It has been a long time but I finally got round to doing the "final" draft of the script today. The last few months I feel that I have been the films producer rather than its creative force. There were a number of drivers for this long awaited update of the script. I couldn’t finalise the actors schedule, location schedule, prop list, etc until the script was locked down.
It was really refreshing to go back and read over the material. It was if I was experiencing it again for the first time. I could take a fresh look and fix some issues that I had left for a while without any particular solution for them. I made a lot of cosmetic changes that are required to move the script from storytelling to be able to make it useable for the production. These were
- Adding story days to the script
- Splitting scenes into particular locations (i.e. Jacqueline’s Bedroom rather than Jacqueline’s Flat)
- Sorting out any last remaining spelling mistakes
- Numbering the scenes
As well as this I decided to make a few changes to the actual story line. These are described below.
Bookshop Girl is now Treacle
It felt like the bookshop girl was a bit of a no-one character and was more in the story for plot reasons other than anything else. Also when Treacle was introduced in the story it is about half way through the film and she is quite a feisty and interesting character. I felt it was important to introduce her earlier in the story and to show how Ailidh deals or is friends with such a strong character.
This also helped with another problem scene that I had when Ailidh is in the bookshop and she is teasing a book worm nerd guy who always visits the shop and doesn’t buy any of the books, ever! The scene always lacked a bit of power but making Treacle the bookshop girl give the interaction between Ailidh and the book worm guy a lot more energy.
Reducing Dialogue
I have read a lot of books which tell you that writers seem to never want to cut their precious dialogue. I feel that I must work in a different way as ever since the first draft I have been removing dialogue ever since. I don’t believe that the characters need to talk for hours on in. Their actions and facial expressions are the core of a cinematic experience and that is where the film will make an impression on the audience. If you want lots of amazing dialogue then you are probably better to go and watch a play.
Treacle and Jacob
As well as making Treacle’s role bigger in the script I decided to make Treacle make more outrageous advances to Jacob than I previously felt were appropriate. There was always an underlying attraction there but by making it more apparent enabled me to put Jacob on age and to ratchet up the tension with Ailidh.
More alone time
I decided to add some alone time for Ailidh into the script. There is a lot of time when Jacqueline is along and I believe that you really get to understand how she ticks by doing this. I felt that we needed to see what Ailidh is like when alone as she is quite a strong character with others that you really can’t see inside to understand exactly who she is.
I also added a new scene right at the end of Jacob on his own. Throughout the whole film Jacob is always in a scene with one of the girls or he is making his way to the girls. I felt as if I wanted to spend some time just with him. To really acknowledge what emotional journey he has just went through. By adding this scene at the end after watching him toil between the two girls I feel like the audience are finally let in to Jacobs point of view and in turn this helps to mesh the overall story together.