Script Frenzy Day 30

This was the last day and, like every last day, you get the much helpful stress of running out of time...

I had more or less forty pages to write. And the problem with this script is that quite a few of the scenes need a lot of detail in terms of body language and what the characters are actually doing... (and I shall say no more...)

Since I still had quite a bit of plot to go through, scenes started to become naturally shorter. They had reached the summit of their happiness and things started coming down, relatively fast.
This was a curious writing day because not only new chartacters came alive but some of the scenes were quite powerful as well. At least one of the crucial scenes didn't work out as well as I wanted - the dialogue needs some fine tuning - but the more improptu ones came out quite well. Especially towards the end - which I wanted to be deep and moving. I was suprised by how well Ayoola's final words fitted the whole story. I think they added weight and momentum to the whole thing.

Despite all my difficulties this was a very visual script. Perhaps more so than The Softness Of Memory. The two main characters were very much alive and interactive. And I did feel that they were close and intimate thorughout the story. That was the main objective anyway. To convey that feel to the reader. And I think, even on a sometimes erratic first draft, I think I managed to do that.
In any case, this script is much closer to completion than The Softness Of Memory. And that's because it always moves forward in time. It's structure is much simpler than TSOM - not that TSOM's is that complicated but, you know how it goes, a few flashbacks here and there and you start getting confused on where you should go next... Perhaps that's simply because my idea for Ayoola was much clearer initially (and throughout) than the one for TSOM.
In fact that's one of the big differences between the two scripts. Ayoola is all about self expression and physicality. A clear and explicit sense of intimacy.
In TSOM everything is hidden and hinted more than revealed.

Actually, now that I think of it, it kind of makes sense to write these two scripts side by side. They do mirror one another in quite a few ways...

Perhaps my unconscious knew what it was doing all along... it only took me a month to catch up...

And now... onwards to typing away all those Morto Árvore Besta scribbled notes... (but perhaps some reading first... there's a Cory Doctorow book that I want to finish...)

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 29

To start the day I finished The Softeness Of Memory. Just a couple of scenes I'd left on the side to wrap up with a fresher head...

And now the real challenge...

As I opened my Ayoola file... well, I realised my script had stopped at page 40... oops!

The good news was that I had mapped out (though somewhat haphazardly...) the remainder of the script. I also had another handwritten page with ideas for some scenes.
Well, what else was there to do but type?!

Well, in fact, first, I read what I had written so far. I was still in the first fourth or third (at best) of the story. Ayoola and Maurice (I have to change his name somehow... it doesn't feel suitable anymore...) had met, they were romantically involved but... the real drama was to begin still.

I wrote all the way to page 62 I think. The story gained quite a bit of momentum and I advanced through the plot even though some of the dialogue was really perfunctory.

I didn't write as much as I could've because I went to a gig (a Mão Morta gig in Coliseu Dos Recreios) with my brother. And, to be honest, it was good to get out for a while.

By the time I went to sleep Maurice was about to buy Ayoola a way out, even with all the dangers that that might entail.

They were in love, oh so very hopelessly in love...
And their troubles were only beginning...

peace.

Script Frenzy Day 28

And this was the day that I almost finished The Softness Of Memory... I ploughed through the script but I found it hard to bring it to life. Still I had the road map and I only stopped when I had only a couple of scenes left to write.
It was quite hectic throughout the day for the scenes were being written out of order but I just wasn't caring anymore. I just wrote as things came in - during revision everything will be sorted out...
(at least that's what I keep telling myself...)
But it went well. I don't remember how many pages I actually wrote but I was nicely over one hundred when I finished.

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 27

Hey... today has been a looong day... I still haven't slept properly since I left the UK a few hours ago. I flew in to Lisbon and am now staying at a friend's place. Between chatting, playing some guitar, watching youtube clips and dozing a bit, I read some more of Cory Doctorow's book OVERCLOCKED and read a good chunk of the script I want to finish more or less by tomorrow... The Softeness Of Memory.

I was amazed that the first third of it is actually pretty good. Some good and engaging dialogue, the characters coming out much more strongly than I remembered. Then it becomes a lot more forced, in clear need of reworking!

But the story is there, building slowly (perhaps too slowly but that's on revision phase as well...)

I've already finished the scene that I left halfway through months and months ago... I'm feeling tired and not able to focus properly. I'll probably call it an early night and wake up halfway through the night and type.

Or just in the morning and type...

It's good to be in Portugal. It's sunny and warm, and it just feels so relaxing to be here...

I'm not going to go crazy on this script. I'm just going to type the scenes that I had in my mind so long ago and that's it. Type whatever I had planned to - and worry about the structure later.

And if something new comes... well then, let it!

Hope you are well!

peace.

Script Frenzy Day 26

This was a crazy day.

I had to go to work and finish some stuff for the Graphic Novels Reading Group and the Cory Doctorow's event that we're running on the 8th and thus, I cut myself a good chunk of the day that I had planned to use for writing.

Plus I'd arrived home well after 2 in the morning and still chatted with a friend into the early hours of the day. It was just starting to get bright when I went to bed...

And only when I arrived home did I realise that my flight to Lisbon was one of those early ones... So, if I wanted to finish that Miriam script I needed to be fast...

And that's what I did. I focussed on getting all the plot bits on paper and forgot a bit about structure or humour (there was a bit but not much...).

But I did managed to finish it. Already after 2 in the morning and starting to feel the tiredness creep in.

I wrapped up Miriam at 112 pages. It still needs a lot of work but the main thing of these exercises is to have a great big puzzle that you can then jiggle around and fine tune. And it was during the writing of it that I realised that not only it could be a fun film but also a multi-layered one, playing the in-film "real life" with the film ideas that Perry keeps up coming up with for his script. Something that didn't make much sense in the beginning of the writing kind of became one of the supports for this story.

I thought, I'll sleep on the flight.

And I did.

I woke up a couple of times during the flight but I don't even remember the lift off... (even though I did see the crew doing their safety demonstration...)

peace

Script Frenzy Day 24

This was the day of AVATAR...

I was really tired from the previous day (and night!) at work and so I woke up late and feeling like I'd been through a boxing ring during the night. I was groggy and lazy. But... I didn't have that much time to type before I had to leave home again and so I more or less managed to type some twenty odd pages on that script pushing it into the eighty something pages.

It was a bit difficult because it's always a bit conflicting to type something that you know is not as good as something you might'v done three or four days ago, when you know that you could be doing something a bit better, if only you had more time.

But these days I really need to feel that there is some sense of completion in every story. If I don't lay down all the pieces of the puzzle then I don't feel quite relaxed. And, to be quite honest, I prefer to feel relaxed knowing that that story - for better or for worse - is "all there" than one third in, at a good level but still incomplete... never knowing WHEN it will be completed.
Because then what happens to me is that these stories keep coming back, over and over again. Like some sort of ghost we've created to haunt ourselves (and I actually think it's something akin to this...)
Completion is important. It frees up a lot of mind space. Even if it falls short of your initial objective.

To be honest I've never exceeded my initial objective.
On a first draft.
Probably not even on a second.
But on a third or a fourth, when the story is really there, rounded and ticking... oooh... that's another matter.
It has happened a few times.
You know why?
Because I had something to work upon. Something to improve upon. Something that I could gain some perspective about.

I mean, stories just keep turning up. Even the ones that we've finished. Some new idea, some new nuance, a slight change of perspective for that chapter that will deepen and impact on the whole.

And you take them in. Especially if you haven't published them. You make notes. You add. You cut. You change.

The story changes. But it changes to become more and more itself.

I still have ideas I want to add to The Shift and Lost Lines. It's just the way it is. Sometimes it's just another phrase that boils down all that you were trying to say for pages and pages. Making it feel simple and effortless.
And we've got to let these things come through in their own time.

But it's just easier if there's something there already to which they can latch on and resonate.

So, I keep telling myself to be fearless of bad first drafts. Their a good step towards a reasonable second draft.
And a good third.
And hopefully a great fourth...

Peace!

Script Frenzy Day 23

Saturday was another day where I felt I was writing against the clock. I don't even remember much of what I did, I just now that I managed to bang out some twenty odd pages of script (some of them a bit funny - whcich helps!) and rush out to a loooong night at work.

I took my stuff but I didn't even have time to think about it, nevermind writing.

On the way back I was so tired that I found myself yawning while cycling.
But then, as a truck passed by me, way past 3 in the morning, I had a flash and an idea for a short script. I didn't stop to note it down. It's one of those ideas that just swims in the background of your mind for years until it actually comes to the surface and defines itself in a moment with some clarity and force.

It's not a pleasant idea, but I think it's one that's important to tell... so, I shared that with Alexandra (it was an idea for her 18 themed project) the day after.
I think she enjoyed it.
That one and the other one I had been tinkering about.
The problem now is that she doesn't have enough time and, we both agree on this, these stories need a bit of space to breathe...

So, we'll see where time takes us...

My plan is to type them down whenever I'm so inclined and start looking out for a place where I can post them so that animators may take those scripts and do something with them.
I'll get the Creative Commons licensing for all of them and away we go!

That's the plan!

And now... onwards to more writing!

peace~!

Script Frenzy Day 22

Yesterday was a good day even though I didn't write as much as I'd wanted to... I'm still on page forty something and I wanted to have it finished by now!

However I crossed an important threshhold: Miriam now knows Perry exists... and she's curious!
(and so am I!)

One of the problems with this script is that it can go so many ways... so what I thought yesterday was to simply incorporate some of these spin off plots into Perry's eternal script, which could then be shown in short snippets throughout the main body of the film... and add to the humour of it all! I really want to show how the male brain can go head over heels over a woman and really go at a tangent...

Amidst all this pondering I managed to write a short animation script for my friend. It's called One Last Time and it's a story of a goodbye to a redundant previous life.

Actually, you can check some of her stuff HERE!

I'd thought initially to do a kind of combo version of the script, with dialogue and non-dialogue descriptions crammed into a single script but then I realised that the dialogue I'd written was mediocre and the whole would probably work a lot better without any words.
That's what I sent her.

I still feel that I haven't gotten to the core of what I really wanted to say but... there you go, sometimes you just get the taste instead of the whole cake...

Just before I went to sleep I started having these really vivid images about another story that I've tentatively called Fosters - simply because it's about foster parents and abandoned children. It's a pretty dark one but one that I think would be worthwhile writing about. It's about predjudice and expectations.
I jotted down the idea on a word file.
Saved it to my Films folder.
(organisation! organisation!)
And off I went to sleep!

peace!

Script Frenzy Day 19

After spending a good part of the day ceiling mounting my projector I ended up going to the IMAX to watch Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland 3D - which I thoroughly enjoyed. Probably because my expectations were quite low.
It's a blockbuster so, blockbuster rules apply...

But i'ts always a treat to see Tim Burton's wild imaginings take life on the big screen. Especially one as big as the IMAX one!

When I came home I didn't do much. Just went straight to sleep!

Then the next day I started working on my other script called MIRIAM.
After a lot of pottering about I managed to plot the whole thing and write a few scenes. But I felt far away from my 40 page a day frenzies...
The good thing was that the bits I did write actually felt funny - or at least amusing.

I decided I needed a little break so I didn't push myself that much...

peace!