Progress Report – Nine Lives

The same procedure as every Wednesday but this is going to be a short one.

One book/screenplay: “Room” by Emma Donoghue, I’m probably reading that one with my students next year.
Two movies: The Prestige and Beerfest and I don’t regret it. The Prestige is probably my favorite Nolan movie¹ and Beerfest is just really funny.

Opening shot of The Prestige.

Seven pages: Well, I got stuck a bit. I kept writing and I realized that something was off and I needed to address some issues, but more on that later.
seven hours: I’m currently making notes for the new version of “Tomorrow”. I’m looking for ways to make the story more european. So far I’m glad I made that decision. I actually think that this might turn out quite well.

…later…

So, as I was churning out pages, it occurred to me that I had way too many characters to introduce. Most of my dialogue was people telling their names and I got really bored. So I decided to cut even more characters. I have to go back and adjust for that but I think it will be for the best. It’s hard for me to get rid of those characters because I have fond memories of them but the script is not supposed to be nostalgia, I want to write an entertaining movie with a message I can get behind. It hurts me to say goodbye to some friends but I can’t do justice to 6 or more people, I need to focus and that means combining some of them into one character or even spreading them around to make the remaining characters more interesting.

I already had a character cleansing a couple of month ago but I wasn’t thorough enough. I also have to make a list of some good ensemble movies to see how other writers and directors deal with a huge cast of characters. If someone has a good idea, drop it in the comments.

For now playing I’m doing something different today. I’m a huge Screen Junkies fan. They have some great contents for movie lovers and their Honest Trailers are just great.

A quick shout-out to Orlindo. He fell behind a bit due to work but he is supposed to be back this week, at least that’s what he promises. So head over and I he’s not posting this week, flood him with comments on how to make his site more popular. 🙂