In Lieu of Any Real Posting

A blog entry summarizing a recent Pixar lecture by director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) on scriptwriting. I wish I knew these before I embarked on this journey of self-flagellation called writing, but I've come out on the other end with a clear understanding of the need to stick to these basics.

In 1992, when he first got the chance to do a story from whole cloth, he was somewhat overwhelmed and intimidated by the task. Then he saw a particular scene in Ryan's Daughter, after which "the clouds parted" regarding movie storytelling. He then understood it's about audience participation -- that a good storyteller makes the viewer connect the dots and form a conclusion. This was a recurring theme, that the audience has an unconscious desire to work for their entertainment.

First he stared with an vulgar and hilarious joke, which I won't repeat here, but which served to make his point that Storytelling is joke-telling. Or, as David Mamet wrote, storytelling is no different from gossip -- we want to know what happens. The joke or story, and the way it's told, are important . . . but we want to know what happens. And the payoff should be unexpected and satisfying. And, more importantly for the writer, one should know that punchline as one is writing.

He then emphasized a point that I think most screenwriters ignore, that Screenwriting is not writing. A screenplay is an intermediary form, a kind of cinematic dictation. I think this is abundantly clear to those of us in animation, where so much of a film is built, piece by piece, by talented people in a number of disciplines.

He described the list of rules they started Toy Story with (you've probably seen this elsewhere -- no songs; no "I want" moment; no love story; no happy village; no villian), and how at an early story screening at Disney, a top lyricist who was then working with Disney gave a list of notes calling for every single element on that list. The message was to dare to be different, and to do things your own way, without relying on formulas.

A key to a great story is to like your main character. Initially Woody was a selfish, abrasive a-hole. He assumed that, since he was going to have a story-arc in which he would change, that this wasn't a problem. But the film didn't work (he proved the point with an early story reel, complete with Tom Hanks' dialogue, that was painful to watch) until he understood that "like" means "empathize" -- that even if Woody was a jerk and selfish, that the audience had to empathize with him.

This led to the idea of Unity of Opposites -- characters need clear goals that directly oppose each other. Woody's selfish goal, to get back in Andy's good graces, directly opposed Buzz's goal.

Writing is rewriting -- the story will emerge as one rewrites, and the first draft is always nothing more than a starting point. Therefore, "be wrong as fast as you can" -- blast out that first draft, then dig into the rewriting and do the real work.

Building a scene -- you need to have something to say, something that gives the scene purpose. This is not necessarily a message, but a truth (which you can debate in the story). The example here was the scene of Woody in the crate at Sid's house. He begins by giving a phoney pep talk to Buzz, but as the scene unfolds he reveals the truth that he is deeply insecure. This unfolding truth is what powers that sequence.

Story Physics-- this was a tag that sounded very specific (and the audience really wanted some genuine story formulas here), but what he referred to was more the underlying and seemingly contradictory truths which often thwart or drive character's behaviors, like "If you really love something you'll let it go," or "If you really want to sell someone something you have to not care if they'll buy it."

Key Image -- a key image should epitomize the core of the story (this is similar to what I've read from Stanley Kubrick). This image embodies key elements of theme and story and helps keep the storytelling on track. As examples, he showed the image of Woody being knocked off the bed for Buzz, of Sully holding Boo's hand in a doorway, of the last vulnerable egg in Finding Nemo. And he noted that A Bug's Life didn't have such an image, causing him to struggle with finding the heart and a core of the story.

Eventually, during a story screening of A Bug's Life he realized that the initial main character, "Red" (a red ant who owned the circus and was something of a con man), was unsympathetic, and his actions late in the film unbelievable. It became clear to him that Flik, a relatively minor character, needed to be the lead. And the rest was history.

posted by Kevin Koch on TAG Blog

12 Hours Till We're Headlining

I hear all your voices out there asking: where are they? What happened? Have they been assassinated? Has the government shut them down? Have they escaped this Earth?

We are still here and we shoot in 12 hours. Somehow, we have found ourselves a day before shooting despite all of Fate's relentless efforts to stop us. We secured a location only 3 days ago, where we had a recce with the entire crew and our newly appointed Assistant Director. The script and shots were broken down and adapted to the space (out went all of our dollies and jib shots as the rooms aren't big enough), layout was planned, rooms were assigned their usage and so on.

The next day (two days ago) we realized that our grip broke his arm in an accident (not much left to grip with) and our assistant director got a paid job (not very assisting). The race was on; would we succumb to grief and desperation or will we find replacements?

Our AD now is one Wa'el Hattar (man with piercing). Wa'el is an old friend from Beirut who agreed to come on last minute to sort out the mess the last AD left behind. Who we replaced our grip with is still a mystery to me.

Naturally, everyone is down with a flu. Me, my AD, our sound designer and DP. Gesundheit to us.

I unglued myself from my snotty pillow to make my way up to Stamford Hill to buy a mezuza for our scene tomorrow. Dan's mother decides to pay him an impromptu visit to congratulate him on moving but surprises him in bed with Luma. She gives him a mezuza as a prezzie. I'm not sure if it's the best idea to use such an obscure item to imply Dan's Jewishness and have been wondering if he should explain what it is to the camera... Ugh, unnecessary dialogue...

After Stamford hill, I wandered down to Springfield park on this gloriously sunny day and got attacked by some mongrel dog. A couple of rabies shots later, I was reclined on the lawn revising what Rabiger has to say about being on set. He says make crib notes.

Well, I guess I'm just dilly dallying. This might be our last posting EVER!

Wish us luck.

Are They More Mystery Train Trend-setters or More Retro 50's Kitsch Kettle Types?

The Name is Wilson. Melissa Wilson; Art Director.

There you have it, folks. Merely weeks before our shoot Melissa finally stepped up from Location Manager to Art Director. Let me count how many art directors have passed through this project... Without exaggeration, it'd be safe to say something like 12.

It is difficult to find good help for no pay. One of the qualities that made us decide on Melissa was her enthusiasm and energy; of which she has loads. What I particularly like as well is her ability to weave narrative into the space; fabricating a history and fleshing out the characters' background. Does Luma have any design sense when it comes to furniture? Do they have a retro 50's kitsch kettle or a £1 Shop boiler? Only Melissa can tell!

In Case the Multitudes of Readers Are Wondering How Our Art Direction Is Going...

It's not. It has proven easier to cull funds for the film than to find an art director. Every person that has agreed to do it has gotten a paid job a few days later and we lost them. The agony and pain of losing people is only compounded by the inability to cuss them out for not helping you for free...

Squeezing Money Out of Stone

The stone being us, that is.

I know, I know, long time no hear. Well, what'd you expect? We're on our last leg of preproduction before the shoot. ONE MONTH LEFT! ARGH! And we celebrated this momentous occasion with a hysterical breakdown and all out yelling match in order to burn that day into our heads.

But that's not what I'm here about. Been casting and I promise to put up the candidates soon. However, I've had the displeasure of having of dealing with the real filmmaking world out there. In my search forerformers I have also unearthed The Agent.

Now call me naive, call me uninitiated or call me a student- but what would an agent be doing dealing with a student outfit? I can fully understand the need for someone to negotiate on your behalf with other studios and lawyers who will be looking to take the most advantage out of the performer- but tell me again; what is an agent doing dealing with a student film?!?

I'll tell you what: trying to make a profit. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people getting paid their due- but what's the point of bringing an agent into dealing with students. I mean, once you've approached a student film, chances are (unless them students are loaded) you'll be working for free. And this was what our posting clearly said: we can only pay expenses.

Dealing with the actress was so much human and realistic; and you can convince her of the merit of the project and bring her into your world. Then comes the phonecall from the Agent. He wants Equity for his performer (I just learnt this. It's the equivalent of minimum pay for actors in the business). Man, if we had the money would we be in college learning how to do this!? What's the point of extorting a student outfit for petty cash!? Either the performer is interested in the role or not.

Ick. Money...

Cast

Are u strictly looking for professional actors or do you think film/drama students are also an option? In which case maybe I should design a call for auditions poster to be posted around film schools.
I like the piece otto sent. its very rough, but i can tell it has potential.

haw

Dan Threatens to Empty His Pint On His Girlfriend

a sketch from the endless hours of storyboarding

Shyamalan And Spielberg On Our Film

Recently, a friend of mine sent me links to two good, in-depth articles on the visual style of M. Night Shyamalan; one concerning the use of the long take, and the other dealing with mise en scène and reflections. Like his movies or not, Shyamalan is an excellent craftsman when it comes to designing his shots and both those essays go into detail why.

Naturally reading those made me want to watch the three movies talked about, namely The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. I hated all three movies when I first saw them but have come to appreciate them immensely since. Strangely, I now find many similarities between my narrative approach and Shyamalan's; mixing up on-the-fringe cheese and hokiness to perhaps say something more profound.

However on rewatching The Sixth Sense with my director's stetson on (I'm in the midst of designing the shots for A Headline Romance) I've learnt quite a few tricks and plan on taking a page or two out of Mr. Shyamalan's book. My previous approach to designing shots was to say one thing with it. Needless to say, they were quite static and provides for jumpier cutting. I guess this is what Mamet refers to as "saying things with a cut". You set up your paradigm with the shot and when you cut to another the audience is left to fill in the in-betweens.

Perhaps not opposite to that, but definitely a different approach, is unveiling your narrative within the shot. Shyamalan does it excellently and another director which comes to mind, whom people love to hate these days, is Spielberg. Munich (despite whether it is good or not) simply blew me away with Spielberg's masterful unpacking of shots that unfold with time to hit multiple narrative milestones. Amazingly, the audience rarely notices these dramatic choices and their effect works very much under the hood. Spielberg seldom uses flagrant stylistic shots like, say, Scorsese and prefers to work incognito, leaving himself as a director out of the movie and focusing on shots that tell the story with maximum impact.

But back to Shyamalan. The narrative structure of those three movies rely on the "twist endings" which reverse engineer the entire movie in your head as you walk out of the cinema. In a loose sense, that is one of the traits of A Headline Romance that I'm finding difficulty in conveying. It's quite hard to engineer elements in a clear way that channel the audience towards the conclusion without err. The trick it seems is to set it up almost like a Sherlock Holmes novel; give the audience all the loose ends and as a finale: show them how to make a bowtie out of it all. It's nothing new but it's definitely something to keep in mind when you're structuring your script. Let the conclusion echo backwards into the script and the ending will ring true with an audience.

Our Casting Call

Cracked Lens Productions (an MA Filmmaking group at Goldsmiths College) is working on it’s final year film; A Headline Romance. Winner of the screenwriting competition, A Headline Romance is a familiar tale of star-crossed lovers (Jewish boy, Arab girl), with a twist. Following the ever-worsening Middle East crisis in the London papers, Luma becomes convinced that the problems in her relationship with Dan are being predicted by the headlines – or is it the other way around?

Luma
A Palestinian with a distinct Middle Eastern beauty, Luma has decided to take a break from her history and restart her life in London. In her late 20’s / early 30’s, a postgrad in journalism and a Jewish boyfriend become markers of a new life until they inevitably funnel her back to the problems she ran away from.

Dan
A London-based guitarist in a jazz band on the rise, Dan (30’s) has the look and cool of a “band member” but doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is passionate about the few things in his life, but sometimes loses himself in those obsessions. Born to a Jewish family, his parents don’t really approve of his bohemian life style and keep trying to reel him back in.

Sanjay
Jay (50’s) is a cultural hybrid of no discernable origin. He runs his crowded off-licence store like a temple of enlightenment; taking in the world and dishing out wisdom subtly for those who listen. A jolly man in his late years he has that twinkle in his eyes that reflects a knowledge of the world vaster than his cramped store betrays.

The shoot will be for 7-10 days between the 23rd of September and the 5th of October. Alas, this is a student film and we cannot afford payment except that for traveling expenses and food. We promise comfort, gratitude and a copy of the most excellent film on DVD or VHS upon completion. Anyone interested in the roles, please send CVs, headshots and showreels (if possible) to thefdz@yahoo.com. Auditions by arrangement will take place between the 14th of August and the 18th at Goldsmiths College (London).

Send In the Graphic Designers

Yesterday I secured another one of the vital jobs in this film. Trained as a graphic designer it is quite irritating to see jobs that I could do myself if I had the time and have to hand them over to someone else. This particular job is crucial to the movie as the headlines become the third party in this relationship and a lot of screentime is dedicated to newsprint that will end up conversing with the lead actor.

Needless to say, I was balking at the idea of ending up with someone I couldn't trust and found myself suffering graphic design nightmares. In comes Jonas Fridén. I met Jonas at this mystical MA I attended for one year at Saint Martins and we've become good friends ever since, working on a few projects together here and there. If I'm a graphic designer who hates graphic designing, Jonas is my mirror opposite; he relishes paper, layout, typography and grids. His final year project was a folding navigation system that became a brochure / carrying bag. Brilliant stuff.

The graphic designer in this movie has two primary jobs. The obvious one is the design of countless newspapers that show up in the movie. The idea is to fabricate something with a name that seems familiar but is not a real paper out there (it would have been great to use names like the Independent or the Guardian but it just requires too many phonecalls, permissions, clearances and whatnots).

The second job is to design the unholy shrine of headlines that Luma builds in her room, mapping out her faltering relationship. It's the work of an obsessed and warped mind and I think Jonas has the tenacity to pull it off.

I am happy. That is one aspect of the film I can stop worrying about.

We Have an Art Director!

Yes we do, yes we do. Our kindly course director, Gerry, has arranged it with the Wimbledon College of Art to have their third year art directors work with us. Which is how we were lucky enough to hook up with Tilly the Terrific! Yes indeed, she is! After an hour and a half's worth of me deluging her with the billions of ideas teeming inside my head I was sure that I had confused her beyond belief. Yet as soon as I got home I was surprised to find this; an expertly organized list of everything we talked about. Long live Tilly!

Discussion and ideas, following our chat today

Characters

Luma

Palestinian, late 20’s, well educated (postgrad student), privileged, attractive, passionate, intense, extreme, cosmopolitan, restarting her life by coming to London, writing a thesis, becomes obsessed with newspaper articles on situation in Palestine, covers the walls in newspaper clippings, writing history paper, in an apparent mess, supposedly organised, she has nostalgic trinkets from Palestine

Dan

Lead guitarist, attractive, slightly scruffy (in a cool way), inconsiderate, messy, enjoys attention from fans, fake modesty, obsessed with his music, and his band (in the same way that Luma is obsessed by the situation in Palestine), music paraphernalia; amp, guitar, sheet music, CDs, record player, records, laptop, itunes

Similar characters-both passionate, charismatic, attractive and privileged. Both have their own interests: Luma; writing, Dan; music.

Set Dressing

Colour Tones

Each character to have their own colour palette. At the beginning of the film, there will be more colour, compared to late on when the tones become more contrasting: black-and-white. Black-and-white: a motif representing the strong and uncompromising views of the press are illustrated by Luma and Dan and will it be most evident in the newspaper clippings.

Their Flat

On Location: living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

Muted tones, white, pastels, very bright and airy at night, very dark, fluorescent lighting. Hot, humid, claustrophobic, fans, window open, curtains blowing, wilted flowers, messy, paper everywhere, newspapers piled high, lots of books. Leftover food, glasses, ashtrays, cigarettes. Clothes draped over furniture, ironing board left out or stop washing piled high, folded ready to be put away. Trinkets, touristy things from Palestine. A couple of guitars, AMP, wired, CDs, guitar picks. Their mess is somewhat separate some areas him to be more dominated by either person.

Kitchen: feel small, cramped, and stuffy.

Bathroom: reading material by the toilet.

Off-Licence

On Location: one day filming.

Contrast in colour tones to the flat, bright, lurid, busy, mesmerising, lots to absorb. Typically British corner shop, run by an Indian man with British accent. No space is spared. The place is overflowing. Little light coming in, as too many advertising posters on window. A shop which sells everything.

Location Specification.

Quiet - house or flat.

Large rooms, especially living and bedroom.

Living and kitchen to be adjacent (for view along the length of the wall)

Bring Me the Jib of Alfredo Garcia

Jib, jib, jibbity jib jib. Mmm how I love this word. I want one. Look at this thing! One of those around the set and morale will be soaring, believe you me. Perhaps we should get two, then. You know; mount one jib to the end of the other, so that you have wheels on the ground, jib arm connected to another jib arm and wheels flying in the air! Yeah! Imagine the shots you could get with that! 'Course there'd be no place for the camera anymore but still; think of the morale!

Ok, ok, maybe not two jibs, but in order to do all the shots in the bed (of which there are quite a few now that I've been counting them), we'd need something like this that will free us up from bed-level takes. Apparently they're not exhorbitantly expensive and do not require so much practice.

On the other hand, everything in London is expensive and I've been researching alternatives to the jib. A friend suggested mounting the camera on a hihat and suspending it on two sets of ladders. You'd end up with static shots, yes, but it'd cost nothing.

Any ideas?

Headlines to Make the Blood Curdle

I promised myself that this blog would remain faithful to the production of "A Headline Romance" and I intend to keep that promise despite the the last month of bad news. So here's how the latest events in the Middle East are affecting our production.

The irony of the situation does not go unnoticed, believe me, but caught outside of my home country, Lebanon, whilst it's literally being bombed to rubble, I find myself with little time left for work on this movie between combing the internet for latest on the situation, going to every other protest and rally, writing emails to friends stuck in Beirut, calling other Lebanese people here and growing nice healthy ulcers mulling this tragedy over.

The real damage to the film comes in trying to raise funds for it. Sentiments are stoked to a venemous rage on both sides of the semitic spectrum and any call for sympathy towards the other side will only be met with belligerence.

I haven't even been able to get any straight feedback on the latest draft of the script as everyone I know is either mourning what's happening to Lebanon or stuck in it. Who's going to want to read something about loving Israelis?

I know that it becomes even more important to make this movie now because of what's happening, but my conviction stands in the face of everyone's anger and it will be very difficult to bring myself to ask for money for a movie when my country is on the brink of perishing.

£20,000 for a Presskit?

Ladies and gentleness, I present to thee, our presskit (the link is for a screen version of the presskit. For a print quality version, please use this link)

Designed by the one and only Hawzers, this is our secret weapon in the war against lack of finances. As our movie is built around a message of peace we have reasoned that our best bet at making our budget would be by targeting charities and organizations that work to promote pacifist solutions and reconciliation through dialogue.

The presskit itself is designed to shed some light on the nature of the project, our histories, our planned expenditure, contact info- but mainly it's to make it clear that we are professionals and not just a bunch of students let loose with a film camera.

Ideally the kit will be printed and accompanied by the poster and sent out to said organizations in the hopes of gleaning some kind of help. Our hope is that people will jump on board simply because it is an issue they're concerned with.

There were many thoughts about what to put in there (a short history of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians? Our bios? Does it really matter who we are? The actual script? Storyboards?) and in the end we settled on going for the stuff that would be convincing and necessary. I'm still not sure about five pages detailing the history of the crew but the idea is that if someone is actually interested, then this information becomes necessary.

What is still missing from this pack is the animatic. A scene that exemplifies the mood of the film was storyboarded and then taken out of the pack because of an animatic I saw by a friend of mine. Storyboards make the film clearer to people that you are working with but by turning the same boards into an animated clip the whole thing comes to life with a faint smell of celluloid. This is what you need for fundraising; elements that draw a clear line between a dog-eared, courier-fonted script and a finished film.

But I'll speak about the animatic when it's done.

Another Stab

I’ve straightened up my room so that it exists in perpendiculars, I’ve folded my clothes into neat packets of anality, I’ve hoovered the cracks between the floorboards, I’ve called my friends till my tinnitus overcame the ringtone and I’ve sworn off my regular procrastination crutch (for those who know, please appreciate). Which leaves nothing between me and another rewrite but this blog entry…

It shouldn’t be that bad though as our munificent course director, Gerry, did not trash the last draft and I do have some fresh ideas I want to try out. The light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t seem that far anymore. Mind you I am at the stage where I don’t know what is working and what isn’t anymore and I’ve still got the bloody ending to solve.

My biggest fear is that I’ve cornered myself into a narrative stalemate. My assertion about the message behind the script is what is making the ending unsolvable. Am I simply being stubborn and not allowing the piece to breathe?

A Brief History of Our Posters

As it is 4 in the morning and I know I should be catching some z's before my producer calls I naturally can't get myself to sleep. So here's a recap on how we ended up with our presskit poster.

TRY-2 is one of the initial ideas for the poster bandied around. Our intrepid graphic designer (Hawzers) was looking to express the idea of headlines without resorting to the usual cliched graphics of a halftone pattern and newsprint. He sought to show something similar by binding the title within a box and cluttering up the type with random caligraphy.

I found it simply too conceptual. You couldn't pick up on the idea of headlines, a romance, or that this was even a poster for a movie. It looks nice, but perhaps for an exhibition about caligraphy.



Those two pieces (TRY 4 and 6) came after we discussed using an image. As I found the last posters rather obscure when it came to being about a film, Hawzers decided to use an image as a centerpiece. The end result however was the last poster I'd want for this film. The whole art of the script was how to sidestep the political issues with grace and style. Having a poster with the separation wall or a massive explosion sabotaged the whole process. Those were absolutely a no go (although I did like the type and layout of TRY 4).

I creamed myself when I got this (TRY -8). It was perfect, it embodied the spirit of a couple at war so simply and so elegantly. The layout and use of typeface brought forth the idea of headlines and the beautiful image of the red pillows was so sumptuous you felt like you wanted to cuddle up right between them. Of course, between the two pillows of heaven lay the dotted separation line and look what a beautiful line Hawzers had drawn! It was hand-scratched giving it a wonderful crafty feel. I was happy. We were there!

I sent our newly minted poster to all my friends and five minutes later I got this link as a reply. Apparently the Breakup poster was everywhere in LA. Again, it was 'dem Jerry Bruckheimer spies! For the record, though, I still think our poster looks better!


Haw's other suggestion (TRY-10) was also pretty striking. I loved the yellow color and the map. The illustration itself apparently came from a Letraset and was scanned and enlarged. Sadly, I don't think it really looked much like a bed. Also, tying it to a specific map with clear words threw the poster in the land of political documentary again. This is where the ideas finally came together; to bring the map to the bed whilst using the headline layout. For the result see the previous post.

Our Poster

The Eternal Threat of Death by Quicktime Trailers

A good friend of mine has been working in film, writing and directing, for six years now. I've been through every draft and rewrite, moaning and whinging, script pitch and comments session. The worst is the recurring nightmare of Eternal Death by Quicktime Trailers (aka Eternal Death by Aintitcool).

There you are slugging through the treacle of writing, working hard to prove to yourself that by God I've got it in me to do this idea justice! And in a fit of procrastination you check out some quicktime trailers at the Apple website, watch some of the big stuff and curse them for their insane budgets, catch up on the latest Adam Sandler crap-edies, and then make your way to the stuff you've never heard off in search of those film nuggets that nobody is really talking about and BAM!

There's your movie playing in a trailer...

And you can feel your heart sinking past your testicles and you're thinking to yourself that this can't be happening. Someone must have stolen my idea! Someone must have told Jerry Bruckheimer about me! THE BASTARDS!

The Wasteland of Rewrites

OK, so officially we are on rewrite number 3. Unofficially I've gone through something like seven or so. The official releases are the ones that have been handed out to the group as a working copy whilst the unofficial ones are those made for editing and feedback purposes.

It's genocidal, the number of characters murdered and resurrected in various guises (in particular the character of Fi that started out as a drunken lush, turned into a bartender that had an affair with one of the main characters, his mistress, old landlady, his mistress again, his sister, mutual friend and finally into an inanimate headline).

The real difficulty lies in the plethora of comments that come with every rewrite. It turns the prospects of the next rewrite into a minefield of pitfalls, do's and do not's, avoidances and things to make sure are in there. It literally got to the point where I was changing words halfway through typing them out.

I think I need to find a better way of dealing with notes and comments. The way it 's happening so far is that as soon as I finish a major rewrite of the script, everyone pours their feedback into it. Some people love some lines and others hate them, some people find the scenes cheesy, others find them evocative. Fi, in particular, has been the character everyone loves to hate (except for our beloved graphic designer Mr Hawzers who thinks she's the best thing in the script), and after a while your original reason for including anything in the first place becomes suspect.

And this is where the madness ensues. Every aspect of the script becomes up for grabs, the changes so radical and the options so numerous that every decision adds an exponential amount of choices and possibilities. On the other hand, every idea you get becomes challenged not only by your internal author-ial voice but by an internal choir of comments and remarks as well.

Dialogue is the trickiest to take comments on because everyone reads a script differently. Whatever adverbs you stick before the delivery of a line, people will still interpret it according to their own personal character compass and the remarks may vary from "stilted" to "brilliant". I think if I was only a scriptwriter this would be reason to worry, but as I am hopefully going to end up directing this I usually have clear idea of how the dialogue is being delivered. Plus, my current retort is; the dialogue is all temp. The actors are gonna make it their's and all will be nice and smooth.

So, doesn't it get better with every rewrite? Not really. The second official rewrite grew bloated with dialogue, turgid with explanation and swollen with imagery. It tried to fix things by adding stuff and that was detrimental. Reeling from the horrible reception of what took an age to languish rewriting, my mepiphany (mini-epiphany) was to get rid of EVERYTHING. Just lose it all until the script was operating at its bare minimum.

See, with comments you get caught in the crossfire of ideas and every rewrite becomes a struggle to cram more of the cool stuff you've been thinking off. By the end, I didn't know what was necessary for the story and characters and what wasn't anymore. Does it matter if he's Jewish and she's Arab? Could we lose that? What about their respective careers? What is that adding to the plot (Gerry, our benevolent course director, keeps asking me this question. I have a subtle answer; they're both obsessed with what they do [her with her history and him with his art])?

It's definitely a different script now and I feel it lost a lot of the immediacy and briskness of the first draft but overall the whole thing seems to clunk together better. Is it the end? No more rewrites? Bah, I'm already planning the assasination of more characters so I doubt it.

Our masthead?

A Plot Is Hatched

A Plot Is Hatched

It's summer in London (or so it seems to claim) and Cracked Lens Productions is on it's first week of pre-production for our big film A Headline Romance. Gerry, our benevolent course director, has yearned for a making-of documentary to catalogue the exciting adventures of making a student film. I am disciple of the Information Revolution and Open Source As A Solution to Everything. And I'm sure you, the world out there, is hungry for the latest scintillating gossip on what will no doubt prove to be a mega-smash in the film industry.

So, as every blog pines away at the hope that it will be the unassuming record of penultimate success, I present to thee this, the short synopsis for our short movie. Hope you'll stay around for more.

A Headline Romance

Luma, a Lebanese post-grad in London, is going out with Dan, a guitarist of Jewish origin in a band on the rise. Their relationship is beginning to flounder however, and Luma isn’t sure where the pressure is coming from. Their love for one another is certain yet it seems like arguments are cropping up from nowhere. Suddenly she makes the strangest of discoveries; bringing the landlady her daily fix of newspapers she falls upon a headline describing the Israeli / Palestinian situation that perfectly mirrors her problems with Dan. Could that simply be it? Is their love buckling under the weight of their ethnic backgrounds? Obsessed she begins buying the newspapers regularly to read a forecast of her relationship in the news. Somehow they have fallen under direct control of the headlines and there is little she can do about it!