Today is day 22 and I start this day with only 31 pages. My job took a turn for the crazy. Insert me getting home after midnight on prep days and shooting overnight. I started to lose sight of the characters. When I came home from work to start on the script I felt like I was forcing things and got frustrated. The main character just started to seem really wack and uber typical. It was time to put a halt to all of that. On the shoot day of my current job, I ended up in a conversation with of my PAs who is a writer. I started talking to him about the script and he gave me a gem of a pointer. He said in addition to doing the character and plot breakdown what he'll do sometimes is cut out pictures of people or a person who looks like each of his main characters. That way he can look at a board of them and see their eyes, what they would wear and that enables them to take on their own voices in his head. Because a lot of the time all you hear is your own voice. Super fresh, right? Thanks, Marc ;) The other great thing about our convo is that I had another opportunity to discuss my concept and work on making it more succinct. I felt really good about how I relayed it to him. T-t-totally winning.
Now that I'm back in the land of the living (i.e. more rested) I realize time is running out. We've got less than a week left and I'm not at all where I thought I was going to be. Things started out so well! lol Isn't that life, though? Yesterday, I made a great effort at focusing and got out another couple pages. I'm only up to 31 but at the same time...I'm up to 31 pages!!! That's lightyears away from where I began. No matter where I end up on June 30th (I'm still shooting for at least 60 pages), I'm still winning.
Sidebar: "Randomly" met my main character while out with my sisters and a friend Sunday. The guy had the same name, job description and ethnic heritage. I've never been to the place we went before in life. Hadn't even heard of it until that day. Yeah, I think I'm on the right track. :)
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Things I love for 5,000, Alex? The fact that they're already so invested in the characters. I feel like I'm telling a story to them everyday about real people, Sakinah & I might be in love with the main character. lol But all of it feels so great to be able to live with the characters who feel like completely new people in my life. It's like a new television show that I get to watch a piece of everyday.
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p.s. this was meant to go up about 13 days ago. :)
At this point, I'm technically in Day 3 but I digress....
So, Shak came up with this brilliant idea a few days ago after reading something about Quentin Tarantino. He wrote "Reservoir Dogs" in 3.5 weeks. That was his first feature and well, we all know where he is now. There's a whole amazing story about how he ended up getting it funded and shot that I knew about but I didn't know how long he took to write it. To paraphrase, here's the challenge: write a short, feature, pilot, or story in 3.5 weeks. "Ok, I'm down," I say. There are the moments that change our lives forever; this is one of them, I can feel it. That push, that challenge to do the most... I'm excited and nervous. What's going to come out in the end? Who knows. Even if it still needs work, having a feature in my hand is amazing!
Currently, I'm up to page 9 of my feature script. The first day I spent time reading through Final Draft's (my script writing program) tutorial.
I got it as a gift for my Birthday/Christmas (thanks, mom!) and was unable to upload it to my computer until this Thursday because my new computer came finally came in! (Super long)Sidebar: My other computer was moving rather slowly (it's 5 yrs old) and because I have to use it for my job-job (what pays the bills right now) I didn't want to risk uploading another program on it and it crashing on me. So, I finally found a MacBook Pro that was brand new and a lil cheaper than what other people were charging and bought it. Now, when I bought it I had just spent $700 fixing my car but was expecting a check from my last job to arrive any day. Wellllll, it still hasn't arrived AND I had to pretty much empty out my saving's account and put off paying my car note in order to pay my rent. Yep, awesome. lol (It's the grind right? :) ) I don't have buyer's remorse because I needed to make that leap and buy the computer already so I could start to upload footage from my camera (the other computer because it's older won't recognize the files), start formatting scripts and just be winner for goodness sakes. I'm knocking out all of the "reasons" one by one for why I'm not exactly where I see myself. The camera was the first step, the computer the next and this challenge the most recent.
I just got home from taking my mentee to a Dodger vs Braves game (the Braves won 9-3! sweet!) and all I could think about on the way home was getting in front of my computer to continue to write. I was able to do a few pages earlier before I left for the game. I had a great impromptu brainstorming session with Sakinah, too (thanks, sis) that had me super juiced.
What's crazy is that the story that I've been in love with/has been haunting me for the last 6 years is finally feeling like it's being pieced together. I've jotted down notes as they've come to me about the characters over those years and a partial scene here and there as it comes but over the last couple of days they finally feel like they're coming alive to me inside my head. I can't say what it's about just yet because that would t-t-totally ruin the surprise (lol) but suffice it to say I love it and it's going to be dope.
So, I'm off to continue writing a bit then finally going to bed. I've been up forever, it feels like. We had a great run this morning in Palos Verdes and I think I might still be high off of that, or the creativity, or the Braves win... either way, still winning.
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Switching it up a bit..for me at least. I've been on another kind of knowledge kick as of late. I think it's cool to be what comes easily but to push yourself to stretch beyond your known limits makes you super fresh. I like being super fresh so.... I've got like 12 ideas running around in my head. 2 feature scripts, 1 video, 2 shorts and a documentary (& a partridge in a pear treeeeee....lol). Focus man. Alright, but different days feel like different projects. What I am teaching myself is how to write all of the above because the formats are so incredibly different. I learned how to write scripts in college, taught myself how to write treatments for videos when I moved out here and am learning about documentaries for the first time ever.
Feature scripts are behemoth in nature, at least to me. It's really the dialogue that kills me everytime. I wish I could just outsource it! lol Alas, I am currently not paid like that so, I have to step up to the plate. When I had to do it years ago, I got better at it because I just locked myself in a space and wrote and let my friends read it to see if it sounded believable. I also, didn't have to write 80+ pages. This time will have to be much of the same. I am reteaching myself all of the break down elements. Setting up the locations, character's personas, plot elements.... I know that I can do this and it's something I need. Fleshing the entire thing out from stem to stern will help me get even closer to the project. Screenwriters are genius (& I'm something like a genius so...) and there's so much that they go through. Besides all of the drafts they're like novelists on speed. In addition to the final draft that has to be in a certain format that is universally accepted there is also a treatment for the film that is 8-15 pages long that gets submitted 1st. This treatment gives all of the plot points, acts, characters and such in a condensed form that has to have its own format. So think about it like this....most features are about 80-120 pages in length allllll of that info has to be miniaturized and still make you want to buy it. That's some amazing pressure. Oh and you only use minimal dialogue and it's solely for descriptive reasons.
Moving on to the video treatment. I worked on several videos when I moved out to LA and had the privilege of reading over the Director's treatments. What most people don't know is that a large percentage of the Directors don't actually write their own treatments. I was saddened initially when I found that out, but here's why.... Mainly it's because of Directors being inundated with a catrillion projects that may or may not jump off the ground and all of the hours that are put into making a treatment could be a complete wash because if they don't choose you you don't get your pay. In those cases production companies will outsource a treatment writer to come up with a concept that the Director and Production Company can stand behind and then it gets submitted to the label. Anyhoo... a treatment for a video gives the writer more creative room as far a format goes. Sometimes, there are photos submitted to give a better sense of the art direction, wardrobe, make up etc. Even if they are not submitted there are tons of style magazines that are flipped through, books about architecture, the human body, movies, you name it that are referenced to allow the Director to fully grasp his/her vision. Cut to me as a PA driving to tons of newstands, movie stores, book stores sifting through so much to find that gem that will yield the perfect reference. No, it was not glamorous but it was fun (sometimes). lol So, the format of a video treatment is usually a one pager or at best a couple of pages consisting of paragraphs laying out the complete visual element and feel of the video down to the presence that the artist gives. It's simple yet effective as long as your adjectives are super on point.
Oh the documentary..... Well, this is a completely new field for me. The reason being is that it's live. In essence what you're doing as the Director/Writer is writing what you're looking to shoot and leaving room for real life to take place. When you're interviewing, you will have a list of questions to ask but you don't know what the answers will be and if those answers will lead you on an eye opening tangent. You come up with a list of places to drive to shoot footage and get permission to shoot and have no idea that you may come across an unexpected nook or interview that will lead you else where. The important part of this entire process is keeping track of it all and documenting the changes. Your pre-shoot/shooting script may change dozens of times to get the best story. The difference between a documentary and the aforementioned is that there are far less rules and it's your idea. It's real life and you have a plan but you end up making a lot of it up as you go along. What's amazing about it is that you have your core message/subject matter outlined and you let it develop itself, you cannot force this or else it's incredibly obvious. The downside is that without the structure, if you're not paying attention, time will fly by and you won't know when or where you're supposed to stop. It's real life so, there is no real end and you choose your own adventure.
That being stated this is my adventure to create compassionate stories that are fictional, 100% real or a combination of both. Developing my breadth of knowledge is incredible. It makes me stretch myself to be more so I can touch more people and do what I'm hear to do...Inspire dialogue and break boundaries. The bear is tackling one at a time. With Shak's "Tarantino Challenge" on the table it's must.
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