Hello! After a long day of putting the finishing touches on the first draft of my script, I'm finally done! I'm glad I set this guideline for myself because now I have a better understanding of all of my characters, the plot, and the sort of jokes I'm going for. Overall, while this may not be my final version, its good to have something rather than nothing.
Interestingly, I chose to write the first draft of this story differently than I would any other script. Instead of going with the traditional format with sparse stage directions and an emphasis on dialogue, I chose to write it as a short story, in prose. Quirky, sure, but I had my reasoning. The main reason I chose this was because I'm not very experienced in writing scripts or screenplays, since I typically lean more towards poetry and short stories. So of course, writing in such a different format and structure felt like a challenge. Now normally, I'd welcome this challenge as an opportunity to learn and enhance my skills as a writer. However, it was really important to me that I nail the story beats over anything else, and I feared that by challenging myself with this different format, I'd focus on writing according to the structure rather than according to the story beats I want to capture.
Additionally, I don't think that I'll be publishing my first draft for my readers to see right now. While this was something I did for last year's portfolio project, I don't think its appropriate in this case. Let me explain. Last year, my script for my film opening would be the second script I had ever written, and therefore, it was important to me that I capture and publish my first attempts at tackling such a daunting step towards production (I have since blocked that draft on my old blog from being visible, sorry). Now, I have a few more scripts under my belt, to the point where it's not as new. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very notably an amateur, but I'm not grasping blindly anymore. So its just not as important to me to publish a very rough preview of my work.
Another factor is spoilers! Yes, it is a bit presumptuous of me to worry about "spoilers" for my humble little student film to be published and ruin the viewing experience of the few who will watch it. However, when I considered the amount of effort I've been putting into crafting the jokes in my script, I realized that by reading even early versions of these jokes, it sort of spoils the fun of hearing the jokes firsthand when the film is complete. So maybe its not the most valid reason, but it's important to me.
In terms of what I've learned after writing this draft, it wasn't so much general writing growth as it was gaining a better understanding of my own story. For example, for many blog posts I had long struggled with the idea of including a "straight man" character or not. However, in writing different family interactions, I came to realize that Rebecca (the teen girl character) sort of filled the straight man role naturally, since I wrote her to be apathetic to the loss of the computer and instead absorbed with her phone, therefore, whenever a family member brought up the computer, she shut them down coldly because she has no attachment to the computer. Therefore, she played off of the enhanced emotionality of the characters against her own apathy. So it's nice to have the best of both worlds regarding this matter.
Another lesson (?) was in the actual writing structure of the script. Like I said earlier, I was writing in a form more akin to a short story than your traditional screenplay. With this format I found a nice balance between my comfort zone and outside of it, writing with all of the description and language of a short story but still including directions for shot composition or camera movements. It's a quirky little mix but its one that worked surprisingly well for me!
I'll most likely spend this week polishing the script and starting to formulate the plan on shooting this film. Sure, I dread the notion of having to confront my ideas and make them reality, but I rest assured knowing I put all the prep-work I possibly could have into making it the best I can be. See you next time!
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