Revised Script Ahoy!

I've spent every morning this week working on reducing the script down from 15 pages towards 10, but it's been tough going. I still have two pages to go, and that will mean dropping a lot of good stuff. I'm far too attached to my dialogue.

In the meantime I have a couple of writer friends both taking a look at reducing the script, and one of them has just sent me his draft. It's really pared back, and loses some of my favourite lines of dialogue, but its 10 pages, and he came up with some really great ideas, including altering the opening sequence (which has no dialogue) to have the dialogue from the next scen playing as voiceover, so an entire page worth of dialogue is condensed without losing any of the mood setting opening montage.

Great stuff.

I'm really excited about the way the script is coming together, it's been so long since I have really been working to something I can actually make, too many feature script projects have kept me busy despite being too ambitious to actually shoot on a shoestring budget.

So, this project continues to gather momentum. This weekend I have to shoot at least a couple of stills out in the street as a VFX test for the flash-cut footage. This is something I have been planning to do for the past couple of weeks, but now I have set a deadline for the middle of next week, and I will need to get moving if i'm going to hit the date.

I will be using After Effects to comp in the high-production cost elements, such as bullet damaged windows and multiple police cars. I want to have the flash-cut sequences really heavily stylised, with short depth of field and rack focus effects, but I plan to add these in post.

So first port of call, is to take a few still images out in the street. Then comes the hard work of making the rack focus effect actually work.

Script Editing

So it's been a couple of months, I have been working on the 'Two Blokes in a Room' project, mainly trying to get the page count down from 15 to 10 pages. The film is structured as a briefing between two secret government types, with flash-cuts giving glimpses of the events they are discussing.

Main problem I am having is that I just can't seem to find a satisfying way to cut it down, I don't want it to run more than 10mins when finished, I don't think the web audience will stick around for that long, and i'm using the standard 'filmfestival' rules for length.

The fact is, i'm too close to the script, I don't want to lose any of my dialogue, and I don't want the story to be misconstrued, so as usual, i'm trying to cover all the bases and explain everything.

I need to reduce the sheer amount of talking. There are probably plenty of areas where I can show instead of tell, I just need to be able to look at it objectively.

So, I've got a couple of different writer friends looking at the script. Only snag is how long they are taking. I want to shoot this before christmas, and that means being ready within the next month.

I also need to get out and shoot some test footage for the flash cut sequences, which will be short shots, many of them requiring cg effects. I need elements like forensics photographs, bullet riddled buses, spent bullet casings and so on, all of which will need to be photoshopped.

Instead of doing that today, I'm distracted with another ongoing project, an homage to the classic sci-fi movies of the late seventies and early eighties, and a remake/sequel to a 25min Sci-Fi horror epic I made during my college days.

I guess it's easier to stay in the office and work alone on an effects shot, than it is to go out into the chilly autumn afternoon to shoot test footage. I need to work on ridding myself of that tendancy for procrastination more! Time to get ON with it.