As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

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  • #46
    Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

    Well done, and congratulations.

    I don't try and predict things. I just talk about what I know. So here's what I know.

    When it's all over, good movie or bad (and hopefully good!), you will be a much, much, MUCH better screenwriter for the experience.

    Welcome!

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    • #47
      Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

      Originally posted by Craig Mazin View Post
      Well done, and congratulations.

      I don't try and predict things. I just talk about what I know. So here's what I know.

      When it's all over, good movie or bad (and hopefully good!), you will be a much, much, MUCH better screenwriter for the experience.

      Welcome!
      Many, many thanks, Craig.

      One of my abiding joys in life is walking my dog and listening to your (and John's) superb podcast. It's a (near) hour of education, inspiration (with a healthy dose of reality check), and just plain fun.

      To anyone who reads these forums and doesn't yet know about Scriptnotes, I beseech, entreat and damn-well near demand that you make yourself aware of it and consume it. It's the audio component of John August's also-fantastic website: johnaugust.com.

      You'll learn more listening to this podcast than reading any guru book or going to some 3-day seminar. Again - if you are reading here, you just should simply be listening to the show. And if for some reason you can't listen, John is enough of an archivist to provide a frickin' transcript each week. You have no excuses not to tap in.

      Here's one thing you'll learn: these guys' minds are broad churches - and you should endeavour to make yours one as well. You are engaged in reflecting, commenting on, parodying, celebrating, criticising, creating and whatevering the world as we know it. The one common hallmark that I've noticed about successful creative people is that they are almost all universally interested in a wide range of stuff - and that feeds into their work in unexpected ways. From low art to high, frame of reference and passion informs their output in ways you can't necessarily predict. John and Craig demonstrate this catholic hunger for knowledge and insight very well.

      Thanks, Craig - for the wonderful service you and John provide to the screenwriting community.

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      • #48
        Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

        My pleasure. Glad you've gotten so much out of it. I'm very excited for what's ahead for you... it almost makes me excited about screenwriting all over again!

        Almost.

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        • #49
          Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

          I just started listening to the podcasts, and they're a treat -- real info from two guys who actually KNOW from screenwriting.

          And it's just plain fun to hang out virtually with other screenwriting nerds.

          "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

          Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

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          • #50
            Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

            I walk my dog while I listen. That is not a euphemism.
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            • #51
              Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

              Coolio 60words. Keep the thread rolling.

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              • #52
                Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                OK...

                As I write this post, I'm not sitting on the set of a film I wrote. I'm home from my first full day at the office since mid-November.

                What a culture shock - straight back to the fluoro lights (one of them blinking, of course), the dingy partitions and the saddest sight known to humankind: office Christmas decorations post-Christmas. There's that Mexican standoff of them being left up-until someone cracks and forlornly packs them away with the bitter resignation that it will be many moons before they're seen again.

                Back to wrestling with databases, spreadsheets, targets, HR annoyances and the rest of it all. It's by no means a terrible job and parts of it have a kind of brutal creativity to it, but it sure ain't makin' movies. I feel very fortunate to have had both going in my life at once, even though it added a hell of a lot to the stress. It's good having an income to go back to.

                Anyhow - on the project front: I don't have a lot more to report yet. Evidently the last week that I missed was even more jam-packed than the rest of it. The director is working with the editor-the rough assembly edit has come in way too long, but I figure it's easier to subtract raw material than add it. I'll probably be a nervous wreck when I go in to look at the work in progress. I'm used to seeing films in their finished form: music, SFX, sound design, graded etc, and I'm pretty sure that my newbie eyes and ears won't be able to project well enough past the unfinished business to the possibilities of the end result. Some of the rushes already threw me-they felt sparse without the bells and whistles. I don't think we always consciously realise it, but when we're looping through the movie in our head before we put it on page, I'm pretty sure we're "watching" an edited, scored, FXd, graded idea of the finished product rather than the jarring intermediary material.

                More later when there's something to report. Again, the return to normal life has made the adventure seem like a dream. There's physical evidence of it all happening though, so if it's a hallucination it's a convincing one.

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                • #53
                  Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                  Last night, I went over to the director's place for our semi-regular "Nerd Night- - a gathering of tragic film geeks. We watch some infamous guilty pleasure, and there's lots of dorky yelling at the screen and film-buff one-upmanship. The kind of stuff that if any significant other witnessed it would place a long-term relationship in serious danger.

                  Anyhow - I went early because the director had 25 mins of a rough cut to show me. I was sitting in trepidation as he loaded the DVD, but as it unfolded I realised something. Paraphrasing Monty Burns - I know what I hate, and I didn't hate it. There's definitely some stuff that I wish was in there that we didn't shoot - especially one passage-of-time montage that would have fleshed out a fairly clunky bit that will need some further editing work to sell. And as I've said before, it's jarring seeing it without the proper grade and the full V and SFX. He'd dropped in a placeholder score of some classic De Palma tracks. That helped, but this is a film that sound design, score and VFX will be crucial component of, and there's still a lot that needs to be filled in by the imagination.

                  He also showed me some of the later material that was still in clumsy assembly edit mode, and I got a giddy "sh*t! This looks like a real frickin' movie!- feeling, especially on some of the more high-stakes actiony stuff from the final showdown. It's entirely possible that my opinion might waver as we get further along - and I know that there'll always be bits that I'll wince at, wishing that we had more coverage on (or had shot at all!). But watching the luscious anamorphic photography with the camera gliding around like a voyeur, I couldn't help but have moments where I felt proud, edified and excited knowing that we made all this happen. Seeing a shot - even some mundane thing like a CU of water dripping out of a tap at a tense moment - and thinking back to visualising and writing it and then THERE IT IS ON THE FRICKIN' SCREEN JUST LIKE I'D IMAGINED IT is a great, great feeling. Again, everything was by no means like this and I'm not going to be the final judge - the unaligned audience is. They'll be the ones letting us know if it's a curate's egg or not, and they won't be shy about it. Nor should they. That'll be its own kind of torturous anticipation when the time comes. However, sitting where I am now, I don't think I'll be Alan Smithee-ing it.

                  Anyhow, that's another update on this fascinating journey for me. For those of you who have the immense fortune of experiencing what I'm lucky enough to be experiencing, do everything you can to get involved in as much as you can at every step. Your brain will soak up stuff that you won't even realise, and as Craig said earlier in the thread, it will make you a better screenwriter.

                  More later when I see the next tranche of material.

                  (Sorry to still be coy about the title, but I think as a learning experience for those bothering to read all of this it's better if I can speak somewhat frankly. The publicist is still in charge of information flow and there are deals still to do, so I'd prefer to keep the project under wraps until we're almost ready to go. I hope this doesn't diminish what I have to say. And please keep in mind this is a small, non-Hollywood film - but it's a film nonetheless and the process is pretty similar to the bigger stuff.)

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                  • #54
                    Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                    OK - this is a very hard post to write - but I promised myself that I would be as honest as I can be with these updates even when the news wasn't good or pleasant to relay.

                    I saw a rough cut last night - super rough (ungraded, by no means the finished edit, no SFX, no VFX, borrowed scores only through about 20% of it, ADR still to drop in in places) - and I'm sorry to say that I wasn't very happy with it. It wasn't coming together yet for me, and felt very clunky in some places. We had some other people there and they were being (I think) relatively honest in their opinions and weren't quite as harsh as I was, but they were all friends (albeit very cinema literate with a few filmmakers amongst them) so it's hard to say if they could be as brutal as they might like to be.

                    I'm hoping that it's a combination of my inexperience at seeing rough cuts and the natural disconnect with what I was seeing as opposed to what I was expecting, but I couldn't help but feel quite uneasy. The editor (who is very experienced) was saying that she actually feels the rough is in better shape than many she's delivered at the point that it's at, but my natural glass-half-empty nature and tendency to self-flagellation is getting the better of me.

                    My fervent hope is that the crucial bells and whistles will radically change my opinion. It's a genre where foley and score are absolute lynchpins, so I'm seeing it in the harshest state imaginable and could be jumping the gun. But I do have to leave myself psychologically open to the possibility that I am not going to be happy with the finished result. Or the audience. Which will make me feel culpable at having delivered less than fortune gave me the chance to deliver.

                    But - as a famous character once said - "this is the business we've chosen". There are ups and there are downs, and if it turns out on the negative side of the ledger I suppose the trick will be to deal with the blowback, learn from it and move on. I still feel I have a lot to offer, and will have grown from the experience regardless.

                    Anyway - sorry to be a downer, but - for the sake of the spirit of this thread as a quasi-diary - I think honesty and catharsis at this point is better than bluff.

                    Let's see what the next stage brings. I'm hoping it's better news.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                      I've been following these entries with interest. I remember my first film too, and the situations have a lot of similarities, especially the emotional rollercoaster ride.

                      Do you have any experience in the editing room? I ask because miracles can be achieved with good editing, but those miracles are nearly impossible to anticipate unless you've been through it before.

                      So, if you haven't, keep the faith. You clearly want to film to be great, and that's a good thing. With your heart in the right place, hopefully your feedback is helping to keep everyone else aiming high.

                      Remember, without a release date or distribution, you have the luxury of time. Took my first film BURNING ANNIE about 3 years of constant refining in post to become the film that got bought by Warner Bros.

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                      • #56
                        Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                        Originally posted by Armak View Post
                        I've been following these entries with interest. I remember my first film too, and the situations have a lot of similarities, especially the emotional rollercoaster ride.

                        Do you have any experience in the editing room?
                        Absolutely none. That's what I'm counting on - my inexperience with seeing the sausage made.

                        Originally posted by Armak View Post
                        Remember, without a release date or distribution, you have the luxury of time.
                        We actually have both in certain territories - so time isn't that much of a luxury.

                        Thanks for the encouragement, though. Appreciated.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                          Originally posted by 60WordsPerHour View Post
                          OK - this is a very hard post to write - but I promised myself that I would be as honest as I can be with these updates even when the news wasn't good or pleasant to relay.

                          I saw a rough cut last night - super rough (ungraded, by no means the finished edit, no SFX, no VFX, borrowed scores only through about 20% of it, ADR still to drop in in places) - and I'm sorry to say that I wasn't very happy with it. It wasn't coming together yet for me, and felt very clunky in some places. We had some other people there and they were being (I think) relatively honest in their opinions and weren't quite as harsh as I was, but they were all friends (albeit very cinema literate with a few filmmakers amongst them) so it's hard to say if they could be as brutal as they might like to be.

                          I'm hoping that it's a combination of my inexperience at seeing rough cuts and the natural disconnect with what I was seeing as opposed to what I was expecting, but I couldn't help but feel quite uneasy. The editor (who is very experienced) was saying that she actually feels the rough is in better shape than many she's delivered at the point that it's at, but my natural glass-half-empty nature and tendency to self-flagellation is getting the better of me.

                          My fervent hope is that the crucial bells and whistles will radically change my opinion. It's a genre where foley and score are absolute lynchpins, so I'm seeing it in the harshest state imaginable and could be jumping the gun. But I do have to leave myself psychologically open to the possibility that I am not going to be happy with the finished result. Or the audience. Which will make me feel culpable at having delivered less than fortune gave me the chance to deliver.

                          But - as a famous character once said - "this is the business we've chosen". There are ups and there are downs, and if it turns out on the negative side of the ledger I suppose the trick will be to deal with the blowback, learn from it and move on. I still feel I have a lot to offer, and will have grown from the experience regardless.

                          Anyway - sorry to be a downer, but - for the sake of the spirit of this thread as a quasi-diary - I think honesty and catharsis at this point is better than bluff.

                          Let's see what the next stage brings. I'm hoping it's better news.

                          Don't worry about it, rough cuts/assemblies are more a skeleton than a product. If the actors delivered good performances, then you'll be fine.

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                            Originally posted by 60WordsPerHour View Post
                            OK - this is a very hard post to write - but I promised myself that I would be as honest as I can be with these updates even when the news wasn't good or pleasant to relay.

                            I saw a rough cut last night - super rough (ungraded, by no means the finished edit, no SFX, no VFX, borrowed scores only through about 20% of it, ADR still to drop in in places) - and I'm sorry to say that I wasn't very happy with it. It wasn't coming together yet for me, and felt very clunky in some places. We had some other people there and they were being (I think) relatively honest in their opinions and weren't quite as harsh as I was, but they were all friends (albeit very cinema literate with a few filmmakers amongst them) so it's hard to say if they could be as brutal as they might like to be.

                            I'm hoping that it's a combination of my inexperience at seeing rough cuts and the natural disconnect with what I was seeing as opposed to what I was expecting, but I couldn't help but feel quite uneasy. The editor (who is very experienced) was saying that she actually feels the rough is in better shape than many she's delivered at the point that it's at, but my natural glass-half-empty nature and tendency to self-flagellation is getting the better of me.

                            My fervent hope is that the crucial bells and whistles will radically change my opinion. It's a genre where foley and score are absolute lynchpins, so I'm seeing it in the harshest state imaginable and could be jumping the gun. But I do have to leave myself psychologically open to the possibility that I am not going to be happy with the finished result. Or the audience. Which will make me feel culpable at having delivered less than fortune gave me the chance to deliver.

                            But - as a famous character once said - "this is the business we've chosen". There are ups and there are downs, and if it turns out on the negative side of the ledger I suppose the trick will be to deal with the blowback, learn from it and move on. I still feel I have a lot to offer, and will have grown from the experience regardless.

                            Anyway - sorry to be a downer, but - for the sake of the spirit of this thread as a quasi-diary - I think honesty and catharsis at this point is better than bluff.

                            Let's see what the next stage brings. I'm hoping it's better news.
                            I've written and directed a short and a feature. Trust me, seeing the rough cut is the worst day in the filmmaking process. I'm sure you felt that the grand vision you had for it played out limply and badly on the screen. But expect massive changes to the film: sound (foley, adr, ambient), editing (pacing, shots added and removed), actor's performances.

                            The next cut in my experience is better than the first, and once you get to the final cut, you'll have a product markedly improved from the rough, though whether it's a "quality" film objectively speaking will be up for debate. Still, you've gotten the film to the best possible point, congratulate yourself, and move on to the next.

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                            • #59
                              Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                              More postcards from the rollercoaster:

                              Investors have seen the rough (albeit touched up from what I saw) - positive reaction.

                              Composer we want has seen the rough - liked it, wants to open discussions with us.

                              Teaser trailer came through (the sales agents are off to the market with it soon) - it had some rudimentary foley, suitable music and a good grade. I loved it. I watched it about 15 times and thought "if I saw that trailer in a cinema my interest would be piqued".

                              I must be sounding bipolar by now.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Re: As I write this I'm sitting on the set of a film I wrote...

                                Originally posted by 60WordsPerHour View Post
                                More postcards from the rollercoaster:

                                Investors have seen the rough (albeit touched up from what I saw) - positive reaction.

                                Composer we want has seen the rough - liked it, wants to open discussions with us.

                                Teaser trailer came through (the sales agents are off to the market with it soon) - it had some rudimentary foley, suitable music and a good grade. I loved it. I watched it about 15 times and thought "if I saw that trailer in a cinema my interest would be piqued".

                                I must be sounding bipolar by now.
                                Ha, enjoy the ride. Another good quote that I heard from someone recently about the process is "The movie is never as good as the dailies, and never as bad as the rough cut."

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