History 103
You know what was even worse, despite having spent 10 months writing draft 1, it still didn’t have a title! Out of tribute to the ‘Daddy’ we jokingly called it ‘Monster Flick’ turns out this would remain its name till well into the 3rd draft.
But I digress. Having now read a number of books on script writing, and learnt from my bitter experiences on draft 1 I was better prepared to take on draft 2. It was a monster re-write (literally) hardly a scene remained untouched. Many old scenes were binned and a fair few new ones created. The number of characters was trimmed down to a sensible amount, and a number of gaping plot holes where filled. When draft 2 was finished it read like a proper script, it still wasn’t perfect but it was something that I could show people without being laughed at. Only problem was it took a further 6 months. 10 Months for the 1st draft, 7 for the 2nd. Throw in a couple (okay four) months of tea drinking before writing even commenced and we were well into 2003. A lot can happen in 20 months and a lot did.
Okay, so far I’ve stayed pretty much on subject without going off tangent, but those first 20 months where anything like that. If all I had to focus on was the script then maybe those writing times would have been a little shorter. My initial role in the production was to be that of Director, I’m not entirely sure how or why I ended up in that role, I guess I just shouted louder than the others. Only problem here was I’d directed as many scripts as I’d written, and this meant more books.
I’d love to recommend a book about directing, really I would, but all the ones I read sucked. The only thing I really learnt during this whole phase was that most books on directing have blue covers. The shade of blue is directly related to how good the book is. Light good, dark… Save yourself the pain.
And if we didn’t have enough problems already, the only cameras we had access to where 16mm Arriflex film cameras. Now I guarantee at least one person who reads this will scream ‘that’s a problem?’ but it is. Film cameras require film, very expensive film. Which costs even more to develop, then requires specialist facilities to cut and edit. All of that requires money. Money which a bunch of lazy 20 something’s with dead end jobs just don’t have. DV on the other hand uses very cheap tapes (which suffer no generational loss) can be downloaded to any home PC and edited using cheap commercially available software. A further plus, because the images are already in the computer CGI type effects can be quickly and easily applied to them, and we had already found a sweet piece of software to do this.
Obviously we wanted to shoot DV (did I mention that it’s a lot easier to light for DV as well, because it is) so roll on the next problem. All of the people involved who had any film making experience; none of them had ever used DV. Oh not to mention the fact that we didn’t actually have a DV camera. We checked prices and worked out it’d be a lot cheaper to buy a broadcast quality DV camera than 16mm film stock (wasn’t exactly rocket science that one) Then we find out that broadcast quality cameras were an E-bay scammers dream come true. They hold a fantastic 2nd hand price because there are always no budget film makers on the look out for them. Luckily we didn’t get burned (we came close) but we didn’t get a camera either.
Things were looking grim on the camera front. Then by pure happenstance it looked like our prayers might have been answered.
But I digress. Having now read a number of books on script writing, and learnt from my bitter experiences on draft 1 I was better prepared to take on draft 2. It was a monster re-write (literally) hardly a scene remained untouched. Many old scenes were binned and a fair few new ones created. The number of characters was trimmed down to a sensible amount, and a number of gaping plot holes where filled. When draft 2 was finished it read like a proper script, it still wasn’t perfect but it was something that I could show people without being laughed at. Only problem was it took a further 6 months. 10 Months for the 1st draft, 7 for the 2nd. Throw in a couple (okay four) months of tea drinking before writing even commenced and we were well into 2003. A lot can happen in 20 months and a lot did.
Okay, so far I’ve stayed pretty much on subject without going off tangent, but those first 20 months where anything like that. If all I had to focus on was the script then maybe those writing times would have been a little shorter. My initial role in the production was to be that of Director, I’m not entirely sure how or why I ended up in that role, I guess I just shouted louder than the others. Only problem here was I’d directed as many scripts as I’d written, and this meant more books.
I’d love to recommend a book about directing, really I would, but all the ones I read sucked. The only thing I really learnt during this whole phase was that most books on directing have blue covers. The shade of blue is directly related to how good the book is. Light good, dark… Save yourself the pain.
And if we didn’t have enough problems already, the only cameras we had access to where 16mm Arriflex film cameras. Now I guarantee at least one person who reads this will scream ‘that’s a problem?’ but it is. Film cameras require film, very expensive film. Which costs even more to develop, then requires specialist facilities to cut and edit. All of that requires money. Money which a bunch of lazy 20 something’s with dead end jobs just don’t have. DV on the other hand uses very cheap tapes (which suffer no generational loss) can be downloaded to any home PC and edited using cheap commercially available software. A further plus, because the images are already in the computer CGI type effects can be quickly and easily applied to them, and we had already found a sweet piece of software to do this.
Obviously we wanted to shoot DV (did I mention that it’s a lot easier to light for DV as well, because it is) so roll on the next problem. All of the people involved who had any film making experience; none of them had ever used DV. Oh not to mention the fact that we didn’t actually have a DV camera. We checked prices and worked out it’d be a lot cheaper to buy a broadcast quality DV camera than 16mm film stock (wasn’t exactly rocket science that one) Then we find out that broadcast quality cameras were an E-bay scammers dream come true. They hold a fantastic 2nd hand price because there are always no budget film makers on the look out for them. Luckily we didn’t get burned (we came close) but we didn’t get a camera either.
Things were looking grim on the camera front. Then by pure happenstance it looked like our prayers might have been answered.
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