Davis and White, with some non-Olympic medals. Doesn't he look like Steve Zahn?As I was watching, I wondered if it was to late to switch careers. The medal ceremony unfolded, and I wistfully thought how amazing it would be to be presented with a shiny gold medal for being outstanding at what you do. To not be mediocre. And then I realized...
Hollywood DOES give out shiny gold awards for being grand!
Someday, you and I will have a date, sir.
Hollywood DOES give out shiny gold awards for being grand!
Someday, you and I will have a date, sir.Day 4: More note carding. I'm more than halfway through the script, close to Act III.
How I rewrite --
I read through the screenplay again, refamiliarized myself with the script and the notes I already had, took a few more notes. The first rewrite is mostly structural, so I'm not really taking nit-picky notes. I reverse engineer my step outline on 3x5 cards. I then sticky tack it up on the wall and playing around with the structure, rearranging scenes, adding scenes, throwing scenes out. This is the best way I've found to wrap my head around the immensity of an entire screenplay. When I take out a note card, I can see the hole in the structure. I can see when an act is top heavy with scenes. I can identify actions scenes, sub plots, character moments. Structure has to be addressed first, and I find using note cards to be more effective than an electronic document or even a printed step outline.
When I know what the next step is, I'll let you know.
How I rewrite --
I read through the screenplay again, refamiliarized myself with the script and the notes I already had, took a few more notes. The first rewrite is mostly structural, so I'm not really taking nit-picky notes. I reverse engineer my step outline on 3x5 cards. I then sticky tack it up on the wall and playing around with the structure, rearranging scenes, adding scenes, throwing scenes out. This is the best way I've found to wrap my head around the immensity of an entire screenplay. When I take out a note card, I can see the hole in the structure. I can see when an act is top heavy with scenes. I can identify actions scenes, sub plots, character moments. Structure has to be addressed first, and I find using note cards to be more effective than an electronic document or even a printed step outline.
When I know what the next step is, I'll let you know.
2 comments:
Do you use Final Draft ver8? The Navigator feature has been really helpful to me when embarding on a re-write. I also rely on the reports it spits out to help me figure out where to start.
I'm actually using Celtx right now. It's free, and I didn't want to drop the money for FD when I first started. It's pretty good for your basic screenwriting needs, though I meant to look into getting FD before I started these projects. I REALLY should have gotten it the last time they offered the student discount at college. Oops.
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