Tags: Directors, Filmmaking, Screenwriting
After only writing a total of ONE page on the weekend, I know I’ve got to hustle; tonight I banged out a solid 4 pages of what ended up being mostly banal dialogue…. but that’s ok. This is a rough draft, I keep telling myself…. and also, I’m not even going to USE these scenes as anything other than BACKSTORY.
Wait, what?!? I’m not even going to use them? Then why the hell am I writing them?
Oh yeah, I forgot that my over-inflated ego decided to throw out most of the screenwriting advice it found in books and re-invent the wheel. I’m inventing a “5 Act Structure” that is basically a 4-act structure (hero’s journey kind of deal) with an extra act at the beginning that is purely back-story. Why bother with the term/extra-act/idiocy? Well, it’s purely psychological. I kept thinking, fuck, I’m spending so much time thinking about characters but not WRITING anything… but I remember something someone (probably either Clive or Unk) said about writing your back-story in SCRIPT FORMAT… and then it clicked- why not start BEFORE the plot and just start writing? In the end, I’ll just lop off the entire beginning up to where the plot starts and hopefully the back-story will be ingrained in the later acts without being as in-your-face as it is now.
And so far, the best thing I can say about my new “plan” is this: I’ve been writing something EVERY day. Maybe not 2 pages on weekdays and 5 pages on weekends like I would want, but SOMETHING. When I’m not actually writing, maybe taking a walk to the store, I’m also thinking about what I’m actually GOING to write when I get back! Amazing! Projects can get so frustrating during the writing stage because I’m a huge self-critic and end up defeating myself, but now I feel like even if my writing is CRAP, I’m safe- because the first stuff I’m writing is going to be just for ME, and it’s only a first draft anyway. All I have to do is fill up pages, not write in golden ink! And it’s not notes in a word document- I’m writing this in Final Draft, as formatted as I can get it. I still will have to go back and cut, cut, cut and shorten my descriptions and dialogue, but that’s tomorrow’s problem, not today’s.
So I’m about 13 pages into the 1st rough draft of the script, and though I’m not as far along as I’ve set myself to be, I’m closer than I was before… and though it’s not all going according to the plot-lines I had written, new ideas are floating in there with the old, and it’s EVOLVING. I guess that’s about all I can ask for at this stage.
In other news, had a good long talk with the girlfriend tonight about my Directing. Basically figured out what I do well and what I do wrong, and hopefully I’ll be filming in the next couple of days and can put that feedback to use.
And with that, another self-centric, egotistical, diarrheal, ranting post has been completed and filed in the “do not open until the apocalypse drawer” along with a can of SPAM, all my other “dead” projects, and everything I’ve said, done, or thought for the past 23-some-odd years… G’night!
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