Down on paper, next the ether?
Another draft of the script (I Love Luci) is complete. This is the 8th draft.
The process is becoming more satisfying with every pass* these days. The developments are more subtle as I encounter nuances within the piece that escaped me while I was getting the bigger picture in shape. The result is these smaller more delicate changes make far more of an impact and greatly improve the story.
The script is now more malleable than ever. As it becomes stronger it becomes more enjoyable to work on. There is a point you reach when during any creative endeavour where this happens. All the elements are in place, to all intents and purposes you have a finished piece, so now the real work can begin. I'm not saying anything new here but it is at this point that the difference between something that simply works and something that is truly poignant can occur and the act of tinkering with the thing is ultimately very satisfying because you can't really do anything wrong. It feels a bit like decorating a house, everything's in place but it's now time to make it your own and you can go on refining and altering until you are exhausted, or bored out your brains or more preferably once you have something that exceeds expectation.
I'm finished for now, but I'll no doubt start again tomorrow, my previous experience tells me this time doesn't last for long so I will capitalise on it.
The next question is whether or not to publish my script here. A good friend of mine is an ardent advocate of publishing things on your blog that you might otherwise keep private. I understand his point of view but remain sceptical on my own behalf. David Mackenzie took the brave step of putting the Hallam Foe script on the web and while it is generally regarded as not having been a terribly successful experiment it was the start of something for the film. Certainly it's presence online has gone from strength to strength from that day on and the action itself was a true indictment of the will and imaginative force driving the film.
What is really up for grabs here?
Hallam Foe was put online to get reactions and suggestions to the script. But, as David has said in many interviews / Q&A's, the act of reading a script is very distant from a literary experience so he was being asked fairly ridiculous questions in response, like 'what's the music going to be?' The mechanical nature of a script prevented any helpful intuitive response from readers unused to this experience.
All in all, having the script online wasn't useful to David directly. That wouldn't necessarily be repeated here however. For starters I'm not nearly such an experienced filmmaker as David. But more importantly, the audience for this blog is no doubt considerably more film-savvy than the readers of Gapingvoid, which mainly concentrates on marketing theory, so there may be more chance of getting helpful crit.
Of course I'd be a liar if I wasn't concerned about my rights too. In essence I'm not too worried about the response I might get to the script, that seems like a risk worth taking. But I don't have the same safety net as there was on Hallam where the material came from a book that had already been published and was backed up by a substantial and very competent legal team.
I have put things on here in the past and rediscovered them elsewhere on the net passed off as the work of somebody else. Ultimately I didn't really care about those little snippets of video, but this is entirely different. I have spent months creating this and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise it's life by exposing it to those more ruthless in the world.
If anyone has some genuinely good ideas about how I might protect myself I'd love to hear them. For now I'm going to hold back on publishing my work.
I should say that if anyone is interested in reading the script with regards to co-production then email me and we can discuss.
* "pass": once you have a screenplay each return to the script where you go through the whole thing is informally referred to as 'doing a pass'
The process is becoming more satisfying with every pass* these days. The developments are more subtle as I encounter nuances within the piece that escaped me while I was getting the bigger picture in shape. The result is these smaller more delicate changes make far more of an impact and greatly improve the story.
The script is now more malleable than ever. As it becomes stronger it becomes more enjoyable to work on. There is a point you reach when during any creative endeavour where this happens. All the elements are in place, to all intents and purposes you have a finished piece, so now the real work can begin. I'm not saying anything new here but it is at this point that the difference between something that simply works and something that is truly poignant can occur and the act of tinkering with the thing is ultimately very satisfying because you can't really do anything wrong. It feels a bit like decorating a house, everything's in place but it's now time to make it your own and you can go on refining and altering until you are exhausted, or bored out your brains or more preferably once you have something that exceeds expectation.
I'm finished for now, but I'll no doubt start again tomorrow, my previous experience tells me this time doesn't last for long so I will capitalise on it.
The next question is whether or not to publish my script here. A good friend of mine is an ardent advocate of publishing things on your blog that you might otherwise keep private. I understand his point of view but remain sceptical on my own behalf. David Mackenzie took the brave step of putting the Hallam Foe script on the web and while it is generally regarded as not having been a terribly successful experiment it was the start of something for the film. Certainly it's presence online has gone from strength to strength from that day on and the action itself was a true indictment of the will and imaginative force driving the film.
What is really up for grabs here?
Hallam Foe was put online to get reactions and suggestions to the script. But, as David has said in many interviews / Q&A's, the act of reading a script is very distant from a literary experience so he was being asked fairly ridiculous questions in response, like 'what's the music going to be?' The mechanical nature of a script prevented any helpful intuitive response from readers unused to this experience.
All in all, having the script online wasn't useful to David directly. That wouldn't necessarily be repeated here however. For starters I'm not nearly such an experienced filmmaker as David. But more importantly, the audience for this blog is no doubt considerably more film-savvy than the readers of Gapingvoid, which mainly concentrates on marketing theory, so there may be more chance of getting helpful crit.
Of course I'd be a liar if I wasn't concerned about my rights too. In essence I'm not too worried about the response I might get to the script, that seems like a risk worth taking. But I don't have the same safety net as there was on Hallam where the material came from a book that had already been published and was backed up by a substantial and very competent legal team.
I have put things on here in the past and rediscovered them elsewhere on the net passed off as the work of somebody else. Ultimately I didn't really care about those little snippets of video, but this is entirely different. I have spent months creating this and the last thing I want to do is jeopardise it's life by exposing it to those more ruthless in the world.
If anyone has some genuinely good ideas about how I might protect myself I'd love to hear them. For now I'm going to hold back on publishing my work.
I should say that if anyone is interested in reading the script with regards to co-production then email me and we can discuss.
* "pass": once you have a screenplay each return to the script where you go through the whole thing is informally referred to as 'doing a pass'
Well this may sound a bit of a surprise coming from miss annoying relentless commenter here, but I personally hope you DO NOT publish the whole script for now, I would just rather have tidbits and excerpts please. What was that line from Forrest Gump?..Life's a box of chocolates, Forrest,you never know what you're gonna get.
I never saw the script for Hallam Foe before David pulled it down, didn't read the entire book by Peter Jinks before I saw the film, and I think it worked to my benefit. I am not a filmmaker, just a film fan. Just because you know the mechanical workings of a process, there is still great joy in discovering that final package, that seduction of the story and journey a film can take you on, so I for one would rather know only pieces or passages from the script for the time being. I'm more keen on learning and hearing about HOW you do this process, what thought patterns are behind the decision making, than learning the entire script before hand. As cringeworthy as it may be, the learning and blogging of the journey is the package of chocolates for me; the present is the film completed, unopened and waiting for me in the theater at the end, and that's one present I'm willing to wait for.
On the one hand, I'm 200% agree with Hugh MacLeod (and I think he's one of the smartest people in the blogosphere btw).
The truth is that once your work is published it kinda becomes protected automatically, even if you publish it on the internet. And if you're intended to let anybody read your script before the film is completed you better get it published one way or another... Cause an unpublished script can be stolen with no consequences (if the rights are not protected otherwise of course). So posting it on here might even help protecting your rights.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean that noone will steal your idea or your script if you post it. It only means that if someone does, you'll be able to sue that person, that's all.
Hi Colin,
I'm late to this post - I realize you've probably moved on from this conversation - but - for what it's worth - my two cents worth -
Plagiarism off of the internet happens all the time. It is a real problem. I saw Hugh's post about someone publishing portions of a novel on-line. I think he was a bit naive. In my field - for example - academia - students pirating off of the web is a growing problem. Not because they are necessarily dishonest but because they have the perception that the web is a free space of freely shared material. The ethics of information sharing on the web are still only vaguely understood.
As for Sue's box of chocolates theory. I agree - BUT - using my self as an example - I am the last foe blog reader on the planet NOT to have seen HF. For months I have refused to read any reviews of the film or interviews with DM posted by you or Ted or anyone else because I do not want any preconceived ideas that are going to ruin my engagement of the film as an artistic piece. However, for me, the simple solution has been to just not read such things. So - as your blog continues - people should be able to exercise their own judgment about what they want to read or not.
So that's my 2 cents.