Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
My First Script In all of the 93 podcasts and movies I've made to this point, I have never written an actual script. I've drawn storyboards for several movies, but that's it. One reason is that I don't use much (if any) dialog. The Yellow Car, for example, had no dialog, no script and didn't even have a storyboard. It was just all in my head.

We came up with an idea at a Film Club meeting a couple weeks ago for a short movie that involves a local celebrity. To get him on board, I figured we needed a script. The students have a few other movies they're working on now, so I took it upon myself to create this script.

During our cruise, I created an outline for the movie, which is basically just a few pages of notes that take the story through each significant scene and plot twist all the way to the end. This is a great stage to start with because you don't get caught up in details and can easily change major sections of the story easily (as I did several times). This is where you lay the foundation of the story: introduction, conflict and resolution.

Once I had the outline to a good stopping place, I started on the script. This was difficult and time-consuming work but proved to be highly valuable. Scenes have to be figured out to a precise level of detail that really helps you understand exactly how the movie will flow. Characters really take on life once you start describing their actions and putting words into their mouths. Problems in the story surface easily, and you're forced to solve them there. If problems go unsolved at script level, it will be much more difficult to solve them during production.

I didn't finish the whole script by the time vacation was over, but I had worked out the most complicated dialog scenes. The rest of the script came together easily when working from the outline I had finished earlier.



The finished script was copied and handed out during Film Club tonight. We assigned roles and read all ten pages aloud as a group. When we got to the end, we had a long discussion about specifics. The ending needs some subtle but important changes, and there were several good ideas of details (which I like to think of as 'candy') to sprinkle throughout.

Students took home copies of the script to read through, mark up or edit however they want, and next week we'll review some of those changes. Then I will write a revised script, which we will then present to said celebrity in hopes that we can get them on board. It shouldn't be too hard of a sell, but the whole thing hinges on their involvement, so it's a life or death moment for this movie. Hopefully we'll be able to get a confirmation next week and will be able to move on from there.

At the end of the day, it's just a short story that is comical and somewhat entertaining. For us as a club though, it provides several obstacles that will require a lot of teamwork and involvement to overcome. I wrote it mostly with that in mind, to push the limits of what we've done, trying new techniques that are just out of our comfort zone. If all goes according to plan, it should be roughly 10 minutes long and should be wrapped up sometime this Spring. I'll keep you posted with any updates along the way.