What’s involved in developing a feature script? These documents from the early days of making Soul Searcher may provide some insight. (Though I’m certainly not claiming that Soul Searcher had a particularly great screenplay!) Here are a series of emails that my co-writer James Clarke and I batted back and forth while forming the script, followed by my first draft outline, and the final shooting script.
Aimee Denaro in the stairwell of The Supreme Court of New York
Today I saw “See Saw” again. This is the feature-length thriller I DPed in Manhattan back in 2007, where I met my wife Katie. Amazingly the film is still in post-production after more than four years – enough time for Katie and I to get married and for director Tom Muschamp and producer/actress Aimee Denaro to sadly get divorced. We saw a rough cut a couple of years ago and recently Tom sent me a newer version with some significant changes.
One of my favourite things about the filmmaking process is the power you can wield over the narrative in post-production. Think outside the box a little, perhaps add a little ADR, and you can completely repurpose a scene or change the entire meaning of a film. The changes to See Saw haven’t been quite that extreme, but Tom has still taken the pretty major step of cutting the entire first act. Carl was forever telling me trim down the first act of The Dark Side of the Earth‘s script, and I’m sure it’s a battle many writers and filmmakers face: to set up the world and the characters with the utmost economy in order to get to that end-of-act-one plot point as fast as possible. So why not cut the first act all together?
See Saw actually seemed to get away with it for the most part. The lead character has amnesia, so the lack of set-up enables the viewer to share in her disorientation. There are one or two little bits of plot that probably do need to be re-inserted in order to give the climax its fullest impact, but overall I think this brave decision has worked for this particular film.
Watching it again brought back lots of memories of the shoot, a crazy three weeks in the punishing heat of a Manhattan August, with only two days off. Tom and Aimee secured some amazing locations, including a boat circling Liberty Island, Tavern on the Green (the exclusive restaurant used in the Ghostbusters scene where the terror dog finally catches up with Louis), Central Park and The Supreme Court of New York. I still can’t believe how lax security was at the latter. Seeing the crew approaching with large cases and assorted metal poles and stands, the security guard simply moved aside a barrier and directed us around the metal detector. The actors even managed to smuggle in their prop guns with great ease.
But my main reaction on seeing See Saw again is to cringe at my lighting. Back then I was all about hard-lighting everything with clearly-defined and very black shadows. While this looks great in the nighttime scenes, nowadays I would be much more subtle in the daylight scenes, using kinos and hard sources bounced off reflectors to give a more naturalistic look. This is the problem with feature films, no matter in what position you work on them: they take so long to make that by the time they’re finished they no longer represent your best work.
Well, that’s enough disjointed rambling for now. I’ll be sure to let you know when See Saw’s finally released.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Max (photo: Richard Unger)
Carl and I have decided we need to change tack a little with The Dark Side of the Earth. We had some interest from a major Hollywood studio, but the suggestion was that the dialogue is too period, too archaic. I just don’t have the mental capacity to tackle another draft, so we’re looking for a writer who can do a polish and make it a little more mainstream, ideally someone with experience of writing for Hollywood. I’ll let you know how that goes, but it definitely seems like if this film is going to be made it will not be by a UK company.
In other news, I’m now casting for Stop/Eject, the short fantasy drama I’m shooting next month. And if anyone reading is in London this Friday afternoon and fancies helping me out running the auditions, please get in touch.
Here’s the first in what I hope will be a series of podcasts covering the making of my new short film Stop/Eject. This one features producer Tom Wadlow discussing how the project originated, and provides a glimpse of the first pre-production meeting.
With my first Virgin Media Shorts entry now out there for all to see, I thought I’d share the script with you. The film’s working title was Two Timing. Here are two different drafts, the first and second (shooting), plus the shot list I drew up.
Download Two Timing first draft script (.doc, 28kb)
Download Two Timing second draft script (.doc, 26kb)
These video blogs include discussions about the development of The Dark Side of the Earth with producer Carl Schoenfeld and script editor Quay Chu, plus an interview with some other filmmakers attending the festival.
