Script Frenzy WrapUp

Hi.
I know it's been a while.
April was a bit of a hectic month, not only because the frenzy was happening but also because I was organizing some events for Lambeth's Readers And Writers Festival.
Happening in May.
Namely one event with Brendan McCarthy (the psychedelic GOD that he is) at Minet Library on the 16th, 2.30pm.
And another with Pat Mills (2000AD, Slaine, Charlie's War and, a personal favourite, Marshall Law, among many others, of course) and Ilya (the editor of The Mammoth Book Of Best New Manga and the one behind the about-to-come-out adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear). This will happen in Streatham Library on the 23rd of May. A Saturday, from 7.30pm onwards.

If you want more info, simply drop me a line at pgalvao@lambeth.gov.uk
(and I'll be able to add you to the Graphic Novels Reading Group mailing list too, if you want)

or go to

http://community.livejournal.com/lambeth_comics

There are quite a few posts about it (so you'll have to scroll down and search for them) and I'll probably be posting a refresher in the next couple of days.

You can also book yourself (and friends!) for any of the events on:

readersandwriters@lambeth.gov.uk

But back to the frenzy...

Well, I did manage to finish it. Wrote just over 100 pages for INTIMACY and about 160 for T.A.F.
And, funnily enough, the whole month went opposite to what I had anticipated.

I started the month really wanting to get my hands on the comedy and a bit afraid of what I was going to do with a massive drama...

Knowing this I tried to spend as much time as possible with INTIMACY and really getting worked up with a lot of internal debate, visualising the scenes over and over again until something made sense, clicked or the two characters simply started ranting at one another.

To tell you the truth, at some point the whole thing felt like it was going to quietly explode and Micah and Danielle (the couple) were simply going to get out of that place never wanting to see each other again.

But I wanted for there to be some light at the end of the tunnel and, since it made sense within the story, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
Actually I think that the light at the end of the tunnel simply reveals a landscape similar to the one left behind (at the beginning of the tunnel...). The difference is that there is a sense of things being broader and more easily dealt with.
To me it's not so much the "happily ever after" but rather the realization that they want to be together, despite the past, ready to face the changes time will bring, one after the other.

Even though the first draft is quite rough - the scenes aren't in order and definitely need to be revised - at least I think I managed to achieve what I feared I could very much fail when I started the script. Being deep and analytical though not overly. Create something that was intense emotionally but that grabbed rather than push away. Allow the characters to breather and their play of tensions both pull them together and apart.

At least I believe that all these elements are there and ready to be worked into something that will appeal and make you wonder. And feel. And identify to some extent.

With TAF the scenario was much different.

When I had the idea I just kept laughing because I just had in a rush a bunch of crazy ideas and I could see them all playing in my head and they were funny, and the idea made sense and I wanted to write them.
But then the blank screen stared back and, after contemplating the same gag for 20 times or more, it starts losing its brilliance. And when you sit down to writing it you begin to wonder if it's actually that funny.
And when you begin to describe it you feel that this description of it isn't really that funny. and that you can't really translate the images in your head (that have all this sound and colour and energy) into the paper.
I found myself not wanting to write any of the scenes that I had wanted so much to write in the beginning.

Solution?

I started writing the story in chronological order.
And I tried not to think if I was being funny or not.

You see, what I realized (and it's always the same lesson, I know...) was that the thing that stood more in the way were my expectations. I had in my head a film that was meant to be gag after gag and totally crazy.
But, when I sat down to write it, I had to do it in an organized manner, in a not so crazy way (even though I did have my moments...).
What I kept reminding myself is that the objective is that the end result to be funny. I cannot expect to get it right the first time around.
So I did my best to stop worrying and got the story down.

Because for me this film was also about the story. And more and more as I kept on writing it. I mean, initially Lester's son was just a kid that sometimes showed up and with whom Lester could do crazy stuff. But then I started realizing the potential of having there someone sharing those experiences but with a totally different perspective. So the film stopped being so centralized on Lester and became more of a duet.

As it stands now it kind of moves halfway through from Lester to Joey. Lester is always the main character and the story is about him and his accident, but Joey becomes increasingly important. And the theme of love we launch in the beginning keeps being transmuted in different ways throughout the story.

It is a feel good film. But even in this there is a difference. Initially it was simply a comedy. A bunch of gags and a crazy guy doing weird stuff and having weird stuff happening to him. But as Lester started interacting and I consequently became more aware of the dynamics and kept some level of realism going in order for some measure of bird's eye view to be experienced by the viewer at the end, I realized that the story had changed, that it now had different needs and that it wanted to cause more than just laughs.

I think it's a better story and a better film for it.

In any case, on the 30th of April I posted my results at about 10pm, cycled back home and, surprisingly, whilst expecting to just get home and switch off by watching a film or something, I started tinkering about with RIGOR MORTIS and came up with a few more ideas and actually spent a couple of hours jamming some stuff onto paper...

But more on that on the next post!

Hope you are all well!

Peace.