Mann Had To Rewrite Somewhere
Success...ish.
Finally managed to put two words down onto paper. Actually, five pages. I would give an actual word count but I couldn't find the pesky word count feature on Final Draft (My stupendous screenwriting software that does everything but, unfortunately for me, come up with the story)
The scene in question has been written before. Numerous times. It was static, boring and uncinematic. The rewritten scene is also static and uncinematic but hopefully isn't so boring. I guess the proof of the pudding will be tomorrow at the Screenwriter's workshop when it will be critiqued by a bunch of people who know so much about screenwriting that it's actually scary.
It's amazing what another set of eyes can do for a story. At times you suffer from tunnel vision so bad that you can't see the obvious. You shut yourself down to ideas. If you can keep yourself open to all possibilities and not fall in love with your pages then I reckon you've got a decent chance of creating something decent. I've been driving on this highway for 500 miles now and suddenly I've found an alternate route. A route that will take me into the unknown, the unchartered. The downright scary.
Scenes get re-written. It's a fact of life. Never say no to alternatives. Never say no to suggestions. Never be so arrogant to think that the stuff that you've written is the best that has even been produced.
A wise man at the workshop once told me this: If you're writing a courtroom scene then think of the best courtroom scene ever made (Perhaps the Nicholson v Cruise scene in "A Few Good Men"). If your scene doesn't better that then why write it? Why accept mediocrity? Each film has a duty to raise that bar ever so slightly higher. No excuses.
Writing is the easy bit. It's the rewriting that's the hard bit. Hey, Mann had to rewrite somewhere.
Finally managed to put two words down onto paper. Actually, five pages. I would give an actual word count but I couldn't find the pesky word count feature on Final Draft (My stupendous screenwriting software that does everything but, unfortunately for me, come up with the story)
The scene in question has been written before. Numerous times. It was static, boring and uncinematic. The rewritten scene is also static and uncinematic but hopefully isn't so boring. I guess the proof of the pudding will be tomorrow at the Screenwriter's workshop when it will be critiqued by a bunch of people who know so much about screenwriting that it's actually scary.
It's amazing what another set of eyes can do for a story. At times you suffer from tunnel vision so bad that you can't see the obvious. You shut yourself down to ideas. If you can keep yourself open to all possibilities and not fall in love with your pages then I reckon you've got a decent chance of creating something decent. I've been driving on this highway for 500 miles now and suddenly I've found an alternate route. A route that will take me into the unknown, the unchartered. The downright scary.
Scenes get re-written. It's a fact of life. Never say no to alternatives. Never say no to suggestions. Never be so arrogant to think that the stuff that you've written is the best that has even been produced.
A wise man at the workshop once told me this: If you're writing a courtroom scene then think of the best courtroom scene ever made (Perhaps the Nicholson v Cruise scene in "A Few Good Men"). If your scene doesn't better that then why write it? Why accept mediocrity? Each film has a duty to raise that bar ever so slightly higher. No excuses.
Writing is the easy bit. It's the rewriting that's the hard bit. Hey, Mann had to rewrite somewhere.
posted by Tartan Screenwriter | 10:48 PM
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