in the world to dedicate to writing. My schedule is cleared and it's just me and my computer.

Hopefully that means I'll get draft 2 of GOS done.

But I have yet another project in the pipeline. A web series called "Paranormalz" created by my good friend, Keith. I'm helping produce it as well as designing the website and doing the post production work...and maybe at some point acting. It's an ongoing thing, but we'll probably only be doing roughly an episode a month so it shouldn't be too distracting.

You can check out the website at: www.paranormalz.com

We're shooting the first episode in two and a half weeks.

Not much more news on the GOS front. Still waiting on the RED. Still waiting for newer tech and better prices before I build my new editing rig. Though I just bought a new monitor.

I don't have a lot to talk about in the post so I guess I'll stop here.

School's Out Forever

Yeah. I graduated almost a week ago now. It was kinda bogus because I don't get my degree for another 3 weeks. The registrar can't even give me a proof of graduation to show my apartment people so I can get out of my lease for another two weeks. But I'm leaving Tuesday anyway.

I'm so caught up in moving and trying to get settled back in Shreveport that I haven't had much time to focus on GOS. Hopefully once I get there I won't have the continuous distractions I've had lately.

The good news is that we have a substantial budget. I've got $13,000 saved up so far. That's almost 3 times the budget of my last film, and I'm still 8 months from production.

I saw this quote on a friend's facebook status and it sums up exactly what I think directing is about:

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I don't even know who that person is, but I like the way he thinks.

Despite being busy I have at least crafted a new outline for the next draft of GOS which is a decent departure from the first draft. I've made the relationships between the three main characters a lot closer and therefore hopefully more intense and dramatic.

That fairytale warm-up from my last post is also gaining momentum and may become problematic in scale in terms of interrupting pre-production for GOS. Either way I'm very excited about both and I can't wait to start making movies again. I've got a lot of pent up filmmaking energy right now.