Update on Day 04 of my new screenplay.

Today, I made it to page 62 and the end of Act 2.  This means that tomorrow I should be at around page 75 and hopefully finishing at or around 90 on Saturday.  It’s been very cool and now that I have a script for a 62 minute movie, I’ve, for the first time, gotten the opportunity to step back and start to look at my screenplay as a developing story.  The piece of short fiction that my screenplay is based on is 26 pages, so I obviously knew I would need to expand on some topics and even add things in for extra flavor and to show things that must be shown in a movie that can just be described in fiction, like a thought process or a dream sequence.  I must say, that part is much harder than you would imagine.  It’s so difficult to take a thought process and not try to make your character just speak how the fiction read.

On a positive note, I have taken a lot of liberties with my story, developed a few of the main characters further, introduced new characters and changed some of the characters almost 100%, but ultimately, the story begins and will end the same.  It’s been a very interesting experience to say the least.  One of the items my guide book tells you to do before you start writing is to “cast” your film before you right it so you’ll have a mental image of what these people will look like while you’re writing.  I didn’t do that this time and I think it’s cool.  Because of this, I have been able to develop images of my people based on the personalities I’ve given them.  I may post that cast of characters tomorrow or maybe Sunday assuming I finish this thing on Saturday.

So tomorrow takes me from page 62-75.  I’ve already made several notes of what I want to cover tomorrow in that span and am mega excited to get to page 90 (and maybe beyond).  At the very least, I am going to have my rough draft printed and ready to rock on Monday for a read through.  Then the “head” or “coffee” part will take place.  Several days of re-writing followed by a few more days of tweaking, followed by another read through followed by me filling out the necessary paperwork for the festival.  I am so excited about this I almost can’t stand it.

Finally, the Knoxville Horror Film Festival also (for an extra fee, of course) offers a “screenplay feedback” service.  Since this is my first attempt, I do not expect to place, let alone win, so I’m certainly going to apply for this and see what can be fixed and see where my problems lie.  A wise man once said, though, (paraphrasing, of course) “If your movie sucks, dub over it (or in this case, rewrite it) in a foreign language and call it an Art film”.  Here’s to hoping I don’t have to take that route.

Enjoy today’s haiku:

Second monitor
Has a photo of Josh Dies
Raw extraordinaire